The Early Intellectual Orientation of Takahashi Toru: The Pre-Chosun Period

This article explores the historical and educational background of Takahashi Toru (1868–1967), a pioneering scholar in the history of Chosŏn Confucianism. Previous research on Takahashi's colonial historiography has focused mainly on his personal characteristics, whereas this article looks at the period in his life which most influenced his worldview and subsequent scholarship. To do this, it focuses on two articles he published in the year he graduated from the Department of Chinese Studies at Tokyo Imperial University. By looking at the professors who influenced him and their scholarly orientations, it is possible to identify the origins of his intellectual outlook. Shigeno Yasutsugu, a textual critic, taught him positivistic source critique, while Ludwig Riess, a Rankean, inspired Takahashi's tendency to view nations as the main actors in history and to describe them in terms of national characteristics. In addition, Inoue Tetsujiro, an Orientalist scholar, implanted in Takahashi his own understanding of the history of Chinese philosophy. This viewpoint prioritizes philosophy over Chineses exegesis, and endorses the superiority of socially engaged Confucianism. This article shows that Takahashi's later view that "Zhuzixue is monotonous" is a result of his acceptance of Inoue's Orientalist approach to Chinese philosophy. I argue that the scholarly framework on the history of philosophy presented in the two Takahashi articles was the foundation for this later research on the history of Chosŏn Confucianism. He adopted a positivistic research approach based on the preconception that Zhuzixue was simplistic. At the same time, he endeavored to uncover distinctive national characteristics of the Chosŏn people.