Full text

Nishikawa Joken’s
View of Hierarchy
European Network of Japanese Philosophy
3-5 December, 2015
Anna A. Novikova. Moscow, Russia. [email protected]
Higher School of Economics, senior lecturer
Moscow State University, PhD student, lecturer
Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences,
redactor
Nishikawa Joken 西川如見
(1648 – 1724)
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Other names:
Nagasaki citizen, merchant by birth
Dutch interpreter
Confucian scholar
• During his life Joken was quite a known author. He is
considered to be one of the first (or even the first) writers to
introduce Western geography and astronomy in Japan. He is
usually defined as merely a Confucian scholar, still to my mind
he can also be called the predecessor of rangaku and
cho:ningaku. At the same time his writings were appreciated
by later kokugakusha, such as Hirata Atsutane. [1]
Joken’s writings
• Cho:nin-bukuro 町人袋嚢 and Hyakusho:-bukuro 百姓嚢
for townsmen and peasants could be called best-sellers. [2]
• Kai tsu:sgo: ko: 華夷通商考 and Zo:ho kai tsu:sgo: ko: 増補華
夷通商考 . “(Adjusted) Thoughts on Trade with China and
Barbarians”
• Nihon suido ko: 日本水土考 “Thoughts on waters and land
[geography]of Japan”
• Suido kaiben 水土解弁 “Explanation of waters and land
[geography]”
• Shiju:ni koku jinbutsu zusetsu 四十二国人物図説 “Illustrated
description of peoples of forty two countries”
• Tenmon giron 天文議論
Nihon suido ko: 日本水土考
• The treatise was composed approximately in 1700 and
published in Kyoto in the beginning of the 18th century. It was
translated from kanbun into bungo and republished in the
1940s and 1980s along with other Joken’s works on
geography. [3]
Zo:ho kai tsu:sho: ko:
増補華夷通商考
• The work is an edited text of “Kai tsusho ko” (“Thoughts on
Trade with China and Barbarians”, 1696)
References
• 1. Keene, Donald. Hirata Atsutane and Western
Learning//T’oung Pao. - Second Series, Vol. 42, Livr. 5. Leiden-Boston, 1954. - pp. 353-380. – P.363
• 2. Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Japan in print: information and
nation in the early modern period. - Berkley: University of
California press, 2007. - 328 p. – P.207
• 3. Nishikawa Joken. Nihon Suido Ko:. Suido Kaiben. Zo:ho: Kai
Tsu:sho: Ko:. – Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1988. – 196 P.

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