"Japanese Philosophy" is usually equated primarily with Nishida Kitaro. In Japan, Watsuji Tetsuro is right up there with Nishida and more well known than even Tanabe Hajime or Nishitani Keiji (who are well read in their English translations). He is most well known (if high school textbooks are a judge of popular reception) for two things: First is his theory of Fudo (climate in how it influences human existence). But second, and perhaps more important is his systematic ethics, which is his source of renown in academic circles.
Robert Carter and Yamamoto Seisaku have done the world a great favor by making this, the best starting point to Watsuji's systematic ethics, available in English. This translation is of the 1st volume of the Ethics trilogy (1937, 1942, 1949). The introduction explains what Watsuji sets out to do in the three volumes of Ethics, but the 1st volume serves primarily to lay the theoretical foundations of his ethical system.
In the 1st volume, Watsuji discusses five main themes. First is the meaning and method of Watsuji's ethics, where he discusses ethics as a study of human existence which is BOTH individual and communal. (We see here traces of Hegel's idea of the relationship between Moralität and Sittlichkeit.) And in an obvious dig on Heidegger, he shows how ethics is the fundamental question wherein human existence returns to itself. The second theme he takes up is the dual-structure of individuality and totality (or communality), where he draws considerably from sociology to show the inseparability of these two facets. The third theme is on the negative structure of human existence and the fundamental law, where he shows how double-negation (in the mutual dependency of individuality and communality) is the ground of ethics. (This part is where we see Watsuji bring out his Buddhist influences, particularly in his work on Nagarjuna, with a dash of Hegel. Or maybe more than a dash.) In the fourth theme, he shows how this ethics of negation plays out in space and time. And last, he shows how acts in space and time always exist in relation to trust and truth.
While it is best read with the 2nd and 3rd volumes of Ethics (which are only available in Japanese), the 1st volume of Ethics gives much food for thought. It can help us think about the problem of individualism versus collectivism, as it shows both in the communitarianism vs liberalism debates. It can help one better understand the strange "group-think" that foreigners find in Japan (as travel guides love to point out), as well as the potentials and limitations of this collectivism. It can help one think of ways in which classic Eastern values systems such as Buddhism and Confucianism can be systematized in relation to modern western philosophy. The list goes on.
Which is why I call Watsuji's Ethics a bridge: It is an exposition of a world view and ethical system very different from virtue ethics, deontology, and utilitarianism, and is heavily influenced by Buddhism and Confucianism (and some Shintoism too). Without falling into dangerous caricaturing of east vs west, Watsuji's ethics is very much "eastern." But Watsuji was not trying to be eastern. And so he writes about ideas that can be very strange for continental ethics, but with clear and systematic argumentation, and constant terminological and methodological reference to Heidegger, Dilthey, Hegel, and Kant. (It reads remarkably well accompanied by Wilhelm Windelband's An Introduction to Philosophy.) At the same time, he is also constantly aware of (if not vexed by) the problem of cultural specificity of ethical systems, as he tries to discern what is structurally universal in ethics from what is culturally particular. (A problem which we continue to wrestle with today.)
I believe Watsuji has a lot to offer the English-speaking world, and I am glad that this translation is available. I recommend it very highly.
However, I only give four stars because of some points of dissatisfaction I had with the translation. That and in order to lament the fact that volumes 2 and 3 remain untranslated.
(For those who speak German, Watsuji's Ethik als Wissenschaft vom Menschen is also another very accessible entry-point to his ethical system.)
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