Japanese philosophy

Japanese philosophy, intellectual discourse developed by Japanese thinkers, scholars, and political and religious leaders who creatively combined indigenous philosophical and religious traditions with key concepts adopted and assimilated from nonnative traditions—first from greater East Asia and then from western Europe and the United States—beginning about the 7th century ce.

Like their Western counterparts, Japanese philosophers have pursued answers to questions about knowledge (epistemology), moral action (ethics), the relationship between art and beauty (aesthetics), and the nature of reality (metaphysics). The distinction between them lies in their different assumptions about how to approach answers to such questions. Western philosophers posit a pair of opposites—mind and matter, self and other, artist and medium, reality and appearance—and seek to bridge the distance between them. Japanese philosophers, by contrast, strive to understand the ways in which such apparent opposites overlap. The result is that Japanese philosophy does not address independent substances or entities; rather, it foregrounds interdependent processes and complexes that include apparent opposites.

The evolution of Japanese philosophy may be traced through five periods: ancient, classical, medieval, early modern, and modern.

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The ancient period

The ancient period, spanning the 7th through 9th centuries ce, was an age of Sinicization and state organization. Two major intellectual systems—Confucianism and Buddhism—were imported from Korea and China. Whereas Confucianism addressed the “social self,” influencing government structure and patterns of formal behaviour, Buddhism provided psychological insight into the workings of the inner self. Through introspection and the disciplined practice of self-cultivation, Buddhist adherents sought to develop both charismatic power for wonderwork and creative resources for artistic expression. Confucianism and Buddhism coexisted with indigenous myths that emphasized both the divine origin of the imperial line and a native animism that stressed the mutual responsiveness between people and nature. Some of these indigenous ideas and values became important to the tradition later called Shintō.

The early philosophizing of the ancient period was aimed primarily at assimilating and classifying ideas and practices imported from the Asian mainland. As reflected in the Seventeen Article Constitution (604), a code of moral precepts for the ruling class enacted by the crown prince and regent Shōtoku Taishi, the goal of philosophy as well as government was harmony, rather than competition or separation, between the traditions. Buddhism more thoroughly penetrated the culture in the 7th and 8th centuries, and several of its key themes had an enduring impact on the Japanese worldview. Such Buddhist notions as dependent co-origination, emptiness, impermanence, and the insubstantiality of the self inspired a vision of the universe as an ever-emerging, dynamic process and an understanding of the self as interdependent with the social and natural worlds rather than independent of them. Philosophers influenced by Buddhist concepts also posited the limitations of words or concepts to represent reality perfectly and emphasized the role of mind in constructing reality.

The classical period

The classical period began about the early 9th century, during the Heian period (794–1185), and ended in the late 12th century. This was an era of systemization and Japanization of philosophy. Through the writings and efforts of such thinkers as Kūkai (774–835) and Saichō (767–822), the Shingon and Tendai Buddhist schools constructed sophisticated systems of doctrine and practice. The dominant philosophical esotericism promoted by these Buddhist thinkers contributed at least two ideas that would have a lasting impact on Japanese thought. The first was the belief that every phenomenon was an expression of the activity of the cosmos, which itself was identified with a buddha (enlightened one) known as Dainichi Nyorai. The whole cosmos is, therefore, fully expressed in every phenomenon. Second, classical Japanese Buddhism maintained that enlightenment, the insight into how things really are, could not be attained merely conceptually but was an act of the full complex of mind, body, and spirit as transformed through ritual practice. Insight in this tradition was thus an incarnate activity as well as an intellectual function.

A distinctive aesthetic emerged in conjunction with these metaphysical and epistemological perspectives. No longer wishing merely to mirror the glory of the Chinese court, Japanese aristocrats developed their own aesthetic themes. Such themes as elegance (miyabi) and the charming (okashi) reflected a distinctively Japanese sense of courtly refinement. Others drew directly on Buddhist sensitivities to impermanence (mujō) and ontological depth or mystery (yōgen). Further, values such as poignancy (mono no aware) and sensitivity (ushin) were blended with ancient animistic sympathies with natural phenomena.

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The medieval period

The medieval phase of Japanese philosophy extended from the late 12th century through the 16th century, an era of social and political upheaval. With the dissolution of the aristocracy’s power and the rise of the samurai class to political and military dominance, the court life so central to the classical period lost its allure. Facing recurrent warfare and an unusual series of natural disasters, many Japanese lost interest in the cosmic visions of Shingon and Tendai. They hoped instead for a religious philosophy directed toward leading a peaceful everyday life in what had become an increasingly turbulent world. Buddhist splinter groups (e.g., Pure Land, Zen, and Nichiren) took root outside established institutions.

During the Kamakura period (1185–1333)—when feudalism, the shogunate (military dictatorship), and the samurai warrior class were established in Japan—new Buddhist schools coalesced around a series of thinkers that included Hōnen (1133–1212), Shinran (1173–1263), Dōgen (1200–53), and Nichiren (1222–82). Hōnen and Shinran, the founders of the two main Pure Land forms of Japanese Buddhism, analyzed human weakness and the need for trusting in the redemptive power of Amida Buddha, the buddha of light who promised rebirth in the Pure Land to the faithful. Dōgen used Zen meditation as a means of analyzing philosophical problems related to consciousness and the self. Nichiren extolled the power of devotion to the Lotus Sutra and its ideal of the bodhisattva, or “buddha-to-be.” In support of that practice he elaborated a philosophy of history and a critique of other Buddhist schools.

Despite their differences, the Kamakura philosophers shared a concern for simplifying Buddhist practice and making it accessible to laypersons of all classes. Even today most Japanese Buddhists practice forms of religious life developed in the Kamakura period. The philosophies of those thinkers also continue to influence many Japanese cultural assumptions. Zen brought a focus on discipline not as a means to enlightenment but as an end in itself, whereas Pure Land critiques of spiritual self-reliance reinforced a mistrust of the conception of the self as an isolated ego. Japanese aesthetic theories continued to develop in the medieval period and increasingly reflected Buddhist themes of detachment, strict praxis, and celebration of the everyday. During medieval times, Shintō thought and practice were substantially absorbed into the Buddhist religious hegemony. There was little critical development of Confucian philosophy during this period.