A nineteenth-century aristocrat, Nishi Amane (1829-1897) was one of the
first Japanese to assert the supremacy of Western culture. He was sent
by his government to Leiden to study the European social sciences; on
his return to Japan shortly before the climactic Meiji Restoration of
1868 he introduced and adapted European utilitarianism and positivism to
his country's intellectual world. To modernize, Nishi held, Japan must
cast off the bonds of the Confucian world-view in order to adopt new
principles of empirical scholarly investigation and new standards of
self-improvement. Though a Confucian by upbringing, Nishi became
thoroughly committed to Western intellectual values in his programs for
the new Japanese society. In his roles of teacher, writer, and
government administrator, he was influential at one of the most critical
times in Japan's history.
Originally published in 1970.
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