Japanese philosophy is a social ideology based on Japan's unique economy, which has its own characteristics and development laws. Adapting to its own social and economic development conditions and the needs of class struggle, Japan absorbed a large number of philosophical thoughts from advanced countries: first Confucianism and Buddhism in China, and then various modern western philosophical thoughts. These thoughts combined with Japan's original Shinto thought, with the changes of social and economic development and class struggle, experienced a gradual deepening development process: first, the teachings of Buddhism became the dominant thought in Japan, then the feudal Taoism with Confucianism as the center occupied the dominant position, and finally, the introduction of western natural science made reason further break away from faith and become a real philosophy. In this process, there is a struggle between materialism and idealism.
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Before the philosophy of Heian period, Chinese characters and Confucianism were introduced into Japan around the 5th century, and Buddhism was also introduced into Korea in the middle of the 6th century. They had a great influence on Japanese culture and thought. Japanese philosophical thoughts with written records first appeared in Shoto Kutaishi's Yi Shu of Wei Mo Jing at the end of 6th century and the beginning of 7th century. At the beginning of the 7th century, Shoto Kutaishi sent overseas students to study in China (Sui Dynasty) to prepare ideological conditions for political reform, and directly introduced Confucianism and Buddhism. The ideological basis of his "17 Constitution" is Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Among them, the "harmony is precious" in article 1 and the "rule of the people is based on ceremony" in article 4 both come from Confucianism; Article 2 "Respecting the Three Treasures, namely Buddhism, Dharma and Monk" and Article 10 "Never give up" belong to Buddhist thought; Other articles mostly use Confucian classics and sub-history materials. Confucianism played a great role in Japan at that time. In the process of establishing the ancient emperor system, China's legal system was adopted to form a centralized country. In the second half of the 7th century, the influence of Confucianism was particularly significant. At that time, the Japanese government sheltered Confucianism as an ideological system conducive to consolidating its dominant position. Historical Records and Records of Japan compiled in the 8th century are also Confucian. These two historical books played a role in maintaining the imperial system.
Buddhism and Japanese philosophy
After Buddhism was introduced to Japan through Korea, it was not a religion centered on doctrine at first, but a belief and worship of Buddha statues and Buddhist scriptures. The nobles once used Buddhism as a tool of political struggle. At that time, the Japanese government believed that Buddhism could defend the country and protect the royal family, so it promulgated the "Buddhist Order" at the beginning of the eighth century, which turned Buddhism into a state religion, thus giving Buddhism an advantage. At this time, although the original Shintoism in Japan continued to spread, it was actually under the guidance of Buddhist thought.
In Nara era, Buddhism was more closely combined with politics, which strengthened its status as a state religion. At this time, Shinto and Buddhism began to reconcile and compromise in doctrine, but Shinto was still placed in a subordinate position. Japan's serious study of Buddhist scriptures began in the Heian Dynasty (8th century). In the early 9th century, the famous monks Zuicheng and Konghai came to China (Tang Dynasty) to study abroad. After returning to Japan, they founded Tiantai Sect and Yanzhen Sect respectively, and founded and spread Mahayana Buddhism in Japan. Japanese Tiantai Sect and China Tiantai Sect have the same name, but their doctrines are different.
Japanese Buddhist philosophy is also based on the so-called idealistic view that "there is no other way in the world, only one thought" and "one thought is three thousand". Tiantai and Yanarray were not only given the task of "defending the country and defending the country", but also regarded as the world outlook in Japanese life at that time. At this time, Buddhism gained the status of independent activities in Japan. In the 10 century, with the preaching of the concept of pure land, Buddhist thought began to penetrate into the common people, and the harmonious combination of Shinto and Buddhism also developed.
The development of Japanese sectarian philosophy
The philosophy from the Kamakura era to the Meiji Restoration entered the Kamakura era. Due to the decline of aristocratic forces, feudal relations in the Ping 'an Dynasty gradually developed at the local level, forming a samurai class. In the13rd century, social unrest and poverty of farmers led to the requirement of simplifying religious ceremonies. Religious circles have adapted to this situation and started to show new trends. In the past, Japanese Buddhism, which was mainly aimed at nobles, began to face the people, so there appeared Pure Land Sect, Zen Sect, True Sect, Rilian Sect and Sejong. From heian period to Kamakura, Japanese philosophical thoughts were mainly characterized by Buddhist teachings, which were actually religious superstitions, not to mention the world outlook in the true philosophical sense. The world outlook in the philosophical sense began to appear when Zen Buddhism was combined with China's Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties.
/kloc-in the 7th century, after the Tokugawa shogunate consolidated the feudal system, Confucianism replaced Buddhism and became the mainstream to maintain the Tokugawa era. As an ideology governing the four people (warriors), agriculture, industry and commerce, its influence is increasing day by day. At that time, the Japanese Confucian system was mainly divided into Zhuzi School, Yangming School and Ancient School. Zhu's study is an official study, which has long occupied a dominant position. In addition, there have also been retro Shinto and some independent schools and theories.
Philosophical views of various factions
(1) Zhuzi school. Fujiwara Keiji was the pioneer of this school, and his student Lin Luoshan played a great role in making Zhuzi School the official school of Tokugawa shogunate. Some representatives of this school criticized irrationalism with rationalism in their struggle with Buddhism and Shinto. Within this school, there is also a contradiction between materialism and idealism. For example, although Anton and others all started from Zhu's concept of qi, they all finally attributed their world view to the theory of unity of qi and qi close to materialism; Zhai ' class = link & gt； However, Yamazaki Zhai and Miyake Shangzhai reduced their world views to monism and fell into idealism. Yamazaki Kazuo School even completely deified Zhu's research. The Mito school advocates the theory of "dividing righteousness", and its thought of respecting the king and resisting foreigners is helpful to consolidate feudal rule again. At that time, the Japanese feudal class tried to straighten out the feudal hierarchy with Zhuzi, but in the17th century, with the increasing development of commodity production and the rise of businessmen, Zhuzi began to lose its influence and was replaced by the ancient school.
② Ancient schools. After the Han and Tang Dynasties, this school of philosophers rejected Confucianism. Representative figures are Amber Su Xing, Ito Renzhai and Tatsumi. Ren Zhai and Lai both used the monism of qi to oppose Zhu's concept of regulating qi. This school appeared as a folk heretical thinker, represented unofficial, advocated retro in name, and actually launched a philosophical revolution against Japanese Zhuzi School. In addition, Yangming School, another opposition school of Zhuzi School, also appeared.
(3) Yangming School This school was initiated by Zhongjiang Brawly, who advocated Yangming's conscience theory. Other representatives include Kumasawa Fanshan, Sato Zhai Yi and Oshima Hirashiro. At the end of the shogunate, Yoshida Shōin and others were also influenced by Yangming's theory of mind. Dayan once led the uprising of the poor and suburban farmers in Osaka. Scholars of this school do not consciously form a group, but they all believe in Wang Yangming's theory, and some of them have some dialectical factors in methodology. Generally speaking, Yangming studies have played a negative role in China, but Japanese Yangming studies have promoted social progress to some extent.
4 retro Shinto. /kloc-in the 0/7th century, in the early days of Tokugawa shogunate, a kind of retro Shinto appeared in connection with the theory of respecting kings. This Shinto opposes the past attachment to Shinto Buddhism or Confucianism, and opposes the interpretation of Japanese classics and Shinto by Confucianism and Buddhism. This school was first initiated by God official Chuntian Manchun, and developed by He Maozhen Yuan and Ben Ju Xuanchang, with Hirata Duyin as the master. They advocate the philosophy of "Japanese spirit", "the way of imperial country" and "the spirit of imperial country" according to the myths recorded in Japanese ancient books such as Historical Records. They claim that Shinto in Japan comes from the gods, and only this Shinto is the "true way"; The Japanese nation is a descendant of the gods and should rule the world. This Shinto theory became a pillar of the late Tokugawa shogunate's respect for Wang Si Thought, which had a great influence on the restoration of monarchy during the Meiji Restoration. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), Shinto, as a national Shinto, basically inherited the theory of retro Shinto, making this theory full of religious superstitions an ideological weapon to rule the Japanese people in this period and was used by militarists and fascists for foreign aggression.
⑤ Non-traditional schools. During the 17 ~ 18 century, some independent schools and theories appeared. From around the 1920s of 18, western books began to flow into Japan. Many Japanese scholars study orchidology, that is, they learn western academic knowledge and accept western natural science knowledge through Dutch, which causes changes in the world outlook. Some thinkers with critical spirit, self-awareness or materialism have sprouted, and they don't belong to any traditional school, such as Ando Masaichi, Fuyong Zhongji, Miura Baien, Kien Minagawa and Sima Jianghan. During the 260-odd years of Tokugawa era, only Tadao Ando thoroughly criticized and denied the feudal system and its ideology, and he put forward the social view of absolute equality without domination and exploitation from the standpoint of working peasants. Fu Yongji realized that the foundation of thought is matter and applied this understanding to his historical method. Miura Baien was original and founded the Methodist Sect. According to the understanding of Zhouyi, Kien Minagawa founded the theory of "opening things" and completed the original Japanese category theory. Sima Jianghan is an advanced citizen thinker with materialism, with natural philosophy of natural science and physics, and advocates the theory of ground motion; Yamagata Flat Peach is an atheist and materialist, and has become a pioneer of practical learning in Japan. Liu Hong is an intellectual. He not only criticized Confucianism, Shinto and Buddhism, but also approached materialism in explaining the relationship between knowledge and feeling. In addition, in the first half of18th century, with the further improvement of merchants' status, the theory of mind appeared, and its representatives were Meiyan Ishida, Du Nan Shoudao and Nakazawa Tomohide Doyle. They are all industrial and commercial thinkers. They believe that "economy", "integrity" and "diligence" are all inherent virtues in life and the common aspiration of corporal, agriculture, industry and commerce under the feudal system. Their thoughts have not yet reached the goal of denying the feudal system, but they already contain the idea of equality between people. The above independent schools and theories prepared certain ideological conditions for the development of atheism and materialist philosophy after the Meiji Restoration.
About before the Tokugawa shogunate 1000, idealism dominated Japanese thought. However, with the collapse of Tokugawa shogunate, the official ideology of shogunate Zhuzi also lost its dominant position.
Japanese philosophy under the influence of western philosophy
From Meiji Restoration to Philosophy of World War II, after Meiji Restoration, Japan absorbed a lot of western philosophy. In the process of introducing western philosophy, the struggle between materialism and idealism runs through. In the early Meiji period, some famous enlightenment thinkers introduced British and French philosophy: the Western Zhou Dynasty transplanted the positivism of French philosopher A. Comte and the utilitarianism of British philosopher J.S. Mill, and translated western philosophy into "philosophy" at the earliest; Fukuzawa Yukichi spread British empiricism and utilitarianism; Chomin Nakae introduced French mechanical materialism and French enlightenment thinker Rousseau's democratic thought. Around the 20th year of Meiji (1887), with the establishment of emperor's absolutism, German philosophy was introduced, and at the same time, some idealists appeared, such as Shigeki Nishimura, Tetsujiro Inoue and Round Inoue. Shigeki Nishimura combines philosophy with Confucianism; Inoue Tetsujiro first introduced German philosophy and put forward the philosophical thought that phenomenon is realism, which belongs to idealism in essence. Inoue combines philosophy and Buddhism in one furnace. Their philosophy preached oriental thoughts and safeguarded the emperor's absolutism.
Materialism and idealism
Around the 30th year of Meiji (1897), there were two debates about materialism and idealism: one was caused by Hiroyuki Kato and Yuanliang Eijiro's criticism of Tetsujiro Inoue's book Breaking Materialism, and the other was caused by Tetsujiro Inoue and Goro Gao Qiao's criticism of Chomin Nakae's book One and a Half Years (Without God and Soul). Although these two debates were fierce, the polemicists still lacked a clear understanding of philosophical materialism, so the debate did not play much role in promoting the development of Japanese materialism at that time. During this period, materialist camps appeared, such as "promoting virtue and autumn water", "spending money on mountains" and "making statements". They inherited Chomin Nakae's materialism and introduced and disseminated the socialist theory. In particular, Xing De Qiu Shui is outstanding in theoretical propaganda. His book The Essence of Socialism not only shows the viewpoint of historical materialism, but also contains some dialectical thoughts. 1904, he and Li Yan translated the Manifesto of the Producers' Party. He also made great contributions to atheism by criticizing Christianity. From the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, German philosophy was continuously transplanted to Japan, gradually gaining the upper hand in the ideological field and becoming the mainstream of Japanese forum philosophy. At first, it introduces the philosophy of Kant and G.W.F Hegel, and then it introduces Neo-Kantianism, Phenomenology, Existentialism and so on. Neo-Kantianism once became a "new trend of thought" in the Taisho era. Through the study and digestion of western philosophy, especially German philosophy, some idealistic philosophers appeared in Taisho Showa era, such as Mikimoto, Shiro Asashui, Yoshiro Hatano, Ikutaro Nishida, Tanabe Yuan and so on. Among them, Ikutaro Nishida established the so-called "Nishida philosophy" and put forward the logic of place and the logic of absolute contradiction and self-identity with the so-called "dialectics of absolute nothingness" as the core; Tian constructed the so-called "absolute dialectics" and "species logic". Their philosophy is basically composed of neo-Kantian and existentialism plus some contents of Buddhism. After Nishida, Zhelang appeared. ; He Zhelang and Ito Maggie. He Zhelang developed his hermeneutics from the perspective of existentialism and tried to establish his own humanism. Sam Mu Qing's research on the so-called "Marxist form of human studies" is also based on existentialism, and he finally combined existentialism with Japanese Buddhism. His contribution lies in bringing Japanese forum philosophy into contact with Marxism and attracting many young people to learn Marxist philosophy.
Due to the success of the October socialist revolution in Russia. With the upsurge of Japanese workers' movement and the development of socialist ideological trend, dialectical materialism and historical materialism began to spread widely in Japan. The Japanese translation of Marx's Das Kapital was published in 1920, and the Japanese translation of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels began to be published in 1928. So there are many materialist philosophers in Japanese philosophy. From 65438 to 0925, Fukumoto Kazou had a heated debate with Zhao He and Shanshui, which set off an upsurge of studying Marxist philosophy and played a great role in further studying and understanding Marxist philosophy. Kawakami, Watanabe and Nagata Hiroshi have a correct and in-depth understanding of Marxist philosophy. 1932, Tasaka Jun, Sanzhi Yin Bo, Gang Bangxiong and others organized the "materialist research society" and published the magazine "materialist research", which further explored and popularized Marxist philosophy, criticized idealistic factions, opposed Japanese fascism, launched a war of aggression, and left brilliant achievements in the history of Japanese thought. 1938, this research society was dissolved by the Japanese government, and Tasaka Jun was arrested and died in prison. Nagata Hiroshi was arrested many times for participating in the activities of the association, and his health was damaged.
The fall of philosophy
With the expansion of Japan's war of aggression against China and the Pacific War, Japanese philosophy has become more and more fascist. Japanese nationalism advocating the so-called "Japanese spirit" is rampant, and fascist thoughts and irrationalism are rampant for a while. Soon, the so-called "philosophy of world history" appeared, also known as the "school of world history", with representatives such as Masanobu Takasaka, Takao Iwai and Keiji Westinghouse, who provided theoretical basis for the Japanese imperialist war of aggression and beautified aggression as "what should be done in world history". Nishida, Ikutaro and Hotan also directly or indirectly expressed their support for the war of aggression to some extent. The so-called "imperial philosophy" that directly acts as the mouthpiece of the military department is even crazier. It spread the ethics of "absolute obedience to the emperor", fabricated the myth of "invincible kingdom" and unscrupulously poisoned the Japanese people until Japanese imperialism perished.
Philosophy after World War II
After the Second World War, in the upsurge of democratic thoughts, Marxist philosophy, which was suppressed and banned in the past, entered a revival period, while Japanese "imperial philosophy" and "world history philosophy", which were once noisy, quickly disappeared. Some progressive philosophers, such as Ichiro Matsumura, Gu Zaiyu, Morishi, Sakamoto Yamada, etc., actively criticize Nishida and Tanabe's philosophy and existentialism, while trying to introduce the new achievements of foreign Marxist philosophy research. Chu Long, a professor at the University of Tokyo, and Kenshiro Yanagida, a student of the famous philosopher Nishida, moved from the idealist camp to the materialist camp, which caused great repercussions in the philosophical circle. During this period, a large number of books and periodicals were published to spread and study Marxist philosophy. Mao Zedong's theory of practice and contradiction was introduced into Japan. Many places in Japan have established materialist research societies. The study of Marxist philosophy has reached a new stage in both breadth and depth. From the late 1940s to the early 1950s, there was a debate about subjectivity, and some people tried to "fill" the gap in Marxist philosophy with Nishida Tanabe's philosophy and existentialism, which was criticized by Matsumura and others. Since the late 1960s, there has been another debate among materialist philosophers around the issue of "practical materialism". Some people think that Marxist philosophy should be "dialectical-historical materialism" or "practical materialism" rather than "dialectical materialism and historical materialism", trying to establish a new Marxist philosophy system; Some people expressed their opposition. This discussion is closely related to the debate on the object, structure, expression and system of Marxist philosophy conducted by philosophers in the Democratic Republic of Germany in the 1960s.
After World War II, Japanese scholars such as Miko Taketani and Sakata Shyoichi made new achievements in studying dialectics of nature. The relationship between formal logic and dialectics has always been a controversial issue between Marxist philosophers and analytical philosophers.
On the other hand, the schools of bourgeois philosophy in Europe and the United States have exerted a strong influence on Japanese philosophical circles, especially university forums. Modern philosophical thoughts, which have great influence in some major western countries, have disseminators, interpreters or followers in Japan.
reality
Pragmatism was introduced to Japan by Tang Wang Tanaka and others in the early 20th century, and it was widely spread in the 1920s. Later, it gradually lost its influence because it did not meet the needs of Japanese militarism's aggression and expansion. After the war, under the background of economic revival and rapid industrialization based on technological revolution, pragmatic philosophy resurfaced during the American occupation, which had a great impact on Japanese academic circles and real life.
Existentialism spread to Japan as early as the early 20th century. He Zhelang once introduced the viewpoints of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. This subjective idealism philosophy has had a wide and profound impact on the spiritual life of the Japanese people, making the atmosphere of pessimism, hesitation, depression and anxiety enveloped post-war Japan. Some Japanese philosophers also integrate Buddhist teachings with existentialism, regard Buddhism as Asian existentialism, and say that existentialism is modern Buddhism.
Logical positivism has been introduced and discussed by many Japanese scholars since 1960s, and phenomenology has been introduced and discussed since 1970s. In addition, there are also philosophy of science, philosophy of language and structuralism in Japanese philosophy. Many historians and philosophers have also studied the history of philosophy, the philosophy of Kant and Hegel, Buddhism and Confucianism, as well as human beings, alienation and humanitarianism. Some scholars combine some viewpoints of several different philosophies, and some open up new fields such as comparative philosophy and comparative aesthetics. All these circumstances made the modern Japanese philosophical circles present a mixed situation of various ideas.