The Philosophical Moment Between Ogyū Sorai and Kaiho Seiryō: Indigenous Modernity in the Political Theories of Eighteenth-Century Japan?

Abstract

This essay revisits the old, but by no means settled, question of the modernity of some political theories in “pre-modern” Japan. It starts by arguing that what makes some political theories modern is their desire and their ability to make sense of “modern societies”. These are defined as societies where the growth of, implicit or explicit, contractual arrangements – themselves largely prompted by phenomena like urbanization, division of work, spread of money economy, education, or salaried work – is severely challenging the older status based order. The most eloquent representative of such modern theories is the late eighteenth -early nineteenth century author, Kaiho Seiryō. Granted, Seiryō is careful not to openly criticize the largely feudal order of contemporary society. However, working only with indigenous vocabularies, he justifies social and political relationships purely based on egoist strategies and utilitarian calculus, and limited in time by the interests of concerned parties: what is called here “contractual” arrangements. The essay also analyzes the thought of the thinker represented in the classic studies of Maruyama Masao, as the modern thinker per excellence of the period, Ogyū Sorai. It supports his today often-criticized views of Sorai as a positivist (in the sense where the term is used in the philosophy of law). It does so, however, by offering another interpretation of Sorai’s “religious” statements, typically used to refute Maruyama’s reading. By distinguishing two different perspectives on the Way, external and internal, in Sorai’s writings, the essay upholds a positivist interpretation, but reconciles diametrically opposed views of his thinking. It stresses that while this positivism does not qualify Sorai as a modern thinker, it had to be accepted by the modern theory of Seiryō. Seiryō’s case, it is argued, shows the possibility, but also the limits, of the emergence of modern political thought in the pre-modern non-occidental world.