Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine: Evolutionary Theory and Religion in Modern Japan

Godart, G. Clinton (著)

著者

Godart, G. Clinton (著)

出版年月日

2017.01

ページ

316

出版者

University of Hawai'i Press

出版サイト

https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/

出版地

Honolulu, HI, US [檀香山, 夏威夷州, 美國]

資料の種類

書籍=Book

言語

英文=English

ノート

G. Clinton Godart is associate professor of Japanese studies at the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University.

キーワード

intellectual history; history of Japan; religion in Japan; history of biology; ideology; Buddhism; Shinto; Darwinism; Darwin; evolutionary theory

抄録

Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine is the first book in English on the history of evolutionary theory in Japan. Bringing to life more than a century of ideas, G. Clinton Godart examines how and why Japanese intellectuals, religious thinkers of different faiths, philosophers, biologists, journalists, activists, and ideologues engaged with evolutionary theory and religion. How did Japanese religiously think about evolution? What were their main concerns? Did they reject evolution on religious grounds, or—as was more often the case—how did they combine evolutionary theory with their religious beliefs?

Evolutionary theory was controversial and never passively accepted in Japan: It took a hundred years of appropriating, translating, thinking, and debating to reconsider the natural world and the relation between nature, science, and the sacred in light of evolutionary theory. Since its introduction in the nineteenth century, Japanese intellectuals—including Buddhist, Shinto, Confucian, and Christian thinkers—in their own ways and often with opposing agendas, struggled to formulate a meaningful worldview after Darwin. In the decades that followed, as the Japanese redefined their relation to nature and built a modern nation-state, the debates on evolutionary theory intensified and state ideologues grew increasingly hostile toward its principles. Throughout the religious reception of evolution was dominated by a long-held fear of the idea of nature and society as cold and materialist, governed by the mindless “struggle for survival.” This aversion endeavored many religious thinkers, philosophers, and biologists to find goodness and the divine within nature and evolution. It was this drive, argues Godart, that shaped much of Japan’s modern intellectual history and changed Japanese understandings of nature, society, and the sacred.

Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine will contribute significantly to two of the most debated topics in the history of evolutionary theory: religion and the political legacy of evolution. It will, therefore, appeal to the broad audience interested in Darwin studies as well as students and scholars of Japanese intellectual history, religion, and philosophy.

Front Matter
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Acknowledgments

Introduction
One The Religious Transmission of Evolutionary Theory in Meiji-Era Japan
Two Evolution, Individuals, and the Kokutai
Three The Dharma after Darwin: Meiji Buddhism and the Embrace of Evolution
Four The Promise of Utopia: Socialist Darwinism and Evolutionary Utopianism
Five “Evolutionary Theory Is the Superstition of Modernity”
Six Kannon’s Enduring Embrace
Conclusion
End Matter
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

ISBN

9780824858513 (hc); 9780824876838 (pbk)

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21313/hawaii/9780824858513.001.0001

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