Japanese environmental philosophy

Japanese Environmental Philosophy is an edited collection, which aims to bring to bear insights from environmental philosophy in Japan on contemporary environmental issues. The result of lengthy engagement with Japan and Japanese scholars by editors J. Baird Callicott and James McRae, the book brings together 15 contributions that reflect on modern-day environmental problems through the lens of Japanese philosophy of the environment. An English-language anthology of Japanese environmental philosophy, it makes clear and explicit links to current issues through engagement with, among other topics, climate change, disaster prevention and the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The anthology does not treat Japanese environmental philosophy as a single entity. The contributions span reflections on the thoughts of scholars working from the Heian Period (approximately the eighth to twelfth Centuries) through to the middle of the twentieth century. Similarly, the Chapters variously draw on ideas from Buddhism, Shinto, Japanese folklore and more formalised teachings of ‘philosophy’ as established in Japanese academia. The book is broadly structured into five parts. The first three Chapters provide contextual background on the role of nature in the Japanese tradition of thought. The second group of three Chapters addresses the interface of human nature and the environment, as understood within Japanese environmental philosophy. The third and fourth sections assess environmental aesthetics and the place of nature in Japanese culture, before the final section turns towards disasters.

The book is likely to be of interest primarily to scholars working within environmental ethics and aesthetics, and philosophy more broadly, given its deep engagement with unpacking a breadth of ways of thinking about the environment which have arisen in Japan over centuries. The Chapter authors skilfully weave their readings of Japanese environmental philosophy with Western schools of thought and with empirical environmental issues, which provides a grounding and access point for readers unfamiliar with environmental thought in Japan. For example, Steve Odin takes the thinking of Alfred North Whitehead as a lens through which to explore the Japanese concept of nature, and Yu Inutsuka places the environmental ethics and philosophy of Tetsuro Watsuji in conversation with Martin Heidegger.

Nonetheless, readers coming to the book from a background outside of philosophy, or indeed Japan studies, should expect frequent reference to the Japanese language and also to figures from both Japanese and Western philosophical traditions. This is entirely appropriate given the target audience of the book. Indeed, the engagement across languages and with multiple schools of thought is a reflection of the richness of the insight presented. The way in which issues of language and terminology are approached across the volume allows those with a wider interest in the relationship between environment and society to critically engage with the text.

Readers approaching the book from an environmental politics perspective, perhaps more closely aligned to applied or practical philosophy, may be particularly interested in the Chapters that address site- or case-specific environmental issues in Japan. Notable here are: Toshio Kuwako’s contribution on consensus-building in management of the Ohashi River in Shimane Prefecture, south-west Japan; Midori Kagawa-Fox’s reflection on three instances of failed environmental governance in recent Japanese history (Ashio copper mining pollution; Minamata disease; and the Fukushima nuclear disaster); and James McRae’s Chapter evaluating the potential of Japanese environmental philosophy and Leopold’s land ethic, among others, to promote mutual flourishing in environmental governance.

Japanese Environmental Philosophy is a theoretically rich collection, which fulfils the impressive task of connecting an extensive body of Japanese thinking on the environment to an equally extensive body of Western thought and applied issues. It is likely to become a core text within environmental philosophy, and also offers valuable insights into Japanese thought on the environment for other scholars across the arts, humanities and social sciences. Fittingly, the volume’s contribution to contemporary global social and environmental change is perhaps most strongly articulated in Callicott’s Afterword ‘A Plea for Environmental Philosophy as an Extension of Natural Philosophy.’ Callicott acknowledges and addresses head-on the dangers of environmental philosophy being unwillingly co-opted to serve nationalistic or racist impulses, before concluding that the global scale of contemporary environmental issues requires a global philosophical consensus. In this way, Callicott articulates the importance of a ‘just and honest environmental philosophy’ (p. 302) – and hence the insights of the volume as a whole – within international science.