Roman Paşca - Panel 1 ENOJP Paris ENOJP Paris
Channel: European Network of Japanese Philosophy
Date: 05/01/2018

“On Nature and the Universe in the Tokugawa Period:
Parables, Fables and Illustrations as Philosophical
Discourse”
— Roman Paşca, Kanda University of International
Studies
In his Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique (first published
in 1981), French philosopher Pierre Hadot argues that,
ever since the ancient times, philosophers have constantly
made use of several other modes of discourse and practices
beside rational argumentation. Thus, he identifies the dialectical,
the exegetical, and the systematic as the most prominent
forms of discourse, and suggests that philosophy should not be understood merely as a dry practice focusing on rational argumentation,
but rather as a way of life. As Maraldo (2013) and
Smith (2016) propose, in doing so Hadot actually opens up
the scope of “philosophy” to accommodate non-Western traditions
such as Confucianism, Buddhism or Daoism as well.
If Hadot’s proposition is correct, then how do these modes
of discourse appear, for example, in Japanese philosophy?
How do they function and what is their role?
To try and answer these questions, I examine the works of
Tokugawa philosophers Andō Shōeki 安藤昌益 (1703–62) and
Yamagata Bantō 山片蟠桃 (1748–1821). In Shizen shin’eidō,
while systematically exposing his vision of the world in which
shizen no yo (“the world of Nature”) represents a primordial,
pristine realm, Shōeki also inserts several parables and fables
of Daoist inspiration which appear as an anomaly at first
sight, as they represent a stylistic and discursive incongruity.
On the other hand, Bantō, in his Yume no shiro, makes rather
extensive use of various illustrations, drawings and diagrams
in order to explain his views on cosmology, astronomy, and
the place of the Earth in the solar system.
In my presentation, I focus on Shōeki’s vision of Nature
and on Bantō’s view of the universe, while discussing their
use of parables and illustrations in an attempt to identify the
way in which they construct and structure their discourses. I
propose that these apparent “incongruities” (parables, fables,
illustrations, diagrams etc.) are by no means mere appendices
to, or digressions from the main body of text, but they constitute
in fact an integral part of the philosophical discourse.
In this sense, they can be viewed as examples of the modes of
discourse and practices that Hadot includes in the dialectical.
Hadot, P. 1981. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique.
Paris: Études augustiniennes.
Maraldo, John. 2013. “Japanese Philosophy as a Lens on
Greco-European Thought,” Journal of Japanese Philosophy, Volume 1, pp. 21–56.
Smith, J. 2016. The Philosopher: A History in Six Types.
Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

This talk took place at the 3rd Conference of the European Network of Japanese Philosophy in Paris, Université Panthéon Sorbonne (Paris 1) and the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) from November 2-4, 2017.

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