The 63rd GJS Seminar
Watsuji Tetsuro's Confucian Bonds

Date and time: December 13, 2019 (Fri.), 5:00-6:00PM
Venue: Lobby (1F), Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the
University of Tokyo
Speaker: Kyle Shuttleworth (Lecturer, Japan Women's University)
Language: English

Abstract:
Within contemporary scholarship, Watsuji Tetsuro has been criticised
on the grounds that his thought is conservative and outdated, and that
the political application of his ethics leads to totalitarianism.
These criticisms arise from Watsuji's incorporation of the five
Confucian bonds. In particular, these problems are a consequence of
the espousal of the relations between sovereign and subject, and
husband and wife within Watsuji's ethical organisations. As these
hierarchical relationships point towards the subjugation of citizens
by the sovereign, and the inferiority of the wife to her husband, they
are opposed to the values of liberal democracy, and as such, these
facets present a cultural-political barrier to the wholesale
endorsement of Watsuji's ethics by many theorists in the West.
However, in this presentation it is my aim to suggest that these
criticisms can be overcome without significantly altering Watsuji's
theory. In order to achieve this end, I will draw upon the New
Confucian argument that Confucianism and democracy are not radically
opposed, but compatible. By reframing the Confucian elements in
Watsuji's thought within a New Confucian framework, it is thereby my
intention to deconstruct the cultural-political barrier which leads
many western scholars to denounce Watsuji's work, and to uphold his
ethical theory as an important and applicable philosophy of our times.


Organizer: The Global Japan Studies Network (GJS)
Co-organizer: Institute for Advanced Studeis on Asia (IASA), East
Asian Academy for New Liberal Arts (EAA)
Contact： gjs[at]ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp