Ogyū Sorai

Ogyū Sorai was a major Confucian philosopher of Tokugawa Japan and a leading figure in the Ancient Learning movement. He argued that reliable understanding required close study of the earliest Chinese classics and their historical language, rather than reliance on Neo-Confucian moral abstractions. His writings, including *Bendō* and *Seidan*, applied this historical and philological approach to philosophy, government, and social order, influencing Japanese intellectual life well beyond his lifetime.