What is Japanese Philosophy?

Getting started with this lesser known but important field in Asian philosophy

Philosophy is a vast subject. It has become so vast that it is impossible to study all of it in a single lifetime. It covers topics such as the nature of reality, the nature of human knowledge, and how to live an ethical life.

For this reason, specialists are accustomed to dividing philosophy into subfields. For example, you can study philosophy of mind, aesthetics, metaphysics, and so on. You can also study philosophy not by topic but by country of origin. There are professors of French philosophy, Arab philosophy, Indian philosophy, and others.

Thus, from the above, there are two main ways the field of philosophy is currently divided: by broad themes or by geographic and cultural area.

The thematic approaches make it easier to focus on philosophical issues, such as: “What is it to be human?”

However, this method can also hide a range of issues an author or a group of authors are really dealing with. For example, that Plato was probably more concerned about what it was to be Athenian than human in general.

On the other hand, the geographical/cultural approach gives a broader picture of philosophical discussion in a particular context, but it covers such a wide range of topics that it can become difficult to find a solution to any one particular philosophical problem, tending to lead mainly to historical and philological research.

Both of these approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. The good thing is that no one is really stuck with one approach without being able to use the other. One problem we face, however, is that when it comes to lesser-known groups of authors outside Europe or America, writing in lesser-studied languages, research is often defined geographically or culturally and tend to adopt mainly historical or philological approaches.

One such subfield is Japanese philosophy, my field of research. In Japanese philosophy research is often concerned with the history of philosophy rather than philosophy itself. Since it is a rather new field of research, historical studies are certainly not optional. However, the development of Japanese philosophy is historically connected to European and American philosophy in order to gain relevance to modern scholars, philosophical issues, and whether or not “Japanese philosophy” is even a viable subfield of philosophical research.

My focus is on the philosophical questions themselves and on the ways in which Japanese philosophy can contribute to solving said problems, or at least to renewing the way we approach those problems.

From such a perspective, it is easy to see that “Japanese philosophy” is not “Japanese” per se. Philosophical problems are common to cultures all over the world, not only because of globalization, but also because, wherever we live, as human beings we face similar situations.

Therefore, when we talked about “Japanese philosophy,” the question becomes whether or not philosophers in Japan had proposed original insights, and whether or not these insights could help us today.

This is not an easy question to answer and requires a few steps:

• First, it is necessary to study their philosophies.

• Second, it is necessary to evaluate their originality, that is, to compare them with philosophies developed in countries other than Japan.

• Third, it is necessary to use these concepts to discuss contemporary philosophical issues and to judge whether or not they provide useful insights.

Such an approach can certainly raise some concerns. The main concern is the usefulness of philosophy. Does philosophy have to be useful, directly or not? I would say yes. It must be useful, at least for thinking more clearly.

Moreover, is originality so essential? Is it a necessary condition? I would say yes and no. It has to provide at least an idea or a perspective that is not mainstream at a given time. It has to contribute to thinking differently about a subject. Difference creates originality.

Therefore, is there something original or specific in what we call “Japanese philosophy,” or is it just a mainstream prejudice that we may have?

In order to answer such a question, we should consider two completely different periods: the one that preceded the introduction of Western philosophies in Japan and the one that is based on the ongoing study of these philosophies.

Let’s look at the first one.

The Status of Japan’s Endemic Thought Before the Introduction of Western Philosophies