中村正直의 文明론

The Confucian Understanding of Civilization: Nakamura Masanao s Thoughts on Tian and Character

In recent years, it has become a common knowledge that the heyday of Japanese Confucianism was the latter half of the nineteenth century, i.e. from the last days of the Tokugawa period to the early Meiji period. This historical fact is connected to a perspective which sees the Confucianism as one of the most influential causes in bringing about the Meiji Revolution in 1868. It has also been a pillar that supports the idea of continuity in the historical context of Tokugawa and Meiji Japan. It opposes the argument that sees the Meiji Revolution as the starting point of Western modernization or the point of discontinuation between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’. By focusing on the continuity of historical contexts between Tokugawa and Meiji Japan, this article aims to analyze Nakamura Masanao s understanding of civilization. In order to illuminate it, I have put his Confucianist’s perspective on the forefront. It means that this article objects to the previous researchers view which depicted him as a “Meiji Enlightenment thinker”. “Enlightenment” is not a historical term used at the time, but an invented concept to evaluate the past. With such an ambiguous term, one cannot give a clear explanation on why he put such an emphasis on Christianity. To show his logic on Christianity clearly, this article tries to analyze his writings by sticking to the words and the standard of value that he actually stated. In doing so, the correlation between his idea of civilization and Confucian idealism would be the main focus.