This paper discusses how Inoue Enryo, who is commonly recognized for establishing “identity-realism” alongside Inoue Tetsujiro, actually developed a worldview with irreconcilable differences from Tetsujiro.
In contrast to Tetsujiro, who did not acknowledge the independent significance of religion, Enryo envisioned a worldview where his religion, Buddhism, could guide the modern world. He placed religion above philosophy by establishing the shinsei (信性), as a human subject alongside reason, bestowing the highest meaning on the absolute experience of the divine.
His concept of evolution, developed based on Buddhism’s interdependence and reincarnation, denies a straightforward progression of evolution, asserting instead that it involves a cyclical process of both evolution and regression. Furthermore, in response to claims that Buddhism is pessimistic and ascetic, he modifies the doctrine of interdependence to advocate for the immortality of the soul. attatching a caveat that the soul sustains the process of cause and effect. Still, Enryo makes a conscious effort to use the term “soul” to dispel the pessimistic image often associated with Buddhism.
This worldview, characterized by such traits, has been named “Soganron” (相含論), which signifies that phenomena and the absolute, mutually contain one another through the causal process. Within this worldview, the absolute and the relative encompass each other, meaning that the relative world also manifests as the unfolding of the absolute.
Thus, Enryo’s “Soganron” presents a religious worldview that reveals differences from Tetsujiro’s “identity-realism.”