34 Facts About Nishi Amane

Nishi Amane became a political advisor to Tokugawa Yoshinobu before and after the Meiji Restoration.

Nishi Amane served as a bureaucrat in the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Popular Affairs, and the Ministry of the Imperial Household under the Meiji government.

Nishi Amane was involved in the drafting of the Military Precepts and the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors.

In 1853, after studying Confucianism at his domain school and in Osaka, Nishi Amane was sent to Edo to study rangaku, with the goal of becoming an interpreter for conducting business with the outside world via Dutch traders based at Dejima in Nagasaki.

Nishi Amane's duties included the translation of European books into Japanese for review by a select group of government officials within the Tokugawa bakufu.

Nishi Amane was then appointed by the government as a Yogakusha or specialist scholar of Western learning.

Later, in 1857, Nishi Amane was appointed a professor at the Bansho Shirabesho.

Nishi Amane felt that the students' desire for knowledge would make them likely future participants in Japan's modernization.

Nishi Amane returned to Japan in 1865, and was an active participant in the Meiji Restoration.

Nishi Amane promoted contact with the West and Western intellectualism because he feared that in the long run, a domestic resistance to modernization and change in relation to contact with the West would be more destructive to Japan than any plausible repercussions of contact with the West.

Nishi Amane brought back to Japan the philosophies of positivism, utilitarianism and empiricism, which he transmitted through his writing, lectures and participation in Mori Arinori's Meirokusha, and contributed numerous articles to its journal.

Nishi Amane's translations of utilitarianism were taken to well during the restoration period because utilitarianism promotes the social over the individual, which is a concept that is easily reconcilable with a Confucian-trained mind in Meiji Japan.

One of Nishi Amane's most significant topics in his encyclopedia was the importance of the study of history, as he believed history was an objective, scholarly discipline that was necessary for the understanding of all human relations and interactions.

Subsequently, the most distinguished topic of Nishi Amane's encyclopedia is his elaboration on philosophy.

Nishi Amane rejected the deductive method traditionally used by Confucian scholars in favor of inductive logic as a more scientific way of learning.

In 1873, Nishi Amane helped to found Japan's first scholarly society for solely academics known as the Meiji Six Society.

Nishi Amane felt that if the new state were to become enlightened as it should be, there would be no more conflict between political and scholarly obligations within the Meiji Six Society, and within Japanese society in general.

Nishi Amane was unique in this society in that he maintained a view of Japanese modernization in which he reconciled traditional Confucianism with Western Philosophy and pragmatism together in order to ascertain the correct path for Japan to take.

In regards to the first topic, Nishi Amane felt that the later Confucians who presumed that self-cultivation was all that was necessary for ruling society were wrong, but that the original Confucians who proclaimed that the morality taught had practical application in society were right.

Nishi Amane concludes this first topic with the idea that when it comes to civilization, politics is the machinery and morality is the lubricant that is responsible for keeping the machinery running and intact.

Nishi Amane considers morality and law to be human principles; however, that does not mean that he deems morality man-made; rather, there are feelings that exist in all humans, and it is up to human will to act upon those feelings of morality that are constant in human nature.

In order for society to maintain a balance of these three treasures, Nishi Amane felt that individuals should not disrespect others' treasures, and that individuals should assist others in acquiring their treasures, thus, if the three treasures were honored and preserved, all of society would be independent and free.

Nishi Amane promoted that if policy were structured based on enhancing general happiness through an equal balance of domestic enforcement of law, diplomacy and military defense of society, encouragement of industry and finance, and obtainment of the state's own three treasures, this would be the key to good government.

In 1879 Nishi Amane was made the head of the Tokyo Academy, and by 1882 was a member of the Genroin.

Nishi Amane became a member of the House of Peers of the Diet of Japan after the 1890 Japanese general election.

Nishi Amane was ennobled with the title of danshaku in the kazoku peerage system.

Nishi Amane is considered to be the father of Western philosophy in Japan.

Nishi Amane was a tireless advocate of Western civilization as a role model for Japan's modernization, stressing the need to evolve without losing the Japanese character.

The most notable term that Nishi Amane was responsible for is the term, which he coined in 1873, taken from the characters meaning "wisdom" and "learning".

Under this light, Nishi Amane opens up the possibility of vast Eastern participation in the discourse of philosophy, regardless of whether or not Eastern thought can be reconciled with Western Philosophy.

Nishi Amane was honored on a 10-yen Japanese commemorative postage stamp in 1952.

The building which Nishi Amane used as his study from the age of 4 to 25 in Tsuwano still exists and is preserved as a museum.

The main building where Nishi Amane lived was destroyed in a fire in 1853, and the main building that remains today was rebuilt after the fire.

Nishi Amane's study was a three tatami mat room on the left side of the building.