 Viewed as a religio-philosophical teaching, Confucianism brims with high-minded ideals that have always challenged humanity to realize the highest state of ethical perfection and self-realization. However, as a political doctrine appropriated by the ruling elite to provide a modicum of legitimization for coercive rule, Confucianism was often voiced in cynical if not self-serving ways, belying the very ideals to which little more than lip-service was otherwise given. However, from the beginnings of political unity in Japan as provided by the nascent imperial system and then later by various shogunal regimes, Confucian thinking informed the ethics and socio-political ideals of the polity, and not infrequently imperial names and reign names, thus defining the parameters of real world discourse about the governed, those governing, and the nature and purpose of government. In modern times, ever resilient Confucian notions have provided conceptual foundations for integrating much of western thinking about self, society, the family, and the polity, thus helping to mediate Japan’s advance, philosophically, toward a more global understanding of civilization and modernity.