Watsuji Tetsurō

Watsuji Tetsurô's Ethics is one of the most important works in Japanese ethical thought. But scholarly research in English has largely focused on the first of three volumes of Ethics, leaving the latter two oft-neglected. In order to balance out the views of Watsuji's ethics, this paper focuses on the contributions of the second and third volumes of Ethics. These volumes are essential for any concrete understanding of Watsuji's "ethics of emptiness." The second volume develops the ideas of the first, particularly how the dual-structure (individuality and communality) is concretely realized through the various stages of ethical organization (family, local community, economy, nation, and state). The third volume develops the notions of space and time from the first volume into a theory of climate (fûdo) and history. By analyzing these, we can understand Watsuji's system as a whole and clarify Watsuji's unique contribution ethical theory.

In the second volume of Rinrigaku, Watsuji Tetsurō focuses on developing his notion of betweenness (aidagara 間柄) through the ethical organisations (jinrinteki soshiki 人倫的組織) of family, local community, economics, cultural community, and the state. Although those who have commentated on the later volumes have focused on the controversy which surrounds Watsuji’s account of the state, very little attention has been paid to the role of virtues within his thought. It is precisely this academic lacuna which this enquiry is intended to address. In this paper, there are two particular aims which I hope to achieve: firstly, I will seek to explicate the role which virtues play within Watsuji’s ethical system, and secondly, I will attempt to evaluate how the virtues inform Watsuji’s normative approach.

Design’s attempts to address social, ethical and environmental concerns of our time have often been marred by theory generated by well-meaning scholars who have imposed hard-line definitions and models of what it means to be an ‘ethical designer’. These arguments abstract values and impose ideological and political positions that designers can find difficult to apply in their daily practices. It is not as simple as prescribing the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ values for designers to have and translate them through design. Whatever values there are, those values need to matter to people who care about them enough to translate them into action . Values are not impersonal. They cannot be detached and be subsumed under a more universal value or comparable importance. The paper opens with a critique of this prescriptive approach to highlight the reasons for why ethical design remains stuck in a rut. I then move to discuss more deeply, the close relationship between being ethical and being a human-centred practitioner in design. In doing so, I critique common notions of human-centred design that gives it an ergonomic, human-factors emphasis, or its ‘do-gooder’ side that is associated with humanitarian design. Instead, I offer an alternative framework for human-centred design based on the Japanese ethical concept woven into what it means to be human.

The Japanese term for ‘human being’ is ningen (人間), composed of two characters for ‘person’ (人), and ‘between’ (間). The Japanese understanding of human as in-betweenness, etymologised by ‘between person’, situates it as a relational being. This is the central framework for my notions of ‘self’ and being ‘human’ . This concept of human is strikingly different from major Western philosophies that emphasises ‘anthropos’ or ‘homo’, denoting the individual. Being human-centred is criticised for perpetuating an anthropocentric position , further contributing to humanity’s self-centredness and environmentally destructive behaviour. The profound ethical difference of conceiving humans as detached and in isolation, compared to the Japanese concept of human as relational in-betweennes, is argued by one of the most significant Japanese philosophers of the twentieth century, Tetsuro Watsuji . He was influenced by hermeneutics, phenomenology, Zen Buddhism and the Japanese indigenous spirituality of Shinto. In his book Rinrigaku, ethics in Japan, Watsuji is critical of Western philosophy (Heidegger and many others ) that emphasises the individual concept of self and the locus of the ethical problem pertaining to the consciousness of the individual. The paper dives deeply into Watsuji’s ethical framework in explaining the ningen ‘between person’ that is significant to my definition of being human-centred. I attempt to combine the Eastern philosophy with the West by bringing in a selection of other philosophers such as Goethe, Bortoft and Merleau-Ponty that have resonance with the argument constructed. There is nothing to be gained from East-West dualism or exoticism, as it locks down discourse. Although these Eastern and Western philosophies that I draw upon have not, until now, directly engaged with each other in the discourse of design , they have many valuable overlaps that I would like to share in this paper.

The relational association located in the betweenness, Watsuji argues, to be human is to shift and change continually – it is undergoing a process of constant transformation. The transformation of a designer to being a human-centred practitioner is achieved in relation to others. This connection between self and others (including people, animals, objects and environment) is essential in positioning and embedding oneself in the world. The transformative process is more than cognitive learning or professional development – it is in fact a process of self-awareness that comes from continually reflecting on our activity, our behaviour and how we are with others. This is reflective practice. Though in contrast to reflection and reflective practice that is grounded in critical theory , I explore this by incorporating aspects of wholeness from Goethe’s phenomenology and embodied perception by Merleau-Ponty . I argue the importance of being a reflective practitioner as the first step in being able to fully understand ourselves, our relationship and our connection to others. This pursuit of self-awareness, through reflective practice, is the central argument of this paper of being a human-centred practitioner. Through weaving together these various frameworks, I discuss the cyclical journey of transformation of the self where reflection is experienced in an immersive, affective, embodied way.

True, long-term sustainable change towards building and creating an ethical practice cannot come from being told what to design or choosing the ‘right’ values to adopt. Neither does it come from simply undertaking community-based projects, taking up a social cause or deploying participatory methods. To manifest and practise human-centredness is not a switch one can flick ‘on’ when you are in the design studio at 9am and ‘off’ when you’re leaving work. Instead, I stress the importance of human-centredness manifesting through all facets of our lives that involves engaging in the in-betweenness with others. It requires active creation and the practising of practice that is truly human-centred and aware – aware of oneself, of others and the world we live in. It is a day-to-day application and manifestation, but it is not merely a mechanical repetition. The significance of this being a practice is that it is a transformation and evolution of ourselves in bringing an awareness and embedded-ness to what we do everyday. It is a path (Tao) we each carve our ‘way of being’ in the world.

Note: this is an accepted journal paper expected to be published in Dec 2020. For the quotation please follow the format of Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies: Tam, Andrew Ka Pok, 'On the Relation between Watsuji’s Ningen Rinrigaku and Mencius’ Five Relationships', Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies 17, no. 2, (Dec, 2020)

Watsuji Tetsurō’s idea of aidagara (間柄, often translated as ‘betweenness’) is an essential concept in his ningen rinrigaku with a robust Confucian heritage as he begins his reflection on aidagara from Mencius’ concept of gorin or five relationships; it seems that Watsuji tries to reinterpret gorin. However, unlike Yangmingism and the twentieth-century Chinese New Confucianism, Watsuji does not emphasise individual subjectivity; instead, in both Rinrigaku and Fūdo, Watsuji reduces individual self into aidagara and aidagara into the Buddhist notion of Kū.
Based upon Mou Zongsan’s moral metaphysics, this paper argues that Watsuji’s ningen rinrigaku fails to provide a consistent interpretation of Mencius’ teaching of gorin. According to Mou, an individual’s subjectivity whose mind nature is granted by Heaven precedes and produces mutual relationships among human beings; but the idea of Heaven is omitted in Watsuji’s anti-Neo-Confucian understanding of Mencius. Instead, Watsuji that the individual’s moral consciousness arises from aidagara, which is the negations of self and others, while the notion of self-negation contradicts with Mencius 7A. However, instead of accusing Watsuji of misunderstanding Mencius, this paper suggests one may understand Watsuji’s ningen rinrigaku as non-Confucian ethics instead of a consistent interpretation of Mencius.

「間柄」是和辻哲郎的人間倫理學中深受儒學影響的重要概念。他對間柄的 反思始於孟子的五倫概念;故此，和辻似乎嘗試重新詮釋五倫。然而，與陽明學 及二十世紀中國新儒家相反，和辻並不強調個人主體性;反之，在《人間倫理學》 及《風土》裡，和辻把個人主體還原成間柄，又將間柄歸於佛教「空」的概念。
根據牟宗三的道德形而上學，本文認為和辻的人間倫理學無法為孟子之五倫 提供一致的詮釋。根據牟宗三，個人主體所具有天賦之心性乃先於並生出人倫關 係。然而，「天」的概念卻不見於和辻對《孟子》的反理學詮釋。和辻認為個人 道德意識緣起於作為對自我與他者否定之間柄，可是自我否定之主張卻與《孟子. 盡心上》的說法相違。然而，本文指出，除了批評和辻曲解《孟子》以外，讀者 或可理解和辻的人間倫理學為一非儒學的新倫理學，而非對孟子的一致詮釋。

In S. Muramatsu, Q. Zhao, R. Kondo (eds.) "Feeling the Wind: When We Encounter a Different Discipline", Tokyo: The University of Tokyo, Integrated Human Science Program for Cultural Diversity, 24 March 2015, p.9-22

This paper addresses the significance of Feng Shui within the context of environmental ethics by appealing to the Japanese philosopher, Watsuji Tetsurō. In his critique of Heidegger’s analysis of tools, Watsuji argues that sensation of the environment is at the core of human existence. The Feng Shui can be described as the practice which actively utilizes this existential structure, reconfiguring the environment towards the realization of the good life. Its perspective may thereby contribute to the establishment of a new environmental ethics which seeks to better integrate the environment by envisaging it as a key component of our existence.

A preview of the Palgrave edition of my book, as well as the full dissertation on which the book was based.

This book is a rethinking of ethics and socio-political life through the ideas of Watsuji Tetsurô. Can we build a systematic philosophy of morality, society, and politics, not on the basis of identity and ego, but rather on the basis of selflessness? This book explores such an attempt by the leading ethicist of modern Japan. Using concrete examples and contemporary comparisons, and with careful reference to both English and Japanese sources, it guides the reader through Watsuji’s ideas. It engages three contemporary issues in depth: First, how do we approach the moral agent, as an autonomous being or as a fundamentally relational being? Second, is it the individual or the community that is the starting point for politics? And finally, is ethics something that is globally shared or something fundamentally local? This book aims to be an informative and inspiring resource for researchers, students, and laypersons interested in Buddhist thought.

In this paper, I wish to consider Watsuji Tetsuro’s (1889–1960) concept of climate (fudo), and consider whether it contributes anything to the relationship between climate change and ethics. I will argue that superficially it seems that fudo tells us little about the ethics of climate change, but if considered more carefully, and through the lens of thinkers such as Deleuze and Heidegger, there is ethical insight in Watsuji’s approach. Watsuji’s major work in ethics, Rinrigaku, provides concepts such as between-ness and trust that enable his philosophy of climate to move from a theory of national characters (as Fudo is often seen to be) to an approach to living well within one’s milieu.

I use critical phenomenological resources in Tetsurō Watsuji and Sarah Ahmed to explore the spatial origin of some social impairments in Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I argue that a critical phenomenological perspective puts pressure on the idea that social impairments in ASD are exclusively (or even primarily) neurocognitive deficits that can be addressed by focusing on cognitive factors internal to the autistic person — for example, training them to adopt a more neurotypical approach to social cognition. Instead, I argue that the structure and character of some neurotypical spaces may play a regulative role in shaping aspects of at least some of the social impairments autistic people exhibit when they inhabit these spaces. I also briefly consider some possible therapeutic applications of this critical phenomenological approach.

This article addresses the place, or basho in Japanese, of transcontinental philosophy within the context of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) and the philosophical profession in general. It also considers the role that silence plays in philosophical discourse. The essay consists of a series of reflections, or, rather, a constellation of places, that attempts to situate briefly my own philosophical orientation with respect to SPEP, the place that the SPEP way of philosophizing occupies in the broader context of contemporary Western society and its relation to the non-Western world, and SPEP's identity as a unique philosophical community. In taking up these topical places, in addition to the concepts of absolute nothingness, human existence, language, nihilism, and awakening, the Japanese philosophers Nishida, Nishitani, and Watsuji are considered alongside Hegel,

Author(s): Lazopoulos, George | Advisor(s): Barshay, Andrew E | Abstract: This dissertation is a critical history of Buddhist thought in Japan from 1868 to 1931. During this time, many intellectuals became fascinated with the Buddhism of Japan's medieval period. Some saw it as a form of religious experience that could overcome the modern problem of alienated existence. Others declared that the cultural history of medieval Japanese Buddhism held the essence of Japanese cultural authenticity. These philosophical and historical interpretations of Buddhism together constituted a modern cultural discourse that I call Japanese Medievalism: a romantic vision of medieval Japan as a world of Buddhist spirituality. This dissertation traces the evolution of Japanese Medievalism, reconstructs its main arguments, and examines its ideological significance as a cultural artifact of modern Japan. Japanese Medievalism had an ambiguous ideological function. On the one hand, it was a religious rev...

Surveys and contextualizes recent New Zealand artists' cinema by genre including, Landscape, Psychodrama, Identity Politics, Visual Music, Installed & Expanded Cinemas, and Animation. Touches on aspects of Asian and Western philosophy that resonate with cinema, art, perception and consciousness. From Diary of a Viewer, Part Three
Includes updates and revisions covering some work produced after the initial publication of this article in Illusions Magazine.

See also: Before Artists' Cinema

Despite increasing interest in the work of Tetsuro Watsuji, his discussion of intentionality remains underexplored. I here develop an interpretation and application of his view. First, I unpack Watsuji's arguments for the inherently social character of intentionality, consider how they connect with his more general discussion of embodiment and betweenness, and then situate his view alongside phenomenologists like Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Next, I argue that Watsuji's characterization of the social character of intentionality is relevant to current discussions in phenomenological psychopathology. I consider how it can help illuminate the character and structure of some anomalous experiences in schizophrenia. I argue further that this application can enrich existing attempts to connect Watsuji and psychopathology, such as those found in the work of the psychiatrist Bin Kimura.

While the existence of nature distinct from human influence be comes evermore suspect, within the natural sciences, human beings are increasingly understood in naturalistic terms. The collision of the human and natural, both within conceptual discourse and the reality of climate change may be considered a "great event" in the Hegelian sense, that re veals a dialectic immanent within the nature/culture distinction. Nishida's notion of "historical nature," Watsuji's unique conception of climate, and the traditional satoyama landscapes of Japan offer timely ways of under standing the sublation of the distinction between nature and culture that render the nature/spirit hierarchy found in Hegel obsolete.

Recognizing the importance of the Kyoto School and its influence on philosophy, politics, religion, and Asian studies, Japanese and Continental Philosophy initiates a conversation between Japanese and Western philosophers. The essays in this cross-cultural volume put Kyoto School thinkers in conversation with German Idealism, Nietzsche, phenomenology, and other figures and schools of the continental tradition such as Levinas and Irigaray. Set in the context of global philosophy, this volume offers critical, innovative, and productive dialogue between some of the most influential philosophical figures from East and West.

Despite increased interest in comparative philosophy within the past few decadesincluding particular interest in the Kyoto School of Japanese philosophy-Watsuji Tetsurō 和辻哲郎 has not received the attention he deserves. This is a shame. Watsuji was an uncommonly broad-ranging and original thinker whose work offers important insights into topics like culture, ethics, religion, embodiment, and self.

Après des années d'apprentissage en Europe, les philosophes japonais se mirent à la recherche de leurs propres sources philosophiques, en dehors du champ de la tradition grecque. Un exemple précoce, sous l'ère Meiji, en fut le journal Tôyô Tetsugaku (« Philosophie orientale »), qui s'intéressa à l'histoire et aux traditions asiatiques. Toutefois, l'un des premiers à attirer l'attention sur le Japon lui-même fut Watsuji Tetsurô. Ses articles consacrés au bouddhiste zen Dogen Kigen semblent attester de l'existence d'une philosophie pré-moderne au Japon. Cet exposé examinera tout d'abord les circonstances historiques et idéologiques de la découverte de Watsuji. La deuxième partie traitera des postulats philosophiques qui permettent de compter Dogen au rang des philosophes. L'auteur proposera enfin un bilan de la contribution de Watsuji à la quête d'une philosophie authentiquement japonaise.

Fudo, letteralmente "vento e terra", è un concetto chiave della filosofia di Watsuji Tetsuro. Qui le intuizioni e la proposta della fenomenologia dello spazio di Watsuji vengono messe in dialogo con un possibile corrispondente europeo, l'idea di genius loci.

This paper aims to set out a critically oriented theory of cosmopolitanism that moves beyond contemporary versions of critical cosmopolitanism and decolonial theory, for the purpose of proposing and realizing more democratic way of being and acting in the world. It does so primarily through a synthetical critique of Walter Mignolo and Gerard Delanty and Japanese philosopher and historian, Watsuji Tetsurō. The first part of this paper takes-up the opportunity to draw on global perspectives to present a problem-orientated conceptually non-Western centric account of critical cosmopolitanism capable of cutting across disciplinary and epistemic boundaries. The outcome of the synthesis, the conceptual persona, is the focus on the practical act-connections of everyday life (Watsuji), and which carries with it a critical perspective provided by Delanty and Mignolo, and follows through on the concentric duality inherent in the decolonial project to offer a global resource of critical theory. The effect of such a move allows for the safeguarding of individuality, for internal diversity to be enunciated, but for the claim of axiomatic ideals to be undermined through a spatial critique of the co-cognitive practical act-connections of globalism: cross-cultural cosmopolitan. This has significant implications in the development of a decolonised critical social theory and activism beyond the geographical and epistemic borders of the global south. The second part of the paper argues that such an account of personhood as an embodied epistemic and political site provides an opportunity for the positive subversion of the one-directionality of political power through the mechanism of the principle of nullification by jury. As a ceaseless institutional observation of the political the practical act of politics of the jury could provide a significant means of realising, legitimating and preserving the practical act-connections of democratic life. 1 1

The aim of this article is to critically compare the phenomenologies of landscape of two 20th-century philosophers deeply engaged with Heidegger’s thinking: Carlos Astrada and Tetsurō Watsuji. In the first section, I show how they understood the relationship between the human being and landscape. With specific peculiarities, they both considered that the analysis of “temporality” must be complemented with a treatment of “spatiality.” In the second section, I show that their analysis of spatiality was connected, on the one hand, to a re-evaluation of corporality, and, on the other hand, to a quest to emphasize the social-communitarian dimension of human existence. In the third section, I present their different interpretations of Heidegger’s notion of “Being-towards-death,” and establish the links between it and their phenomenologies of landscape. In the final section, I propose Astrada and Watsuji’s thoughts as the basis for an alternative modernity to that of the West.

In Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of World-History, nations are divided into three geographical categories where the cultural self-consciousness is manifested: highlands, valleys, and coasts. Hegel argues that nations only manifest their freedoms in the limitlessness and boundlessness of the sea. In Jijinron, Uchimura Kanzo further argues that the people of mountains, plains and sea have very different cultural characteristics. Hegel’s observation is acknowledged by Watsuji Tetsuro, who argues that cultures manifest their self-consciousness in Fudo ( , climate and land), although Watsuji disagrees with Hegel’s arbitrary judgement that Asian only regarded the sea as the limit of their continental territory. Furthermore, in The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World, Lincoln Paine demonstrates that Asian maritime adventures have significantly influenced world history. Paine also remarks that “Maritime History” is not only about the sea but also rivers and canals linking the inland to the ocean.


Based upon the philosophical and historical studies mentioned above, this paper argues that Hong Kong manifests a special “Peninsula Self-Consciousness” in its Maritime and Continental Fudo: Hong Kong is linked by Pearl river to both the mainland and the sea, making Hong Kong a place linking China the Continental nation and other Maritime nations like Britain and the United States. The Chinese term for the peninsula is bandao, which literally means “half-island”—it is neither an island nor an inland, but an in-betweener.

Watsuji Tetsurō’s idea of aidagara (間柄, often translated as ‘betweenness’) is an essential concept in his ningen rinrigaku with a robust Confucian heritage. As he begins his reflection on aidagara from Mencius’ concept of gorin or ‘five relationships’ it seems that Watsuji tries to reinterpret gorin. However, unlike Yangmingism and the twentieth-century Chinese New Confucianism, Watsuji does not emphasise individual subjectivity. Instead, in both Rinrigaku and Fūdo, Watsuji reduces individual self into aidagara and aidagara into the Buddhist notion of Kū.
In light of Mou Zongsan’s moral metaphysics, this paper argues that Watsuji’s ningen rinrigaku fails to provide a consistent interpretation of Mencius’ teaching of gorin. According to Mou, an individual’s subjectivity whose mind nature is granted by Heaven preceds and producs mutual relationships among human beings. However, such idea of Heaven is omitted in Watsuji’s anti-Neo-Confucian understanding of Mencius. Instead, Watsuji argues that the individual’s moral consciousness arises from aidagara, which is the negations of self and others. In fact, his notion of self-negation contradicts with Mencius 7A. However, instead of accusing Watsuji of misunderstanding Mencius, this paper suggests one may understand Watsuji’s ningen rinrigaku as non-Confucian ethics instead of a consistent interpretation of Mencius.

I am delighted to share that I will be giving a virtual lecture from the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law 23 Nov 2021, 10:00 CET. The lecture 'A Decolonial Philosophy of Law: Decolonial Cosmopolitanism, Love, and Reconceptualising the Law,' draws on advances in decolonised decolonial theory and legal theory to explore the need for and potential of a decolonial philosophy of law for the #legal imaginary and #decolonial theory. Contributing to the growing debates around the #globalisation of law and #jurisprudence, the lecture will outline a relational, inclusive and innovative account of the social dynamics Watsuji Tetsurō and a jurisprudential account of Love. This offers the ground for the legal imaginary to promote an inclusive, contextualised, and participatory transformation of social relations. This is capable of addressing citizen concerns and of decolonising the future. Details of the event and registration can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eJqmJNwr. #future #transformation #democracy #love

In the introduction to this paper we first point to Schopenhauer’s ethics and philosophy of religion and to his peculiar understanding of the notion of freedom as a grace. From this constellation we then start with three Meadian analyzes. We first introduce the topics of space and touch into the discussion of Mead’s philosophy of intersubjectivity and the related problem of an ethical temporality. We try to demonstrate the importance of the so called ‘interval’ in ethics, both in temporal as well as in spatial sense. For this purpose we offer three Meadian meditations by reading Ludwig Feuerbach’s, Jean-Louis Chrétien’s and Watsuji Tetsurō’s texts (both in philosophical and religious sense) and by relating them to Mead’s original inception of the philosophy of intersubjectivity. Finally, by reading B. Libet’s Mind Time in an ethical key, we argue for a ‘theological’ extension of Mead’s philosophy also by indicating the nature of the ethical ‘interval’ and the related phenomenon of ethical temporality as a grace

After the publication of Zeami’s critical writings in the late Meiji period, scholars of Noh adopted terms from previous debates about “authors” and “artists” to populate a nationally defined canon of literature. Concepts that often appeared in these debates, like “genius” (天才) and “natural tal- ent” (天稟), still appear in appraisals of Zeami and seem to fit cleanly with Zeami’s own reflections on artistic success. Among them is Nose Asaji 能勢 朝次 (1894–1955), compiler of the first annotated edition of Zeami’s secret texts. Meiji concepts of genius and natural talent at first excluded Zeami from the canon, but that changed with the publication of his previously secret writings. Subsequently, Nose identified natural talent and genius in his discussion of skin, flesh, and bone in his text “Attaining the Pursuit of the Flower” (Shikadō「至花道」). The present essay proposes an alterna- tive interpretation of “bone” not as talent but as a native capacity found in all sentient beings, analogous to the idea of Buddha nature. In conclusion, the impact of Nose’s reading on the reception of Japanese cultural tradi- tions is taken up. Keywords: Zeami—genius—Shikadō—foundation or substrate— skin, flesh, and bone—Nose Asaji—Meiji period—Noh Literature Research Society—myōsō

Watsuji's ethics is founded on the idea of the dual-structure of human beings: That we are both individual and total (collective) at the same time, and that these two elements constantly negate each other. But how do individuality and totality actually function? The answer to this question shifts from the pre-war volume of Ethics to the war-time and post-war volumes. In the first volume, while totality shapes every single aspect of individual life, the individual's existence, participation, and commitment allow the whole to exist. In the second volume, individuality is seen as a private "moment" that resists higher levels of publicness in order to allow finite totalities to form on a lower level. As such, individuality exists for totalities, but the individual loses any sense of self-standing. In the third volume, individuality is reinstated as that which guides social change by intuiting how the totality ought to be. These changes can be interpreted in two ways: First, they can be interpreted historically, with the emphasis on totality rising with the wartime pressures, and the emphasis on individuality rising in post-war occupied Japan. Second, they can be interpreted as Watsuji's attempt to integrate competing intellectual influences, particularly those of Nishida Kitarô and Emile Durkheim.

In this translation, Watsuji Tetsurō provides an overview of the life and work of Raphael von Koeber who introduced and taught philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University to some of the most eminent Japanese intellectuals of that period. Watsuji focuses on the character of Koeber, rather than his intellectual achievements, as having an incomparably profound effect upon his students. In this regard, by discussing his sphere of influence, Watsuji simultaneously provides us with an insight into the shared intellectual heritage of many of Japan's foremost philosophers, novelists, and academics, and subsequently raises awareness of the importance of Koeber himself.

Japanese “culturalism”  compared with some exponents of Russian philosophy. What the works of these Japanese intellectuals in the 1920s-30s and those of Russian thinkers linked to Eurasianism have in common is that they transcend the most basic ideas of both modernism and of national salvation.

واتسوجی تتسورو  (1889-1960) یکی از اعضای گروه کوچکی از فلاسفه ژاپن بود که در طی قرن بیستم فلسفه‌ی ژاپنی را به جهان عرضه کردند. او آثار مهمی درباره‌ی فلسفی غربی و شرقی، از یونان باستان گرفته تا شوپنهاور، نیچه، کیرکگور و هایدگر، و از فرهنگ باستانی ژاپنی گرفته، تا دوگن  (که واتسوجی تتوسورو به تنهایی آثار او را بازیابی کرد)، زیبایی‌شناسی، و اخلاقیات ژاپنی را به رشته‌ی نگارش درآورد.

This paper is submitted for publication. Far from being the archetype figure of anti-modernity thought this paper will argue that the work of Watsuji Tetsurō represents an engagement with the global effects of modernity and that it provides a non-Eurocentric account of social theory for the decolonial cosmopolitan project. To achieve these goals the paper will present key concepts from Watsuji's ethical vocabulary and highlight the cultural roots from which he draws on. The paper will then outline the criticism made against Watsuji and the Kyoto school and their supposed resistance to modernity. The objective of this section of the paper is not to engage in historical debate but to provide grounds for establishing Watsuji as a decolonial thinker. The modest proposition that this paper will offer is that the model of social analysis that he puts forward is one capable of exchanging ideas with other examples of relational social theory generated by global cultures. The argument here is that in applying Watsuji's work in the challenging of hegemonic norms, entails that modernity, and its accompanying institutions, and the experience of the colonised are originary but not binary traits, and that both beginnings and endings are revealing. This is not to simply reject European norms or values. It is only to politely suggest that the reliance on such accounts signifies a lack of ambition in the face of a conceptually accessible globe.

風土與人間的關係一直是和辻哲郎文化哲學的核心命題。在一九三五 年出版的《風土》一書裡，和辻定義文化為風土與人間之互動，並將世界 文化按風土分成三類:季風型、沙漠型和牧場型。其中，由於和辻曾於一 九二七年赴德留學時過境港滬兩地，因此在討論中國的季風型風土與文化 時，和辻除了引用客觀數據與二手文獻外，亦引用了自己的實地考察和親 身經歷。可是，基於和辻對於當時中國地理資訊掌握不足，他誤以為中國 的風土是「單調廣漠」的平原，而當時的中國人都是對政治「無動於 衷」，忽略了中國氣候與地形的複雜性以及文化及社會的多元性。
然而，本文認為，若風土論是一以自我意識的概念為基礎的文化哲 學，則只要修正了和辻的錯誤地理知識，人們仍可根據風土論重新分析中 國文化，發現其文化意識的多元性。自然及社會科學對中國氣候、地形、 社會、經濟、政治、文化的客觀描述不僅未有削弱風土論的理論價值，反 而兩者能夠相輔相成:前者描述了風土與人間之基本形態，後者則以自我 意識解釋兩者之互動如何生成文化。
The relationship between Fudo (Climate) and Ningen (Human Society) is an essential topic to Watsuji Tetsuro’s philosophy of culture. In his book Fudo published in 1935, Watsuji defines culture in terms of the interaction between Fudo and Ningen and categorizes the world cultures into three types: monsoon, desert and meadow. In particular, when discussing the monsoon fudo and culture in China, Watsuji refers to not only objective data and secondary literature but also his fieldwork and subjective experiences during his visit to Hong Kong and Shanghai in 1927 on his marine journey to Germany. However, due to Watsuji’s insufficient knowledge about the geography of China, he misunderstood that the Fudo of China is merely a “monotonous” plain and Chinese people are “unemotional” to politics and disregarded the complexity of the climate and topography of China and the diversity of Chinese culture and society.
Nevertheless, this paper argues that if Fudo study is a philosophy of culture based upon the concept of self-consciousness, once Watsuji’s misinformation about China is revised, it may still be employed to rediscover the diversity of Chinese culture consciousness. Natural and Social scientific researches on climate, topography, society, economy and politics of China does not weaken the theoretical value of Fudo study but actually complement each other: the former illustrates the structures of Fudo and Ningen while the later explains the formation of culture from the interaction between Fudo and Ningen in terms of self-consciousness.

The translation of honraisei as “authenticity” has caused scholars to compare Watsuji with Heideggerian and Taylorian accounts of authenticity. In this article, it will be demonstrated that this translation of “authenticity” is misleading insofar as it suggests a sense of subjective individuality as prevalent within Western philosophical thought. However, rather than rejecting a Watsujian account of authenticity, it will be argued that we can salvage this understanding by rethinking honraisei as a distinctly Japanese approach to authenticity and one which is underpinned by the Buddhist concept of emptiness.

Please find the PDF through the link: https://laynadrozdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/droz_2019_environmental-ethics-pdf.pdf

The concept of humans as relational individuals living in a milieu can provide some solutions to various obstacles of theorization that are standing in the way of an ethics of sustainability. The idea of a milieu was developed by Tetsuro Watsuji as a web of signification and symbols. It refers to the environment as lived by a subjective relational human being and not as artificially objectified. The milieu can neither be separated from its temporal—or historical—dimension as it is directly related to the “now” of perceptions and actions in the world. In other words, elements of the natural milieu can be said to have a constitutive value as they contribute to our well-being by helping us make sense of our life and our world. In their temporal and relational dimensions, Watsuji’s notions of the milieu and human being are thus directly related to the notion of sustainability. This concept offers some convincing solutions to overcoming the problem of temporal distance, by shifting the center of argumentation from unknown, passive, and biologically dependent not-yet-born people to the transmission of a meaningful historical milieu. The turning point here is that if what matters is the survival of ideal and material projects that people live (and sometimes die) for, then future generations have tremendous power over them, as the actions of those future people will determine the success or failure of the projects started by present generations.

Droz, L. 2019, “Watsuji’s Milieu and Intergenerational Ethics”, Environmental Ethics Journal, Vol.41, Issue 1, Spring 2019, pp.37-51.  DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics20194114