Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Reinterpreting Matsumiya Kanzan: On the Interval between State Shintō and the Idea of the Three Religions
- Chapter 2 The Confucian Classics in the Political Thought of Sakuma Shōzan
- Chapter 3 The Confucian Traits Featuring in the Meiroku Zasshi
- Chapter 4 The Invention of “Chinese Philosophy”: How Did the Classics Take Root in Japan’s First Modern University?
- Chapter 5 Inoue Tetsujirō and Modern Yangming Learning in Japan
- Chapter 6 Kokumin Dōtoku for Women: Shimoda Utako in the Taishō Era
- Chapter 7 Modern Contextual Turns from “The Kingly Way” to “The Imperial Way”
- Chapter 8 The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought: The Link between Daitō Bunka Gakuin and Chosŏn Gyunghakwon
- Chapter 9 The Image of the Kingly Way during the War: Focusing on Takada Shinji’s Imperial Way Discourse
- Chapter 10 Watsuji Tetsurō’s Confucian Bonds: From Totalitarianism to New Confucianism
- Chapter 11 Thinking about Confucianism and Modernity in the Early Postwar Period: Watsuji Tetsurō’s The History of Ethical Thought in Japan
- Chapter 12 Yasuoka Masahiro and the Survival of Confucianism in Postwar Japan, 1945–1983
- Chapter 13 Universalizing “Kingly Way” Confucianism: A Japanese Legacy and Chinese Future?
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Index
Chapter 3 - The Confucian Traits Featuring in the Meiroku Zasshi
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2023
- Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Reinterpreting Matsumiya Kanzan: On the Interval between State Shintō and the Idea of the Three Religions
- Chapter 2 The Confucian Classics in the Political Thought of Sakuma Shōzan
- Chapter 3 The Confucian Traits Featuring in the Meiroku Zasshi
- Chapter 4 The Invention of “Chinese Philosophy”: How Did the Classics Take Root in Japan’s First Modern University?
- Chapter 5 Inoue Tetsujirō and Modern Yangming Learning in Japan
- Chapter 6 Kokumin Dōtoku for Women: Shimoda Utako in the Taishō Era
- Chapter 7 Modern Contextual Turns from “The Kingly Way” to “The Imperial Way”
- Chapter 8 The Discourse on Imperial Way Confucian Thought: The Link between Daitō Bunka Gakuin and Chosŏn Gyunghakwon
- Chapter 9 The Image of the Kingly Way during the War: Focusing on Takada Shinji’s Imperial Way Discourse
- Chapter 10 Watsuji Tetsurō’s Confucian Bonds: From Totalitarianism to New Confucianism
- Chapter 11 Thinking about Confucianism and Modernity in the Early Postwar Period: Watsuji Tetsurō’s The History of Ethical Thought in Japan
- Chapter 12 Yasuoka Masahiro and the Survival of Confucianism in Postwar Japan, 1945–1983
- Chapter 13 Universalizing “Kingly Way” Confucianism: A Japanese Legacy and Chinese Future?
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
The Meiroku-sha (明六社 literally, the society established in the sixth year of Emperor Meiji, i.e., 1873) was the best-known intellectual association of 19th-century Japan. Its organization journal, the Meiroku Zasshi (明六雑誌; henceforth referred to as Meiroku Magazine), played an important role in opening up the Japanese mind to Western thought in a turbulent time. The purpose of this chapter is to examine how Confucianism as a traditional value system influenced the thinking and writing of the contributors to the Meiroku Magazine. Of course, many of the Meiroku-sha members craved for modernization and were consciously Western-minded. However, close reading of the journal reveals a more nuanced picture of how those authors proposed new ideas through different levels of interplay with old tenets. To be specific, while there is little direct debate over Confucianism in the Meiroku Magazine, references and allusions to Confucian ideas are frequent, and for diverse purposes. This chapter seeks to explore these hitherto underestimated Confucian traits of the Meiroku Magazine and demonstrate how intellectual struggles unfolded during this transitional period of Japanese history.
Overview of the Meiroku Magazine and relevant studies
The Meiroku-sha has long been regarded as the embodiment of the Japanese Enlightenment, which, according to Kano Masanao, strived for two goals. “One was to introduce into Japan the institutions, organizations, academic research, and ways of thinking of the state and society [of the modern Western kind] that Japan was aiming at. The other was to… renew the spirit of the Japanese people.” As the principal channel to achieve these goals, the Meiroku Magazine was influential not only for the novelty of its content, but also because it created a public space for free intellectual discussion. Since the start of its publication in 1874, the importance of the Meiroku Magazine had been strongly anticipated by the members of the Meiroku-sha, as exemplified by the endnote that founding member and educator Nishimura Shigeki attached to his contribution to the first issue:
Ours is the first literary and scientific society to be established in the country. Moreover, the savants of the society are all celebrated figures in the land. Men all say that splendid discussions and immortal theories will surely emerge from this society.
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- Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan , pp. 34 - 49Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022