【講演】 (Public lecture)“Philosophia, ethica et aesthetica in the Far-Eastern Cultural Sphere: Receptions of the Western Ideas and Reactions to Western Cultural Hegemony, ” International Symposium, Cultures of Knowledge, Institut français d'Extrême -Orient, Pondichery, India, Oct. 21, 2005. Cultures of Knowledge : Paper Inaga Shigemi Philo-sophia and aesthetica: Transcultura Pondicherry 2005 10.20. Draft as for 2005 .10.11 am.3:15 revised 31 Oct.200 & final version: fev.17.2007 Philosophia, Ethica and Aesthetica in the Far-Eastern Cultural Sphere: Receptions of the W estern Ideas and Reactions to the W estern Cultural Hegemon Shigemi INAGA International Research Center for ,apanese Studies Postgraduate School for Advanced Studies, Kyoto, ,APAN .et us begin by pointing out a plain fact. 0hile both in China and Korea the category of 1Chinese philosophy“ and 1Korean philosophy“ are retrospectively recognized as an official designation and currently used, the ,apanese academia until now does not use the term of 1,apanese philosophy.“ 0hy did the divergence take place and what was the socio-historical background for this divergence? 6ere is my first 7uestion. 8ased on this 7uery, we will then e9pand the field of our investigation onto the domain of ethics and aesthetics. This would provide us with the basic 4nowledge on the 4nowledge in the :ar-Eastern cultural sphere in the modern era. This also leads us to the 7uestion of translatability of 4ey concepts in Asian cultures and, in extension, the possibilities of Oriental philosophies must be examined. 1Possibilities“ here imply at least three 7uestions. :irst: is the 0estern philosophical tradition capable of referring to the Oriental tradition5 Second: can the Occidental academic tradition of referring to the Orient be regarded as compatible with the scheme of 1dialogue“ between the East and the 0est5 And third: In what way can the global reciprocity be attainable without being caught by the hidden desire of 1monopolizing“ the 4nowledge for the benefit of those who possess it5 1 The term ືቇ (1tetsu-gaku2= was invented by a ,apanese Nishi Amane ⷏๟(1829-1897) in 1860 as the translation of 0estern term of —philosophy.“ China accepted the same neologism ືቇ13hé-9ue“ in 1890s and the same combination of the two Chinese characters was also transmitted to Korea by 1884. The Chinese character 13hé“ is a combination of 1clear-cut“ and 1mouth“ <1bien articulé oralement“) and from which is derived the secondary meaning designating a person bestowed with wisdom in Confucian tradition. 19ue“ means a house where the 4nowledge is transmitted from master to disciple. Previously, Nishi had proposed a term of Ꮧືቇ (14i-tetsu-gaku2=, probably named after a passage by the Chinese neo-Confucian scholar, ChDu .ián-9F ๟ộᷧ(1017-1073), namely 1a person worthy of the name loo4s after the cleverness“ (8Gan 200 :89) The first character 19F“ Ꮧ corresponds to the Greek notion of 1philo-“ in Chinese. 8ut the notion of —philo2 could not survive, probably because of ,apanese preference of two-word terms in idiom formation (Habu 200 ). Etymologically the term which lacks in —philo“ may be a mistranslation as it means literally 1sophist learning“ to which Socrates opposed his idea. Het 13hA2 may also be interpreted as an abbreviated form of 1వື“ i.e. 1teachers of intelligence,“ which would be in good tune with the idea of Ifollowing faithfully the trace of one‘s master.J And yet one should 4eep in mind that Nishi was strongly impressed by the contrast between the Chinese classical Confucian learning and the 0estern Philosophy. :or him, the progress made by A. Comte‘s positivism and ,.S. Mill‘s inductive method were a revelation. To his eye, even the Neo-Confucianism of the Sung Dynasty loo4ed outmoded and remained in stagnation, as it was lacking in renewal and innovation. In contrast, the 0estern philosophy, which he absorbed while in Nederland, was perceived as ma4ing steady progress through equitable tradition of fair debates. Thus 1philosophy“ was recogni3ed by the ,apanese of the mid 19th Century as a new 0estern scholarly method which stood in sharp opposition to the Chinese Confucianism in stagnation. According to Nishi, the Confucianism is —deductive“ in its application of personal moral to the ruling of the society as a whole, whereas 0estern philosophy is 1inductive“ in its search for the truth in accordance with 0estern natural science, where Ludgements were based on observations and analysis. 8ut NishiJs pro-0estern stance was challenged by one of his colleagues. Nishimura Shigeki ⷏᧛⨃᮸(1828-1902), who also studied with Nishi in 6olland, remar4ed several shortcomings of the 0estern philosophy in the mirror of Chinese scholarship. 0hile the 0estern philosophy puts emphasis on 14nowledge“ (⍮ 13hF2=, it tends to overloo4 the —action2<ⴕ 1hEng2=- and it does not much care about —purifying the spirit“(ᵞᔃ 19iMn 9Fn2=. Thus Nishimura found the 0estern philosophy is lacking in ethical dimension Ludging from the Chinese criteria. Clearly Nishimura is referring to the Neo-Confucianism of 0áng HEng-mNng ₺㓁 ᣿(1472-1 28) who claimed that the concordance of thin4ing and doing (⍮ⴕว৻) is essential in ethical Ludgement. Nishimura‘s reserve may well be compared with Aristotle who included theoria (h theortik epistm) and pra9is (h praktik epistm) in the category of episteme. And yet, it may be fair to observe that even nowadays Chinese scholars tend to thin4 that ethical dimension (ੱ୶) is relatively lacking in the 0estern philosophical tradition (which stands in sharp contrast to 0estern accusation of Chinese lack in human right). 1-1 1 The anecdote suggests one of the cultural conflicts which occurred at the introduction of 0estern philosophy in Non- 0estern, and in this conte9t, :ar Eastern cultural sphere. In the formative years of ,apanese ImodernJ academia under 0esterni3ation from around 1880s, philosophy was first established as a university discipline. .et us have a brief loo4 at the first generation. O4a4ura Tenshin ጟୖᄤᔃ(1863-1913), ,apanese pioneer of 0estern style art historical study, was one of the first graduates from the To4yo Oniversity. 6e is 4nown to have learned 6egelian philosophy from an American professor E.:. :enollosa (18 3-1908) before his graduation in 1880. The courses for 1Indian and Chinese PhilosophyPies2 were introduced in the following year of 1881 at the department of philosophy as neighbouring disciplines to 10estern philosophy2 in the faculty of letters. The notion of 1Oriental Philosophy2 ᧲ᵗືቇ was promoted by Inoue TetsuLirQ ੗਄ືᰴ㇢(18 -1944), first recipient of the chair of philosophy. Clearly Inoue felt the necessity of supplementing 0estern discipline with Eastern traditions and he coined the term of 1Oriental philosophy2 by way of analogy. 8ehind his intention of establishing a 1synthesis of the East and the 0est,2 we may detect his nationalistic intention: The East should show that it is perfectly e7uipped with an e7uivalent of 0estern philosophical tradition and can rival to the 0est. Though his approach is critici3ed as superficial and Ludged syncretic at best, Inoue non-the-less made it clear that a passive reception of the 0estern academic discipline was not enough for an Eastern nation-state to moderni3e its scholarly outloo4 (Shimomura 196 P200 :22). Curiously, however, 1,apanese philosophy2 was absent in the curriculum proposed by Inoue, and it remains so until today. :or more than 120 years since the founding days, it seems that the department of philosophy in ,apanese university is satisfied with the triple subdivision into 0estern, Indian and Chinese philosophies. The Indian philosophy department succeeded domestic siddham studies in the 8uddhist temples (since the 9th century) and grafted to it 0estern philology of Sans4rit and Pali reading. The Chinese philosophy department maintained more or less faithfully the legacy of e9egesis of Chinese Confucian or Taoist classics, without strongly influenced by 0estern scholarship. In the meanwhile, 0estern philosophy in ,apan mainly consisted of translating important classics and e9pounding them. Though it is commonly said that 1philosophieren2 was in fashion among students of the pre-war period, 0estern style meditation or reflection did not directly ta4e root in ,apan but gave way either to the 3en 8uddhist practice or to the faith in Christianity through conversion. Predominant in the pre-war high-school study in humanities (which covered only less than R of the population) was a scholastic philology which was conducted through the reading training of 0estern original te9ts such as Descartes, Kant and Schopenhauer, not to mention Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. It may be worth mentioning that, here again, the 0estern idea of 1philology2 highly appreciated by a Nishi Amane, was surreptitiously replaced by the 4ind of e9egesis which Nishi despised in his Confucian learning. Meticulous reading of the classics and the attempt of their translation into ,apanese (which were 7uite often too difficult for the usual readers to understand) as well as the introduction of the latest 0estern contemporary outcomes constituted (and still constitutes) most of the ,apanese academic activities in 0estern philosophy department. Dialog and debate, which resided at the ideal core of 0estern philosophical tradition, were replaced by the authoritarian monolog delivered by professors from the platform of the classroom. As far as the number of chairs and students are concerned, the 10estern Philosophy2 occupied the main place in modern ,apanese academia of philosophy, and the Indian and Chinese philosophies too4 secondary and au9iliary positions. Such was, in brief, the ,apanese pre-war institutional mimicry of the 0estern scholarly department of philosophy. 1-2 In China, a ,esuit missionary, ,ulio Aleni (1 82-1649) first provided a phonetic transcription of 1philosophia2 (᢫㍳ᚲ 㕖੝) in the 17th century, without being understood by the Chinese. It was in 1898 that HEn :S ෩ᓳ(18 4-1921) gave another phonetic transcription for 1philosophy2 (᢫ᵡ↨㕖) in his translation of A.