Abstract
In the recent history of East Asian Confucianism, the Japanese Kogakuha and the Chinese School of Ch’I have run parallel in many instances. For example, both shared the same cultural legacy (i.e., the Confucian classics of the pre-Chin Period), both confronted the Chen-Chu school’s metaphysics and the theory of human nature, and both held some common assertions. Each also split into two subschools. The first subscahool, represented by Ito Jinsai and Tai Chen, brought forward the ontology and morality of intersub-jectiveity by clinging to the Analects and the Mencisu, which were formed in the philosophical breakthrough period. The second subschool, represented by Ogyu Sorai and Yen Yuan, asserted that the essence of human beings exists not in themselves but in the social norms li (禮). These scholars held on to Six Classics, which documented early Chinese civilization and stood for the tradition of the Great Center or the Supreme Ultimate (Huang Chi, 皇極). For the latter subschool, ethical problems were the same as social politics. “Analects and Mencius” versus “Six Classics” thus distinguished two kinds of hermeneutical movements of returning to the original Confucian texts.