was a Japanese

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, religion, theory of government, or way of life. Founded by Confucius ...

scholar of the early

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, in the

Neo-Confucian Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a Morality, moral, Ethics, ethical, and metaphysics, metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, which originated with Han Yu (768� ...

tradition of

Zhu Xi Zhu Xi ( zh, c=朱熹; ; October 18, 1130April 23, 1200), formerly romanized Chu Hsi, was a Chinese philosopher, historian, politician, poet, and calligrapher of the Southern Song dynasty. As a leading figure in the development of Neo-Confuci ...

Biography

Born in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

as the second of five brothers, Kinoshita was a

child prodigy A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some f ...

, and studied under Matsunaga Sekigo. In 1682, the fifth

Tokugawa shōgun The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

Tokugawa Tsunayoshi was the fifth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan. He was the younger brother of Tokugawa Ietsuna, as well as the son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the grandson of Tokugawa Hidetada, and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu.Nussbaum, Louis- ...

, appointed him tutor to the court. A famed educator, Kinoshita's students include

Arai Hakuseki was a Confucianist, scholar-bureaucrat, academic, administrator, writer and politician in Japan during the middle of the Edo period, who advised the ''shōgun'' Tokugawa Ienobu. His personal name was Kinmi or Kimiyoshi (君美). Hakuseki (白� ...

(who became advisor to the sixth Tokugawa shōgun,

Tokugawa Ienobu (11 June 1662 – 12 November 1712) was the sixth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Tsunashige, thus making him the nephew of Tokugawa Ietsuna and Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the grandson of Tokugawa Iem ...

), Amenomori Hōshū, Gion Nankai,

Muro Kyūsō or Muro Naokiyo () (March 30, 1658 – September 9, 1734), was a Edo neo-Confucianism, Neo-Confucian scholar and an official of the Tokugawa shogunate during the rule of Tokugawa Yoshimune. Muro was responsible for the reintroduction of orthod ...

, Nishiyama Juntai, and

Sakakibara Kōshū is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, a Japanese samurai and martial artist *Nobuyuki Sakakibara, a Japanese businessman and mixed martial arts promoter *Seito Sakakibara, alias of the perpetrator of the Kobe child mur ...

References

* Zenan Shu (2009). ''Cultural and political encounters with Chinese language in early modern Japan : the case of Kinoshita Jun'an (1621-1698)'', Thesis (D.Phil.),

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

* Hiroyuki Takeuchi and Hideto Ueno (1991), ''木下順庵 / Kinoshita jun'an''. Tokyo:

Meitoku Shuppansha was a of the Northern Court during the Era of Northern and Southern Courts after ''Kōō'' and before ''Ōei''. This period spanned the years from March 1390 to July 1394. After October 1392, Meitoku replaced the Southern Court's nengō (''Gen ...

. * Arai Hakuseki, Joyce Ackroyd (trans.) (1979), ''Told Round a Brushwood Fire'', University of Tokyo Press. 1621 births 1699 deaths 17th-century Japanese philosophers Neo-Confucian scholars {{NeoConfucianism-stub