Eclectic School

The eclectic school is a collective term for Confucian scholars who emerged in the mid-Edo period and sought to compromise between the strengths of previous theories such as Zhu Xi school and Yangming school, without being biased towards them. This is a new style of Confucianism that was proposed by Katayama Kaneyama, Inoue Kinga, and others during the Horeki and Meiwa eras (1751-1772) after the popularity of Sorai school (Ken'en school), and is characterized by the idea of ​​"one person, one theory" rather than a school based on a specific theory. However, all of them were not bound by existing schools of thought, and shared a common academic method in which they chose and rejected previous theories from the Chinese Han and Tang annotated commentaries (ancient commentaries) to the Song and Ming school of Logic, and even Laozi and Zhuangzi, and put forward their own views. As a general trend, the school criticized the teachings of the Japanese Old School, especially those of Ogyū Sorai, and returned to the ethical thinking of Neo-Confucianism. The free academic style of the Eclectic School was subject to suppression during the Kansei era (1790) ban on heretical learning, but its eclectic academic style had a profound influence on the Confucian world thereafter, and its method of document verification was carried over to the study of historical evidence at the end of the Edo period. Representative eclectic scholars include Kaneyama, Kinga, Yamamoto Hokuzan, Kameda Hosai, Yoshida Kōton, Nakanishi Takubuchi, Hosoi Heishū, and Uno Meika.

[Yasushi Kinugasa]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

江戸中期に輩出した朱子学、陽明学などの先行諸学説に偏らず、その長所をとって折衷穏当を図った儒学者たちを総称して折衷学派という。徂徠(そらい)学（蘐園(けんえん)学派）流行のあと、宝暦(ほうれき)・明和(めいわ)年間（1751～72）に片山兼山、井上金峨(きんが)らによって提唱された儒学の新学風で、一定の学説に基づく学派ではなく、「一人一学説」が特色である。しかし、いずれも既成の学派に束縛されず、中国漢唐の注疏(ちゅうそ)（古注）学から宋明(そうみん)の理学、さらには老荘学までの先行の諸説を取捨選択し、自家の見解を打ち出す学問方法のうえで共通性がある。また全体の傾向として、日本古学派とくに荻生徂徠(おぎゅうそらい)の学説を批判し、朱子学的な倫理重視の思想への回帰がみられる。折衷学派の自由な学風は、寛政(かんせい)異学の禁（1790）において禁圧の対象となったが、折衷的な学風はその後の儒学界に深く影響し、またその文献実証の方法は幕末の考証学に受け継がれた。代表的な折衷学者には、兼山、金峨のほか、山本北山、亀田鵬斎(ほうさい)、吉田篁墩(こうとん)、中西淡淵、細井平洲(へいしゅう)、宇野明霞(めいか)らがいる。

［衣笠安喜］

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