메이지 일본의 과학과 제국주의 - 스기우라 주고(杉浦重剛)의 ‘이학종(理學宗)’을 중심으로 -

Abstract

Sugiura Jugo was a scholar for Japanese enlightenment during the Meiji period(1868-1912). In this article, I focus on Sugiura’s unique scientific idea, which is said as ‘scientific morality’(Rigakushu, 理學種). Japanese attitudes of Western science and technology during the Bakumatsu(幕末) period is generally said as ‘Japanese sprit and Western learning’(Wagon-yousai, 和魂洋才). It means that Japanese sprit is superior to the West, while Japanese science and technology are inferior to the West so that Japanese have to learn Western science and technology. However, Sugiura's idea of Western civilization was different from ‘Japanese sprit and Western learning’. He set a high value on spiritual values such as morals and ethics derived from Western science and technology. In other word, he wanted to establish new Japanese morality based on Western science and technology. Sugiura thought that all human behaviors could be understood and explained by physical laws such as the law of energy conservation and wave theory. It did not seem that Sugiura studied evolutionism, but his idea was very similar to Kato Hiroyuki’s social evolutionism in Meiji period. Kato told that human and social studies based on human mind are such as delusionist's studies, on the other hand natural science based on natural principles tells us the truth of the world. Kato and Sugiura insisted that human behaviors should be explained by physical principles. Sugiura and Kato were in different fields of science, but they were all in the same line in respect to blind face of science. The idea of ‘scientific morality’ by Sugiura shows how Japanese scientism was born during the Meiji period.