The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Hirata Atsutane

1776–1843

Also known as Atsutane

Kokugaku thinker who recast Shinto as a universal 'True Shinto', taught that the dead become kami in a hidden world, and insisted, in increasingly xenophobic terms, on Japan's superiority.

Painting of a seated man in a green robe and a black court cap, with seals and inscriptions
Hanging-scroll portrait, Edo period. Waseda University Library.Public domain · See the original

Hirata Atsutane was born in the northeast of Japan and went to Edo at nineteen. He first heard of Motoori Norinaga only after Norinaga had died, but was so taken with his ideas that he enrolled in the school, which Norinaga’s son now ran. Unlike his philologically minded predecessors, he looked for confirmation of his views far and wide, and wrote, as he put it, to touch people’s hearts.

He praised the pleasures of this life, of eating, drinking and love, and made extravagant claims about Japan’s past: perfect health, a native script before Chinese characters, a race of giants. Before him Shinto thinkers had said little about the afterlife. His wide range of subjects and his insistence on Japan’s superiority probably helped to make his teaching popular, and his disciples spread far into the provinces.

Key ideas

True Shinto
Atsutane sought support for his views everywhere, in Confucian and even disguised Christian sources and in tales of reincarnation, presenting Shinto as the fountainhead from which inferior foreign doctrines later came.
True hearts
People in Japan are born with true hearts (magokoro) that let them follow the Way of the kami spontaneously. By praying to particular gods, even someone who could not read could learn from the kami.
The hidden world of the dead
Where Norinaga thought the dead go to the foul land of Yomi, Atsutane taught that all people become kami and pass into a concealed world that, in essentials, resembles the visible world of the living.
A divine land
Japan, a divine land, surpasses every other country, and its ruler the rightful ruler of all. At their worst these claims became racialised attacks on others, Europeans included.
Tradition
Japanese
Region
Edo, Japan
Period
Edo
Themes
Death

Influences

Influenced by

Hirata Atsutane1776–1843

Influenced

Influenced by

Hirata Atsutane1776–1843

Influenced

Where these links come from

Key works

  • The August Pillar of the Soul (Tama no mihashira)

Terms on this page

magokoro
True heart: in Kokugaku, the birthright of people in Japan, which lets them follow the Way of the kami spontaneously.
kami
The powers revered in ancient Japanese religion and in Shintō, often too narrowly translated “gods”, which manifested a power to inspire awe.

All terms in the glossary

Sources

  1. Gideon Fujiwara and Peter Nosco, The Kokugaku (Native Japan Studies) School, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy