Period
Edo
1600–1868
The peace of the Tokugawa shogunate, when a new Neo-Confucianism became Japan's leading philosophy, alongside Buddhist and Shintō thought.
Under the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled from Edo (today’s Tokyo), Japan enjoyed a long period of comparative peace and stability. Christianity, brought by Portuguese and Spanish missionaries, was banned, and Japan was closed to almost all Western contact after 1637. The period’s major philosophical import was a new form of Confucianism, which gave fresh life to a tradition present in Japan since ancient times.
- Traditions
- Japanese
Philosophers
- Takuan Sōhō1573–1645
- Hayashi Razan1583–1657
- Itō Jinsai1627–1705
- Kaibara Ekken1630–1714
- Ogyū Sorai1666–1728
- Kamo no Mabuchi1697–1769
- Motoori Norinaga1730–1801
- Hirata Atsutane1776–1843
- Matsuo Taseko1811–1894
Sources
- Thomas Kasulis and Raquel Bouso, Japanese Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy