Bibliograph

The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan, Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Federico Marcon

Type

Label

The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan, Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Federico Marcon

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

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

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Responsibility statement

Federico Marcon

Series statement

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute

Sub title

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute

Summary

Between 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

Target audience

adult

Classification