this cultural marketplace came an outburst of the publishing business: again
starting off in Kyoto, and expanding in the 1700s to Edo and Osaka, there
were hundreds of publishers turning out over 100,000 volumes per year.
(Moriya, 1990: 115–117). Most of their content was not philosophy but
popular literature and religious tracts. Along with this came the mass market
for entertainment in the theater and the mass production of art prints. The
first great flowering of this popular culture industry was the Genroku era
(1688–1704), and it was approximately at this time that the creativity of the
philosophical schools also peaked.^26
The Network of Creative Oppositions
Consider now the network pattern of philosophical innovation during the
Tokugawa.^27 First came the Zen apostates. Institutionally, breakaway Neo-
Confucianism became crystallized with the founding of the Hayashi school in
- Over the next two generations, the Confucian network split into four
factions, expanding to fill its now dominant attention space.
The first of these was the Hayashi school itself. Increasingly defined in the
eyes of the shogunate as the orthodox lineage, it maintained an important
presence in the network down through the early 1700s. But its stance shifted
to the defensive against splitting movements which had made it the favorite
target. Its last notable figure was Muro Kyuso, who spent his time counterat-
tacking against a sea of troubles: Buddhism, Shinto, Yamaga Soko’s Bushido,
Ito Jinsai, Sorai. In Muro’s generation, the Chu Hsi school had official support
from the shogun, but little else to uphold it.
Second appeared the Wang Yang-ming (Yomei) school of Neo-Confucian-
ism, represented by Nakae Toju on the heels of Hayashi Razan, and by Toju’s
pupil Kumazawa Banzan through the following generation. This was an easy
and natural path to diversifying Neo-Confucian offerings, insofar as the Wang
Yang-ming school was already available as a Chinese rival of Ch’eng-Chu
orthodoxy. Against the orthodox dualism of li (principle) and ch’i (material
force), Toju promoted metaphysical monism, which he expressed as the unity
of mind with external nature. In good Neo-Confucian fashion, Toju supported
ethical and social conclusions from his metaphysics: there is innate knowledge
in the human conscience, and self-cultivation is equivalent to social action.
Toju attacked Razan as merely parroting Neo-Confucian texts, without ab-
sorbing the spirit of ethical practice. Banzan in turn became the first notable
heretic attacked by the Hayashi family. As usual, a creative period was ushered
in by its conflicts.
Kumazawa Banzan used the slogan “unity of knowledge and action” to
shift the emphasis of Confucianism to social and economic policy. He sharp-
Innovation through Conservatism: Japan • 355