1984年度秋季学術大会シンポジウム 地理思想史における伝播・継承および革新―日本を主にして

Abstract

This symposium was organised as a first attempt to hold a discussion among Japanese geographers interested in the history of Japanese geographical thought, under the stimulus of world-wide new trends in which the history of geographical thought is studied as a part of intellectual history or the history of science. Here, the term “geographical thought” connotes not only geographical ideas or theories of professional or academic geographers but also ideologies and conceptions concerning the spatial relationships and geographical environments of specialists other than geographers and of the common people. Geographical thought in this broader sense has been expressed not only by means of languages in the narrow sense of the term (langue) but also by other means of expression (langage) such as the pictorial or the cartographical or that of spatial planning. Having specified the fundamental stance as quoted in the above title, the organisers next requested papers for presentation at the symposium, tentatively proposing the following six main topics: 1. Diffusion and successive transmission of indigenous and/or traditional thought in Japan and East Asia and the continuation or non-continuation of this traditional or indigenouse thought into modern Japanese geography after the Meiji period. 2. Diffusion and acceptance of geographical knowledge and geographical thought of Western origin in pre-modern Japan, their articulation with modern geography in Japan and various transformations. 3. Geography and geographical thought in the Meiji period prior to the establishment of academic geography in Japan. 4. Founders of the academic geography of Japan, their successors (orthodox geographers), innovators in academic geography and “outsider” geographers. 5. The sociology of geography as a sociology of science. 6. Relationships (involving acceptance, refutation or influence) of the Japanese national school of geography with foreign geographical schools or foreign geographers. In response, the following papers were contributed: Unno, K. (Osaka University): Conceptions of the Early Modern Japanese regarding their own Nation. Naito, M. (University of Tokyo): Changing conceptions of soil and water (suido) in the agronomical books of the Early Modern Period: from adaptation to the environment to transformation of the environment. Kamozawa, I. (Hosei University): Why there were no successors within the academy to the geographical thought of the Meiji enlightenment thinkers. Ashikaga, K. (Kyoto University): Historical geography of the Early Showa Period. Nishikawa, O. (University of Tokyo): The geographical methodology of Taro Tsujimura (1890_??_1983). Yatsu, E. (Joetsu University of Education): A personal view of geomorphological studies in Japan, especially between 1940_??_65. Ishimitsu, T. (Kobe University): Doctor E. A. Ackerman and Natural Resource Polcies under the Allied Forces Occupation. Tatsuoka, H. (Tokyo Metropolitan University): The acceptance of R. Hartshorne in Japan. Yamada, M. (Osaka Kyoiku University): Diffusion processes of the so-called New Geography in Japan. The paper session and general discussion were presided over by K. Nakamura (Komazawa University), M. Senda (Nara Women's University), Y. Otake (Joetsu University of Education) and H. Nozawa. Unno pointed out that in comparison with the rather pessimistic conception of Japan under the influence of Buddhist cosmology in the Mediaeval period, the conception of Japan in the Early Modern period was characterised by an optimistic view evidenced by the admiration of the Japanese people for their own land. N. Honi (Hiroshima University), in the capacity of commentator on Unno's paper, pointed out the egocentric political intentions of the rulers of Early Modern Japan who had seclusionism as their political target and confucianism as their ideology.