The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan

by Federico Marcon

“Opens a fascinating window into the history of Japan’s relationship to its natural environment. . . . A must-read for historians of early modern science.” —New Books in East Asian StudiesBetween the early seventeenth and the mid-nineteenth century, the field of natural history in Japan separated itself from the discipline of medicine, produced knowledge that questioned the traditional religious and philosophical understandings of the world, developed into a system (called honzogaku) that rivaled Western science in complexity—and then seemingly disappeared. Or did it? In The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan, Federico Marcon recounts how Japanese scholars developed a sophisticated discipline of natural history analogous to Europe’s but created independently, without direct influence, and argues convincingly that Japanese natural history succumbed to Western science not because of suppression and substitution, as scholars traditionally have contended, but by adaptation and transformation.The first book-length English-language study devoted to the important field of honzogaku, The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan will be an essential text for historians of Japanese and East Asian science, and a fascinating read for anyone interested in the development of science in the early modern era.“Marcon introduces to a Western readership for the first time the early history of natural history in Japan . . . Who those naturalists were, how they fitted into society, and what they accomplished, is Marcon’s beautifully told story.” —Archives of Natural History“A bold attempt to provincialize Eurocentric narratives of modernity’s relation to nature.” —Canadian Journal of History“An essential resource.” —Journal of Japanese Studies

Genres: Japan, History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science, Environment

628 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 25, 2015

Reviews

[Avery]

The story of early modern Japanese who tried to document living beings and flora of the natural world. No critical theory but plenty of gorgeous illustrations. Very Italian!

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

He’s got a point, y’know

[Floris]

In this book Federico Marcon traces the development of a kind of natural-history-cum-materia-medica-cum-agronomy in Japan called honzōgaku. He aims to correct the assumption that “enlightening” in the sense of scientific modernity is indisputably a Western (European) phenomenon. This book shows that there was a Japanese kind of enlightening happening as well around the same time. In that sense it is both concerned with the empirics of nomenclature development as well as the metaphysical relationship between knowledge, nature, and society. The way he analyses honzōgaku is familiar to scholars of the (European) Enlightenment: he looks at the professionalisation of specialised scholars, advancements in agriculture, the relationship between economic policies and developments in the sciences, the emergence of popular entertainment and pastimes, and intellectual discourses related to flora and fauna (Chap 1). As a result, the approach fostered by honzōgaku scholars to nature reflects those approaches seen in the Enlightenment, including practices of collection, observation, representation, and the creation of taxonomies. By demonstrating how a kind of scientific enlightenment played out in Japan Marcon helps to de-center the dominant European narrative of the scientific revolution, whilst providing many scholars in the “West” with a valuable insight into Japanese natural history. Of course, not all of the interactions Marcon describes are specific to Japan. He strongly emphasises, for example, how nature and the naturalist continuously “make” one another, which is recognisable anywhere in the world. He also believes that by studying how scholars sought to classify nature we gain a deeper insight into the needs of the societies they lived in (Chapter 2). He uses this particularly to explain the neo-Confucian idea of symmetry between natural history and linguistics (things=names). The book isn’t an entirely pleasant reading experience, though. Certain arguments are introduced at the end of chapters and treated too superficially. I should also say that I was pretty put off by his jargon-y style throughout the text, which had an unpleasant tone of showing-off to it at times.

[CL Chu · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10 A book on honzogaku in its Japanese and international (i.e. Chinese and Korean) context. While it begins with a Critical-Theory-ish and STS-ish exegesis of the interrelation between material/economic condition, concept, and the agency of objects, eventually this book adopts a more conventional intellectual-cultural history approach to its subject.

The author tries hard to simultaneously compare the focus of "natural object" in honzogaku and western science, and avoid the "honzogaku is just (an incomplete?) scientific revolution in Japan" type of argument. He largely succeeds - though I feel he can emphasize more on the controversy generated during the successive transformation of honzogaku as well as on the response of rural society to this mainly urban, if popular, cultural phenomenon.

Overall, highly recommend to historians of science or people interested in environment & society in general.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous book arguing that honzogaku--natural history and scientific rigor in Japan--sprouted contemporaneously but separate from Western Enlightenment. I am not a scholar of Japan, but learned a lot--and clearly this book has lots of applications for the history of science and natural history/art in college classrooms.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal

I just loved this. I did not expect the amount of political discussion or the depth of history and philosophy that this topic would lead to. I learned a lot.

[Sven Waldmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative lecture about how knowledge was created and passed on in feudal Japan.

['Izzat Radzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review much later this week.
Too many notes and a long list of further reads in the references.