"Philosophy" or "Religion"? The Confrontation with Foreign Categories in Late Nineteenth-Century Japan

Categories are not simply containers of thought: they have an effect on the contents. One of the greatest changes in the intellectual history of the nonWestern world was the grand re-classification of ideas into categories adopted from the West during the nineteenth century. Among these were "science," "religion" and "philosophy." As Western thought was imported into Japan on a large scale during the Meiji period (1868-1912), Japanese thinkers were puzzled by these categories, for which there were no Japanese equivalents. The Meiji era therefore provides us with a fascinating look at problems of translation, interpretation, and categorization of ideas as they migrated across regions.In this essay I will argue that "philosophy" was an unstable and contested concept during these years. The confrontation with foreign schema spurred discussions about whether Buddhism or Confucianism fell under "philosophy" or "religion." From these debates came the need to re-classify these traditions in terms of the newly imported criteria, and, for some, to reinterpret and reconstruct Buddhism and Confucianism as modern "philosophies." I will also argue that by investigating Meiji philosophy from this perspective, it is possible to overcome some problematic assumptions and revaluate it on its own terms. Thus, the following is also intended as a new introduction to Meiji-era philosophy.I. THE MEIJI PERIOD: AN ERA OF UNCRITICAL IMPORTATION AND TRANSLATION?Studies on modern Japanese philosophy often begin with Nishida's Inquiry into the Good (Zen no kenkyu) in 1911 and continue with the subsequent developments of the Kyoto school.1 The rationale given for this starting point is that philosophy in the period from the translation of "philosophy" into tetsugaku by Nishi Amane (1829-97) at the beginning of the Meiji era until the emergence of the Kyoto school was merely an uncritical adoption lacking originality. As a result, while the Kyoto school has received a good deal of attention, philosophy in the Meiji era has been much less studied.Nevertheless, there is growing attention to Meiji philosophy in Japanese academic circles. Flistorians of philosophy are expressing more interest in tracing some ideas of the Kyoto school back to the Meiji period. Also, studies on the role of philosophy in modern Buddhism are increasing, while there is a growing realization of the role of Buddhism in Meiji intellectual life as a whole.2However, the representation and study of Meiji philosophy suffers from a number of assumptions that need to be addressed. First, it is still often presumed that a body of thought can be imported and translated smoothly from one culture to another, albeit with certain technical difficulties. We now know that translation is not unproblematic, but involves active interpretative operations on the part of the "receiver."3 second, as tetsugaku now refers to Western philosophy (or philosophy in a Western style such as that of the Kyoto school), when it comes to the Meiji period there is still a tendency to look only at the supposedly seamless importation of Western philosophy, and not at indigenous traditions4 or possible philosophical interactions.Third, in cases where it is acknowledged that scholars produced combinations of Western and indigenous thought, the results are usually characterized as "eclectic": hardly a laudable label in philosophic discourse. It is assumed that, for example, combinations of Hegelianism and evolutionary theory by a Western philosopher could be original, while blends of Hegelianism and Buddhism were somehow illegitimate. We expect a Japanese philosopher to produce something "Japanese." Hence, the idea of "eclecticism" needs to be rethought.In this essay, I hope to reinterpret the unique situation of Meiji philosophy by investigating its internal dynamics, which lie for a great part in uncertainty regarding the category of "philosophy" itself. The concept of "philosophy" was contested by different parties for various reasons. …