근대 전환기 일본의 실학 - 야마가타 반토와 후쿠자와 유키치 -

Abstract

‘Practical science’ in today’s Japan refers to something equivalent to learning or science that can be verified in positivist and rational terms and is useful for actual life. As well known, the protype of this concept of practical science is found in the idea of ‘Science of practicality’ championed by Yukichi Fukuzawa. It was Masao Maruyama who rediscovered Fukuzawa’s idea of practical science, calling it ‘revolutionary turn’. ‘Practical science’ can also provide an important clue to the present study that tries to pay attention to the juncture of time from pre-modern to modern era, when the nature of ‘science’ was about to change fundamentally. This study discusses Bantō Yamagata, a Confucian scholar in the late pre-modern period. Yume no shiro (“Instead of Dreams”), a book that compiled the knowledge collected in the Kaitokudō in Ōsaka, is regarded as an enlightening publication based upon the idea of practical science. Particularly, enthusiastic support of the heliocentric theory, discussion of atheism and no-ghost theory, and distinction between myth and history are examples that show the perspective of rationalism and positivism. Due to this, Bantō’s idea of practical science is appraised as very close to that of Fukuzawa in the early Meiji Era, and as almost modern in thought. But this study starts its discussion from having a doubt over the positivist nature and rationality of the practical science of Bantō and that of Fukuzawa, which are taken for granted as guaranteeing the ‘pioneering modernity’ of pre-modern learning.