Kakuzô Okakura and another Enlightenment in Early Twentieth-Century Japan

• Authors: Otabe Tanehisa
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Western Enlightenment ideas had already been introduced to Edo-period Japan in the early nineteenth century. However, it was not until the Meiji Restoration in 1868 that the modern Japanese Enlightenment movement really took off, when Japan left the sinocentric sphere and adopted Western civilization as its frame of reference. In this paper, I focus on two contrasting thinkers: Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835–1901) and Kakuzô Okakura (pseudonym: Tenshin) (1863–1913). Fukuzawa, one of the leading thinkers of the Japanese Enlightenment, internalized the Eurocentric view of the history of civilization as a norm and made a significant contribution to the Westernization of Japan. In contrast, in the face of the oncoming modernization, or Westernization, Okakura sought on the one hand to revive the ideals of the East, which were in danger of being forgotten, and on the other hand, to relativize Western modernity itself. He thus reveals the possibility of another Enlightenment.

Keywords

EN

History of civilization; Asian stagnation; the Renaissance in Japan; the greatness of little things; the “art of being in the world”; the art of life; tea ceremony or Teaism

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Journal: Dialogue and Universalism
• Year: 2022
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 221-232

Contributors

author

Otabe Tanehisa

• University of Tokyo.