Völkerpsychologie and the Appropriation of “Spirit” in Meiji Japan

Conceptions of Geist (mind/spirit) associated with German Romanticism shaped ideologies of national folk, not only in Europe but elsewhere in the world. In Meiji Japan (1868–1912) psychologists drew upon Volkerpsychologie (folk psychology) and Geist to create a narrative of Japanese folk mind/spirit. Here, spirit functioned as a “hidden essence” which substantiated the integrity of the folk, positioned the folk hierarchically in opposition to other societies, and explained (and presented correctives to) the fragmentation of Japanese society. Japanese psychologists, I argue, appropriated the narrative form of Geist discourse, retaining its ideological power even as they altered its substance by divesting German psychology of its orientalist and Christian content. Attention to Japan's engagement with nineteenth-century German psychology will contribute to a more thorough account of the production of “spirit” in Meiji Japan and to a critique of present-day exclusionary ideologies of Japanese spirit and identity

Aesthetics · Appropriation · Art · Epistemology · Geist · German · Ideology · Literature · Millenarianism · Narrative · Political science · Politics · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis and Social Critique · Religious studies · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

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