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Tetsuro Watsuji

Tetsuro Watsuji (和辻 哲郎, Watsuji Tetsurō, March 1, 1889 – December 26, 1960) was a *anese historian and moral philosopher.

Contents

  • 1 Early life
  • 2 Career
  • 3 Work
  • 4 List of works
    • 4.1 English translations
  • 5 See also
  • 6 Notes
  • 7 References
  • 8 External links

Early life

Watsuji was born in Himeji, Hyōgo Prefecture to a physician. During his youth he enjoyed poetry and had a p*ion for Western literature. For a short time he was the coeditor of a literary magazine and was involved in writing poems and plays. His interests in philosophy came to light while he was a student at First Higher School in Tokyo, although his interest in literature would always remain strong throughout his life.

In his early writings (between 1913 and 1915) he introduced the work of Søren Kierkegaard to *an, as well as working on Friedrich Nietzsche, but in 1918 he turned against this earlier position, criticizing Western philosophical individualism, and attacking its influence on *anese thought and life. This led to a study of the roots of *anese culture, including *anese Buddhist art, and notably the work of the medieval Zen Buddhist Dōgen. Watsuji was also interested in the famous *anese writer Natsume Sōseki, whose books were influential during Watsuji's early years.

Career

In the early 1920s Watsuji taught at Toyo, Hosei and Keio universities, and at Tsuda Eigaku-juku (now, Tsuda University).

The issues of hermeneutics attracted his attention, especially the hermeneutics of Boeckh and Dilthey.

In March 1925, Watsuji became a lecturer at Kyoto Imperial University, joining the other leading philosophers of the time, Nishida Kitaro and Tanabe Hajime. In July, he was promoted to *ociate professor of ethics.

In January 1927, it was decided that he would go to Germany for 3 years for his research on the history of moral thought. He departed on 17th February and finally arrived in Berlin in early April. In the beginning of summer, he read Heidegger’s Being and Time which had just come out. He then went to Paris. He left Paris in early December and arrived in Genoa on the 12th of that month.

From January to March 1928, he travelled to Rome, Naples, Sicily, Florence, Bologna, Ravenna, Padua and Venice. He then cut his trip short, returning to *an in early July. So his stay in Europe only lasted for roughly a year.

In March 1931, he was promoted to full professor at Kyoto Imperial University.

He then moved to the Tokyo Imperial University in July 1934 and held the chair in ethics until his retirement in March 1949.

During World War II his theories (which claimed the superiority of *anese approaches to and understanding of human nature and ethics, and argued for the negation of self) provided support for *anese nationalism, a fact which, after the war, he said that he regretted.

Watsuji died at the age of 71.

Work

Watsuji's three main works were his two-volume 1954 History of *anese Ethical Thought, his three-volume Ethics, first published in 1937, 1942, and 1949, and his 1935 Climate. The last of these develops his most distinctive thought. In it, Watsuji argues for an essential relationship between climate and other environmental factors and the nature of human cultures, and he distinguished three types of culture: pastoral, desert, and monsoon.

Watsuji wrote that Kendo involves raising a struggle to a life-transcending level by freeing oneself from an attachment to life.

List of works

Collected Works , 27 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1961-91) .


CW1

  • Studies on Nietzsche (Tokyo: Uchida Rôkakuho , 1913).
  • Søren Kierkegaard (Tokyo: Uchida Rôkakuho , 1915).

CW2

  • Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1919).
  • Katsura Imperial Villa: Investigating the Background Behind Its Style (Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha , 1958).
Originally published as Katsura Imperial Villa: Reflections on Its Construction Process (Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha , 1955), it was significantly rewritten after receiving criticism from the architectural historian Ôta Hirotarô.
  • Eyes of the Haniwa Statue
  • What the Maijishan Grottoes Tell Us

CW3

  • Ancient *anese Culture (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1920).
  • The Hidden *an (Tokyo: Shinchôsha , 1951).

CW4

  • Studies on *anese Intellectual History, Vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1926).
  • Studies on *anese Intellectual History, Vol. 2 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1935).

CW5

  • The Practical Philosophy of Early Buddhism (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1927).
  • The Beginnings of Buddhist Philosophy

CW6

  • Professor Koeber (Tokyo: Kôbundô , 1948).
  • Critique of Homer (Tokyo: Kaname Shobô , 1946).
  • Confucius (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1938).
  • Forerunners of the Modern Philosophy of History (Tokyo: Kôbundô , 1950).
On Vico among others.

CW7

  • The Cultural Significance of Early Christianity (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1926).
  • Ethics of Humanity in the Polis (Tokyo: Hakujitsu Shoin , 1948).

CW8

  • Climate: Philosophico-Anthropological Reflections (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1935).
  • Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples of Italy (Tokyo: Kaname Shobô , 1950).

CW9

  • Ethics as the Study of Humanity (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1934).
  • Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1935).
  • Personality and Human Nature (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1938).

CW10

  • Ethics, Vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1937-49).

CW11

  • Ethics, Vol. 2 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1937-49).

CW12

  • A History of *anese Ethical Thought, Vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1952).

CW13

  • A History of *anese Ethical Thought, Vol. 2 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1952).

CW14

  • Royalist Thought and Its Tradition (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1943).
  • The Way of the Imperial Subject in *an (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobô , 1944).
Published together with The National Character of the United States . The book was banned and destroyed by SCAP during the US Occupation.
  • The Symbol of National Unification (Tokyo: Keisô Shobô , 1948).

CW15

  • Sakoku: *an’s Tragedy (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobô , 1950).

CW16

  • Studies on the History of *anese Art: Kabuki and Jōruri (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1955).

CW17

  • The Revival of the Idol (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1918).
  • Mask and Persona (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten , 1937).
  • The National Character of the United States (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobô , 1944).
Published together with The Way of the Imperial Subject in *an .

CW18

  • An Attempt at Autobiography (Tokyo: Chûô Kôronsha , 1961).
Unfinished work, posthumous publication.

CW19

  • A History of Buddhist Ethical Thought

CW20-24

  • Essays

CW25

  • Letters

CW26

  • Lecture Notes

CW27

  • Notes and Miscellanea


English translations

  • 1961: Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study trans. from Fūdo (風土) by Geoffrey Bownas (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press)
  • 1969: *anese Ethical Thought in the Noh Plays of the Muromachi Period trans. from chapter 4 of Nihon Rinri Shisōshi (日本倫理思想史) by David A. Dilworth (Monumenta Nipponica 24:4, 467-498)
  • 1971: The Significance of Ethics As the Study of Man trans. from the introduction to Rinrigaku (倫理学) vol. 1 by David A. Dilworth (Monumenta Nipponica 26:3/4, 395-413)
  • 1996: Watsuji Tetsurō's Rinrigaku: Ethics in *an trans. from the first half of Rinrigaku (倫理学) vol. 1 by Seisaku Yamamoto & Robert Carter (Albany: State University of New York Press)
  • 1998: Various essays in Sourcebook for Modern *anese Philosophy by David Dilworth and Valdo Viglielmo with Agustin Jacinto Zavala.
  • 2009: Mask and Persona trans. from Men to Perusona (面とペルソナ) by Carl M. Johnson
  • 2009: The Psychology of Idol Worship trans. from Gūzō Sūhai no Shinri (偶像崇拝の心理) by Carl M. Johnson
  • 2011: Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsurō's Shamon Dōgen trans. from Shamon Dōgen (沙門道元) by Steve Bein (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press)
  • 2011: Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples in Nara trans. from Koji Junrei (古寺巡礼) by Hiroshi Nara (Portland, ME: MerwinAsia) (2012)
  • 2021: “Professor Koeber” trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. The Journal of East Asian Philosophy 1: 75–99 (2021).
  • 2021: “Middle School” from Attempt at an Autobiography trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. European Journal of *anese Philosophy 6: 267–322 (2021).
  • 2021: “America’s National Character” trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. Philosophy East and West 71 (4):1005-1028 (2021)

See also

  • Kuki Shūzō

Notes

    References

    • Maraldo, John C. (2001). "Watsuji" in A Companion to the Philosophers (Robert L. Arrington, editor). Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN:0-631-22967-1
    • Marra, Michael F. (2002). *anese hermeneutics: Current Debates on Aesthetics and Interpretation. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN:9780824824570; OCLC 237578040
    • Mayeda, Graham. *anese Philosophers on Society and Culture: Nishida Kitarō, Watsuji Tetsurō, and Kuki Shūzō. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020. ISBN:978-1-4985-7208-8
    • ———. (2006). Time, Space and Ethics in the Philosophy of Watsuji Tetsurō, Kuki Shūzō, and Martin Heidegger. New York: Routledge. ISBN:0-415-97673-1 (alk. paper).
    • Hans Peter Liederbach (2001): Martin Heidegger im Denken Watsuji Tetsuros, München: Iudicium, ISBN:3-89129-363-1

    External links

    • Carter, Robert. "Watsuji Tetsurô". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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