ABSTRACT
Philosophy cannot be evaded. To study philosophy, Japanese or otherwise, is to hold firm to the Socratic legacy. Such a commitment demands adherence to certain principles. It is axiomatic to this enterprise, now more than 2,500 years old, that neither politics or ethics, nor religion or science has any essentialist superiority over philosophy as a form of human understanding. The confident grasp of human reality is so elusive, so resistant to ready comprehension, that one approach may exhibit profounder insights than another, on this subject or another, in this age or another.
