Motoori Norinaga

Selected Bibiliography and Overview of Japanese Philosophy by reference to major Japanese Anthologies of Traditional and Modern Japanese Thought / Philosophy, listing a wide range of Japanese philosophers and thinkers from ancient times to the present.

ABSTRACTThe eighteenth century was a peaceful era for East Asia, ruled by the emperors of Ching. However, intellectuals who refused to accept the Great Ching order appeared in Chosŏn and Japan. They developed homeland-centric ideologies. This article compares the Han Wŏn-chin ‘s Chosŏn-centrism with the Motoori Norinaga ’s Japan-centrism. There is a lot of research about the Norinaga’s Japan-centrism in Japanese academia, which contains both aspects of the culture theory and order theory. In Korea, however, discourse about Chosŏn-centrism is still (...) ongoing argument under the concept of ‘Chosŏn’s Sino-centrism ’. I would like to pay attention to that, although homeland-centrism is constructed with two aspects, which are theories of international order and culture, the Chosŏn’s Sino-Centrism related discourse only discuss about culture theory aspect. Therefore, comparing Japan-centrism, which contains both culture and order parts, I will point out the problem of Chosŏ.. (shrink)

Motoori Norinaga 's argument on the literature is two-fold: first, it should be autonomous as distinct from politics and morals: second, it should be of use for good governance. It is not simply that the literature should be independent as an intellectual field, but also that the autonomy of the literature resides in its aestheticism itself, from which he tried to draw a sense of publicity and sympathy, as well as a concept of what can be called autoformation through active (...) imitation. Thus he was led to his own aesthetic / emotional amoralism . With such an amoralism - which is a kind of meta-moral - Motoori aimed to replace the Confucianist moralism, and overcome the closure of it. For, as the Confucianist transcendent, universalistic criterion is apathetic with the popular amoral realities, it forces people to be passive and subject to the rationalistic distinction between good and evil. It is true that his amoralism he reached through the reflection on kadô has some potentialities of the modern aesthetic ethics. However it actually ended up with forming its own closure, which eventually endorses the Japanese particularism with sanctified imperial nation. (shrink)

The purpose here is to recall the diversity of our experience, particularly the archaic experience, of what is divine, through Motoori Norinaga and Martin Heidegger and their considerations of the archaic notions of kami and daimōn. Using their insights and other sources also becomes a means for reconfiguring our understanding of philosophy of religion as a thinking that enacts what it is about, drawing no hard and fast distinctions between thinking and practice, in the hope of seeing religion as it (...) is. (shrink)