Introduction

Maruyama Masao’s Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan (日本政治思想史研究 Nihon seiji shisōshi kenkyū), published in 1952, has come to represent a landmark in international research on Tokugawa Confucianism, informing many of the current approaches to early modern intellectual history and its relationship to the emergence of a national conscience in Japan. The same year, another leading Japanese philosopher of the 20th century, Watsuji Tetsurō, published his The History of Ethical Thought in Japan (日本倫理思想史 Nihon rinri shisōshi), an impressive volume broader in scope than Maruyama’s, which also included several chapters on the intellectual history of Tokugawa Confucian ethics. And yet, somewhat surprisingly, the latter hardly garnered the same attention from philosophers or intellectual historians, although some of his other works on ethics—especially Climate and Culture (風土 Fūdo) and Ethics (倫理学 Rinrigaku)—are widely regarded as some of the most representative texts of 20th-century Japanese philosophy. Watsuji’s History is sometimes credited as being the first apolitical, purely scholarly study of Japan’s cultural and intellectual history; in such accounts, his History is generally set against Inoue Tetsujirō’s, who took many liberties with historical truth in favor of ideological content. Yet (strictly) in terms of early modern Confucian intellectual history, Watsuji’s work has been largely overshadowed by Maruyama’s Studies, both domestically and internationally.

Why is it important, then, to go back and examine an early postwar work which seems to have been largely forgotten now? The reasons are twofold. Firstly, Watsuji’s approach to the issue of Confucianism and modernity not only offers an interesting alternative to Maruyama’s theory, but it also opens an intriguing new path towards discussing Confucianism’s destiny in modern and contemporary Japan. Secondly, History also helps to unveil the profound debt Watsuji owes Confucianism in terms of his own philosophy of ethics, therefore potentially adding more nuance to contemporary debates surrounding his much more popular Ethics. To address these two points, the argument will be structured as follows: the introductory part will briefly discuss the place Watsuji’s History occupies within his own philosophy of ethics, as well as in the larger context of Confucianism’s destiny in postwar Japan.