Researchers have focused on Kumazawa Banzan's practical theory of moral cultivation (修養論) and rationalistic political thought (経世論), but have not deeply discussed his theory of religion, which proposed the restoration of Shinto. This is due to the fact that researchers see Kumazawa's thought as a far-fetched syncretism of Shinto and Confucianism. Hence, their assessments are poles apart: “Kumazawa's Shinto is nothing but Confucianism in the end” or “his Confucianism isn't the original but Japanized.”

Essentialist framings like “is Kumazawa's thought Confucianism or Shinto?” should be avoided. In this paper, noting that Kumazawa often expresses Shinto as “Daidō (大道),” I assert that he offers a universalistic argument which is based on the Confucian classics and relativizes Confucianism itself, as well as that it is a sort of theory of religion which can be compared with Western theories about natural religion. I hold that Kumazawa argues for the restoration of Shinto as a result of his exploration as to how to put a universalistic theory of the religious into practice in the form of a specific religion system tailored to the situations of the concrete epoch and region in early modern Japan.

Research on Modern Shinto has, thus far, focused on the systematical formation of State Shinto and has been limited to “Japan.” From this point of view, the distinction between State Shinto and Sectarian Shinto was clear. However, if we expand this field to include “Imperial Japan” and also consider the propagation of Sectarian Shinto abroad, we can see how the Modern State, Shrines, and Shinto were all closely connected thus blurring the boundary between Sectarian and State Shinto. Modern Shinto developed outside the ties of a formal system.

This paper will seek to overcome the image of Shinto as State Shinto and portray “Modern Shinto” as a multi-faceted entity. First, we will correct the flaws and misconceptions in current scholarship on New Religions regarding this period and concerning the purpose of the propagation of Shinto to Korea. Second, we will focus on Shintōshūseiha, Kurozumikyō, and Jingūkyō and explore a new path for researching “Modern Shinto.”

This paper discusses Ichikawa Hakugen's (1902-1986) acceptance and development of the logic of “none other than” (sokuhi no ronri) that Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945) and Suzuki Daisetz (1870-1966) constructed. Ichikawa aimed to improve and apply this logic to postwar Japan's socio-culture.

Ichikawa criticized wartime Japan's misappropriation of the Zen proverb, “Be master of mind rather than mastered by mind.” He accused Buddhist intellectuals (who commanded young people to generously devote their bodies and lives to the Buddhist Way) of their responsibilities for the war, whereas he evaluated that they lacked alternatives given their circumstances. However, Ichikawa regarded Nishida and Suzuki as indispensable intellectuals who could positively reconstruct interwar Japan's conventional view of the world, including its nationalism, imperialism, and totalitarianism. In particular, Ichikawa extracted the concept of “non-conflict” from the idea of “liberty with non-duality” in order to grasp the world as embodying “none other than.” From such a Buddhist point of view, Ichikawa conceived that there are not two lands, inherently pure or impure: the difference lies solely in our minds; therefore we should live here, the Buddha land.

This paper therefore concludes with Ichikawa's analysis of Ikkyū (1394-1481)—who embodied the Zen saying, “the non-elegantly fluid way of being is also elegantly fluid”—as one historical model for the conception of “none other than” in Japanese Zen tradition.

Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962) began developing his philosophy of religion from the autumn of 1944. He discussed his personal experience of salvation (attained in the summer of 1944), while confessing that he himself held no religious faith. This paper focuses on his apparently contradictory idea of “salvation without religious faith,” especially on why such salvation is, in fact, attainable. This kind of salvation, according to Tanabe, is not attained through a particular God or the Buddha but through the “absolute nothingness qua love,” which is his original take on the idea of the Absolute. Salvation is attained when individuals face the antinomies of reason, become aware of their powerlessness, and the nature of their knowledge and conduct are transformed. Such salvation can occur without believing in any particular deity. According to Tanabe, salvation is enabled by “absolute mediation,” i.e. the interpersonal transmission of “absolute nothingness qua love.” This paper points to problems inherent in Tanabe's view of “absolute mediation” and makes the case that the fundamental moment of “the salvation without religious faith” consists in the contradiction of obligations to one's community.

Cet article a pour objectif d'examiner la théorie de la mythologie de Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle et d'eclaicir le contexte lui permettant l'élaboration cette théorie singulière. À la fin du dix-septième siècle, où Fontenelle développait largement sa pensée, des mythes passaient pour des erreurs, et ils étaient rarement un objet de la science. Par contre, Fontenelle regarde le myhte comme un produit des pensées philosophiques. Pour développer ses pensées philosophiques, il présuppose toujours « l'esprit humain » en voie de progrès continuelles et « la nature humaine » motrice de l'argumentation. Selon lui, le mythe se forme suivant le principe que la nature humaine explique l'inconnu par le connu. Ainsi, le mythe fait l'objet des recherches de Fontenelle, parce qu'il croit, en ce faisant, approfondir la connaisance sur l'homme. L'idée de Dieu n'est plus sa problématique, mais il poursuit toute sa vie les activités de l'esprit humain dans le monde que le Dieu a créé. C'est l'homme que Fontenelle vise dans sa pensée, qui jouait un role important pour lier la pensée des Libertins au dix-septième siècle et celle des Lumières au dix-huitième siècle.

In this paper, I will consider the problem regarding what sort of elements can be seen as the norm of “religion,” rather than what the norm of religion really is. Because we have maintained the assumption that the norm of religion is unquestionably something phenomenal, this problem has remained unexamined. However, recent studies reveal that the defining characteristic of religion cannot be something phenomenal, and assert the necessity to avoid the view that the norm of religion is defined by a particular phenomenon. By considering two examples, religious phenomena usually seen as religion (“religious” religious phenomena [e.g., Christianity or Shinto]) and religious phenomena usually seen as secular (“secular” religious phenomena [e.g., Marxism or progressivism]), this paper attempts to find the elements that can be seen as the norm of religion. Finally, I conclude that in order to judge a phenomenon as religion, observers have to discover a particular form of cognition that makes secular things religious. While this paper does not yet address the problem of what the norm of religion is, it establishes the basis for further study.