Maruyama Masao to Yoshimoto Takaaki : kaisōfū shisōron -- Nihon-teki shii no yōsō -- NIhon kindai ni okeru kojin shugi no keiki to shosō -- Natsume Sōseki no kojin shugi.

Parmi les grands intellectuels japonais du XXe siècle, Maruyama Masao (1914-1996), historien des idées, sociologue et philosophe, est l'un des plus significatifs. Homme lucide et engagé, il n'a cessé de se battre contre toute forme d'autoritarisme ou de nationalisme. 1945 est sans doute le point de départ de sa réflexion tant la guerre a été vécue comme un traumatisme. A partir de là, il a cherché à développer une conscience politique susceptible de faire face aux malheurs successifs de (...) son pays : l'accession au pouvoir des militaires, le bombardement atomique d'Hiroshima, les luttes pour le rétablissement de la liberté face à un occupant américain. C'est dans cet esprit qu'il s'attelle à la fondation d'une véritable science politique japonaise, et qu'il entreprendra ses grands travaux sur l'histoire des idées au Japon : l'époque d'Edo et les prémisses d'une modernité autochtone, la crise identitaire de l'époque Meiji, le militarisme du XXe siècle, puis l'ambiguïté et les promesses de l'époque contemporaine. Ses analyses de l'ultranationalisme japonais se révéleront ainsi être un parfait complément aux études d'Hannah Arendt sur les totalitarismes européens. Avec lui, nous comprenons que les notions de démocratie, de modernité et d'autonomie politique ne sont pas des idéologies d'importation mais bien des valeurs universelles que le Japon a intériorisé à sa manière. (shrink)

戦後日本を代表する知識人・丸山眞男が陥った「憂鬱」の正体とは? 日本の近代化に潜む真実を暴き、「憂鬱」を卒業する方途を探る。.

戦後の進歩的知識人の代表、思想史学のリーダーであった丸山真男。超国家主義、「原型」・「古層」を追究し、山崎闇斎学派、荻生徂徠、福沢諭吉らの思想構造を解明する丸山思想史学を再構成。丸山に対する論評を詳述 。.

死後十余年を経ても、いまだに熱烈な支持層を誇る政治思想史の巨人・丸山眞男。半世紀にわたって師事した著者ならではの視点で、一代の碩学の真の姿や意外な側面を浮き彫りに。また折に触れ示された言葉の数々を初め て明らかにする。.

他者存在の意義と中間集団の必要性を論じた丸山デモクラシー論は、不寛容と言われる現代的課題に示唆を与える古典で終わらない思想。.

教養と学問が関係することは、実は自明ではない。教養とは何か。また学問と思想はどのように関わるのか。知識人として、学者として、丸山が発し続けた問いと思考の展開を、遺された言葉の総体から精緻に読み解き、「 丸山論」をこえて現代日本に提示。.

現代日本が生んだ二人の知の巨人が展開したレトリック復権論や治安維持法肯定論等を舞台とする思想的格闘の現場を独自の視座から分析。.

彼は、戦後民主主義の「虚妄」の方にかけたのか、東大全共闘に「ナチもしなかった」と言ったのか――丸山の戦後の軌跡を追う。.

丸山眞男は西洋近代至上主義者・国民国家至上主義者だったのか。丸山が「主体性」論で追究しようとしていたものは何か。著作、講義録をいま一度丁寧に読みなおし、「他者感覚」「自己内対話」など新たな視点から、誤 解されがちな丸山思想の可能性を探る。.

丸山の「文化接触と文化変容の思想史」中でも「古層=執拗低音」論に焦点をあてる。『丸山眞男「近代主義」の射程』の続編。.

丸山眞男の政治思想史と廣松渉の哲学は「現代の人間世界における人間性の運命とは」を「問う」たのであった。今、だからこそ惰性となった現実主義を「醒めた目」で捉える必要がある。つまり、丸山と廣松の両者のよう に「“鉄のように堅い殻”」の歴史内部で退動する「弁証法的緊張」を把握しなくてはならない。二人が生涯を賭けた思想史と哲学の探求は、人間の歴史的現実に対する私たち自身の課題なのである。.

ABSTRACT This article examines the prominent Japanese postwar thinker Maruyama Masao’s critical engagement with his contemporary German legal theorist Carl Schmitt. Maruyama engaged with Schmitt’s decisionistic notion of “the political” and sovereignty since he found it useful in addressing the pathological elements of Japanese political culture, namely, the widespread political passivity and fatalistic ethos of the Japanese public. In his view, such a “decision-avoiding” political culture, which had contributed to the rise of fascism in interwar and wartime (...) Japan, posed a fundamental threat to the viability of Japan’s postwar democracy. Although Maruyama objected to Schmitt’s authoritarian theory of political leadership, he nevertheless believed Schmitt provided important insights into the key concepts of modern politics, such as political agency and the constituent power of the people. In his efforts to foster political subjectivity and liberal individuality in postwar Japan, Maruyama attempted to strike a balance between two extremes: Schmittian normless decisionism, on the one hand, and a politically naïve liberal constitutionalism, on the other. I conclude by suggesting that the hitherto overlooked intellectual affinity between Maruyama and one of the leading Weimar-era constitutional theorists—Hermann Heller—can enrich our understanding of Maruyama’s unceasing effort to formulate and insist on the imperative role of political subjectivity and liberal individuality in consolidating liberal democracy in postwar Japan. (shrink)

It seems to be a challenging task for those non-Western scholars who are deeply immersed in European intellectual resources to theorise multiple forms of modernity and deparochialise political theory. What difficulty awaits us in non-Western contexts, when we attempt to throw off these shackles and to open up alternative views of modernity? To address this question, this article attempts to critically examine Maruyama Masao (丸山眞男, 1914–1996), an influential scholar on the history of Japanese political thought, with respect to (...) his view of Japanese modernity, thereby exploring what obstacles await him in pursuing the multiplicity view of modernity and how he actually or potentially overcomes them. In doing so, I develop two arguments. First, Maruyama's move towards multiple modernities remains incomplete because he fails to throw off the shackles of universal history. Second, however, we can identify an alternative way in his own thought that, though not taken by himself, potentially goes beyond universal history towards multiple modernities. (shrink)

いま、この危機と混迷の時代に、憲法学者・樋口陽一が、基本に立ち戻り、戦後日本を代表する英知・加藤周一と丸山眞男の「憲法論」と「思想」を再読し、その本質を語り尽くす。.

En el contexto europeo es ampliamente conocido el análisis que realizara Theodor W. Adorno sobre «La personalidad autoritaria» (1950). La hipótesis de su investigación social pretendía esclarecer las pautas económicas, políticas y sociales de los individuos para, en última instancia, identificar a los individuos potencialmente fascistas, esto es, aquellos más susceptibles a la propaganda antidemocrática. Menos conocidas son las aportaciones que, más allá de la malla del sociologismo, entretelan a la filosofía y a la psicología política en Japón y que (...) se encuentran en la obra filosófica de Tosaka Jun (1900-1945) y Maruyama Masao (1914-1996) sobre la personalidad como sistema de gestión de la tensión ilustrados en las conversiones ideológicas (tenkō) de los años 1930 o en la sistematización de la rarefacción de las personalidades con la conscripción obligatoria de los ciudadanos que solidificaba el sistema imperial japonés a partir de Meiji (1868). En este capítulo se presenta el método psicológico político que emplearon estos autores para calibrar los méritos o deméritos de los estudios caracterológicos (conciencia militarista, agriculturalismo familiarista, transferencia de la opresión, sistema de compensación, conciencia de culpa colectiva, etc.) aplicados al Japón de la primera mitad del siglo XX. Capítulo: Crespín Perales, Montserrat, "El individuo escalonado: un estudio sobre el método psicológico-político en Tosaka Jun y Maruyama Masao", en Crespín Perales, Montserrat, Wirtz, Fernando (eds.), Después de la nada. Dialéctica e ideología en la filosofía japonesa contemporánea, Barcelona, Herder, 2023, pp. 117-149. (shrink)

第二次大戦における敗北は、日本の近代化の行く先に必然的に用意されていた、日本史上最大の事件だった。そして日本はその後遺症を抱えたまま、近代化の極たるグローバリゼーションに翻弄され、「第二の敗戦」を経験 しつつある。我々は精神の構えをどう立て直し、やくざ化した世界と伍していくべきなのか。本書では、敗戦をまたいで現われ、西欧近代とひとり格闘し、創造的思考に到達した七人の足跡を是々非々で批評。西欧思考の限 界を超え、日本から発信する文明的普遍性の可能性を探った野心的論考。.

Introduction: Masao Maruyama -- Analyzing the causes of the fifteen year war -- Creating modern man: the basis of national security -- Establishing political realism: guidance to national security -- Advocating unarmed neutrality -- Defending democracy: a prerequisite of national security -- Conclusion: predicting the second defeat.

I will argue that Japanese liberalism is distinct from its Western counterparts by adopting Maruyama Masao’s description of how the development of Japanese liberalism has been continuously influenced by the ethical and political thought of the Yamazaki Ansai school. I will use Maruyama’s description of the relationship between the two to demonstrate that the distinctiveness of Japanese liberalism from its Western counterparts in the current period provides us with one of the manifestations of the inconsistencies of communitarianism. (...) I will show that it is an inconsistent position since it is still bound by the association of consciousness and rationality. To be more explicit, my argument against communitarianism will emphasize that Japan’s adoption of liberalism as the basis for the legitimacy of rule in its nation-state is best understood in the context of liberalism’s emphasis on the association of consciousness, rationality, and their respective roles in the creation of social reality. (shrink)

While Sorai's intellectual debt to Xunzi is often mentioned, the similarities between their views have not often been explored at length in English2.2 Further, while Maruyama Masao does compare the two thinkers in his influential monograph Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, he stresses (apparent) differences between Xunzi and Sorai, in order to hail Sorai's uniqueness. Without meaning to take anything away from Sorai as an independent thinker, I maintain that with regard to precisely those views (...) for which Sorai is lauded as unique - that dao is a product of real people that evolved over time and continues to evolve - his position was also held by Xunzi. In addition, there is a related yet rarely highlighted aspect of Xunzi's thought that is also acknowledged by Sorai. That is, virtues acquired by participating in the way in turn qualify one to contribute to its continuous open-ended development. (shrink)

The studies of Japanese Intellectual History was born after the 1st World War when Japan occupied the position to confront the West in the world history. In this period, Japan expanded its influence in Southeast Asia. How to establish the national identity of ‘Japan’ was the research task of Japanese Intellectual History. This paper thinks about the meanings of the studies of Japanese Intellectual History by considering the birth, main issues, and the direction of the studies of Japanese history of (...) thought. One of the huge characteristics of researches on the Japanese Intellectual History First, it is the period of a shift in generations. On top of the retirement of the 1st-generation researchers such as Maruyama and Goyas in the postwar period, their younger scholars also faced the period of retirement. Second, it is the researches the history of thought without a view of history. The researches on the Japanese history of thought after Maruyama certainly showed its external expansion such as the expansion of research materials, close reading of historical records, cross-sectional research on the studies of Japanese Intellectual History and neighboring studies, criticism of modern knowledge, criticism of researches in the viewpoint of single-national history, and expansion to the East Asian history of thought. However, there is no distinct view of history including the researches on the history of thought. Thus, there are no researches aiming to suggest the whole image of studies on the history of thought. Third, the theme of researches on the history of thought is moving to modern times. Fourth, the researches on the Japanese history of thought are locked in a viewpoint of single-national history. It would be necessary to review the characteristics of Japanese Intellectual History in correlations of China, Joseon, and Japan. (shrink)

To understand the political theory—and especially its alleged modernity—of Ogy Sorai, one of the most important philosophers of Tokugawa Japan, we need to understand the pivotal role that heaven, gods and spirits play in this theory. This is no easy task. This article will start with an analysis of the reasons of this difficulty: the numerous tensions and contradictions found in Sorai's remarks on the subject. Refusing to ignore one side of the story, refusing (...) also to reach too quickly a verdict of inconsistency, it also questions the rare attempt at a unified interpretation undertaken by Maruyama Masao. The article suggests that the solution is to understand that Sorai needs to speak from two different perspectives on the Way: the external perspective of the sages who grasp the relationships between the Way and the natural world as purveyor of the raw materials the Way is made of, and the internal perspective of commoners who must accept everything that is in a Way. This permits us to rescue the positivist interpretation of Sorai advanced by Maruyama and much criticized in recent years. (shrink)

Intense debates have taken place in Japan about the country's role in the post-war world system and the question of whether Japan has achieved the modernity that makes it a member of and player in that system. These debates, however, have largely centred on a discourse of uniqueness, defined in cultural (and culturalist) terms. This domination of a single interpretative framework has suppressed alternative analyses of Japanese modernity. Some of the most significant of these alternative voices take the central question (...) to be one not of culture, but of ethics. Some significant Japanese social theorists, including Maruyama Masao, a discussion of whose ideas forms the core of this paper, have argued that Japan has either not achieved true modernity or has only achieved a distorted version of it (and has certainly not attained to postmodernity), because as a civilization it has never evolved subjectivity understood as the appearance of the morally autonomous individual. Such ideas resonate interestingly with the ideas of some prominent western theorists of postmodernity and its ethics, especially with the work of Zygmunt Bauman. The debate between Bauman's characterization of `postmodern ethics' and Japan poses fresh ways of rethinking Japanese modernity and puts new questions to western Japanology. (shrink)

La recepción y comprensión de la filosofía japonesa en el contexto académico hispanohablante todavía carece de una estructura coherente. Después de la nada intenta corregir algunos sesgos persistentes y subyacentes en los libros disponibles en español sobre filosofía japonesa: el nacionalismo metodológico, el criterio en la selección de los autores y la categorización de la transmisión del conocimiento de figuras, escuelas o textos de la contemporaneidad filosófica en Japón. De este modo, el valioso aporte de esta obra no es solo (...) sumarse a la tarea de proyectar globalmente la filosofía japonesa para hacerla más accesible al lector hispanohablante, sino también contribuir al esfuerzo de identificar los temas filosóficos contemporáneos que surgen en y desde Japón, recuperando autores poco estudiados como Tsuchida Kyōson, Miki Kiyoshi, Tosaka Jun, Maruyama Masao, Tanaka Mitsu, Karatani Kōjin o Nagasaki Hiroshi, entre otros. (shrink)

"The Cage of Nature" focuses on the concept of nature as a way to rethink Japanese and European versions of modernity and the historical tropes that distance "East" from "West." This essay begins by comparing Japanese political philosopher Maruyama Masao and his contemporaries, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Both sets of authors define modernity as the moment when humanity overcomes nature, but Maruyama longs for this triumph while Horkheimer and Adorno deplore its consequences. Maruyama insists that (...) Japan has failed to attain the freedom promised by modernity because it remains in the thrall of nature defined in three ways: as Japan's deformed past, as the mark of Japan's tragic difference from "the West," and as Japan's accursed sensuality, shackling it to uncritical bodily pleasures. In short, Maruyama sees Japan as trapped in the cage of nature.My argument is that Maruyama's frustration arises from the trap set by modern historiography, which simultaneously traces the trajectory of modernity from servile Nature to freedom of Spirit and at the same time bases the identity of the non-Western world on its closeness to nature. In other words, nature represents both the past and the East, an impossible dilemma for an Asian nationalist desirous of liberty. By revising our historical narratives to take into account the ways in which Western modernity continued to engage versions of nature, it becomes possible to reposition Japan and "the East" within modernity's history rather than treating them as the Other. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese Political IdeologyWilliam R. LaFleurReconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology. By Julia Adeney Thomas. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2001. Pp. xvi + 225.Books written by persons who self-identify as intellectual historians usually lend themselves more easily to review in history journals than in those that focus on philosophy. Reconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in (...) Japanese Political Ideology, Julia Adeney Thomas' study of certain Meiji period thinkers is such a book. In 2002 it was awarded the John K. Fairbank Prize in history. Taking a cue to step into her topic from an early essay by Robert Bellah, one in which he had written that "the concern for nature has been a pervasive one in much of modern Japanese thought,"1 Thomas specifies her own search: "It is now time to recover the historical mutability of that concept, and to describe precisely its politics at particular moments in Japan's confrontation with modernity, both within the dominant ideology of the moment and with the alternatives to it" (pp. 30-31).Thomas is among those American students of Japan apparently trained to challenge the massive amounts of excavational scholarship and mile-high reputations of Japanese scholars of Japan. She picks arguments with some of the most highly respected Japanese minds of the twentieth century: the late Maruyama Masao, the late Ienaga Saburō, and Matsumoto Sannosuke.Although Thomas' criticisms tend to focus on those portions of the works of these prolific scholars that have been translated into English,2 some of her criticisms are certainly interesting and possibly valid. For instance, Maruyama, "who repeatedly excoriated Japan's reliance on the political authority of nature (shizen) " (p. 16), envisioned modernity, surely desirable, as involving a move "against Chu Hsi Confucianism"—that is, "an inevitable turning away from nature (shizen) to invention (sakui)" (p. 17). Nevertheless, Maruyama's hero, Ogyū Sorai (1666-1728), had understood "the narrative of modernity" but, tragically, stepped "back from invention at the critical moment, unable, it would seem, to embrace it as the culmination of the historical process" (p. 19).Thomas, rightly I think, indicates that most left and liberal thinkers in Europe and America in the early and mid-twentieth century were skeptical of an invocation of the "natural" in the making of political theory.3 However, she stakes a claim to being part of a different generation, one that rejects the old binary opposition between nature and culture—as well as the further assumption that Western political thinking had successfully disengaged itself from invoking the category of what is natural. Taking a cue from Stephen Toulmin's demonstration of how many of Europe's modernizers embraced and used, rather than rejected, concepts of nature,4 Thomas claims that, at least for us who now live "'on the far side of modernity,' nature can be seen [End Page 172] as multivalent rather than the antonym in a series of binary opposites." In practice this means that for us now, "nature can no longer appear synonymous with the anti-modern, the past, the oppressive, or the Orient" (p. 25).I ask that the reader highlight the sentences above. They constitute what in my view is the most important and by far the most interesting move made in Refiguring Modernity. I will return to them below. First, however, I will recapitulate the progression of the book's chapters. They move in the pattern of linear history. The first, discussed already and titled "The Trouble with Nature," introduces the problem. The second, "The Topographical Imagination of Tokugawa Politics," deals with thinkers of the Tokugawa (Edo) period (1600-1868). Theirs was an era during which, although Chinese claims to being both topographically and morally central had long been dutifully accepted in Japan, strong-thinking Japanese argued that China's frequent dynastic changes demonstrated that "centralness need not be possessed physically to be enacted morally" (p. 42). By outdoing contemporaneous Chinese in terms of being Confucian, Neo-Confucian, or whatever it was that had its origins in China, Japanese and in some sense Japan as a whole were imagined to be the "real China."5... (shrink)

This collection of Abe's essays is a welcome addition to philosophy and comparative philosophy.