Distance matters: A hermeneutical approach to Japanese humanistic traditions

Humanistic traditions in East Asia

‘Humanism’ as used in this paper is a technical term used in the history of education. It was coined in the nineteenth century by a German scholar, Georg Voigt, to denote a trend of educational thought in the Renaissance that assigned a dominant educational role to language and literature. The term was then extended to denote a similar trend of thought in other countries, such as New Humanism in the nineteenth century Germany.

As discussed elsewhere, East Asia has its own tradition of humanism (Kato, 2014a, 2014b). Confucius, who was a devoted scholar of poetry and history, can be regarded as the founder of this tradition. For Confucius, learning required reading of the classical texts. Of course, as Confucius well understood, simple book reading was not enough. What was learned from the books must be applied to life.

Even though there were remarkable critics of book learning in East Asia, such as the Daoists and the Zen Buddhists, the interpretation of the classics and their application to actual life was the main focus of East Asian learning. Japanese culture, too, can be characterized as humanistic. The interpretation of foreign texts, such as Buddhist scriptures, Chinese Classics and Western textbooks, has been its fundamental feature.

Hermeneutic approach to Japanese humanism

Hermeneutics can be applied to elucidate the specific features of Japanese humanism. Hermeneutics is the general theory of interpretation, which had its origin in philology (Gadamer, 1975). The confrontation with a foreign text, which often occasioned the dispute among interpreters, deepened the critical sense concerning interpretation. Whereas philology tries to interpret a specific text using various methods such as grammar and lexicography, hermeneutics investigates what interpretation as such is. Modern hermeneutics originated from the confrontation with foreign texts in the Renaissance, and therefore its origin is inseparable from philology. However, over time it gradually was systematized by Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and Gadamer as a general theory of interpretation. Hermeneutics, therefore, extends further than the domain of philology to include diverse fields of interpretation. Hermeneutics can provide the key to understanding the Japanese humanistic tradition, in which the appropriation of foreign cultures played a central role. There are three important features for this interpretative purpose: 1) a sense of distance, 2) application, and 3) the play character of interpretation.

The sense of distance

Even though interpretation always accompanies our life in such a way that our life itself is the process and the result of interpretation, we usually do not take heed of it. With what is near and familiar we do not think of interpretation. The problem of interpretation becomes visible when there is acute possibility of misunderstanding (Gadamer, 1975, p. 173). Such is a case when we meet a foreigner who does not share the same language or when we read a text that belongs to a different age (Gadamer, 1975, pp. 275–285). What is familiar often makes our spirit dull. We just follow the impression that is often a shared prejudice. However, the sense of distance makes our mind alert, which is why foreigners can often be a better judge of a culture than the natives. It is no coincidence that one of the classics on American democracy was written by the French writer, Tocqueville.

Even though distance is not always felt or recognized, it is there wherever there is relationship. Both on conscious and unconscious levels, distance invites a variety of responses ranging from an utter denial of the other to a complete subjugation to the other. In fortunate cases, it can foster fruitful conversation and stimulating interpretation. The recognition and not the suppression of distance is the first step to them.

In Japan, the experience of distance took a peculiar form due to its geographical and historical isolation. The distance from Hakata, Kyushu, to Busan, Korea is 217km, which is quite far compared with the 34 km wide Straits of Dover. The distance from Japan to China is even greater, with the distance being about 800 km from Nagasaki, a major port on Kyushu Island, to Shanghai. Traveling between Japan and the continent was dangerous and the risk of shipwreck was so great that the experience of having studied in China was once considered prestigious for Japanese scholars and artists. Kukai 空海, a prodigious monk in the nineth century, owed part of his reputation to his voyage to China. The books and ritualistic utensils that he brought back from China constituted the core of his Esoteric Buddhism. The sense of distance was further enhanced by the high standards of Chinese civilization. Over the time that Japan sent a series of altogether 20 envoys (630–894) to the Tang dynasty, China was the most prosperous and cosmopolitan center of the world. From the seventh century until even recently, the Japanese have had a yearning for what is ‘beyond the sea’.

After Japan’a encounter with the West, this yearning found a new direction. In the late 19th and the early twentieth century, a trip to Europe and America was considered prestigious for scholars and artists. The autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi福沢諭吉 (1836–1901) (Fukuzawa, 1978), one of the most renowned political and educational thinkers in modern Japan, vividly discusses the difficulties a young enthusiastic Japanese scholar of the mid-nineteenth century had obtaining and translating European books. As a young scholar, he attended the Teki-juku 適塾, a famous school of medicine founded by Ogata Koan 緒方洪庵, in which the learning of Dutch was important. Despite a long history of commerce with the Netherlands, Dutch books were rare and extremely expensive. Some Dutch books, which the students hand-copied and translated, constituted the educational core of the Teki-juku, which later became Osaka University. When Fukuzawa decided to study English in the 1850s, the situation was worse. One of the most important events of his first voyage to America (1859-60) was buying a Webster English dictionary, which he proudly claimed to be the first introduction of an English dictionary in Japan. Fukuzawa was an influential writer in early modern Japan, but we should not forget that his passion and pride lay in the collection and translation of English books. The school he opened to read English books later developed into Keio University.

Application or the merging of horizons

Interpretation of a text is not just a matter of simply finding the objective truth about it. As Gadamer illustrated in an example from the hermeneutics of law, interpretation of a text presupposes its application to a specific context, such as legal disputations (Gadamer, 1975, pp. 290–295). While the application to a contemporary context may be intentional as with juridical interpretations, in many cases it is unintentional, and even though we intend to read a text ‘objectively’, it is not possible to dismiss the presuppositions of our own age. (‘Objectivity’ itself is one of such presuppositions.) This means that interpretation involve the merging of (at least) two horizons (Gadamer, 1975, pp. 284–290). Therefore, the reading of the Analects in the eighteenth century Japan was destined to be different from the reading of the same book in the twelfth century China, and reading the Emile in the nineteenth century Japan was different from reading the same book in the eighteenth century France. There is no sense to ask which interpretation is correct. The Japanese teachers of the late nineteenth century read the Emile, not in order to find out what Rousseau thought in his historical context but to apply his message to situations in their own schools. By reading the Emile, they were able to view their own situation from different angles. Merging of horizons is educational as it allows us to see our own horizon at a distance and from different angles.

Another important feature associated with the merging of horizons is the significance of the history of interpretations. When Ogyu Sorai 荻生徂徠(1666–1728), a Japanese scholar of the Edo period, undertook to interpret the Analects, he had to confront the interpretation by Zhu Xi 朱子 that had dominated Confucian scholarship since the thirteenth century (Kato, 2014b). In fact, even today, interpreting the Analects is impossible without the knowledge of the later history of interpretations. Otherwise, we would naively read the Analects through the lens of the later age. This is what Gadamer called Wirkungsgeschichte, the history of influences, which is also the history of interpretations (Gadamer, 1975, pp. 284–290). The study of the Wirkungsgeschichte of the classical texts in different ages and cultures can elucidate the manifold potentiality hidden in the original text.

The element of play

Hermeneutics presupposes a free space that allows for different interpretations. Where one doctrine rules, there is little room for hermeneutics. Official doctrine suffocates the freedom of interpretation. The free space of interpretation is a space of playful contest (Huizinga, 1971). Hermeneutics is nourished by the spirit of play, in which the competing interpretations strive to gain the first prize. Tradition is not a rigid regime of the past; rather, it consists of a playful competition and cooperation with its predecessors. Here again, distance has a positive role to play as the distance that separated Japan from China liberated Japan from the excessive influence of Chinese culture and allowed it the freedom to pursue its own ideals.

Japanese art history is rich with such examples, such as the development of Japanese pottery in the sixteenth and the seventeenth century. The relationship of Japanese pottery to its Chinese counterpart can be compared with the relationship of Baroque painting to the painting of the High Renaissance. The characteristic features of Japanese pottery, especially from the second half of the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, did not lie in the technical perfection of Chinese pottery. The artistic mastery of Chinese pottery that attained the flawless control of material was unattainable for Japanese potters. Instead of trying to imitate the unattainable model, they made virtue out of necessity and took another direction. They developed a new taste that esteemed the asymmetry of the accidental shape. This development was made possible by the distance of Japan from China.

A similar development also took place in the history of calligraphy. Japanese calligraphy of literati and monks often had a peculiar character of bokugi 墨戯 (ink play). This is partly due to the difficulty in obtaining original models from China (Idemitsu Museum, 2016). The absence of any Chinese model allowed and stimulated a free play of the imagination. The genre of ink play in painting and calligraphy was originally developed in China by the literati such as Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101). However, whereas the Chinese literati chose to distance themselves from the dominant arts of the court, distance was a fact of life for Japanese artists. (To read more about the play character of Chinese arts and its relationship with Daoism, see Hung (2018) and Hung et al. (2020)). The distance from the teacher can arouse a playful spirit in a pupil. The more the Japanese arts were liberated from the constraints of imitating the harmonious beauty of the Chinese arts, the more playful they became, a feature that also emerged in Japanese religion and philosophy.

The importance of the Edo period

While the three features of hermeneutics played important roles in Japanese history, they had a greater impact in the Edo period than in any other age. The Edo period was the key period for the formation of the Japanese identity. For most of that time (1639–1854), Japan closed the door to foreign countries. Only a small island of Dejima, near Nagasaki, was allowed to trade with Dutch and Chinese merchants.

There has been an endless debate on the closure policy (sakoku). Some have said that it impeded technological progress and made Japan technologically and militarily backward. After 1854, Japan had to catch up 250 years’ delay in great hurry, which caused much frustration and sacrifice. While this criticism has some truth to it, there is another side to the same coin. Even though the closure dwarfed Japan technologically and militarily, it provided a free space of development for the arts and thought.

The development of Japanese Confucianism is a good example. Even though the government had recommended Zhu Xi philosophy as the official theory, there was enough room for other interpretations to thrive. Sakoku protected Japan from an excessive influence from the continent, where Zhu Xi philosophy was dominant. Also, the absence of imperial examination contributed to the development of Japanese Confucianism. In China and Korea, Zhu Xi philosophy was an important subject of imperial examination. The imperial examination opened the door to social ascent to the people of lower birth. Learning Zhu Xi philosophy as the official, orthodox doctrine of Confucianism was a necessary step to social success.

In the Edo Japan, on the other hand, the society retained rigid hierarchy determined by birth. As the consequence, there was no imperial examination. Even if there were some examinations in schools, the result did not affect the future social status of a student. This had various effects. On the one hand, it caused the lack of motivation among some students because learning of Confucianism was detached from the success in real life. On the other hand, in some cases at least, it freed learning from the dominance of ideology and bestowed to the interpretation of Confucian texts the spirit of competition and playfulness.

An example of kaidoku (reading session)

The play characteristics of Japanese Confucianism are found in the introduction of kaidoku 会読, a reading session. (For kaiddoku, I follow the interesting discussion of Maeda (2012).) Kaidoku was a method of interpreting a text through discussion, in which students in turn presented their interpretation of a text, which was followed by a lively discussion, with the role of a teacher being minimal. The discussion often took the form of a contest, in which a student was required to defend a certain position, with the outcome depending on the skill of the discussant as no answer was predetermined. This method did not exist in traditional Confucian schools, where learning mainly consisted of the rote learning of a text and a lecture by a teacher. Kaidoku was first introduced by Ito Jinsai 伊藤仁斎 (1627–1705) and further developed by Ogyu Sorai. Sorai, a fierce critic of Zhu Xi school and an eminent philologist of ancient Chinese literature, contributed significantly to the popularity of kaidoku. Reading sessions on classical Chinese texts, in which students were able to exchange their free interpretations regardless of their social position or age, must have been very liberating and stimulating in Japan’s rigid and hierarchical society. Thanks to the influence of the Sorai school, kaidoku spread to other schools and was adopted for the interpretation of Confucian texts, the reading of ancient Japanese texts (kokugaku 国学), and the emerging field of Dutch learning (rangaku 蘭学). It is interesting that even for foreign language learning such as Dutch, the method of kaidoku was applied.

It is an irony of history that kaidoku, which was born in Japan’s rigid and hierarchical society, gradually acquired a political flavor. Many patriots of the Meiji Restoration had experienced kaidoku and had therefore acquired the skill and passion for group discussions regardless of the social hierarchy. This skill and passion consequently fostered political discussion across the country, which eventually led to a change in the regime.

The tradition of kaidoku was also the basis for the introduction of Western liberalism in Japan. It is no coincidence that Fukuzawa Yukichi had experienced kaidoku when he had attended the Teki-juku in Osaka, in which the students learned to translate Dutch texts cooperatively using the kaidoku method. Even though his knowledge of Dutch did not help Fukuzawa much in his later life, the experience of kaidoku had prepared him for Western liberalism, in which free discussion played an important role. Therefore, kaidoku was a bridge to Western liberalism for Fukuzawa and many other liberal thinkers in early modern Japan.

However, kaidoku itself gradually disappeared in the process of modernization. The reason is that in modern Japan, utilitarian spirit deprived learning of their play character. Learning became something serious, a necessary step to social and economic success. Kaidoku went into oblivion and it is only recently that historians have begun to shed light on this interesting form of learning.

Globalization as a new challenge

Contemporary study of philosophy of education in Japan can be regarded as belonging to the same humanistic tradition. Generally, a graduate student chooses one or two (mostly Western) thinkers and reads their texts thoroughly, while at the same time trying to apply these theories to an actual educational context. And the discussion in a seminar or an academic conference retains some character of playful competition.

Nevertheless, there is a large gap between today and the past: the distance is dwindling. When Emil Hausknecht came to Japan to teach pedagogy at Tokyo Imperial University (1887-1890), the distance between Europe and Japan was extreme and his teaching was received with reverence, with many of his Japanese students being the promulgators of Herbartian theory in Japan. Even though recent studies have examined the innovative spirit of Japanese educational philosophy in the first part of the former century (such as New Education and the Kyoto school), the authority of Western theories was predominant. Until the 1970s Europe and America had been distant countries. However, now professors and students can fly abroad (or use the Zoom) to attend international conferences and the books that had been only accessible to a select few in former time are now accessible online. Also, the qualitative distance is dwindling. Even though the research and discussions from America and Europe are still received eagerly in Japan (as the articles in this volume attest), the sense of adoration that once accompanied the reception of the Western science has shrunk.

These changes are not limited to Japan as every region of the world is facing the similar situation. This is the effect of globalization, which is supported by the tremendous progress of technology. As these changes are inevitable, we should make a good use of them as an opportunity to come into contact with people who have long been separated by distance. The use of English as the common tool of communication is a necessary step to the intercultural communication.

At the same time, the negative effects of the dwindling distance should also be considered. As a philosophical hypothesis, let us imagine a world in which the distance among regions and cultures has long disappeared. In such a world, the barrier of languages would be overcome by the adoption of a common language and information will be shared simultaneously in every corner of the world. People would be living under the unified standard of science and technology. In such a world there would be no conflict of interpretations. In fact, interpretation, which requires distance, would have no place, and hermeneutics would have been replaced by information technology. This world does not seem human; rather, it resembles a society of ants or bees.

Distance creates differences and stimulates our mind to seek to understand what is often incomprehensible at first sight. At the same time, distance provides room for freedom as it implies playful deviations and challenges to orthodoxy, which is and always has been a product of relatively distance-less worlds of empires, where the traffic and communication among different regions is facilitated based on an orthodox set of beliefs. Today, despite the talk of multiculturalism, postcolonialism, and postmodernism, the temptation to establish an orthodoxy in the world of education is growing. Under the mask of a global standard, educational institutions are being thrown into the whirlpool of fierce international competition. In this situation, an important task of educational philosophy is to defend and to reevaluate the positive side of local differences without resorting to parochialism and/or nationalism.

Language as a treasure house of cultural experience

The vicissitudes of Japanese culture have been intertwined with the positive and negative effects of distance. Even though geographical distance is dwindling, there still remains a cultural distance, which is represented, above all, by the Japanese language.

In the myth of the tower of Babel, the plurality of languages was regarded as an obstacle to human progress. Today, this so-called progress has resulted in the extinction of many of the world’s languages. The eagerness to westernize can take extreme forms; for example, in Japan, Mori Arinori 森有礼 (i847–1889), the first minister of education in modern Japan, once proposed that Japanese be replaced by English. Even though nobody would make such a headstrong assertion today, the gradual substitution of Japanese by English has been slowly taking place in Japanese schools and universities.

Against this tide, it is the task of the teachers and students of humanities (including philosophers of education) to be attentive to the formative power of one’s language (including dialects) that goes beyond simple exchange of data. In a sense, each language is a treasure house that contains rich memory of a people. To this memory belongs also the tradition of translation through which the knowledge and sensibilities of foreign people were transformed and adapted. The recognition of the formative role of the native language is an entrance ticket to the fruitful conversations with the people of the world.

Different trends of the philosophy of education in Japan

The seven essays in this special volume are selected to represent the different trends in the philosophy of education in Japan.

The first essay ‘Unlearning as (Japanese) Learning’ by Tadashi Nishihira and Jeremy Rappleye is a dialog between a Japanese and a Western scholar. It intends to unravel the concept of ‘unlearning’ through the interpretation of a text of Zeami, a thirteenth century playwright of Noh whose theory was inspired by Zen Buddhism. The essay also compares the learning process detected in the text of Zeami with its Western counterpart, especially with the theory of Double-Loup Learning and Learning III of Gregory Bateson. Finally, the essay reveals the hidden influence of the ‘unlearning’ tradition in a contemporary Japanese school. This essay is rich in ideas and contains deep philosophical insight and is an excellent introduction to the educational philosophy of a Zen-inspired practices of learning (or unlearning) that have played an important role in Japan and East Asia.

The second essay ‘The Educational Function of Japanese Arts: An Approach to Environmental Philosophy’ by Morimichi Kato focuses on the ethical and educational function of Japanese arts. It has been widely recognized that works of art, such as architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature contribute greatly to establish the ethos of people. The specific feature of Japanese arts is that they are ‘calendar arts’ as they deepen our sensibility toward seasons, which are concrete manifestation of nature = time. In this sense, Japanese arts provide an insight into a relationship with nature that has been largely forgotten in the modern age.

The third essay ‘On the Tendency of the Educational Thought of ‘the Ancient Studies’ in the Edo Confucianism: with a Focus on the Thought Differences Between Ito Jinsai and Ogyu Sorai’ by Masami Yamamoto invites us to enter into the world of Japanese Confucianism in the Edo period. Even though the introduction of Confucianism precedes that of Buddhism, it was only in the Edo period that Confucianism emerged as the main actor of the thinking world in Japan. Of the representatives of Japanese Confucianism, Ito Jinsai and Ogyu Sorai have been the most popular. They both represent ‘ancient studies’, which adopted a philological approach to the Confucian texts and rejected the metaphysical interpretation of Zhu Xi school. However, Jinsai and Sorai differed greatly in their interpretations. This essay clearly and concisely delineates the characteristics of both thinkers.

The fourth essay ‘Global Citizens, Cosmopolitanism, and Radical Relationality: Toward Dialogue with the Kyoto School?’ by Satoji Yano and Jeremy Rappleye examines the problem of global citizenship and cosmopolitanism. After giving an overview of the development of these concepts in the West from Hellenism to Hegel, the article considers the alternative understanding by the Kyoto School, a school of philosophy that is ‘a highly original, creative, and challenging response to European philosophy’. The position of Kimura Motomori, a leading philosopher of education of the Kyoto School, who offered a fresh vision of cosmopolitanism ‘unfolding creatively in an eternal present’ can provoke further discussions of the theme.

The fifth essay ‘Re-envisioning Personhood from the Perspective of Japanese Philosophy: Watsuji Tetsuro’s Aidagara-Based Ethics’ by HIrotaka Sugita was motivated by the tragic incident in Sagamihara in 2016, in which a former caretaker murdered severely disabled children asserting that these children, who did not have conscious mental state, ‘were unworthy of life’. According to the author, ethical theories that start with the concept of personhood as an independent entity do not provide us with an adequate understanding of the relationships between caregivers and severely disabled children. The author finds an alternative theory in the ethical thoughts of Watsuji Tetsuro who tried to overcome the Western individualism by developing his own interpretation of the Japanese word ningen. Watsuji saw in this word, which is composed of nin (person) and gen (between), an understanding of person that transcends Western individualism.

The sixth essay ‘Literacy and Tactility: An Experience of Writing in Kuzuhara Kôtô Nikki (Kuzuhara Kôtô’s Diary)’ by Reiko Muroi prepares the way to understanding the ‘culture of touching’ as distinguished from the culture of seeing or hearing. The author is well acquainted with the history of Western (especially French) philosophy and begins the study with the review of Western tradition on the tactile letter. Walter Ong, Montaigne, and Diderot are chosen and analyzed to provide the theoretical background, with the tactile letter of Louis Braille introduced as the most representative example. Then, in the second half of the essay, the author investigates the practices of Kuzuhara Kôtô, a blind Japanese musician of the nineteenth century who invented his own system of tactile letters and then used them to write diaries. The essay, drawing on the Western and Japanese studies on the subject, does not intend to ‘solve’ the problem. Rather, it soberly prepares the way to pose appropriate questions to literacy and the ‘culture of touching’. In this sense, the essay is highly recommended as a prolegomenon to the future study of related themes.

The seventh essay ‘Material Basis of Learning: From a Debate on Teaching the Area of a Parallelogram in 1980s Japan’ by Yasuo Imai examines a debate between two renowned educational psychologists in Japan concerning the method of teaching the area of a parallelogram. The author follows the debate carefully, and in reference to the philosophical hermeneutics of Günther Buck, suggests a new way of understanding the debate by focusing on ‘the materiality of a thing’ (in this case a bundle of paper sheets used as teaching aids). This argument is a good example of how a sober philosophical argument can contribute to understanding a problem that prima facie belongs to other fields.