Shushigaku (considered to have arisen in opposition to traditional thinking), and especially Yomei-gaku (as described later, considered to have arisen in opposition to Shushigaku, which was officially authorized by the Ming Court), were easily linked in a defeated Japan to concepts such as modern thinking, antiauthoritarianism and human emancipation; as a result, most scholars have frequently attempted to extract from Shushigaku and Yomei-gaku the elements that are relatively close to these concepts and attempt to attach an ideological value to them.
また朱子学（旧来の思想に対抗して生れたように考えられた）、特に陽明学（後に説明されるように、これは明朝が正式に認めた学問であった朱子学に対抗して生まれ出たように見えた）は、敗戦後の日本に於ける近代思惟・反権力・人間解放などの概念と容易に結びつき、朱子学及び陽明学の中、比較的それらの概念に近似する部分を抜き取り、そこに思想的価値を与えるという試みが盛んに行われた。