With the Meiji Restoration as a turning point, Japan embarked on the path to becoming a modern nation, and absorbing Western learning was a top priority for the country. According to “Introduction to Japanese Philosophy” (by Fujita Masakatsu, Kodansha Gendai Shinsho), Nishi Amane, a famous Meiji thinker, believed that Western learning was fundamentally different from Confucianism, and that introducing Western learning was important for Japan to walk a new path.
Confucianism regards the teachings of Confucius and Mencius as truth and has sought to inherit them. It is a world of court etiquette and customs. On the other hand, Western learning does not take tradition as a premise, but has a view of truth that arrives at the truth through criticism and verification.
To clarify these differences, Nishi focused on induction as a method of learning. The deductive method, which derives conclusions from certain premises based on correct reasoning, has traditionally been emphasized as a method of learning. However, deductive method does not allow new knowledge and information to be incorporated into Japanese learning, which has been based on court etiquette and customs. For this reason, Nishi emphasized the use of induction, which involves collecting as many examples as possible and finding principles that apply to everything.

I imagine that scholars and intellectuals at the time must have had a tremendous struggle with learning, since a country like Japan, which had closed itself off to the outside world for so long, was able to absorb such advanced academic knowledge.

Now, on to the present day. Japan’s IT is said to be lagging behind Europe and the United States. In this respect alone, the situation is similar to that of the Meiji Restoration. Why is Japan’s IT lagging behind? This may be because it is proceeding deductively. Even if you derive a conclusion based on correct (conventional) reasoning from certain premises, it is difficult to create something new, that is, innovation. Japan became wealthy as a modern nation, joined the ranks of developed countries, and was once praised as an economic powerhouse and Japan as number one. Perhaps it became complacent in this situation and forgot to look outside, reverting to traditional court customs. It is time to look outside again and put induction into practice. (Kitajima Kei)