The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy

Japanese philosophy is now a flourishing field with thriving societies, journals, and conferences dedicated to it around the world, made possible by an ever-increasing library of translations, books, and articles. The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy is a foundation-laying reference work that covers, in detail and depth, the entire span of this philosophical tradition, from ancient times to the present. It introduces and examines the most important topics, figures, schools, and texts from the history of philosophical thinking in premodern and modern Japan. Each chapter, written by a leading scholar in the field, clearly elucidates and critically engages with its topic in a manner that demonstrates its contemporary philosophical relevance. The Handbook opens with an extensive introductory chapter that addresses the multifaceted question, "What is Japanese Philosophy?" The first fourteen chapters cover the premodern history of Japanese philosophy, with sections dedicated to Shinto and the Synthetic Nature of Japanese Philosophical Thought, Philosophies of Japanese Buddhism, and Philosophies of Japanese Confucianism and Bushido. Next, seventeen chapters are devoted to Modern Japanese Philosophies. After a chapter on the initial encounter with and appropriation of Western philosophy in the late nineteenth-century, this large section is divided into one subsection on the most well-known group of twentieth-century Japanese philosophers, The Kyoto School, and a second subsection on the no less significant array of Other Modern Japanese Philosophies. Rounding out the volume is a section on Pervasive Topics in Japanese Philosophical Thought, which covers areas such as philosophy of language, philosophy of nature, ethics, and aesthetics, spanning a range of schools and time periods. This volume will be an invaluable resource specifically to students and scholars of Japanese philosophy, as well as more generally to those interested in Asian and comparative philosophy and East Asian studies.

Bret W. Davis is Professor & Higgins Chair in Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland. In addition to attaining a Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University, he studied and taught for more than a dozen years at Kyoto University and elsewhere in Japan. He has published widely, in Japanese as well as in English, on Zen Buddhism, the Kyoto School, and various topics in continental and cross-cultural philosophy. His books include Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2022).

- Introduction: What is Japanese Philosophy? (Bret W. Davis) - I. Shinto and the Synthetic Nature of Japanese Philosophical Thought - 1. Prince Shotoku's Constitution and the Synthetic Nature of Japanese Thought (Thomas P. Kasulis) - 2. Philosophical Implications of Shinto (Iwasawa Tomoko) - 3. National Learning: Poetic Emotionalism and Nostalgic Nationalism (Peter Flueckiger) - II. Philosophies of Japanese Buddhism - 4. Saicho's Tendai: In the Middle of Form and Emptiness (Paul L. Swanson and Brook Ziporyn) - 5. Kukai's Shingon: Embodiment of Emptiness (John W. M. Krummel) - 6. Philosophical Dimensions of Shinran's Pure Land Buddhist Path (Dennis Hirota) - 7. Modern Pure Land Thinkers: Kiyozawa Manshi and Soga Ryojin (Mark Unno) - 8. The Philosophy of Zen Master Dogen: Egoless Perspectivism (Bret W. Davis) - 9. Dogen on the Language of Creative Textual Hermeneutics (Steven Heine) - 10. Rinzai Zen Koan Training: Philosophical Intersections (Victor Sogen Hori) - 11. Modern Zen Thinkers: Suzuki Daisetsu (Mori Tetsuro, trans. Bret W. Davis), Hisamatsu Shin'ichi (Minobe Hitoshi trans. Bret W. Davis), and Abe Masao (Steven Heine) - III. Philosophies of Japanese Confucianism and Bushido - 12. Japanese Neo-Confucian Philosophy (John Tucker) - 13. Ancient Learning: The Japanese Revival of Classical Confucianism (John Tucker) - 14. Bushido and Philosophy: Parting the Clouds, Seeking the Way (Chris Goto-Jones) - IV. Modern Japanese Philosophies - 15. The Japanese Encounter with and Appropriation of Western Philosophy (John C. Maraldo) - The Kyoto School - 16. The Kyoto School: Transformations Over Three Generations (Ohashi Ryosuke and Akitomi Katsuya, trans. Bret W. Davis) - 17. The Development of Nishida Kitaro's Philosophy: Pure Experience, Place, Active Intuition (Fujita Masakatsu, trans. Bret W. Davis) - 18. Nishida Kitaro's Philosophy: Self, World, and the Nothingness Underlying Distinctions (John C. Maraldo - 19. The Place of God in the Philosophy of Tanabe Hajime (James W. Heisig) - 20. Miki Kiyoshi: Marxism, Humanism, and the Power of Imagination (Melissa Anne-Marie Curley) - 21. Nishitani Keiji on Practicing Philosophy as a Matter of Life and Death (Graham Parkes) - 22. Ueda Shizuteru: The Self that is not a Self in a Twofold World (Steffen Döll) - Other Modern Japanese Philosophies - 23. Watsuji Tetsuro: The Mutuality of Climate and Culture and an Ethics of Betweenness (Erin McCarthy) - 24. Kuki Shuzo: A Phenomenology of Fate and Chance and an Aesthetics of the Floating World (Graham Mayeda) - 25. Comparative Philosophy in Japan: Nakamura Hajime and Izutsu Toshihiko (John W. M. Krummel) - 26. Japanese Christian Philosophies (Terao Kazuyoshi) - 27. Yuasa Yasuo's Philosophy of Self-Cultivation: A Theory of Embodiment (Shigenori Nagatomo) - 28. Postwar Japanese Political Philosophy: Marxism, Liberalism, and the Quest for Autonomy (Rikki Kersten) - 29. Raicho: Zen and the Female Body in the Development of Japanese Feminist Philosophy (Michiko Yusa and Leah Kalmanson) - 30. Japanese Phenomenology (Tani Toru) - 31. The Komaba Quartet: A Landscape of Japanese Philosophy in the 1970s (Kobayashi Yasuo) - - V. Pervasive Topics in Japanese Philosophical Thought - 32. Philosophical Implications of the Japanese Language (Rolf Elberfeld, trans. Bret W. Davis) - 33. Natural Freedom: Human/Nature Nondualism in Zen and Japanese Thought (Bret W. Davis) - 34. Japanese Ethics (Robert E. Carter) - 35. Japanese (and Ainu) Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art (Mara Miller and Yamasaki Koji) - 36. The Controversial Cultural Identity of Japanese Philosophy (Yoko Arisaka)