Yokoi Shonan's Concept of Kaikoku (Opening the Country/the Open Country) and the Formation of the Concept of“the Public”

Abstract

Many scholars, in analyzing the concept of“public”in the intellectual history of Japan have centered their arguments around the problem of the concept of the“public and the private”(koshi or oyake to watakushi). However, in the case of Yokoi Shonan (1809-1869), I wish to make a distinction between his concern with“the public”(kokyo) and his treatment of the “public and private.”It seems to me that Yokoi placed centrality on“the public”and sought, especially after the arrival of Commodore Perry's“Black Ships, ”as a means to realize the idea of“the public”in Japanese society, economy, and politics.