born Aug. 30, 1627, Kyto, Japan died April 4, 1795, Kyto Japanese Confucian scholar. The son of a lumberman, he devoted himself to scholarship. He opposed the authoritarian Neo-Confucianism of the Tokugawa shogunate (see Tokugawa period) and advocated a return to the authentic teachings of Confucius and Mencius. He helped establish the Kogaku school of Neo-Confucianism and, with his son, founded the Kogi-d academy in Kyto, which was run by his descendants until 1904. His writings include Gmjigi (1683), a commentary on Confucianism that tried to develop a rational basis for morality and the pursuit of happiness