Caminos entre la diferencia: pensar la educación desde el rinrigaku de Watsuji Tetsurō

Abstract

This article invites us to think on education from the ethical system of rinrigaku, a system thought by the 20th Century Japanese philosopher, Watsuji Tetsuro. To this end, we start from Barbara Cassin’s perspective on languages and tongues as untranslatables, understood as those words that can never stop to be translated. A breakdown of some of the elements that Watsuji mentions, from Europe to Asia, is necessary. This will allow us to think on the educational aspects that can be decantated from this ethical proposal. In this sense, we must continue with the dialogue between Europe and Asia thinkers and traditions. How can we think on education from other knowledge traditions? Even though our purpose does not lie in making or finding an equivalence, the oscillation between terms and definitions is what, at the end, will lead us towards a reflection on education, which could be defined as all the aspects that make us humans. Rinrigaku talks about how we are linked: the human being is all and one, at the same time. If we are individuals and simultaneously, we are the community, how do we learn to be so? The biggest commitment of human beings does not lie in the relationships that we establish, but in how we establish them: through the sincerity of the spirit. Watsuji and Japanese Philosophy invite us to think on education from another point of view, to question all the aspects that we have thought that ought to make a human being and to look at oneself (at us) the way we (one) is.