Itō Jinsai

Who was Itō Jinsai?

Itō Jinsai, who also went by the pen name Keisai, was a Japanese Confucian philosopher and educator. He is considered to be one of the most influential Confucian scholars of seventeenth century Japan, and the Tokugawa period generally, his teachings flourishing especially in Kyoto and the Kansai area through the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Jinsai's school, known as the Kogigaku, criticized the teachings of Zhu Xi 朱熹 and instead advocated a philosophical vision based on an understanding of the meanings of key terms in the Analects and the Mencius. His school has been considered part of a larger movement, Kogaku, including earlier scholars such as Yamaga Sokō 山鹿素行, and later thinkers such as Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠. However, Jinsai never mentions Sokō or his ideas, and Jinsai's own statements of philosophical meaning were strongly and systematically criticized by Sorai. Rather than as a thinker aligned with the so-called Kogaku movement, Jinsai's ideas are best understood on their own terms. Jinsai is widely known for his outspoken affirmation of the validity of human emotions, and his articulation of a metaphysics highlighting the pervasiveness and infinite creative potential of a "unitary generative force". Indicative of his renown in the larger world of East Asian philosophy, Jinsai's writings have frequently been compared to those of the Qing dynasty scholar Dai Zhen 戴震, whose key work, Mengzi ziyi shuzheng is very similar in theme and method to Jinsai's opus, the Gomō jigi.