Views of/apanese Selfhood: Japanese and \X/estem Perspectives 153

independent of realization in an actual environment, and the tree---or parts

or aspects of the tree, such as roots, root hairs, branches, and needles---' ~nter-
acts differcndy with different parts of the environment (sun, water, wind,
nutrients, supporting soil, etc.). The good life for a tree depends upon inter-
action, and it depends upon different kinds of interaction. A self, by analogy,
is inheremly imcrdeycndcnt. Indeed, the interactions thraugh which it most
clearly realizes itself are the Five Human Relationships: between father and
son?; between ruler and subject, between husband and wife, between older
and younger brother, and between friends.
In practice, the relative and the relational views of persons are not always
distinct, and both have been developed-sometimes but not exclusive1y
under the influence of Confucianism-ixl Japan. The story of the five blind
men is, after all, from India, and all of Asia shares a degree of comfort wirh
relativism and with perspectivalism that is rare in the West-a con?fort that
has been transmitted by h d d h i s m throughout Ask, where it is quite ex-
plicit in such practices and doctrines as "expedient means."
At the same time, the perception of Confucianist selfhood as relative
rather &an relaeionaf does not do jusfice to the radical n a u r e of the Cordu-
cian view; it is simply a coloring of the phenomenon by the filtered glasses of
Western views. We have little history for understanding things as being dif-
ferent depending on context; we have a long history of essentialisms and ide-
alism~.
The Confucian self is relational in two separate respects. First, like a trec,
it is dcpendent upon sociohistorical context and enuironmcnt for its dcvcl-
opment. Second, it is differenr (not only from others, as in the West, but also
"from itself") depending upon its relations with others, as summed up in the
Five Human Relationships-both because each type of relrtciorlship calls for
different responsibilities, responses, types of behavior, and so on, and be-
cause each relationship will affect the evolving self differently.31
The Five Human Relationships arc not, as they arc often ineerpretcd, five
contexts is1 which an esses~rialor ideal self is to obey but five contexts in
which the self develops and becomes itself. As ~ a s u l i sexplains: "From the
Japanese point of view, the person is not primarily an individual subse-
quently placed within the world. Rather, as indicated by the very structure
of the word for 'human being,' the person is always in a context, in a neces-
sary Aationship with &at is around him or her."= One of Japan" foremost
twentieth-century philosophers, Warsuji Tetsurb, also speaks of a trans-indi-
vidwat self, and of the "between-ness between persons" (hito to hito to na
didagdra).33
Neither the relational nor the relative self, let it be noted, is the view corn-
monIy ascribed to Gonhcfanists by AmwiCans, in which a person is defined
by a single relation of primary i~nportance:A pcrson is a Mitsubisbi worker,
say, or a mother. At the very least, Confucianist relational selves are muitiple