The Reception of Spinoza in Japan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21827/jss.3.1.41863Keywords:
modernization, Kyoto School, Western and non-Western, Buddhist climate, self-negationAbstract
The reception of Spinoza in Japan was affected by the problems of rapid modernization from the nineteenth century onwards: the split of the mind into Western and non-Western. We shall look at how Spinoza's ideas were received across the four phases of the assimilation of Western philosophy into Japan. Namely, initiation (1860s-1880s), establishment (1890s-1910s), re-appropriation (1920s-1945) and de-ideologisation (1945-present). Although his pantheistic monism was accepted from the outset fairly easily in the Buddhist cultural climate, his philosophy revealed resistant to appropriation by the language of dialectics such as that of the Kyoto School in wartime, which sought Japanese identity in the dialectical self-denial of the borrowed Westernness in the course of the “historical world”. This could provide a clue to understanding the current younger generation's embrace of Spinoza.
Published
Issue
Section
Copyright (c) 2024 Osamu Ueno
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Open Access Policy
JSS provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. Articles in this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
Copyright
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
