Abstract

In modern Japan, Ogyū Sorai is the best-known Confucian thinker of the Edo Period. The question I want to address in this article is, whether Sorai was as famous before the opening of the country as he became after World War II, and what he was famous for in his own time. It is difficult to measure popularity and influence, but if we go by such indications as number and quality of disciples, number of books in print, and the number and contents of the critical reactions from contemporaries, it should be possible to get a fairly good idea – at the same time of the measure of someone’s popularity and of the nature of his appeal.