a study in the history of japanese political thought.by maruyama masao

A Study in the History of Japanese Political Thought. by Maruyama MasaoReview by: Dan F. HendersonThe Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Nov., 1954), pp. 123-126Published by: Association for Asian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2942259 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 123

Mr. Johnston's comments on Japan's postwar food shortage are not encourag- ing. The present population of eighty-five millions will continue to increase although at a somewhat slower pace than from 1947 to 1953. After commenting on various proposals for increasing Japan's food supply the author concludes that the prospects are not very promising. Japan must rely on international trade but is faced with the problem of expanding her exports to pay for her imports. Although not mentioned by the author, this urgent requirement can be met in large measure by the complementary markets of Southeast Asia. It is this crucial factor that makes the spread of Communism in that area a haunting spectre. It was not without warranted apprehension that the president of the Japan Chamber of Commerce remarked that so vital was Southeast Asia to Japan that a triumph for Communism there would mean the triumph of Com- munism in Japan. Mr. Johnston's comprehensive study accents the desperation of Japan's food situation, and unwittingly provides the economic facts which link Japan to the destiny of her southern neighbors.

RALPH BRAIBANTI

Dulke University

Nibon seiji sbiscesbi kenkyg7 E i*kIT 2lJZff (A study in the history of Japanese political thought.) By MARUYAMA MASAO 4AJIAi . Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan-kai, 1952. 363, 12, 5.

Both because of Professor Maruyama Masao's position among contemporary political thinkers in Japan and because of his unusual knowledge of both Japanese and Western philosophy, especially German, this compilation of his wartime articles' on Tokugawa political thought should be of interest to spe- cialists on Japan.

Born in Osaka in 1914, Maruyama's professional life has been centered around the Law Faculty of Tokyo University, where he was graduated in 1937, appointed assistant professor in 1940 and professor in 1951. His present chair is the first at Tokyo University in the history of Oriental political thought, although Tsuda So-kichi of Waseda University and Muraoka Tanetsugu of Tohoku University had lectured there on the subject.

'These articles appeared in the Kokka gakkai zasshi (The Journal of the association of political and social sciences) from 1940-1944. (See his postscript)

Most of his other writings are as follows: "Cho-kokkashugi ronri to shinri" (The logic and psychology of ultra-nationalism), Sekai, (May 1947), 2-15; "Fukuzawa ni okeru jitsugaku no tenkai" (The development of jitsugaku in Fukuzawa), Tjy7 bunka kenkyu, No. 3, (Mar. 1947), 1-20; "Fukuzawa Yukichi no tetsugaku" (The philosophy of Fukuzawa Yukichi), Kokka gakkai zasshi 61 (1947) 129-163; "Nihon fuashizumu no undo to shis6" (The movement and thought of Japanese fascism), To3yo bunka koza, 2 (1948), 57-184; "Meiji kokka no shis6' (The concept of the Meiji state), Nibon sbakai no shiteki kyumei (A historical inquiry on Japanese society), (1949), 183-236, reviewed FEQ, Nov. 1951, cf. Aug. 1952; "Sengo nashonarizumu no ippan-teki kosatsu (General consideration of post-war nationalism), in Ajia no minzokushugi (1951) 168-187; and the "Kaidai" (Bibliographic notes) of Fukuzawa Yuhichi senshi (Selected writings of Fukuzawa Yukichi) 4 (1952), 395-426.



124 FAR EASTERN QUARTERLY

He studied the works of Tsuda and Muraoka as well as those of Nagata Hiroshi and Hani Gor6-, the former with more and the latter with less Marxist influence. But in his own words, "I must confess that in trying to test the above approaches concretely in the Tokugawa period I had almost the feeling of walking with groping hands in the dark of the night." (Postscript, p. 7)

More positive influences are traceable to his teacher, Nambara Shigeru, ex- president of Tokyo University and one of Japan's foremost scholars of Kant and Hegel. But more comprehensive was the influence of Karl Mannheim's "total concept of ideology" found in Ideologie und Utopie,2 which Maruyama uses consciously as a tool of analysis. Also Max Weber and G. Lukacs among others have influenced his thinking. In the post-war political arena his sym- pathies are with the left-wing Socialists.

Rather than a comprehensive history of thought during the Tokugawa period this book is a history of several important problems. The first two of the three main parts of the book deal with the process of internal collapse of the world view of the orthodox school of Confucianism of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Shushigaku derived from Chu Hsi.

Seeming to agree with Hegel that China's history has been "unhistorical" since dynasties rose and fell without developing a higher consciousness or principle of organization, as "history" should, Maruyama attributes this stag- nation to the nature of Chinese Confucianism.' By contrast Japanese Con- fucianism, while remaining "feudal,"4 nevertheless demonstrated the capacity to develop within itself. This development is illustrated by starting with the Shushigaku as taught by the Hayashi family, hereditary heads of the Sh5- heizaka Gakumond6-, official Tokugawa school. Thus the development is traced through the innovations in the thought of OgyU Sorai (1666-1728) to the Kokugaku of Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801).

Beginning with a concise sketch of Shushigaku as a "total ideology," a subjective, interest-bound thought structure which encompasses ontological and epistemological premises as well as specific, political and social be- liefs, Maruyama shows how Shushigaku on every level, metaphysical, ethical, social and political, was admirably designed to support Shogunate interests in the status quo. He describes Shushigaku as a monolithic, rational structure built from a dualistic ontology, wherein n XI is an ethically pure principle immanent in all things, but tarnished in varying degrees by ki A. Ri thus becomes the basis for a massive, objective morality which men understand and

2The German version came out in 1929, but it can be found in English as Parts II-IV of Karl Mannheim's, Ideology and Utopia (tr. Louis Wirth, 1949).

3In his Philosophy of history (tr. Sibree, 1944), Hegel mentions Confucius only in passing. He says of Confucius' works: "o..there is a circumlocution, a reflex character, and circuitousness in the thought (which prevents it from rising above medi- ocrity)." (p. 136)

4Maruyama is aware of the difference between European and Tokugawa feudalism and also the different usages of "feudal" by Marxists and in Weber's typology. Here vis-a-vis Sorai, he means by "feudal" simply Sorai's support of Shogunal absolutism and therefore the system involved.



BOOK REVIEWS 125

partake of in varying degrees of purity. Wisdon, virtue and law are synony- mous, and the Tokugawa social and political distinctions are justified in terms of the possession of varying degrees of pure ri.

The crisis from the Genroku to Kyoho period (1688-1736) brought social changes which threw Shushigaku out of focus, but were better recognized in the thought of Sorai. Maruyama says that whereas the transformation from Shushigaku to Ito-Jinsai (1627-1705) and Yamaga Sok5-(1622-1685) was merely quantitative, with Sorai a qualitative difference appears. The difference arises from Sorai's rejection of the naive identification in Shushigaku of existent social norms with human nature, which is explained metaphysically in terms of an objective moral order. This aspect of Sorai's thought then paved the way for the 'romantic Kokugaku scholars to reject completely the Confucian norms because they stifled the spirit.

Maruyama sees the above development as the beginning of the collapse of Tokugawa absolutism on the one hand, and the beginning of "modern consciousness" on the other.

He explains dialectically the apparent paradox arising from the fact that, by his interpretation, the irrationalism of Kokugaku becomes a step toward "modern consciousness," a feature of which is a new rationalism. It is a necessary antithesis to the stagnant rationalism of Shushigaku. With careful qualifica- tions he thinks Sorai and Norinaga were to Shushigaku what the nominalists were to the Scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas.

The second part of the book, though devoted also to the breakdown of the orthodox mode of thought and world view as a harbinger of the collapse of absolutism and rise of modern consciousness, is concerned more concretely with the change from the all-pervasive, "natural" law (shizen By;) of the Shushigaku to Sorai's belief in the efficacy of human effort to change social arrangements (sakui .

The third article was intended originally as a preface to an article on modern Japanese nationalism. However as Maruyama vividly relates (Postscript, p. 9-10) the preface outgrew itself, and he was drafted into the army before the article itself ever took form. In this "preface" he collects various evi- dences of embryonic, national consciousness from Tokugawa sources. The absolutism of the lord toward his subjects in the Tokugawa period is seen as a beginning of nationalism. He republished the article in this compilation because of its relevance to his thesis that the seeds of modern consciousness are to be found in Tokugawa changes in the mode of thought. He has changed the title to reflect more accurately the subject matter and he has made other minor changes.

The author offered this book in late 1952 as a stage in his own growth from which he is now sufficiently removed to make revision hardly worthwhile. Con- sequently the only wholly new material is the twelve-page postscript which should be read first for important self-criticism by Maruyama himself.

Most of the shortcomings of these articles can be explained by the fact that they were written from ten to fourteen years ago during the height of Japanese



126 FAR EASTERN QUARTERLY

chauvinism and thought repression. At that time the expediency of resorting to the relatively safer Tokugawa materials to suggest by analogy the inevitable collapse of the modern militarists caused distortions in the interests of political rather than scholarly goals. Thus Maruyama looked too diligently and therefore found a clearer development toward "modern consciousness " in Tokugawa sources than a more balanced sampling of the evidence would justify. While most will sympathize with scholars in such a predicament, under more congenial circumstances some would prefer a clearer distinction between history and personal political programs.

Because of his consistency and comprehensiveness the question of "objectivity" raised by Maruyama's interpretations reduces itself ultimately to a question of basic preferences and method which can hardly be dealt with in this review. Nevertheless since he still endorses the method used in these articles other readers might also wonder if such a method does not intrinsi- cally lead to an unbalanced result.

Mannheim raised the question of "objectivity" in Ideology and Utopia, but seemed to beg it rather than face it by his overtures to a monistic theory of knowledge. Since Maruyama was much impressed with Mannheim, one might be permitted to use the latter's unwieldy terms. To this reviewer Maruyama seems to use the "total concept of ideology" well enough in analyzing Shushigaku and other philosophies, but he hardly attains the "general total concept of ideology" wherein one realizes the taint of interest in all thought including his own. Unencumbered by monistic tendencies, we might simply say that Maruyama seeks to prove his position rather than test it with the evidence of the past. Such elaborate and scholarly campaigning is unobjectionable except to the extent that it carries with it assumptions that history is nothing more than putty for politicians. In other words that the reviewer probably shares few of the Maruyama's political preferences is not the point, but rather that his method seems to imply that preferences are all there are.

No doubt it is a tribute to Maruyama's obvious ability that he is consistent enough to make objections difficult except in terms of basic premises. His concise yet comprehensive analyses of the philosophies presented are sharp and well documented, and one need not share his admiration for German dia- lectics to benefit from his assemblage of materials, interesting selectivity' and interpretations.

DAN F. HENDERSON University of California

sFor instance see his reasons for omitting the Ming philosophy as expounded in Japan as Yomeigaku (p. 32, note 8). Also his emphasis on Sorai.

Sanshb Dayg. By 6GAI MORI, translated by TSUTOMU FUKUDA. Tokyo (Hokuseido), 1952. xi, 72. 120 yen.

This little book is noteworthy as the first English translation of one of the most famous works of an author who ranks with Natsume So-seki at the top



a study in the history of japanese political thought.by maruyama masao

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