Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the discourse on urban planning by the military expert and Confucian scholar, Yamaga Sokō (1622-85). It contributes to the wider question of the normative ideas and their conceptual foundation which shaped discourses about urban government in early modern Japan.

Paper long abstract:

The Tokugawa period (1600-1868) is considered to be the most urbanized period in premodern Japanese history. For the ruling warriors, the urban space of the castle towns constituted a field of political activity that challenged traditional notions of government and at the same time initiated new governing practices. My paper discusses the response of contemporary political philosophy to the challenges of urban government.

The name closely associated with the subject of urban government is that of the eighteenth century Confucian scholar, Ogyū Sorai (1666-1728). In his treatise, "Talks about Government" (Seidan, 1726-7), the author criticized the negative impact of urban life on the moral behavior of Edo's inhabitants. Because Sorai thought of the city as endangering the political and economic foundation of the Tokugawa state, his reform proposal showed a strong anti-urban tendency. In contrast to Sorai's famous treatise, the subject of urban government in the political thought of the seventeenth century has received almost no attention, namely in the writings of the Confucian scholar and military expert Yamaga Sokō (1622-85). The latter is considered to be a main exponent of the neoclassical movement in the Tokugawa period Confucianism because of his criticism of Neo-Confucianism and his adaption of Confucian doctrines to Tokugawa period society. However, despite the general recognition of Sokō's position in the intellectual history of the Tokugawa period, Sokō's discourse on urban government has received almost no attention.

In this paper I argue that instead of constituting a naturally given or value-free entity, urban space in Sokō's discourse is conceptualized through central motifs occuring in the literature associated with the classical tradition of Chinese Confucianism. In order to define Sokō's notion of the city, it analyzes the topics and concepts in regard to each element of the city layout, he proposes in his major work, "The Analects of Yamaga Grouped [by Subject]" (Yamaga gorui, 1665). Where possible, concepts are traced back to their original source in order to define the normative framework of Sokō's discourse. The paper contributes to the wider question of the normative ideas and their conceptual foundation which shaped discourses about urban government from Sokō to Sorai and beyond.