The Somaticization of Learning in Edo Confucianism: The Rejection of Body-Mind Dualism in the Thought of Kaibara Ekken

Abstract

This study examines two major works by one of Edo Japan’s great educators, Kaibara Ekken—Precepts for Children’s Education in Japan and Precepts on Nourishing Life—both written for a popular audience in a period when interest in Confucian learning was spreading beyond the samurai class to the general population. Structured in terms of the basic polarity in the Cheng-Zhu school between principle (li/ri) and material force (qi/ki), the study first makes clear the degree to which Chinese Zhu Xi learning emphasized grasping the abstract principles (li) of objective reality and morality, reflecting the intellectual character of the Zhu Xi school in China. Then, through a close study of Ekken’s writings, Tsujimoto shows that Ekken rejected the dualism of li and qi and put his emphasis strongly on the physical dimensions of learning and practice, exhorting his readers to pay careful attention to every detail of everyday life—including reading and calligraphy practice—as well as all the minute details of the etiquette governing everyday social life. While popular Confucian teachings in China tended similarly to emphasize the physical and practical levels of reality, there is a definite Japanese character in Ekken’s teachings related to the tendency of Japanese society to subordinate the individual completely to group-oriented rules of ritual and etiquette.