An understanding of modern political consciousness in Japan is inconceivable without reference to the intellectual history of the Tokugawa period, the era between 1600 and 1868 that preceded Japan's modern transformation. Even as they revolted against their feudal past, modern intellectuals were inextricably drawn to Tokugawa Confucian thought, a conceptual construct that defies simple and stylized characterization.

One of the pivotal referent figures in this history is Ogyu Sorai (1666–1728). Sorai's historicism claimed that all sure knowledge must be sought and discovered not in accordance with cosmological norms but within history itself, and, most importantly, in the “beginnings” of history when the rationale for social organization was first articulated. For Sorai, the original purpose was to distribute justice in an orderly and precise manner and to nourish diverse human virtues. This intent, therefore, ought to inform political analysis and reform over the course of all subsequent history. Two of Sorai's texts are provided here in translation: One is the Bendo that focuses on the meaning of the Way; the other, the Benme on names. A short piece by Sorai's student, Dazai Shundai (1680–1747), has been added to suggest the influence of Sorai's thinking. My introductory essay will serve to situate Sorai as a thinker and as a significant intellectual resource for modern and contemporary Japan.

To maintain some “distance” for Sorai's Tokugawa texts from contemporary East Asian civilizations, I have used the “old-fashioned” Wade– Giles system of romanizing Chinese names and terms.

Names have been given to things ever since human beings came into existence. Names were originally established by ordinary people for objects with concrete shapes. When it came to things without form, which ordinary people could not assess, the Sages gave expression to these and assigned them names so that even ordinary people could see and understand them. This is called teaching with names. Names contain teachings, and the Sages were respectful of this. Confucius observed: when names are not true then the order of words cannot be set. Thus when things are improperly named, the people will not be able to grasp their meaings to make use of them. This deserves careful thought.

When Confucius passed away, the Hundred Schools flourished, and according to each of their differing viewpoints, established various names. Thus for the first time names and things came to be confused. Only his seventy disciples protected with great care the views of their master and passed them down to the future.

During the Han Dynasty, each scholar chose different classics and each scholarly house similarly focused on different classics. However, while the teachings of each differed, in general they were all drawn from the teachings of Confucius' disciples, so that what was lost in one school still existed in another. By combining views, it was indeed still possible to bring names and things into close accord. This is because the views of the ancients were still being conveyed.

The Way is difficult to comprehend and explain to others because it is truly vast. Confucian scholars of recent eras claim their own individual perceptions to be the entire Way, but these perceptions are all only aspects of it.

The Way is in fact the Way of the Ancient Kings. From the days of Tzu Ssu and Mencius, however, the Confucian School has contended for supremacy among the Hundred Schools, inevitably diminishing the full meaning of the Way.

When we consider Tzu Ssu's Doctrine of the Mean, we find that it is a critique directed against Lao Tzu, who had said that the Way of the Sages was a fabrication. Tzu Ssu countered with the view that the Way conformed with human nature and that it was not a fiction. In the end his argument came to rest on the concept of human “truthfulness.” The Mean, however, refers to only one among several forms of moral behavior, and therefore is said to be “chosen.” Tzu Ssu relied on the idea of the Mean to explain the meaning of the Way and to show that Lao Tzu's views were not in accordance with his [own] ideas. However, the conclusion drawn by later scholars that the Mean is identical with the Way is erroneous. Those who were first to create things in the ancient world are called “Sages.” Confucius was not one of these creators.

ON FOOD AND MONEY

Question: It is a well-known fact of recent times that large and small daimyo alike are impoverished and lack financial resources. They are said to borrow from between 10 and 50 or 60 percent of their retainers' stipends. If this proves to be inadequate, the people of the domain are prevailed upon to produce the necessary funds to save the day. As this is often still insufficient, they borrow on an annual basis from the large merchant houses of Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka. Often failing to repay what has been borrowed, the interest on the loans accumulates several times. Some years ago during the Kanbun and Enpō eras [c. 1661–1681], Kumazawa Banzan estimated that the volume of cash borrowed by daimyo was about 200 times the total of the available money in all of Japan. Today, some seventy years later, the amount borrowed is a 1,000 times more. Should the daimyo seek to redeem their debts where would this cash, which exists in name only, come from? Given this predicament, all that can be done is to spend the time of day devising ways to face the emergency at hand. There are some retainers of daimyo who excel at this and have put their considerable minds to formulate specific plans. For various reasons, however, they have not been able to realize their aims. Perhaps they acted too hastily. Perhaps by contesting the views of higher ministers, they were accused of misconduct and had their plans withdrawn.

These words seem appropriate when seeking to cognize the conceptual properties of Ogyū Sorai's historicism. A complex scholar of Tokugawa political ethics, Sorai presents us with texts that are “pretty rich and complicated,” and whose full significances have yet to be determined. Although there maybe, in the conceptual characterization that follows, historical similarity, analogy, significant resemblance, and sympathetic perspectives with historicist theorists in other societies, it is not my purpose here to show that Sorai along with other historicists thought similar thoughts, reached identical conclusions, followed the same logic of reason. My main purpose is to uncover Sorai's analytical “preoccupation,” problem solving and explanatory activities, which, in the wording of Sheldon Wolin in his provocative work on “politics and vision,” are also “creative” and “radical.” This means looking for significant intellectual repetitions, arrangements and epistemological constructions with which Sorai perceived, analyzed, and understood things and somehow grasping through these structures of reasoning a comprehensive intellectual pattern and order in his thinking.

1. Authors have frequently made use of the term Natural law in their writings without however agreeing on its definition. The method of starting with definitions and avoiding equivocation is of course the proper method for those who leave no opportunity for counter-argument. Others go about it differently. Some of them argue that a particular act is against natural law because it runs counter to the united opinion of all the wisest or most civilized nations. However, they do not tell us who is to pass judgement on the wisdom, learning and morals of all the nations. Others argue from the position that an act is contrary to the agreed opinion of the whole human race. This definition we must certainly not accept; for it would be impossible on this account for anyone except infants and the retarded to offend against such a law. For in the term human race they certainly include all who actively have the use of reason. Offenders therefore are either not acting against the law of nature or are acting against it without their own consent, and are therefore to be excused. But to take the laws of nature from those who more often violate them than observe them is surely unreasonable. Moreover, men condemn in others what they approve in themselves, publicly praise what they secretly reject, and form their opinions from a habit of listening to what they are told, not from their own observation.

1. In the last two chapters we have been speaking of the commonwealth by design [civitas institutiva], the commonwealth which is initiated by an accord between a number of men, binding themselves to each other by agreements and by pledging their faith to each other. The next topic to discuss is the natural commonwealth [Civitas naturalis], which may also be called the commonwealth by Acquisition [Acquisita] since it is acquired by natural power and strength. The most important things to know here are the ways by which the right of Dominion [Dominium] is acquired over men's persons. Where such a right has been acquired, there is a kind of little kingdom. For to be a King is simply to have Dominion over many persons, and thus a kingdom is a large family, and a family is a little kingdom. To return once again to the natural state and to look at men as if they had just emerged from the earth like mushrooms and grown up without any obligation to each other, there are only three ways by which someone can have Dominion over the person of another. The first is if, for the sake of peace and mutual defence, they put themselves under the sway [ditio] and Dominion of some one man or group of men by means of reciprocal agreements made with each other. We have already spoken of this way.

Although Hobbes is known to most readers today primarily as the author of Leviathan, his first claim to fame was as the author of this work, De Cive (On the Citizen). It had been known to a few intimates of Hobbes since 1641, but it was not known to a wider public until the famous Elzevir Company in Amsterdam picked it up and produced it in a generally available edition, which appeared in the bookshops in the early months of 1647, when its author was 59 and was about to begin working on Leviathan. It was entitled (in Latin) Elementa Philosophica de Cive, that is, ‘Philosophical Elements of the Citizen’ or, less literally but more felicitously, ‘Philosophical Elements of Citizenship’, by ‘Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury’.

It was an immediate best-seller – Elzevir's had sold out of its stock by the summer, and rushed out a reprint. And it remained until the nineteenth century the major Hobbesian text for many readers on the Continent, partly because an authoritative French translation by Hobbes's friend Samuel Sorbière appeared in 1649, whereas Leviathan was not translated into French until our own time, and partly because it was kept in print throughout the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Hobbes himself never repudiated the book, despite having published Leviathan four years later, and he proudly reprinted it in his collected works (in Latin) in 1668, alongside a Latin translation of Leviathan.