Between the ideal and reality: two conceptions of idealism in early Meiji Japan

Abstract

This article examines the reception of idealism in Japanese philosophy during the earlier half of the Meiji period, focusing on the work of two pioneering philosophers of that time: Inoue Tetsujirō and Ōnishi Hajime. Due to their disputes over the Imperial Rescript on Education, the two philosophers are commonly understood as standing in a dichotomic relation in terms of their political ideologies: Inoue as a nationalist and Ōnishi as a liberal. Contrastingly, their respective philosophies are both often loosely identified as belonging to the genealogy of the theory of phenomena qua reality. This article examines whether it is tenable to attempt an identification of the nature of their philosophies notwithstanding their political allelism. By examining the notions of ‘the ideal’ and ‘reality’ in their metaphysics, it is concluded that the two thinkers have opposing conceptions of idealism: for Inoue, idealism is the reduction of the ideal into reality; for Ōnishi, idealism is the pursuit of the ideal. In this sense, this article shows that their conceptions of idealism can be understood more coherently if the analysis takes into account their political perspectives.