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Paper short abstract

By reading Fukuzawa and Nishi through the lens of “procedural realism,” this presentation contends that the Meiji reception of logic was a bulwark for universal ideals against the particularism of nationalist integration, moving beyond a simple tradition-modernity binary.

Paper long abstract

Modern logic’s introduction in Meiji Japan was an instance of neither Westernizing imitation nor modernizing convergence but involved, to borrow Hans Blumenberg’s (1985) expression, an “agency of reception.” An adequate appreciation of this requires attention to the alternatives against which logic was comprehended and legitimated. Scholars agree that the reception of modern logic in Japan was mediated by Nishi Amane, whose intervention should be situated within the broader project of the Meiji Enlightenment. So contextualized, Nishi’s legitimation of “modern” logic has been comprehended as a methodological rebuttal of “traditional” Confucian learning (Saigusa 1935; Funayama 1966; Fujita 2018). Yet, the contrast between “tradition” and “modernity” does not quite capture how philosophical discourse unfolded over the course of Meiji. As Thomas P. Kasulis (2018) observes, “What was thought about was certainly different, but how it was thought did not change nearly as much.”

This presentation contends that the Meiji reception of logic is better understood within the framework characterized by Johann P. Arnason (1997) in terms of nationalist integration and civilizational reorientation. To begin situating the reception of logic, I first build on Maruyama Masao’s (1986) reading of Fukuzawa Yukichi’s 'An Outline of a Theory of Civilization'. I argue that the latter’s reflections on method, as well as his critique of political ritualism, can be understood as articulating and motivating a civilizational ideal for discursive practices. Next, to unpack how modern logic could satisfy this, I draw on Christine Korsgaard’s (2010) notion of “procedural realism,” namely, that knowing reality is possible without relativistic consequences, but correct (non-skeptical and non-relativistic) conceptions of reality are those achieved through correct procedures. From this perspective, the philosophical consequences of Fukuzawa’s argument come into view. Due to their implicit relativism, ritualistic practices are to be rejected in favor of modern logic. The framework of procedural realism not only makes sense of Nishi’s editorial decisions in introducing logic. More importantly, I contend, it reveals logic as, less a battleground between “tradition” and “modernity,” more an attempted realization of and bulwark for the ideals of civilizational reorientation against the particularistic proceduralism of nationalist integration.