Practical studies

Practical learning. In the Edo period, in contrast to the highly speculative Buddhism and metaphysical Neo-Confucianism, Jinsai Ito, who valued morality and advocated activism, and Sorai Ogyu, who advocated "learning to govern the country and benefit the people," placed emphasis on practical learning and emphasized the practicality and everyday and social applicability of learning. Furthermore, the development of the industrial economy, including agriculture, industry, and commerce, required practical knowledge and skills, so empirical and empirical learning such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, agriculture, botany, astronomy, calendar science, and medicine arose. Furthermore, from the Kyoho period (1716-1736), Western natural science began to be introduced, and Dutch learning also arose, although it was centered on technology.

After the Meiji Restoration, the adoption of modern Western civilization became widespread, and Western learning was encouraged as essential to the promotion of modernization and civilization, becoming the center of practical learning. In his Encouragement of Learning (first edition, 1872), Yukichi Fukuzawa rejected traditional Japanese and Confucian learning as "far removed from the real world of learning and not relevant to everyday use," and argued that "practical learning closer to ordinary human daily use" was the new learning, opening up learning to the general public and clarifying the nature of practical learning. Since then, modern learning has been linked to the development of capitalism, and practical learning has become mainstream, as seen in the development of policy sciences such as law and economics, and experimental sciences such as mathematics, engineering, and medicine, while idealistic and impractical learning has come to be looked down upon as "empty learning." However, academic fields have become increasingly differentiated and specialised, and it could be said that practical learning, which was the aim of Sorai and Fukuzawa and was supported by a practical attitude towards how to connect academics to human life, has fallen into disuse.

[Shozo Matsunaga]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

実用的な学問。江戸時代、思弁性の強い仏教や形而上(けいじじょう)的な朱子学に対して、道義を重んじ活動主義を唱える伊藤仁斎(じんさい)や、「経世済民の学」を主張する荻生徂徠(おぎゅうそらい)らは、実学を重視し、学問の実用性や日常的・社会的実践性を強調した。また農工商などの産業経済の発達は実業的な知識、技術を必要とするようになったため、「読み書きそろばん」をはじめ、農学、本草(ほんぞう)学、天文学、暦学、医学などの経験的・実証的な学問がおこってきた。さらに享保(きょうほう)期（1716～36）以降、西洋の自然科学の導入が始まり、技術中心ではあったが蘭学(らんがく)もおこった。

　幕末維新以降は、欧米近代文明の摂取が本格化し、洋学が、文明開化、近代化の推進に必須(ひっす)なものとして奨励され、実学の中心となっていった。福沢諭吉は、『学問のすゝめ』（初篇(へん)1872）のなかで、従来の和学・儒学を「学問の実に遠くして日用の間に合はぬ」と排斥し、「人間普通日用に近き実学」こそ新しい学問だと主張、学問を庶民一般に開放するとともに、実学の性格を明確にした。以後、近代の学問は、資本主義の発達と結び付いて、法律・経済などの政策科学や数理工医などの実験科学の発達にみられるように実学が主流となり、理想主義的なまた非実用的な学問は「虚学」として軽視されるようになった。しかし学問の分化、専門化は著しく、徂徠や福沢が目的とした、学問をいかに人間生活に結合させるか、との実践的態度に支えられた実学は、逆に廃れていったともいえよう。

［松永昌三］

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