Saneatsu Mushanok ji

Authors Background
Saneatsu Mushanok ji ( ( ) Mushanok ji Saneatsu?, 12 May 1885 9 April 1976) was the pen name of a Japanese novelist, playwright, poet, artist and philosopher active during the late Taish and Sh wa periods of Japan. He was also sometimes known as Mushak ji Saneatsu, other pennames included Mushaand Futo-o. Born in Tokyo as the 8th son of Viscount Mushanok ji Sanezane, Saneatsu s father died when he was age 2, and he was raised largely by his mother. Saneatsu was very frail and sickly as a youth, and unable to compete in physical activities in the Peers School. To compensate, he developed his debating skills, and began to develop an interest in literature. While at the Peers School, he became friends with Shiga Naoya. His uncle introduced him to the Bible and the works of Tolstoy. He enrolled in the philosophy department of Tokyo Imperial University, but left without graduating in 1907 to form a literary group with Kinoshita Rigen, Shiga Naoya,Arishima Takeo and Ogimachi Kinzaku called J kokakai (The Fortnight Club). This group evolved into the Shirakaba (White Birch) literary coterie, which first published the Shirakaba literary magazine in 1910. Mushanok ji died at the age of 90, and his grave is at the Chuo Reien, in Hachi ji city, in the outskirts of Tokyo.

Literary Piece
Mushanok ji was a key member of Shirakaba, and published his work Omedetaki Hito (Good Natured Person) in its magazine in 1910. This was followed by Seken shirazu (Babe in the Woods, 1912). Through the

medium of Shirakaba, Mushanok ji promoted his philosophy of humanism as an alternative to thenpopular form ofnaturalism. Mushanok ji's humanism borrowed some elements from naturalism, but in general saw humanity as controlling its own destiny through the assertion of will, whereas the naturalists tended to see the individual as powerless and desperate against forces he could not control. With the outbreak of World War I, Mushanok ji turned again to Tolstoy for inspiration and for further development of his humanitarianism philosophy. During this time, he published Sono im to (His Sister, 1915), a play involving a choice between self-love and love for mankind; K fukumono (A Happy Man, 1919) a novel presenting his image of the ideal human; and Y j (Friendship, 1920), a novel portraying the victory of the humanism over ego. His idealism appears in his autobiographical novel Aru otoko (A Certain Man, 1923) and the play Ningen banzai (Three Cheers for Mankind, 1922). In 1918, Mushanok ji took the next step in the development of his philosophy by moving to the mountains of Miyazaki prefecture in Ky sh , and establishing a quasi-socialistic utopian commune, Atarashikimura(New Village) along vaguely Tolstoyan lines. The commune also published its own literary magazine, Atarashiki-mura. In the 1920s, while running the commune, Mushanok ji was very prolific in his literary output. Mushanok ji tired of the social experiment and left the village in 1926; a dam project forced it to relocate to Saitama Prefecture in 1939, where it still exists. After the Great Kanto Earthquake, Mushanok ji returned to Tokyo to run an art gallery, and started to sell his own paintings, mostly still life depicting vegetables such as pumpkins. Publication of Shirakaba was suspended in 1923 after the Kanto Earthquake, but Mushanok ji went on to bring out the literary magazine, Fuji, with the novelist and playwright, Nagayo Yoshir . During this period, he turned his attention to writing historical novels or biographical novels, such as Ninomiya Sontoku, about the 19th century farm technologist and agricultural philosopher, and Inoue Saikaku, about the 17th century poet. Through the 1930s and 1940s, he faded away from the literary world. Encouraged by his older brother, who was the Japanese ambassador to Nazi Germany, he traveled throughout Europe in 1936. After World War II, due to his membership in the House of Peers in the pre-war government and due to his noticeable lack of opposition to the war, he was briefly purged from public office by the American Occupation authorities. Mushanok ji made a comeback to the literary world with a novel Shinri sensei (Teacher of Truth, 1949 1950). He was awarded with the Order of Culture in 1951, and became a member of the Japan Art Academy in 1952.

Reflection/Reaction:

Kumazawa Banzan

Authors Background
Kumazawa Banzan (
?

, 1619 - September 9, 1691) was an adherent of a branch of Neo-

Confucianism called Wang Yangming Studies {Japanese: Y meigaku: }, who lived during the ? ? early Edo period. His childhood name (y mei) was Sashichir ( ), His imina was Hakukei ( ), ? or ), and he was commonly also read Shigetsugu; his common name (azana) was Ry kai (either ? ? ) or Suke'emon ( ). His most common known by the personal names (ts sh ) as Jir hachi ( ? ). His surname "Kumazawa" ( )was changed to that of courtesy name (g ) was Sokuy ken ( "Shigeyama" ( ) in 1660 and the latter, read in Sino-Japanese as "Banzan", became his posthumous courtesy title, by which even now he is commonly known. Banzan's remains were buried by Tadayuki with much ceremony at Keienji ( tsutsumi ( Sokuy ken" (
? ? ?

), in

), Koga, Ibaraki. The initial inscription on the tombstone was "grave of ), using his posthumous name, but this was later changed to "grave of Kumazawa
?

Sokuy ken Hatsukei" (

).

In the Bakumatsu period, Banzan's philosophy came back into the spotlight, greatly influencing the structure of government. It was favoured by, among others, Fujita T ko ( Sh in (
? ?

) and Yoshida

), becoming a motivating force in the toppling of the shogunate government. Katsu

Kaishu praised Banzan as "a hero in Confucian robes". Outside the realm of politics, Banzan would in time become something of a cultural hero because, while attending to actions and words which demonstrated an enduring concern for commoners and the poor. He was praised for resistance to the imposition of corrupt politics and bureaucratic burdens on ordinary people.

In 1910, the Edo government honoured Banzan with the title of Upper Fourth Rank ( of his contribution to the development of learning in the Edo period.

), in recognition

Literary Piece
In 1650, he was promoted to be the head of a group of artillery men ( regulations for a Hanazonokai? (
? ?

). In 1651, he drafted the

), literally "flower garden club", a place for the education of

common people. This was the initial incarnation of the first school in Japan for educating commoners, Shizutani Gakk (
?

) which opened in 1670, after Banzan's had left the service of his
?

domain. In 1654, when the Bizen plains were assailed by floods and large-scale famine, he put all his energies into assisting Mitsumasa with relief efforts. Together with Tsuda Nagatada ( ), he worked

as an aide to Mitsumasa, helping to establish the start of a domain government in Okayama Domain. He worked to produce fully developed strategies on agriculture, including ways of providing relief to smallscale farmers and land engineering projects to manage mountains and rivers. However, his daring reforms of domain government brought him into opposition with the traditionalist elders (
?

kar ). In addition,

while Banzan was a follower of Y meigaku, the official philosophy of the Edo shogunate was a different form of Neo-Confucianism, Shushigaku ( Masayuki ( scholars.[2] For this reason, Banzan was left with no choice but to leave the service of Okayama Castle and live in hiding in Shigeyama-mura (
? ?

). Banzan was criticised by figures such as Hoshina

?

) andHayashi Razan (

). In fact, Banzan was the first in a seres of notable neo-

Confucionist who would find themselves confronting the evolving critical powers of the Hayashi clan of

), Wake District (now Shigeyama, Bizen, Okayama). The name "Banzan"

?

derives from the word "Shigeyama". The location where his home was is Banzan-ch ( shi.

), Okayama-

Reflection/Reaction:

Tetsuro Watsuji

Authors Background
Tetsuro Watsuji ( Watsuji Tetsur ) (March 1, 1889December 26, 1960) was a Japanese moral philosopher, cultural historian, and intellectual historian. Watsuji was born in Himeji, Hy go Prefecture to a physician. During his youth he enjoyed poetry and had a passion 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 Sren Kierkegaard to Japan, 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 Japanese thought and life. This led to a study of the roots of Japanese culture, including Japanese Buddhist art, and notably the work of the medival Zen Buddhist Dogen. Watsuji was also interested in the famous Japanese writer Natsume S seki, whose books were influential during Watsuji's early years.

Literary Piece
In the early 1920s Watsuji taught at Toyo, Hosei and Keio universities, and at Tsuda Eigaku-juku. The issues of hermeneutics attracted his attention. In 1925 Watsuji became professor of ethics at Kyoto University, joining the other leading philosophers of the time, Nishida Kitaro and Tanabe Hajime. He held the university's chair in ethics from 1934 until 1949.
[1]

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

Watsuji's three main works were his two-volume 1954 History of Japanese Ethical Thought, his threevolume Rinrigaku (Ethics), first published in 1937, 1942, and 1949, and his 1935 Fudo. 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. 1961 1963: Watsuji Tetsur Zensh (Complete Works of Tetsuro Watsuji) 20 volumes (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten)

Reflection/Reaction:

School of Our lady of La Salette

Mountain View Subdivision , Muzon city of San Jose del Monte , Bulacan

Project In English
Submitted by: Ma. Angela S. Carreon II - St. Therese

Submitted to: Ms. Nerrisa M. Saldo