著者

浜下 昌宏

出版者

神戸女学院大学

雑誌

論集 (ISSN:03891658)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.54, no.2, pp.49-58, 2008-01

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The basic research subject of this paper is on the question as to why Japanese humanities, in particular, philosophy and aesthetics had been so much focused on German scholarship in the Meiji era. As preliminaries, I try to trace several factors leading to German origins to make a rough sketch of them, (1) The Iwakura mission experienced similar conditions to Japan in Germany: a developing nation for the nation-state, the emperor system with a constitution, etc. (2) ITO Hirobumi made the greatest effort to devise the Meiji constitution following the advice from Professor Lorenz von Stein who was willing to support Japanese for their political and legal development. (3) AOKI Shuzo was the key person for the pro-Germany group in Japan. He was clever enough to understand Europe and European's virtues not only in terms of scholarship but also of customs and society. (4) Most Japanese students who became leaders of a distinct field, mostly in the field of the humanities, studied at the University of Berlin. It would be interesting to know the reason, when there were a lot of eminent universities in Germany. Japanese access to Germany, in particular to Prussia, would have been resulted from some psychological or political foundations.