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UCC Library and UCC Researchers Have Made This Item Openly Available UCC Library and UCC researchers have made this item openly available. Please let us know how this has helped you. Thanks! Title The Kyoto School and Confucianism: a Confucian reading of the philosophy of history and political thought of Masaaki Kosaka Author(s) Rhydwen, Thomas Parry Publication date 2016 Original citation Rhydwen, T. P. 2016. The Kyoto School and Confucianism: a Confucian reading of the philosophy of history and political thought of Masaaki Kosaka. PhD Thesis, University College Cork. Type of publication Doctoral thesis Rights © 2016, Thomas P. Rhydwen. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Embargo information No embargo required Item downloaded http://hdl.handle.net/10468/3066 from Downloaded on 2021-09-27T06:22:53Z The Kyoto School and Confucianism: A Confucian Reading of the Philosophy of History and Political Thought of Masaaki Kōsaka Thomas Parry Rhydwen National University of Ireland, Cork PhD May 2016 Department of Philosophy Head of Department: Vittorio Bufacchi Supervisor: Graham Parkes Table of Contents Declaration ........................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................. v Dedications ........................................................................................................ vi Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 Part One – On the Possibility of a Confucian Kyoto School ............................ 23 Chapter 1: The Challenge of Orientalism 1a: The Influence of Edward Said’s Critique ................................................... 24 1b: The Case For and Against Cultural Generalisations ................................ 27 1c: Orientalism as an Approach to the Confucianism of the Kyoto School ..... 35 Chapter 2: The Intellectual and Cultural Significance of Confucianism for Kōsaka .............................................................................................................. 40 Part Two – The Confucian Beginnings of the Philosophy of History.............. 54 Chapter 3 – The Confucian Worldview of Kōsaka’s Philosophy 3a: Relational Ontology .................................................................................... 55 3b: The Hermeneutics of Roads ....................................................................... 71 3c: The Philosophy of Change .......................................................................... 76 Chapter 4: The Thesis of Confucian Revolution 4a: Confucian Revolution ................................................................................. 88 4b: The Intellectual Consequences of Confucian Revolution ........................ 108 Part Three – The Philosophy of Masaaki Kōsaka ......................................... 122 i Chapter 5: The Philosophical Beginnings of the Historical World 5a: Goethe, Kant and Nishida Goethe and Metaphysics ......................................................................... 124 Kant and Metaphysics ............................................................................ 127 Nishida and the Eternal Now ................................................................. 131 5b: The Necessity of a Philosophy of History ................................................ 137 5c: The Fundamental Assumptions of the Philosophy of History Historical Existence ................................................................................ 141 Practical Subjectivity (Shutaisei) ........................................................... 144 Absolute Nothingness ............................................................................. 147 Chapter 6: The Epistemology of the Historical World 6a: The Historical Universalism of Proper Nouns The Historical World ............................................................................... 155 Historical Essence ................................................................................... 156 The Ideal and the Real ............................................................................ 158 Historical Categories and Concepts ........................................................ 159 Historical Universalism and Proper Nouns ........................................... 162 The Simultaneity of the Historical World .............................................. 168 6b: The Historical I and the Historical Thou................................................. 169 Chapter 7: The Historical World and the Conditions of National Subjectivity 7a: The Historical World as a Nothingness-like Universal ........................... 180 7b: The Historical Substratum Historical Nature and Primordial Nature .............................................. 187 Environmental Nature and the Issue of Race ........................................ 193 Environmental Nature – Internal and External Environments ............ 199 Chapter 8: Historical Subjectivity 8a: The Conditions of Subjectivity in the Historical World .......................... 213 8b: The Internal Development of Historical Subjectivity.............................. 219 8c: The External Development of Historical Subjectivity ............................. 226 ii Part Four – Confucianism and the Philosophy of History ............................ 239 Chapter 9: Confucian Reading of Kōsaka’s Philosophy of History 9a: Reassessing the Thesis of Confucian Revolution .................................... 240 9b: The Philosophy of History and the Confucian Tradition of Regime Change ........................................................................................................................ 243 9c: Confucian Influences on the Fundamental Structure of the Historical World The Great Ultimate and the Complementary Principles of Yin and Yang ................................................................................................................. 248 A Confucian Interpretation of the Eternal Now ..................................... 257 9d: The Historical Movement of the Ethical Substance of a People Humanity as a Social and Historical Existence ..................................... 266 The Rectification of Names ..................................................................... 271 9e: A Confucian Interpretation of Kōsaka’s Appropriation of Kantian Philosophy ...................................................................................................... 278 Concluding Remarks ...................................................................................... 286 Appendix – Methodology ................................................................................ 300 Empiricism and Moral History 1: The Empirical Approach of Historical Research ....................................... 303 2: Critiquing Moral History ........................................................................... 310 3: The Morally Superior Present.................................................................... 316 4: Moral Progress and Historical Causation ................................................. 322 5: Moral Agency in History ............................................................................ 328 Bibliography ................................................................................................... 340 iii Declaration This is to certify that the work I am submitting is my own and has not been submitted for another degree, either at University College Cork or elsewhere. All external references and sources are clearly acknowledged and identified within the contents. I have read and understood the regulations of University College Cork concerning plagiarism. Signature: __________________________________ Thomas Parry Rhydwen (06/05/2016) iv Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor Graham Parkes for his insightful comments, endless encouragement and notable patience. With his help I believe I have been able to safely navigate a small part of the East Asian intellectual horizon. I would also like to thank David Williams for taking the time to discuss his ideas and for permitting access to his most recent work on Confucian Revolution. I greatly appreciate the support I have received from my colleagues in the philosophy department, both past and present. In particular I would like to thank Hans-Georg Moeller, Julia Jansen, Cara Nine and Colette Connolly for all of their advice and assistance. I would also like to convey my special thanks to Kenn Nakata Steffensen. Our discussions have deeply enriched my understanding of the Kyoto School. Finally, I wish to express gratitude to all of my family and friends for the help they have provided throughout. I would especially like to thank my parents Janet and David for their continued support, even in the face of adversity, and my wife Megumi for always being there and for allowing me to travel out to Ireland to study philosophy. v Dedications I would like to dedicate this work to my father David, who passed away on the 29th December 2015, and my daughter Sora, who was born on the 24th January 2016. vi The Kyoto School and Confucianism: A Confucian Reading of the Philosophy of History and Political Thought of Masaaki Kōsaka Introduction In this dissertation I examine the philosophy of the Japanese thinker Masaaki Kōsaka (1900-1969) from the East Asian perspective of Confucianism, which I believe is the most appropriate interpretative framework
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