Distinguishing the Way (Bendō)

A short polemical treatise written in 1717 by the Confucian scholar Ogyū Sorai, paired with his longer glossary Benmei (Distinguishing Names). In a series of brief sections Sorai argues that the Way of Confucius is the Way of the Former Kings: a set of rites, music, laws and institutions that the ancient sage-kings of China deliberately created to bring peace and order to the realm. It is not, as Song Neo-Confucians such as Zhu Xi taught, a natural principle built into the cosmos and the human heart. Sorai therefore rejects the programme of becoming a sage by cultivating one's own mind, and also criticises Itō Jinsai's moral reading of the classics. Because the classics were written in an ancient language, he insists they must be read through the study of ancient words and phrases (kobunjigaku), not through later commentaries. The result is a political, institutional Confucianism centred on governing well and on bringing peace to the people.

It is one of the boldest arguments in Japanese thought that moral and social order are human creations rather than natural facts, and it anticipates later debates about institutions, convention and political power.