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Tetsuro Watsuji

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(Redirected from Watsuji Tetsurō) Japanese historian and philosopher (1889–1960)
Tetsuro Watsuji
BornMarch 1, 1889
Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture
DiedDecember 26, 1960 (aged 71)
EducationHimeji Chugakko
First Higher School
Alma materImperial University of Tokyo
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionJapanese philosophy
SchoolContinental
Kyoto School
Watsuji Rinrigaku (Watsuji Ethics)
InstitutionsToyo University
Hosei University
Imperial University of Kyoto
Ryukoku University
Otani University
Main interestsAesthetics, Ethics, Culture, Religion
Notable ideasBeing and Space (not just Time); Ethics as Philosophical Anthropology
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Tetsuro Watsuji (和辻 哲郎, Watsuji Tetsurō, March 1, 1889 – December 26, 1960) was a Japanese historian and moral philosopher.

Early life

Watsuji was born in Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture to a physician. During his youth he enjoyed poetry and had a passion for Western literature. For a short time he was the coeditor of a literary magazine and was involved in writing poems and plays. His interests in philosophy came to light while he was a student at First Higher School in Tokyo, although his interest in literature would always remain strong throughout his life.

In his early writings (between 1913 and 1915) he introduced the work of Søren Kierkegaard to Japan, as well as working on Friedrich Nietzsche, but in 1918 he turned against this earlier position, criticizing Western philosophical individualism, and attacking its influence on Japanese thought and life. This led to a study of the roots of Japanese culture, including Japanese Buddhist art, and notably the work of the medieval Zen Buddhist Dōgen. Watsuji was also interested in the famous Japanese writer Natsume Sōseki, whose books were influential during Watsuji's early years.

Career

In the early 1920s Watsuji taught at Toyo, Hosei and Keio universities, and at Tsuda Eigaku-juku (now, Tsuda University).

The issues of hermeneutics attracted his attention, especially the hermeneutics of Boeckh and Dilthey.

In March 1925, Watsuji became a lecturer at Kyoto Imperial University, joining the other leading philosophers of the time, Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime and Nishitani Keiji. These three philosophers were members of the Kyoto School. While Watsuji joined their department, he is not typically considered a member of the School due to the intellectual independence in his work. In July, he was promoted to associate professor of ethics.

In January 1927, it was decided that he would go to Germany for 3 years for his research on the history of moral thought. He departed on 17th February and finally arrived in Berlin in early April. In the beginning of summer, he read Heidegger’s Being and Time which had just come out. He then went to Paris. He left Paris in early December and arrived in Genoa on the 12th of that month.

From January to March 1928, he travelled to Rome, Naples, Sicily, Florence, Bologna, Ravenna, Padua and Venice. He then cut his trip short, returning to Japan in early July. So his stay in Europe only lasted for roughly a year.

In March 1931, he was promoted to full professor at Kyoto Imperial University.

He then moved to the Tokyo Imperial University in July 1934 and held the chair in ethics until his retirement in March 1949.

During World War II his theories (which claimed the superiority of Japanese approaches to and understanding of human nature and ethics, and argued for the negation of self) provided support for Japanese nationalism, a fact which, after the war, he said that he regretted.

Watsuji died at the age of 71.

Work

Watsuji's three main works were his two-volume 1954 History of Japanese Ethical Thought, his three-volume Ethics, first published in 1937, 1942, and 1949, and his 1935 Climate. The last of these develops his most distinctive thought. In it, Watsuji argues for an essential relationship between climate and other environmental factors and the nature of human cultures, and he distinguished three types of culture: pastoral, desert, and monsoon.

Watsuji wrote that Kendo involves raising a struggle to a life-transcending level by freeing oneself from an attachment to life.

List of works

Collected Works , 27 vols. (Iwanami Shoten , 1961-91) .

CW1

CW2

Originally published as Katsura Imperial Villa: Reflections on Its Construction Process (Chûô Kôronsha , 1955), it was significantly rewritten after receiving criticism from the architectural historian Ôta Hirotarô.

CW3

  • Ancient Japanese Culture (Iwanami Shoten , 1920), reprinted in CW3:1-305.
  • The Hidden Japan (Shinchôsha , 1951), reprinted in CW3:307-507.

CW4

  • Studies on Japanese Intellectual History, Vol. 1 (Iwanami Shoten , 1926), reprinted in CW4:1-271.
  • Studies on Japanese Intellectual History, Vol. 2 (Iwanami Shoten , 1935), reprinted in CW4:273-551.

CW5

  • The Practical Philosophy of Early Buddhism (Iwanami Shoten , 1927), reprinted in CW5:1-293.
  • The Beginnings of Buddhist Philosophy (Kokoro , June 1955-May 1958), reprinted in CW5:295-568.
  • ‘Reply to Kimura Taiken’s Criticisms’ (Shisō , April 1927), reprinted in CW5:569-580.

CW6

On Vico among others.

CW7

  • The Cultural Significance of Early Christianity (Iwanami Shoten , 1926), reprinted in CW7:1-150.
  • Ethics of Humanity in the Polis (Hakujitsu Shoin , 1948), reprinted in CW7:151-350.

CW8

  • Climate: Philosophico-Anthropological Reflections (Iwanami Shoten , 1935), reprinted in CW8:1-256.
  • Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples of Italy (Kaname Shobô , 1950), reprinted in CW8:257-408.

CW9

  • Ethics as the Study of Humanity (Iwanami Shoten , 1934), reprinted in CW9:1-192.
  • Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (Iwanami Shoten , 1935), reprinted in CW9:193-315.
  • Personality and Human Nature (Iwanami Shoten , 1938), reprinted in CW9:317-479.

CW10

  • Ethics, Vol. 1 (Iwanami Shoten , 1937-42), reprinted in CW10:1-659.

CW11

  • Ethics, Vol. 2 (Iwanami Shoten , 1949), reprinted in CW11:1-448.

CW12

  • A History of Japanese Ethical Thought, Vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1952), reprinted in CW12:1-514.

CW13

  • A History of Japanese Ethical Thought, Vol. 2 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1952), reprinted in CW13:1-496.

CW14

  • Royalist Thought and Its Tradition (Iwanami Shoten , 1943), reprinted in CW14:1-294.
  • The Way of the Imperial Subject in Japan (Chikuma Shobô , 1944), reprinted in CW14:295-312.
Published together with The National Character of the United States . The book was ordered banned from sale by SCAP during the US Occupation.
  • The Symbol of National Unification (Keisô Shobô , 1948), reprinted in CW14:313-396.

CW15

CW16

CW17

Published together with The Way of the Imperial Subject in Japan .

CW18

  • An Attempt at Autobiography (Chûô Kôronsha , 1961), reprinted in CW18:1-458.
Unfinished work, posthumous publication.

CW19

  • A History of Buddhist Ethical Thought
Previously unpublished work.

CW20-24

  • Essays

CW25

  • Letters

CW26

  • Lecture Notes

CW27

  • Notes and Miscellanea


English translations

  • 1961: Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study trans. from Fūdo (風土) by Geoffrey Bownas (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press)
  • 1969: Japanese Ethical Thought in the Noh Plays of the Muromachi Period trans. from chapter 4 of Nihon Rinri Shisōshi (日本倫理思想史) by David A. Dilworth (Monumenta Nipponica 24:4, 467-498)
  • 1971: The Significance of Ethics As the Study of Man trans. from the introduction to Rinrigaku (倫理学) vol. 1 by David A. Dilworth (Monumenta Nipponica 26:3/4, 395-413)
  • 1996: Watsuji Tetsurō's Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan trans. from the first half of Rinrigaku (倫理学) vol. 1 by Seisaku Yamamoto & Robert Carter (Albany: State University of New York Press)
  • 1998: Various essays in Sourcebook for Modern Japanese Philosophy by David Dilworth and Valdo Viglielmo with Agustin Jacinto Zavala.
  • 2009: Mask and Persona trans. from Men to Perusona (面とペルソナ) by Carl M. Johnson
  • 2009: The Psychology of Idol Worship trans. from Gūzō Sūhai no Shinri (偶像崇拝の心理) by Carl M. Johnson
  • 2011: Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsurō's Shamon Dōgen trans. from Shamon Dōgen (沙門道元) by Steve Bein (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press)
  • 2011: Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples in Nara trans. from Koji Junrei (古寺巡礼) by Hiroshi Nara (Portland, ME: MerwinAsia)
  • 2021: “Professor Koeber” trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. Journal of East Asian Philosophy 1: 75–99.
  • 2021: “Middle School” from Attempt at an Autobiography trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. European Journal of Japanese Philosophy 6: 267–322.
  • 2021: “America’s National Character” trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. Philosophy East and West 71 (4):1005-1028.
  • 2023: "A Consideration of National Character" trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth. Journal East Asian Philosophy 2. 199-215.
  • 2024: "Watsuji Tetsurō’s Memory of Natsume Sōseki: A Translation of 'Until I met Sōseki' and 'Sōseki’s Character'" trans K.M.J. Shuttleworth. Journal of East Asian Philosophy.

See also

Notes

  1. David A. Dilworth, et al., Sourcebook for Modern Japanese Philosophy: Selected Documents (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press); cited in Robert Carter, "Watsuji Tetsurô", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2004.
  2. Marra, Michael F. (2002). Japanese hermeneutics, pp. 76-88., p. 76, at Google Books
  3. 和辻哲郎「倫理学——人間の学としての倫理学の意義及び方法」『岩波講座——哲学第二』岩波書店、1932年、115ff. (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1913099/405)
  4. Davis, Bret W. (2022), "The Kyoto School", in Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2023-03-14
  5. 和辻哲郎「序言」『風土——人間学的考察』岩波書店、1979年、3頁
  6. 兵庫ゆかりの作家「和辻哲郎略年譜」(https://www.artm.pref.hyogo.jp/bungaku/jousetsu/authors/a70/)
  7. The French philosopher Montesquieu had developed a theory along similar lines, though with very different conclusions.
  8. Hosoda Haruko (December 6, 2011). "Samurai Spirit Still Animates Japan". Nippon. Archived from the original on November 11, 2018.
  9. 文部省社会教育局編『連合国軍総司令部から没収を命ぜられた宣伝用刊行物総目録』1949年 (https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1159482/169).

References

External links

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