JJRS > Volume 51 Issue 1 Tokugawa Japan From the “Outside” and the Inside: Wagaku and Kokugaku, Etics and Emics, Nationalism and Exceptionalism

McNally, Mark

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During the Edo period, the study of Japanese antiquity, especially its religious and literary aspects, went by various names, but the two most common of these were <em>wagaku</em> and Kokugaku. In theory, both of these terms mostly signified the same thing, and so they should have been interchangeable. In fact, the usage of both during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries suggests just that. However, some scholars of the time did not think these terms were synonymous. These scholars recognized a fundamental difference between the two: one was coherent to individuals regardless of whether or not they resided in Japan (<em>wagaku</em>), while the other (Kokugaku) was only properly understood by those familiar with the intellectual context of the time. The terminological controversy between <em>wagaku</em> and Kokugaku was tantamount to a recognition by Tokugawa intellectuals of the differences between what Western scholars today refer to as etics and emics respectively. By understanding the terminological history of <em>wagaku</em> and Kokugaku, we can see how the shift from the former to the latter was a deeply ideological one. Specifically, the terminological victory of Kokugaku over wagaku signified the dominance of exceptionalism over ethnic nationalism.