Abstract
Japan has been the subject of a comparative discourse since the Portuguese first broached it in the sixteenth century.One of the most constant motifs of this comparative discourse is the notion of Japan as the "absolute other", an extremely alien culture, a perfect antithesis.This motive emerged early in a text written in 1585 by Jesuit Luis Frois.It has undergone several variations, like that of the "topsy-turvydom", and has recently resurfaced among several contemporary thinkers who never tire of brooding on this apparently inexhaustible topos.If, to "compare comparisons" 1 , we analyze the words that mean "compare" or "comparison" in Chinese or Japanese, we immediately notice the following: As we try to connect the Western (?) notion of the word "comparison" with its Chinese or Japanese equivalents, we do find translations quite easily; by doing so, we are creating what I would like to call a "space of translatability", between Chinese and Japanese on the one hand, and between each of these languages and our European languages on the other.So there is the notion of "comparison" both in China and Japan as well as in Europe.As we examine the way comparisons are made in these languages, we realize the importance of its concrete dimensions, whether we compare side-by-side or crossreference; as well as of location in space; reducing the distance between distant objects.We immediately begin to ask for the possible purposes of the comparison, whether they are cognitive (identify differences and similarities, highlight one aspect or another) or practical (identify merits and defects, make elements compete to find out which one is better, but also simply to have a relationship with and appreciate one another).Especially in moments of historical transformation, when a given world order is disrupted by a new development, comparison can thus be a particularly effective 1