The Concept of Nature Underlying Early Childhood Education and Care from Pre-Modern to Contemporary Japan, via Sozo Kurahashi and Kitaro Nishida

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the Japanese historical concept of nature in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Through modernisation, Japan was infused with Anglo-European philosophy. However, Japan’s pre-modern concept of nature differed from that of the West or modern Japan and latently affected the Japanese modern educational system. The concept of nature comprised two modes: mizukara, meaning “voluntarily” or indicating the mode of the voluntary self or “I,” and onozukara, referring to what is “spontaneously or naturally so” or indicating modes of transcendence beyond the self that permeate Japanese pre-modern reading education and apprenticeship as well as contemporary Japanese society. This study investigates Japanese modern texts by representative educator Sozo Kurahashi and philosopher Kitaro Nishida on education and philosophy to describe the latent and underlying connection between the concept of nature and Japanese ECEC as well as to depict the configuration of educational discourse focused on nature.