The term «moral science» was used in universities and academies prior to the emergence of the expression «humanities and social sciences». However, its connection with the modern eastern Asian context has not yet been sufficiently investigated. This paper tries to fill the gap with a case study on its import and appropriation by late nineteenth-century Japan to its socio-cultural sphere, having lacked the framework of classifying the sciences into «moral» and «physical» ones. The study achieves this by examining the activities of Meirokusha, a learned society created in 1773 to promote Western studies, and the writings of one of its leading members, Yukichi Fukuzawa, who tried to understand Francis Wayland’s Elements of Moral Science (1835), a famous American textbook in his time.
University of Nagoya, Japan - ORCID: 0000-0001-9427-1204
Chapter Title
Encounter with «Moral science» in Late Nineteenth-Century Japan
Authors
Sayaka Oki
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0242-8.10
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
East and West Entangled (17th-21st Centuries)
Editors
Rolando Minuti, Giovanni Tarantino
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
228
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0242-8
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0241-1
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0242-8
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0243-5
Series Title
Connessioni. Studies in Transcultural History
Series ISSN
2975-0393
Series E-ISSN
2975-0261