The major intellectual development of the Tokugawa period is the flourishing of neo-Confucianism.

Confucian studies have long been kept active in Japan by Buddhist clerics, but during the Tokugawa period, Confucianism emerges from Buddhist religious control.

This system of thought increases attention to a secular view of man and society.

The ethical humanism, rationalism, and historical perspective of neo-Confucian doctrine appeals to the official class, and by the mid-seventeenth century, it is Japan's dominant legal philosophy and contributes directly to the development of the kokugaku (national learning) school of thought.