Tetsurō Watsuji


Tetsurō Watsuji was a Japanese historian and moral philosopher.

Early life

Watsuji was born in Himeji, Hyōgo 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 he introduced the work of Søren 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 medieval Zen Buddhist Dōgen. Watsuji was also interested in the famous Japanese 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.
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 Kitarō, Tanabe Hajime and Nishitani Keiji. These three philosophers were members of the Kyoto School. While Watsuji joined their department, he is not typically considered a member of the School owing to the intellectual independence in his work. In July, he was promoted to associate 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 newly published Being and Time. 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, Watsuji travelled to Rome, Naples, Sicily, Florence, Bologna, Ravenna, Padua, and Venice. He then cut his trip short and returned to Japan in early July. His stay in Europe only lasted for roughly a year.
In March 1931, Watsuji 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 provided support for Japanese 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 Japanese 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.
In the iconoclastic and xenophilic cultural atmosphere after the Surrender of Japan, Watsuji depicted Hirata Atsutane extremely negatively, calling him a "fanatic" and a "deviant".
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. .
CW1
  • Studies on Nietzsche , reprinted in
  • Søren Kierkegaard , reprinted in
CW2
  • Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples , reprinted in
  • Katsura Imperial Villa: Investigating the Background Behind Its Style , reprinted in
  • ‘Eyes of the Haniwa Statue’ , reprinted in
  • ‘What the Maijishan Grottoes Tell Us’ , reprinted in
CW3
  • Ancient Japanese Culture , reprinted in
  • The Hidden Japan , reprinted in
CW4
  • Studies on Japanese Intellectual History, Vol. 1 , reprinted in
  • Studies on Japanese Intellectual History, Vol. 2 , reprinted in
CW5
  • The Practical Philosophy of Early Buddhism , reprinted in
  • The Beginnings of Buddhist Philosophy , reprinted in
  • ‘Reply to Kimura Taiken’s Criticisms’ , reprinted in
CW6
  • Professor Koeber , reprinted in
  • Critique of Homer , reprinted in
  • Confucius , reprinted in
  • Forerunners of the Modern Philosophy of History: Vico and Herder , reprinted in
CW7
  • The Cultural Significance of Early Christianity , reprinted in
  • Ethics of Humanity in the Polis , reprinted in
CW8
  • Climate: Philosophico-Anthropological Reflections , reprinted in
  • Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples of Italy , reprinted in
CW9
CW10
  • Ethics, Vol. 1 , reprinted in
CW11
  • Ethics, Vol. 2 , reprinted in
CW12
  • A History of Japanese Ethical Thought, Vol. 1 , reprinted in
CW13
  • A History of Japanese Ethical Thought, Vol. 2 , reprinted in
CW14
  • Royalist Thought and Its Tradition , reprinted in
  • The Way of the Imperial Subject in Japan , reprinted in
  • The Symbol of National Unification , reprinted in
CW15
  • Sakoku: Japan’s Tragedy , reprinted in
CW16
  • Studies on the History of Japanese Art: Kabuki and Jōruri , reprinted in
CW17
CW18
  • An Attempt at Autobiography , reprinted in
CW19
  • A History of Buddhist Ethical Thought
CW20-24
  • Essays
CW25
  • Letters
CW26
CW27
  • Notes and Miscellanea

    English translations

  • 1961: Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study trans. from by Geoffrey Bownas
  • 1969: Japanese Ethical Thought in the Noh Plays of the Muromachi Period trans. from chapter 4 of by David A. Dilworth
  • 1971: The Significance of Ethics As the Study of Man trans. from the introduction to vol. 1 by David A. Dilworth
  • 1996: Watsuji Tetsurō's Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan trans. from the first half of vol. 1 by Seisaku Yamamoto & Robert Carter
  • 1998: Various essays in Sourcebook for Modern Japanese Philosophy by David Dilworth and Valdo Viglielmo with Agustin Jacinto Zavala.
  • 2009: Mask and Persona trans. from by Carl M. Johnson
  • 2009: The Psychology of Idol Worship trans. from by Carl M. Johnson
  • 2011: Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsurō's Shamon Dōgen trans. from by Steve Bein
  • 2011: Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples in Nara trans. from by Hiroshi Nara
  • 2021: “Professor Koeber” trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. Journal of East Asian Philosophy 1: 75–99.
  • 2021: “Middle School” from Attempt at an Autobiography trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. European Journal of Japanese Philosophy 6: 267–322.
  • 2021: “America’s National Character” trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth and Sayaka Shuttleworth. Philosophy East and West 71 :1005-1028.
  • 2023: "A Consideration of National Character" trans. K.M.J. Shuttleworth. Journal East Asian Philosophy 2. 199-215.
  • 2024: "Watsuji Tetsurō’s Memory of Natsume Sōseki: A Translation of 'Until I met Sōseki' and 'Sōseki’s Character'" trans K.M.J. Shuttleworth. Journal of East Asian Philosophy.