比较哲学工作坊第二十七讲：现代日本“启蒙”中的统计学和优生学

Comparative Philosophy Workshop (27th)

Organizer

Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai)，Sun Yat-sen University

Topic

Statistics and Eugenics in Modern Japanese “Enlightenment” (Virtual）

Speaker

Koichiro MATSUDA, Professor of Japanese Political Thought, College of Law and Politics, Rikkyo University

Moderator

Takashi KIBE, Professor of Politics and International Studies, International Christian University

Time

March. 26. 2022 15:00

Place

Tencent（VOOV）ID: 743-185-675

ABSTRACT

A very beginning step of Selbstschreibung (self-describing), to borrow Luhmann’s term, of the Japanese society was taken when a group of intellectuals encountered statistical analysis in the mid-nineteenth century. A method of setting up indicators of “civilization”, rather than measurement results in a given scale, was a discovery of “modernity”, even though those intellectuals did not know this terminology. Fukuzawa Yukichi, a famous advocator of “civilization theory”, exhibited a keen interest in H. T. Buckle’s statistical explanation of social change and later in Francis Galton’s “eugenics”. Nishi Amane and Tsuda Mamichi learned the elements of statistics when they were dispatched to the Netherland and they made efforts to apply their knowledge to legislation and education. My paper examines how statistics and eugenics converged into the methodological description of society as a system and how it was appropriated to the pseud-science of racial supremacism.

”

比较哲学工作坊第二十七讲

主办

中山大学哲学系（珠海）

主题

现代日本“启蒙”中的统计学和优生学（线上）

主讲

Koichiro MATSUDA 立教大学法学部政治学系教授

主持

Takashi KIBE 国际基督教大学政治外交学系教授

时间

2022年3月26日15:00开始

地点

腾讯会议ID: 743-185-675

摘要

日本社会的“自我描述”（此处我借用Luhmann的术语“Selbstschreibung”）发端于19世纪中期，当时一些日本知识分子首次接触到数据分析。虽然这些知识分子并不知道现代性这个术语，但是正是他们所使用的设立“文明”的指标的方法，而非是在某一领域的测量结果，发现了“现代性”。著名的“文明论”的提倡者福泽谕吉曾对巴克尔的对社会变化的数据解释表现了浓厚的兴趣，之后，他又关注了弗朗西斯·高尔顿的“优生学”。日本思想家西周和津田真道则在留学荷兰的时候学习了统计学的基本原理，并且将他们的所学应用到了日本立法和教育之中。本文探讨了统计学和优生学如何融合成为一种把社会描述为一个系统的方法论，以及这种方法论如何适用于种族至上主义的伪科学。