The Confucian turn

This chapter discusses the introduction of Song Neo-Confucian thought into Japan, concentrating on the role played by former Buddhists such as Fujiwara Seika and Hayashi Razan. Particular attention is paid to the metaphysics and the main tenets as expounded in the Great Learning as interpreted by the Song scholar Zhu Xi. It is with Seika that we find expressed the ideal social organization of ‘samurai-scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant’ that became the prism through which many saw themselves during this period. Reality was, of course, far messier. The chapter ends with a discussion of the links between the scholarly Hayashi family and the shogunate, and the early attempts by Hayashi Razan himself to find an accommodation between Neo-Confucianism on the one hand and Shinto on the other.