Miura Baien

Miura Baien (三浦 梅園, September 1, 1723 – April 9, 1789) was a Japanese philosopher of the Tokugawa era. A scholar often qualified as prolific original thinker in economy, interested in epistemology,[1] he studied nature in a methodical way. He grounded his thought in Neo-Confucianism.

Miura Baien
三浦梅園
Born1723
Aki, Ōita, Japan
Died1789
Aki, Japan
RegionJapanese philosophy
Main interests
Natural philosophy, Epistemology, Scientific method, Ethics, Symmetry
Notable ideas
jorigaku
In this Japanese name, the surname is Miura.

Life

Born as Miura Susumu into the family of a village physician in the present Ōita Prefecture (at that time named Bungo) on the island of Kyūshū, he became himself a physician and declined invitations to take office in the service of a local feudal lord. A master of Chinese language and poetry, he later became an advocate of a new rationalism.[2] He is notable for criticizing Christianity and European imperialism, arguing in Confucian terms that Christianity was used to subvert indigenous culture in order to facilitate colonization.[3]

Key ideas
  • jorigaku
  • gengo-zu diagrams

Key works
  • Baien's Three "Go (words)"[4]
    • Gengo (lit. Abstruse Talk), freely translated as Discourse on Methaphysics
    • Zeigo (lit. Talking On and On), freely translated as Discourse on Corollaries
    • Kango (lit. Presumtuous Talk), freely translated as Discourse on Morality
  • Samidare shō, 1784, translated as Extracts in the Summer Rain[3]
  • Heigo Fūji (lit. Confidential Matters on the Year Hinoe), 1786, a treatise on political, economic, military and legal affairs
  • Kagen (lit. The Origin of Price)
  • Logical Model of Earth Ecosystem
  • collection of his work in Baien Shiryōshū (1989, Perikansha publication)

See also

References
  1. The Cambridge History of Japan: Early modern Japan, page 633
  2. Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. I, compiled by Ryusaku Tunoda, Wm. Theodore de Bary, Donald Keene, Columbia University Press, New York, 1958, p. 480
  3. Josephson, Jason Ā. (2012). The Invention of Religion in Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 54. ISBN 9780226412351.
  4. Ancient Sages of the Oita prefecture Archived 2006-05-13 at the Wayback Machine Three Wisemen of Bungo


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