Thinker · TH-0431
Watsuji Tetsurō
Watsuji Tetsurō was a Japanese philosopher and cultural historian who taught at Kyoto and Tokyo Imperial Universities. Drawing on Japanese, Confucian and Buddhist sources…
Watsuji Tetsurō was a Japanese philosopher and cultural historian who taught at Kyoto and Tokyo Imperial Universities. Drawing on Japanese, Confucian and Buddhist sources while engaging Heidegger, he argued that the human being (ningen) is at once individual and social, and that ethics is located in aidagara, the 'betweenness' of persons in relationship. His study Fūdo examined how climate and environment shape human self-understanding. Some of his views on the nation and the state in wartime remain debated by scholars.
Key ideas
- The human being (ningen) is both individual and social, neither reducible to the other.
- Ethics is located in betweenness (aidagara), the relational space between persons.
- Individual and community exist through a dialectic of mutual negation.
- Climate and environment (fūdo) shape how human beings understand themselves.
Major works
- Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples in Nara (Koji junrei, 1919)
- Ethics as the Study of Man (Ningen no gaku to shite no rinrigaku, 1934)
- Climate and Culture (Fūdo 風土, 1935)
- Ethics (Rinrigaku 倫理学, 1937–1949)
In the conversation
- Debate On the Confucian view there is no self behind your roles, and that is a strength
- Discussion Watsuji’s betweenness, Akan personhood and Confucian roles: is the relation more basic than the person?
- Question “You are your relationships”: is that Confucius, or a modern reading of him?
- Discussion Watsuji’s betweenness, ubuntu and relational autonomy: one discovery made three times, or three ideas?