Nakamoto Tominaga

Tominaga Nakamoto (1715–1746) was a Japanese rationalist philosopher and merchant from Osaka who challenged traditional religious and philosophical systems. He advocated for empiricist approaches to knowledge and critiqued Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto, proposing instead a practical ethics called 'the True Way' (*makoto no michi*). Though he died at only 31, his works had a revolutionary impact on Japanese religious history.