 Hegel’s view that the history of philosophy encompassed Asian philosophy including Chinese philosophy, with Confucius as the prime representative of the latter, influenced the first definition of “Japanese philosophy” and “Japanese Confucian philosophy.” Between 1884 and 1890, Inoue Tetsujirō (1855–1944), studied in Heidelberg and Leipzig, focusing on German Idealism and Hegel. A decade after his return to Japan and appointment as the first Japanese professor of philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, Inoue began publishing his monumental three-volume account of Japanese Confucian philosophy, the Philosophy of the Japanese School of Wang Yangming (Nihon Yōmeigakuha no tetsugaku, 1900), the Philosophy of the Japanese School of Ancient Learning (Nihon kogakuha no tetsugaku, 1902), and the Philosophy of the Japanese School of Zhu Xi (Nihon Shushigakuha no tetsugaku, 1905). Standing as Hegel’s antithesis, Inoue presented a detailed and fairly positive account of Japanese Confucian philosophy. In doing so, Inoue suggested that well before the introduction of western philosophy, Japan had developed a substantial philosophical tradition of its own, one that in terms of volume and diversity compared impressively with any national tradition of philosophy in the west.