Library

Japanese Philosophers

Haru Salvador, aspiring fashion designer and assistant of the most capable chief editor of the most popular fashion magazine life was about to change. It all started when he met the handsome japanese model and business man Zen Kirishima. What would happen when an secret of Zen comes in light which could spin Haru's upside down. His life will be changed like never before. And to make things worst there bond is tested in many steps. Will their bond be able to overcome this test or destroy them?

27 Chapters

The Merman, My Man

This is a story between a bloodthirsty merman and a kind and naive researcher. Linda, a researcher at a Japanese maritime university, found herself raped by a lewd merman in a dream. This tempted her to conduct research on this mythical creature. Together with her professor Gary, they set off to sea in search of merfolk. They successfully caught a merman, but Linda was marked as its mate…Was it a human that had caught a merman, or was it a merman who had found its prey?

9.5

337 Chapters

Her Billionaire's Strange Addiction

Warning! Mature Content! “You enjoy provoking me, don’t you?” He said through our busy lips. “Ever since the first time you walked into my office, you’ve done nothing but test my patience. And the second time we met, you punched my face.” I giggled as I bit his lip before pulling away slightly. He squeezed my waist at the action. “I do.” Kura, one of the directors of Runner Studios, is known for her talented work and a knack for not following rules. Nile, the CEO of their own family company. He was of Russian, Japanese, and American descent, known for his androgynous beauty and his cold personality. The first time they met, the two immediately clashed and hated each other right away. But one intimate night changed between the two of them…

71 Chapters

Love Conquers All

"I'm a master at laundry and cooking, whether it's fast food, Japanese cuisine, or a French feast. What would you like to eat first? Marry me, and I guarantee you'll be blessed with delicious meals every day, Mr. Getson. So, will you marry me?""Sure!"After learning from the failure of her first marriage, Nancy only wanted an ordinary man to spend her life with during her second marriage. However, much to her surprise, her new husband, Yaacob, is revealed to be the primary heir to the country's most substantial fortune. When Nancy found out about this, her world turned upside down. Such wealth and privilege!After their marriage, Yaacob looked at the bland bowl of pasta before him and asked, "What happened to the French feast and Japanese cuisine you promised?"Hearing this, the woman in front of him swiftly untied her apron, raised one of her alluring legs, and casually sat on the table, "Would you prefer French cuisine, or me?"Yaacob, reminiscing about the previous night, replied, "You, of course!"

455 Chapters

PLEASE BE MINE

War is the hardest hours to fall in love in any humans life. Sora is a Japanese immigrant who falls in love with a foreigner, Jon. He leaves his country home but his love life is cut short when Jon dies serving his country and worst, Sora is pregnant.Sora has given up all hope to find love so he focuses on his family which includes his mother-in-law and his son.He has yet another package coming when a man of the hour, pops into his life and changes his way of living.Will Sora get the happiness he deserves or will fate keep playing games with him?

9.7

56 Chapters

Tsunami Man: Legend of the Kaiju

To the citizens of Pierview, Taylor Yoshida is nothing more than a 16-year-old Japanese, home school, graffiti artist, delinquent, who’s always getting himself into trouble. However, Taylor harbors a dark secret from most of the people in town. He is the reincarnation of a kaiju; an interdimensional creature capable of ungodly abilities. But when more Kaiju attack Pierview, Taylor must shed his secrets and embrace his kaiju heritage to face these savage creatures and the secret organization responsible for their arrival known as Project Echidna.

128 Chapters

Which Japanese Philosophers Influenced Modern Ethics?

2 Answers2025-08-25 07:58:02

When I first dug into Japanese philosophy in grad school, I was shocked by how differently ethics could be framed when you start from relationships and place instead of abstract individuals. A few names kept coming up as the real movers who shaped modern ethical thought in Japan and beyond. Nishi Amane and Fukuzawa Yukichi were among the earliest translators and adapters of Western moral and political ideas during the Meiji era; Fukuzawa’s 'An Encouragement of Learning' did a huge cultural pivot toward individual self-cultivation and civic responsibility, which later fed into debates about rights and duties in modern Japan. Nakae Chōmin brought European liberalism to popular Japanese audiences, nudging ethical conversation toward law, democracy, and human dignity.

Then there’s the cluster of thinkers who rethought ethics from within Buddhist and native frameworks. Nishida Kitarō’s concept of 'basho' (place) and his book 'An Inquiry into the Good' reframed moral life as rooted in lived, communal contexts rather than purely formal rules. Watsuji Tetsurō pushed this further in 'Ethics' by insisting on 'aidagara' (betweenness) — ethics is fundamentally about interpersonal space, climate, and cultural milieu, not atomized will. That idea resonates with contemporary ethics of care and communitarian critiques of liberal individualism. Kuki Shūzō’s aesthetic studies like 'The Structure of "Iki"' tied everyday sensibilities to moral taste and social codes, which opened paths for thinking about virtue and cultural norms.

On the more existential and religious side, Nishitani Keiji and Tanabe Hajime grappled with nihilism, self-transformation, and metanoetics — Tanabe’s 'Philosophy as Metanoetics' reimagines ethical responsibility as part of a dialectic of repentance and renewal. D. T. Suzuki’s popular writings on Zen (for example, 'Zen and Japanese Culture') exported an ethic of attentiveness, non-attachment, and directness that influenced both Eastern and Western moral thinkers. Practically speaking, these strands together helped shape Japanese approaches to environmental ethics (place and climate matter), care ethics (the primacy of relationality), and even corporate and social responsibilities, where context-sensitive duties often outweigh abstract rights-talk. I still find reading Nishida on a noisy train somehow calming — his focus on lived experience makes moral theory feel less like rules and more like possibilities for how we actually live with others.

What Texts Do Japanese Philosophers Recommend For Beginners?

2 Answers2025-08-25 12:35:12

I've come to think of Japanese philosophy as a cozy room with a few big windows—if you pick the right ones, light floods in and things make sense quickly. For a beginner, I usually tell friends to start with one accessible primary text and one collection or commentary. The friendly doorways I keep recommending are texts like 'An Inquiry into the Good' by Nishida Kitaro—it’s the cornerstone of modern Japanese thought, dense but full of arresting images—and 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind' by Shunryu Suzuki, which is surprisingly welcoming if you want a lived sense of Zen without arcane jargon.

If you want historical breadth, the two-volume 'Sources of Japanese Tradition' is a lifesaver: it collects classical material, Shinto and Buddhist texts, and modern essays, with translations and notes that make the patchwork of Japanese intellectual history intelligible. For medieval and classical religious-philosophical taste, dipping into selected chapters of Dogen's 'Shobogenzo'—preferably a good translation with commentary by someone like Kazuaki Tanahashi or Steven Heine—shows how contemplative practice and metaphysical reflection merge. Watsuji Tetsuro’s writings on ethics and 'climate'—often found under the English title 'Climate and Culture'—are excellent if you're curious about relational ethics and how environment shapes human existence.

I also nudge people toward cultural-philosophical pieces that read like essays: 'The Book of Tea' by Okakura Kakuzo and 'Bushido: The Soul of Japan' by Nitobe Inazo. They’re not technical philosophy but they’re historically influential and help you sense what many Japanese thinkers were reacting to or reshaping. If translations and context feel daunting, grab an introductory guide or a modern commentary—many anthologies and short histories of Japanese thought give clear maps. Personally, I paired reading Nishida with essays and a good secondary text and it made the abstract parts click; other times, a single accessible Zen text like 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind' helped me feel grounded before tackling heavy theory. Try mixing a primary source with a readable secondary piece, and give yourself permission to skim hard sections—philosophy is a marathon, not a sprint, and I still prefer reading with a cup of tea and loose notes in the margins.

How Did Japanese Philosophers Shape Japan'S Modernization?

2 Answers2025-08-25 02:48:39

On a rainy afternoon I once pulled out a dog-eared copy of 'Gakumon no Susume' and found myself laughing at how blunt Fukuzawa Yukichi was — then stunned by how much his bluntness still mattered. That small reaction captures how Japanese philosophers shaped modernization: they weren't ivory-tower types speaking only for other scholars. They translated ideas, wrote pamphlets and newspapers, taught in new universities, and tangled directly with politics and everyday life. From the late Tokugawa world to the Meiji and Taishō eras, thinkers helped Japan decide what to borrow from the West and what to adapt. Fukuzawa pushed for individual rights and practical education; translations of utilitarian, liberal, and later Marxist texts created the grammar for debates about law, labor, and social policy.

Beyond the obvious translators and public intellectuals, there were deeper intellectual currents that reshaped the national psyche. Confucian ethics had long ordered society, but as industrialization swept in, philosophers reinterpreted moral duties to fit wage labor, citizenship, and constitutional government. Nakae Chōmin brought Rousseau and republican ideas into Japanese republican vocabulary; Watsuji Tetsurō rethought ethics through climate, community, and cultural context; and later the Kyoto School — Nishida Kitarō and Tanabe Hajime — wrestled with metaphysics to help Japan negotiate modern identity without simply copying the West. Even when some intellectuals slid toward nationalist arguments, their debates forced the nation to grapple with concepts like sovereignty, rights, and the limits of power.

What often gets overlooked is the institutional work: philosophers shaped curricula, legal reforms, and the press. They advised politicians, wrote for mass audiences, and argued in courts and cafés. Marxist thinkers inspired labor movements and social reforms; constitutionalists pushed for parliamentary forms; others debated the meaning of the emperor in a modern polity. After World War II, philosophical work fed into pacifist currents and the rethinking of state-society relations, helping to legitimize new democratic norms. For me, reading these thinkers is like watching a long conversation across generations — messy, contradictory, and alive. If you’re curious, start with essays and translations from different periods and notice not just what they imported, but how they refashioned ideas to fit everyday Japanese life and politics; that’s where the real shaping happened.

Where Did Japanese Philosophers Study In The Meiji Era?

2 Answers2025-08-25 13:40:24

When I dig into Meiji-era intellectual life I get this vivid image of young scholars shuttling between old domain schools and brand-new Western-style lecture rooms — it was messy, exciting, and extremely cosmopolitan. Before the Meiji reforms, education came from domain (han) schools, private academies, and terakoya for basic literacy; many of the earliest modern thinkers had those traditional roots. As the government reorganized things, institutions like the former Kaisei Gakkō and Tokyo Medical School were merged and reformed into what became Tokyo Imperial University in 1877, and that institution quickly became a central place for philosophical, legal, and scientific learning. Private schools like 'Keio' (founded by Fukuzawa Yukichi) and Christian-founded colleges such as Doshisha also played huge roles in shaping new intellectual currents.

At the same time, a huge number of Meiji-era philosophers and intellectuals studied abroad. The Iwakura Mission and various government and private scholarships sent talented people to Europe, the United States, and sometimes the Netherlands. German universities were especially influential — Germany’s legal and philosophical traditions left marks on Japanese law and higher education — but France, Britain, and the US were important too. Some went to study law or medicine and returned to apply Western systems; others focused on translating Western philosophy and social thought so Japanese readers could grapple with ideas like liberalism, utilitarianism, and German idealism. That cross-pollination helped create the mixed intellectual scene: some thinkers emphasized modernization and science, others dug into ethics, religion, or national identity.

What I love about this period is how porous the boundaries were between study, translation, and activism. A student could be learning at 'Keio' one year, helping translate European political tracts the next, and then advising the government on education or law. Later movements — including the Kyoto School and other homegrown philosophical projects — built on that messy apprenticeship between old Japanese schooling and overseas study. If you’re into biographies, tracing where a specific thinker studied often reveals why they favored certain European systems or which Japanese traditions they tried to defend, and that mix still fascinates me today.

Which Japanese Philosophers Wrote About Nationalism And War?

2 Answers2025-08-25 03:30:48

When I get lost down a rabbit hole of prewar and wartime Japanese thought, the same names keep popping up — some celebrated for deep philosophical work, others notorious for how their ideas were mobilized in the name of nation and war. If you want a compact map: start with the Kokugaku scholars (the nativist, Shinto-focused intellectuals) like Motoori Norinaga and Hirata Atsutane. Their emphasis on a pure Japanese spirit and ancient traditions later fed into intellectual currents that politicians and ideologues could—and did—use to justify a special national destiny.

Jumping forward into modern philosophy, the Kyoto School is unavoidable. Nishida Kitaro (try reading 'An Inquiry into the Good') laid out a phenomenological metaphysics that later thinkers interpreted in various ways; some of his students and colleagues took those ideas in nationalist directions. Watsuji Tetsuro's work, especially 'Rinrigaku' (often translated as 'Ethics'), explored community, climate, and human existence in ways that were later read as giving ethical legitimacy to communal or state-centered obligations. Tanabe Hajime is another Kyoto School figure whose thought moved through dense dialectics and later self-critique; his wartime writings and subsequent reflections can be read as part of the same fraught conversation about philosophy's relation to nation and conflict.

But the circuit isn't limited to highbrow metaphysics. Kita Ikki is crucial if you're tracing explicit political philosophy that embraced radical nationalism and advocated strong state restructuring—his pamphlets and books (notably 'An Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan') were widely influential among militant nationalists. After the war, critics and historians such as Maruyama Masao became important for analyzing and criticizing how intellectual currents fed militarism; Maruyama's readings (see 'Thought and Behavior in Modern Japanese Politics') are essential if you want to understand the intellectual responsibility and the institutional context. If you like reading original texts and then seeing how people reinterpret them, pair primary works by Nishida, Watsuji, Kita, and the Kokugaku writers with Maruyama and later commentators. I often sip coffee and flip between the dense philosophical prose and the sharper polemics, and what keeps drawing me back is that tension: deep philosophical inquiry that, for better or worse, was pressed into service by modern politics.

How Do Japanese Philosophers Interpret Western Philosophy?

3 Answers2025-08-25 02:50:58

There's something quietly brilliant about the way Japanese thinkers have taken Western philosophy and made it sound like a conversation across a kitchen table rather than a lecture hall. I used to dive into stacks of translations in a tiny secondhand shop, scribbling notes in the margins, and what struck me was how translation itself becomes interpretation: translators choose terms, metaphors, and rhythms that nudge a foreign idea into familiar patterns. During the Meiji era, for example, Western political and moral philosophy were imported to help rebuild institutions, but philosophers didn’t just copy — they reframed. The Kyoto School (think of figures like Nishida and Nishitani) read German idealism and existentialism through a Buddhist lens, turning discussions of 'being' into something resonant with Zen notions of emptiness.

Later waves reacted differently. Some Japanese thinkers embraced Marxism and pragmatism in ways that connected to labor movements and practical problem-solving, while others engaged analytic philosophy and linguistics with precision, contributing to philosophy of language and logic. Personally, I love tracing how a concept like the Western idea of the self gets reworked: sometimes it’s dissolved into relational, process-oriented language; other times it’s critiqued for being too individuated. Reading 'Zen and Japanese Culture' alongside discussions of 'Being and Time' shows how these imports are not merely received but dialogued with, contested, and transformed. That messy, creative synthesis is what keeps me returning to these texts on slow, rainy afternoons.

Which Japanese Philosophers Influenced Zen And Aesthetics?

2 Answers2025-08-25 16:51:29

There's something electric for me when thinking about who shaped Zen-influenced Japanese aesthetics — it feels like tracing the threads of a kimono: each figure adds a stitch that changes the whole pattern.

Dōgen is the first name that takes up space in my head. Reading parts of 'Shōbōgenzō' felt like sitting in a cold zazen hall and slowly noticing the warmth of breath: his insistence on practice-realization, the sacredness of everyday acts, and his poetic metaphors gave aesthetic theory a lived, everyday angle. Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi) sits next to him in a different register — less of the silent meditation vibe and more of an expansive, ritual-poetic imagination. His esoteric rites, mantra practice, and the conceptualization of mandalas influenced how form, symbol, and presence are felt in Japanese art. The idea that ritual and calligraphy can be paths to insight is something I encountered in both of them.

Then you have cultural practitioners whose philosophies are almost inseparable from the art forms they shaped. Sen no Rikyū practically rewrote how I see simplicity: the tea ceremony and the wabi-cha aesthetic he perfected celebrate imperfection, restraint, and presence — all Zen-inflected values made visible in ceramics, garden layout, and the hush of a tea room. Zeami Motokiyo, through 'Fūshi Kaden', taught me how performance can encode Zen notions like subtle profundity, yūgen, and disciplined spontaneity — Noh theater’s stillness and hidden depths feel like a moving meditation. Bashō and Ryōkan bring the poetic angle: haiku and waka that record a moment’s fragility perfectly mirror the Buddhist sensitivity to transience — mono no aware and the poignancy of things passing.

On the modern side, the Kyoto School (Nishida Kitarō, Nishitani Keiji, Tanabe Hajime) translated and reworked Zen into philosophical language. Nishida’s idea of 'pure experience' and the later engagement with nothingness and absolute nothingness reframed emptiness (śūnyatā) as a space for creativity and self-transcendence, which helped contemporary aesthetics bridge East-West dialogues. I love how visiting a tea house or watching a Noh play suddenly clicks into philosophical context when you know these names: techniques and theories fuse into lived encounters. If you want a doorway in, try reading select essays from 'Shōbōgenzō', a translation of 'Fūshi Kaden', or some modern essays by Nishida — they give different but complementary keys to the same rooms of feeling.

Which Japanese Philosophers Influenced Contemporary Pop Culture?

3 Answers2025-08-25 01:35:32

I get excited whenever this comes up, because Japanese philosophy sneaks into pop culture in ways that feel almost accidental — like a motif in a background track you only notice after the tenth watch. For me, the big names to watch for are D. T. Suzuki, Motoori Norinaga, Nishida Kitaro, Nishitani Keiji, Kuki Shuzo, and Watsuji Tetsuro. Each of them contributes a thread: Suzuki helped popularize Zen ideas about emptiness and direct, non-conceptual experience; Motoori sharpened the feeling of 'mono no aware' (the pathos of things) that you see all over anime and literature; Nishida and Nishitani from the Kyoto School pushed ideas about place, selfhood, and nothingness; Kuki wrote elegantly about 'iki' — a kind of urbane chic — and Watsuji focused on relational ethics and climate/place ('fūdo') that shaped communal portrayals.

You can see these threads braided into concrete works. 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' and 'Serial Experiments Lain' wear Nishitani-ish and Nishida-ish anxieties about self and nothingness on their sleeves; 'Princess Mononoke', 'Mushishi', and much of Studio Ghibli embody 'mono no aware' and Shinto-inflected intimacy with nature; 'Ghost in the Shell' plays with identity and subjectivity in a way that echoes Kyoto School questions about the self. Even videogames like 'Shadow of the Colossus' and a lot of FromSoftware’s worldbuilding resonate with 'basho' — the idea that place is an active, even living, part of experience rather than mere backdrop.

If you want a playful way in, just watch those shows and then hunt for interviews where creators mention reading Suzuki or Nishida, or try comparing a scene’s emotional tone to passages from Motoori. I usually grab a tea, rewatch a scene from 'Spirited Away' or 'Your Name', and then pick up a short essay by Suzuki or an English intro to Nishida; the resonance jumps out in a way that feels more like kinship than citation, which is probably why these philosophies feel so alive in pop culture.

What Are Key Works By Japanese Philosophers Translated To English?

3 Answers2025-08-25 08:32:58

If you're diving into Japanese philosophy from an English-reading perspective, there are a few cornerstone texts I always hand to people first. One big name is Nishida Kitaro — start with 'An Inquiry into the Good' and then move on to 'Fundamental Problems of Philosophy'. Nishida's ideas about 'place' (basho) and 'pure experience' are dense but rewarding; I like to read a few pages, step outside for fresh air, and then come back with a cup of tea. That ritual oddly helps the abstract ideas settle.

Another pillar is Nishitani Keiji's 'Religion and Nothingness'. It grapples with nihilism, Buddhist emptiness, and modern despair in a way that still speaks to readers who loved existentialist fiction or the darker corners of 'Neon Genesis Evangelion'. Tanabe Hajime's 'Philosophy as Metanoetics' is less cozy and more surgical — it treats philosophy as a kind of repentance or transformation, which can feel overwhelming but illuminating if you like being challenged.

Don't skip Watsuji Tetsuro — 'Climate and Culture' (sometimes seen as 'Ethics') reframes ethics around environment and social relations, which I find surprisingly modern; and Kuki Shuzo's 'The Structure of "Iki"' is a short gem on aesthetics and urban sensibility that's oddly fun to compare with fashion or pop culture. For an easier entree, D. T. Suzuki's 'An Introduction to Zen Buddhism' or 'Zen and Japanese Culture' can warm you up before the heavier stuff. If you want a reading order: Suzuki/Watsuji for context, Nishida for foundational thought, then Nishitani and Tanabe for depth. That's my go-to path — take your time and enjoy the strange detours.

What Is Utopia According To Philosophers And Thinkers?

1 Answers2025-08-27 04:28:30

When I think about utopia, I get this weird itchy excitement — the kind I feel when a friend insists I absolutely must reread 'Utopia' on a rainy afternoon. Philosophers have been sketching ideal societies since antiquity. Plato’s 'The Republic' imagines a city ruled by philosopher-kings where justice mirrors a harmonious soul: strict social roles, communal property for the guardian class, education as the backbone of moral order. It’s not sugarcoated — Plato’s blueprint is about order and the flourishing of the whole rather than individual freedom. Reading that in my twenties felt like being handed an architect’s plan: precise, lofty, and a little cold. Thomas More’s 'Utopia' flips that into satire — an island with communal ownership, religious toleration, and bureaucratic quirks — and it read to me like a playful critique of European power politics rather than a literal instruction manual. Those early texts taught me that what counts as "ideal" depends heavily on what a thinker prizes: virtue, harmony, or critique.

Later, the Enlightenment and modernity recast utopia into new languages. Rousseau and the social contract crowd asked how institutions could be reimagined to match a notion of natural human goodness or collective will; Hobbes offered the opposite caricature, warning that absent authority life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Utilitarians like Bentham and Mill suggested that the "best" society maximizes happiness — a consequentialist dream of policy as math. Jumping forward, John Rawls gave me a practical trick I still use in debates: the veil of ignorance from 'A Theory of Justice' — design rules without knowing your place in society, and you’ll likely land on fairer principles. Marx, meanwhile, imagined a classless, stateless future where people freely develop — utopia as historical endpoint rather than a tidy plan. Reading these in different cafés over the years, I found myself arguing both for Rawlsian fairness in practical policy chats and feeling the Marxist itch for structural change when talking politics with older friends.

Then there’s the critical chorus: utopia as warning and mirror. Dystopian counterpoints like 'Brave New World' and '1984' are essential because they show how technocratic or totalizing utopian projects can calcify into oppression. B.F. Skinner’s 'Walden Two' nudges the conversation toward social engineering, and I’ve often wondered, while reading it on trains, whether small happiness engineered at scale is worth the loss of messy freedom. Feminist and postcolonial thinkers have also rightfully criticized many utopian schemes for erasing difference or assuming a universal subject — the "ideal" often reflects the designer’s blind spots. Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopias — real spaces that are simultaneously physical and imaginary — helped me appreciate that sometimes the most useful utopias are localized experiments: community gardens, cooperative housing, digital commons.

All these threads make me see utopia less as one fixed blueprint and more as a toolbox: a set of lenses to critique the present and imagine alternatives. For me, utopia works best when it’s provisional, plural, and humble — a directional pulse rather than a finished city. That’s why I enjoy small-scale experiments and thought experiments more than grand manifestos: they let you test whether a principle actually improves everyday life. If you want a practical nudge, try Rawls’ veil of ignorance on your next neighborhood policy debate or sketch a small "what-if" community with friends over coffee — it’s an oddly hopeful exercise. What bit of our world would you redesign first?