Abstract
The chapter introduces Inoue Enryō (1858–1919) as a pioneer of the academic field of Buddhist philosophy in Japan. In his key work on this topic, Living Discourse on Buddhism, Enryō attempted to give Buddhism a philosophical foundation suited to the modern world. The chapter outlines this groundwork project and interprets its marginal reception as being due to Enryō’s ignorance of Sanskrit studies and his support of Japanese imperialism. The first generation of enlightenment thinkers of the Meiji period were convinced that the East Asian history of thought was backwards and stagnant because it lacked a culture of discussion and dissent. By revealing dialectical patterns in its genealogy, Enryō meant to prove Buddhism’s progressive philosophical character. The Buddhist doctrine of the Middle Path as it became influential in East Asia was not constructed as the avoidance of extremes but as the sublation (G. Aufhebung) of opposites. The dualisms of being and non-being, affirmation and negation were to be transcended to a higher synthesis, which is ultimately equivalent to the non-discriminative state of enlightenment. Enryō believed that the historical development of Buddhism could be reconstructed as the progressive spelling out of all possible metaphysical positions following dialectical patterns. Through this, Buddhist philosophical truth would become more and more abstract and Buddhism itself more and more encompassing. The apex of such a complete system was to be reached in the unbiased notion of the middle subsuming all possible viewpoints. Enryō mostly referred to this highest notion of Buddhism, which he believed to coincide with Hegel’s Absolute or Herbert Spencer’s “Unknowable,” as “Suchness” (J. shinyo 真如).
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Notes
- 1.
This is based on a note from NANJŌ Bun’yū 南条文雄, who was one of Enryō’s mentors (Ōtani Daigaku 2001, 1: 45).
- 2.
It was not only the works of Herbert Spencer (1820–1930) but also other X-Club (1864–1893) members, such as Thomas H. Huxley (1825–1895), John Tyndall (1820–1893), and John Lubbock (1834–1913) that were widely read at the early Tokyo (Imperial) University. Several books of Spencer and Tyndall were reprinted for use as textbooks by the Faculty of Literature of Tokyo University.
- 3.
A phonetic transcription of the name Jesus, written yaso 耶蘇, was coined during the seventeenth-century Jesuit mission in China. The first character of this Chinese rendering of “Jesus” is a variant of ja in haja 破邪 and has in various contexts the same meaning. The character ja 邪 can be translated as “false” but also as “evil.” Therefore, for both compounds, yaso 耶蘇 and haja 破邪, a second interpretation was also possible: The Chinese transcription of Jesus can be read as “evil resurrecting,” and haja 破邪, which had originally meant “refuting false [views]” or “destroying evil,” acquired “destroying Christianity” as a secondary meaning.
- 4.
This is testified by INOUE Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 (1856–1944) in his 1933Meiji tetsugaku kai no kaiko 明治哲学界の回顧 [Reminiscence of the Philosophical World during Meiji].
- 5.
He discusses this topic in his 1904 essay Tairo yoron 対露予論 [My Argument against Russia] (ISE 25: 596–613).
- 6.
He advances this argument in his 1890 Nihon seikyō ron 日本政教論 [Treatise on Politics and Religion in Japan] (ISE 8: 49–69).
Works Cited
Abbreviations
IES Inoue Enryō senshū 『井上円了選集』. 1987–2004. Selected Writings of Inoue Enryō. 25 vols. Tokyo: Tōyō Daigaku.
Primary Sources
Inoue, Enryō 井上円了. 1887a. Bukkyō katsuron joron 「仏教活論序論」 [Prolegomena to a Living Discourse on Buddhism], IES 3: 325–93.
–––––. 1887b. Bukkyō katsuron honron: Haja katsuron 『仏教活論本論:破邪活論』. [Living Discourse on Buddhism: Refuting the False]. IES 4: 21–185.
–––––. 1890a. Nihon seikyō ron 「日本政教論」[Treatise on Politics and Religion in Japan], IES 8: 49–69.
–––––. 1890b. Bukkyō katsuron honron: Kenshō katsuron 『仏教活論本論:顕正活論』 [Living Discourse on Buddhism: Disclosing the Right]. IES 4: 187–371.
–––––. 1898. Sōhei kairyō ron『僧弊改良論』 [About Reforming the Deficiencies of the Clergy]. Tokyo: Morie Shoten.
–––––. 1912. Katsu bukkyō 『活仏教』 [Living Buddhism], IES 4: 373–536.
Other Sources
Inoue, Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎. 1933. Meiji tetsugaku kai no kaiko『明治哲学界の回顧』 [Reminiscence of the Philosophical World during Meiji]. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten.
Ōtani Daigaku 大谷大学. 2001. Ōtani daigaku hyakunen shi 『大谷大学百年史』 [One Hundred Years of History of Ōtani University], ed. Ōtani Daigaku Hyakunenshi Henshūiinkai 大谷大学百年史編集委員会, vol. 1. Kyoto: Ōtani Daigaku
Staggs, Kathleen M. 1979. In Defense of Japanese Buddhism: Essays from the Meiji Period by Inoue Enryō and Murakami Senshō. Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University.
Takemura Makio 竹村牧男. 1997. Bukkyō wa hontō ni imi ga aru noka『仏教は本当に意味があるのか』[Is Buddhism Really Meaningful?]. Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha.
–––––. 2012. Nihon bukkyō: shisō no ayumi『日本仏教: 思想の歩み』 [Japanese Buddhism: The Course of its Thought]. Kyoto: Jōdoshū Shuppanshitsu.
———. 2013. On the Philosophy of Inoue Enryō. Trans. Rainer Schulzer. International Inoue Enryo Research 1: 3–24.
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Schulzer, R. (2019). Inoue Enryō’s Philosophy of Buddhism. In: Kopf, G. (eds) The Dao Companion to Japanese Buddhist Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2924-9_24
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