This volume presents the first unabridged translation of Itô' Jinsai's (1627-1705) masterwork, the Gomô jigi (Philosophical Lexicography of the Analects and Mencius, 1705), into any western language.
The extensively annotated translation opens with a brief textual study of the Gomô jigi and an intellectual biography of Jinsai. While highlighting the Neo-Confucian text, the author suggests that the Gomô jigi espouses a systematic philosophical worldview for chônin, or townspeople, living in the ancient imperial capital, Kyoto, even during an age of ascendant samurai power.
The translation makes accessible to Western readers one of the earliest texts of Tokugawa philosophy. Those interested in Chinese and East Asian philosophy will find it enlightening since the topics that Jinsai addresses are also seminal ones in those fields.