Japanese Philosophy Research Articles

On the "Outburst" of World Spirit

On the "Outburst" of World Spirit Joff P. N. Bradley (bio) My intervention comes after I recently listened to a 2019 Genron talk by cultural theorist Hiroki Azuma, Tokyo University emeritus professor Hidetaka Ishida, and Yuk Hui, the Hong Kong philosopher of technology (Azuma, Ishida, and Hui 2019). The title is "Is a Post-European Philosophy of/in Technology Possible?" They discuss for several hours the matter of the overcoming of modernity in Asian philosophy. They discuss the question and possibility of a post-European philosophy, invoking both the Kyoto School philosophies of Nishida and Nishitani and the neo-Confucianism of Mou Zongsan (1909–95). This is apparently to oppose the dominant European philosophies of technology (spirit and cybernetics), and indeed Hui looks to the Heidegger–Kyoto School relation for inspiration. They discuss how to overcome Western philosophy, how to turn to the East, how to orient to the East, how to develop a new form of Asian philosophy at the end of a form of Western metaphysics. I worry that they are speaking of the spirit that goes down in the evening land (Abendland) and rises in the East, in the land of the rising sun. This would be a category mistake, as Greece is the Orient for Heidegger. Morning land (Morgenland) is the Orient, it is Greece. And more than this, Greece is also Occidental. It partakes of the destiny and spirit of the Abendland of Europe. The Greeks are both the wellspring of the Orient and the beginning of European spirit. All of this overcoming and downgoing is made more puzzling as they discuss how to overcome modernity through modernity, how to overcome philosophy through Western philosophy, how to develop a unique Japanese philosophy out of what we can call the Destruktion (Abbau), "destruction" (Zerstörung), or "demolition" of Western philosophy. Hui looks to the Kyoto School and what he calls neo-Confucianism and asks if a Japanese thought could be distinct from its Western predecessor or form. I want to ask here: Could such a thought, a thought tied to technological spirit, somehow escape the spirit of Europe? Could it escape the World Spirit? Could it escape the destiny of the West? This seems problematic, because of course for Hegel "Asia" is that which only marks the beginning (Aufgang) of history. Europe is at the end of History. Could [End Page 21] there be a distinct technological spirit in Japan, a technological spirit in China or Korea or wherever? Should we turn for answers to the Marxist philosopher Tosaka Jun (戸坂 潤・1900–1945), who suggests the technological spirit is precisely the scientific spirit (Kawashima, Schäfer, and Stolz 2013)? Could we have a multiplicity or plurality of different technological spirits, or indeed a new kind of technodiversity (Hui and Lemmens 2021)? I have been trying to find my own answer to these questions by turning to Bernard Stiegler and the question of spirit, going back to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and turning to Paul Valéry's thinking about the crisis of crisis and the crisis of spirit in postwar Europe, that is, the immanent spirit that pertains to industry and machines (Valéry 1919). This has brought me to Tosaka Jun and his thesis on technological spirit (技術的精神), where we find a rumination on technological spirit in 1930s Japan (see Nishikawa 2018), and in which the spirit of science or technology becomes synonymous with scientific or technological spirit. Technological spirit permeates the wider socius, and as we know, for Japan this had disastrous results during its fascist period. My point about the overcoming of modernity concerns the attempt to save spirit from spirit, to save spirit from itself. What kind of geopolitical or planetary thought could this become? What would the place of Japanese philosophy be in this geopolitical or planetary thought? And importantly, how can one shake off the metaphysical fascism and nationalism connected with Heidegger and the Kyoto School to develop this geopolitical thought? In the wake of Heidegger's black notebooks, this, I think, is not an easy task. Hui's discussion with Ishida and Azuma helped me to fathom some of these problems as something interesting is said, albeit unconsciously, in a...

The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy ed. by Bret W. Davis

The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy ed. by Bret W. Davis

Японские философы Ниси Аманэ и Нисида Китаро: между Востоком и Западом

The article suggests a brief analysis of the views of the two Japanese Thinkers Nishi Amane and Nishida Kitaro. The considerable impact of Western philosoph­ical theories on these two scientists’ views is also emphasized here. The out­standing Nishi Amane’s role in the field of creating new concepts in use even to­day conveying the meanings of Western Culture in Japan had been stressed. Doing so, Nishi used Chinese characters – and it was his true novelty. Actually Nishi’s system was aimed at the modernization of Neo-Confucian metaphysics by drawing on the experience of Western Positivism and, partly, Utilitarism. Nishida Kitaro appeared to be the most famous Japanese philosopher in the West. His works show the tendency to combine the basic installations of the national (Buddhist-Confucianism) worldview tradition and some European philosophical traits. The both thinkers demonstrated the two-vector nature of Japanese aesthet­ics in intercultural discourse. They constantly used to attract the ideas of Western thinkers, subjecting them to creative reinterpretation in the process of contruct­ing their own philosophical theories.

Musik von einem fremden Planeten?. Variationen über Struktur, Wahrnehmung und Bedeutung in der Musik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts

The relationship between musical structure, perception and musical meaning can be understood as a key to the development of a theory of post-tonal music. Preliminaries of this theory are developed in three “variations”. First, a review of the difficult relationship between music theory and new music in the 20th century is explained by (1) an increasingly diverse compositional practice that has lead to a composer-centred “theory”, often amounting to nothing more than a scantily contextualized documentation of a composer’s intentions and techniques, and (2) the universalist and dogmatic tendency of music-theoretical discourse around 1900 which, however, has since developed into an “epistemological pluralism” (Nicholas Cook). The Graz research project “organisation of sound”, initiated and headed by the author, pursues just such a pluralistic methodology by integrating author- and listener-perspectives on post-tonal music based on a morpho-syntactical conceptual framework with references to gestalt theory. This approach emerged not least from the observation that new music, especially after 1945, has increasingly been conceived of “morphologically” with a strong focus on music perception, as argued in the second variation. The idea that musical structure, perception and “worldliness” [Welthaltigkeit] are inseparable allowed composers to retain the idea of musical auto-referentiality while at the same time claiming the social-political impact of contemporary music. This is illustrated by a short discussion of the relationship between structural coherence and (political) meaning in works by Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann and Salvatore Sciarrino. The third variation discusses these questions in more detail through an examination of two recent works by Chaya Czernowin and Isabel Mundry. In Czernowin’s Excavated Dialogues – Fragments Western and Chinese instruments are organized in a culturally hybrid space saturated with conflict emerging from a highly gestural material; in Mundry’s Ich und Du solo piano and orchestra go through several stages of an ambiguous identity discourse informed by an essay of Japanese philosopher Kitarō Nishida. Antinomies between the composers’ self-interpretations and the morpho-syntactical analysis can be understood as results of a music-specific polyvalence that should inform any theory of post-tonal music.

Проблемы времени и истории в книге Ниситани Кэйдзи «Что такое религия?»

The problems of time and history are of particular relevance at the turning points in the development of human society, which can be considered to be the beginning of the 21st century. At the same time, in a changing world, it is important to take into account the ideas about time and history that have arisen in various cultural and civilizational areas. The article analyzes the attempt of a Japanese philosopher Nishitani Keiji belonging to the Kyoto school to for­mulate a modern concept of history based on the Buddhist view of the world and time. Unlike other religious and philosophical traditions, Buddhist thought practically did not touch upon topics related to history. Using Nishitani's philo­sophy as an example, the author tries to demonstrate the specifics of the modern Buddhist approach to understanding time and history and to determine its heur­istic potential. Due to the fact that today the narrative view of history prevails, introducing a value component into the understanding of history, which turns history into a field of ideological struggle, an analysis of alternative approaches to history that have arisen, including those in non-Western thought, and reflect­ing its complexity and non-linearity, seems worthy attention. The ontologized model of history proposed by Nishitani poses new problems and thereby opens up new perspectives for considering time and history, such as the relationship of time, history and causality, history and space, definitions of the subject of history and the role of will in history, view of history as a dynamic network with many centers and horizons, understanding the relationship of past, present and future in history.

On the Korean translation of Japanese Philosophy：A Sourcebook

The Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture in Nagoya, Japan, published Japanese Philosophy：A Sourcebook, which was translated into Korean and published by Bogosa in 2021 as 일본철학사상자료집 (Ilbon Cheolhak Sasangjaryo Chib). The translation was carried out through the cooperation of 19 Korean scholars who specialize in Japanese religion, philosophy, literature, and so on, who are mainly affiliated with Korea University’s Global Institute for Japanese Studies. We hope that this work will help many Koreans understand and access the sources of Japanese religious and philosophical thought.

Mori Arimasa’s Concept of <i>Experience</i>

The article introduces and reconstructs the main ideas of the book Experience and Thought by Mori Arimasa. Released in the form of journal publications in 1970–1972, it has never been translated into European languages. The Japanese philosopher who spent a large part of his life in France undertakes a comparative analysis of the socio-cultural and linguistic foundations of the experience of the Japanese and Europeans. The article examines the main aspects of Mori’s concept of experience: understanding experience as a reality and as a subject, separation of two forms of experience — universal and personal, the relationship between experience and language and between experience and thought, the theory of binary connections and second person world, designed to identify and explain the underlying prerequisites that determine the specific character of the experience of the Japanese. The author of the article shows that Mori confirms his own thesis that the primary experience of a person is conditioned by original cultural deep predisposition and linguistic affiliation. Notwithstanding his life abroad and passion for Western philosophy, Mori thinks in about the same way as his fellow philosophers who lived in Japan, sharing their empiricism, understanding the subject as a relatum, perceiving an individual subjective experience as a segment of the universal experience, interpreting a subject as a sum total of relations. In conclusion, Mori’s ideas are assessed in terms of ethno-epistemological approaches. Undoubtedly, Mori’s analysis of the experience provides arguments for epistemological pluralism. It allows us to talk about the variability of the perception of reality in different cultural and historical contexts and about the possibility of different ways and perspectives of its comprehension, the spatial and temporal dynamics of epistemological terminology, despite the apparent commonality. Mori Arimasa taking experience as the starting point and the main task of his analysis, by his own example, demonstrated the importance of the empirical form of acquiring knowledge for Japanese epistemic culture, along with its inherent specificity of understanding experience. His linguistic studies of the structures of the native language resulted in the creation of a memorable image of the second person world and outlined the field of joint collective experience without a clearly expressed single autonomous subject of cognitive activity. Mori demonstrated an approach to cognition, in which the knower feels oneself a part of the cognized reality, and is not alienated from it, as a result the cognition turns into self-cognition of reality.

The virtual cultural tourist: Film-induced tourism and Kubo and the Two Strings

Over the past two decades, there has been growing research in film-induced tourism. Much of this research is focused on how film influences tourist destination choices. There has been less emphasis, however, on the nature and types of movies that may induce this attraction to such locations. By examining Kubo and the Two Strings (Knight, 2016), a stop-motion animation produced by Laika Studios, this paper aims to apply film studies to explore current understandings of film-induced tourism. This paper argues that Kubo is itself a form of film-induced tourism by positioning the viewer as a virtual cultural tourist whose cinematic experience may be likened to a veritable media pilgrimage through Japanese culture, history and aesthetics. The movie introduces the viewer into an imagined world that borrows from origami, Nō theatre, shamisen music, obon rituals and Japanese symbolism, philosophy and mythology. The resulting pastiche is a constructed diorama that is as transnational and postmodern as it is authentic and indigenous.

Through Exchange: Karatani Compared With Marx

The following paper has as its object the political philosophy of K. Karatani, in particular its relationship with the work of Marx. Japanese philosopher, in fact, reinterprets some elements of Marxian theory in the light of Kantian categories, hybridizing the ethical and moral theory of the latter with the critique of the political economy of the former. The result of Karatani's project can be seen, in particular, in two works. With the first, Transcritique, Karatani moves into the realm of philosophy to construct a method that holds the two theoretical poles together. The concept of 'Transcritique', in fact, represents the junction between Kantian and Marxian insights. With the second work, 'The Structure of World History', the Japanese philosopher shifts the analytical focus from ethics to economics, proposing a different interpretation of capitalism and its historical cycles. The shift of the observation of the capitalist system from the sphere of production to that of exchange represents the analytical novelty. Carrying through to the end the methodology developed in the previous work, Karatani traces back to exchange all the productive, institutional and political dynamics produced over time. Cycles of accumulation thus become cycles of exchange. The author, in fact, determines a correspondence between the specific modes of exchange and the consequent political structures, highlighting the centrality that money occupies, both in the theoretical elaboration and in political reality. The prevailing mode of production, based on the exchange of commodities, relies on the absolute mobility of money and on the strength of the state political institution, which acts as a hinge between the global dimension of exchanges and the territorial need for the appropriation of surplus-value. Karatani's critique is embodied in a political proposal, articulated through two key figures: community and cosmopolitanism. With the first term, the philosopher opposes the materiality of human relationships based on reciprocity to the abstract equivalence of economic relationships. By the second term, he shows the need for an extended political practice in which the pursuit of local freedom goes hand in hand with the realization of global justice. The paper traces these themes both through direct exposure of Karatani's work and by offering critical comparisons with other authors who have addressed similar issues. Finally, the purpose of this paper is to emphasize the originality of the Japanese author's philosophical-historical work, suspended between utopia and pragmatism, also through criticism, in order to highlight its strengths and underline its potential weaknesses.

The Symposium on Overcoming Modernity and Discourse in Wartime Japan

The symposium on overcoming modernity (kindai no chōkoku) that took place in Tokyo in 1942 has been much commented upon, but later critics have tended to over-emphasize the wartime political context and the ideological connection to Japanese ultra-nationalism. Closer examination shows that the background and the actual content of the discussion were more complicated. The idea of overcoming modernity had already appeared in debates among Japanese intellectuals before the war, and was always open to different interpretations; it could indicate Japanese ambitions to move beyond Western paradigms of modernity, but in other cases it referred to more radical visions of alternatives to modernity as such. Some versions linked up with Western critiques of existing modernity, including traditionalist as well as more future-oriented ones. These differentiations are evident in the symposium, and associated with diverse schools of thought. An important input came from representatives of the Kyoto school, the most distinctive current in twentieth-century Japanese philosophy. Despite the suppression of Marxist thought, the background influence of the unorthodox Marxist thinker Miki Kiyoshi was significant. Another major contribution came from the group known as the Japan Romantic School, active in literature and literary criticism. Other intellectuals of widely varying persuasions, from outspoken nationalists to Catholic theologians, also participated. The result was a rich but also thoroughly inconclusive discussion, from which no consensus on roads beyond modernity could emerge.

Problems of time and space in the philosophy of Shūzō Kuki (1888 – 1941)

The subject of this research is the philosophy of Shūzō Kuki, which is usually associated with his original concept, built around the concept of iki that simultaneously denotes taste, wealth, sensibility, dignity, reserve, and spontaneity, as well as embodies the aesthetic ideal formed in urban culture of the Edo period (1603 – 1868). The Japanese philosopher is also notable for a number of other intellectual insights. For depicting a holistic image on the philosophical views of Shūzō Kuki, a more extensive array of his works is introduced into the scientific discourse. A significant part of these work have not been translated into the Russian or other foreign languages. This article explores the problems of time and space, which are cross-cutting in the works of Shūzō Kuki  using examples of such philosophical writings as the “Theory of Time”, “What is Anthropology?”, “Problems of Time. Bergson and Heidegger”, “Metaphysical Time”, "Problems of Casualty”. The research employs the method of historical-philosophical reconstruction and sequential textual analysis of sources. Special attention is given to the problems of cyclical time, correlation between the infinite and the finite, and its reflection in the literary or art works, existential-anthropological landscape of space and time, spatial-temporal aspect of casualty and relevance. The conclusion is made on the contribution of Shūzō Kuki to elaboration of the problems of space and time, namely his cross-cultural approach that allows viewing the general philosophical problems from the perspective of both Western and Eastern thought, as well as a distinct  “interdisciplinary” approach towards analysis of the phenomena of space and time, which are viewed from different perspective and acquire different characteristics depending on the angle and aspect of reality of the corresponding context. Thus, there is a variety of concepts of time, which do not eliminate, but complement each other.

Emotional AI, Ethics, and Japanese Spice: Contributing Community, Wholeness, Sincerity, and Heart

This paper assesses leading Japanese philosophical thought since the onset of Japan’s modernity: namely, from the Meiji Restoration (1868) onwards. It argues that there are lessons of global value for AI ethics to be found from examining leading Japanese philosophers of modernity and ethics (Yukichi Fukuzawa, Nishida Kitaro, Nishi Amane, and Watsuji Tetsurō), each of whom engaged closely with Western philosophical traditions. Turning to these philosophers allows us to advance from what are broadly individualistically and Western-oriented ethical debates regarding emergent technologies that function in relation to AI, by introducing notions of community, wholeness, sincerity, and heart. With reference to AI that pertains to profile, judge, learn, and interact with human emotion (emotional AI), this paper contends that (a) Japan itself may internally make better use of historic indigenous ethical thought, especially as it applies to question of data and relationships with technology; but also (b) that externally Western and global ethical discussion regarding emerging technologies will find valuable insights from Japan. The paper concludes by distilling from Japanese philosophers of modernity four ethical suggestions, or spices, in relation to emerging technological contexts for Japan’s national AI policies and international fora, such as standards development and global AI ethics policymaking.

OPTIMIZATION OF PRODUCTION COSTS OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES AS A FACTOR IN THE FORMATION OF A STABLE FOOD SUPPLY SYSTEM

the article deals with the economic functions that can be performed within the framework of the development of cooperative forms of management that affect certain indicators of socio-economic potential of rural areas, optimization of production costs of agricultural cooperatives. The paper describes the further development of agricultural cooperation, taking into account the optimization of production costs, the impact on the identified factors that will contribute to the agricultural economic sustainable development of rural areas sustainable food security system. The development of agricultural enterprises is a priority in the market economy. The article describes the development support of agriculture, through the modernization of existing farms the opening of new large holdings small farms. Agricultural entities are constantly searching for the most optimal effective forms of cost management. If earlier traditional cost accounting systems were justified, now, in the modern competitive environment with Kazakhstan's accession to the WTO, it is necessary to review existing approaches. The method of cost accounting used in the main branches of agriculture is based on the generalization of costs for technological processes associated with the stages of work provided for by production technology in crop livestock production, can be characterized a process-by-process approach. The use of such modern cost accounting systems as and target-costing is the most promising way to solve the problem of modifying the current methodology for cost accounting calculating the cost of production at agricultural enterprises. The use of the cost accounting system Kaizen-costing (translated from the Japanese improvement in small steps) is inextricably linked with the introduction of the Japanese philosophy practice of Kaizen the related concept of lean manufacturing (lean technology)-a management concept based on the desire to eliminate all types of losses.

Locating Heidegger’s Kotoba between Actuality and Hollowness: the Way towards a Thinking Conversation with Japanese Philosophy

What is the philosophical significance of Heidegger’s interpretation of the Japanese notion of kotoba (言葉) for Japanese philosophy? Was his conversation with Tezuka Tomio a real dialogue or not? To answer to these correlated questions, I elucidate Heidegger’s 1954 essay “A Dialogue on Language” by following a topological mode of thinking, and I inquire into the way-making of a “thinking conversation”. First, I problematize whether Heidegger engaged in a genuine dialogue with Tezuka. To that end, I distinguish the hermeneutic horizon of the actual encounter between Tezuka and Heidegger from Heidegger’s essay which places Tezuka (the Japanese) and Heidegger (the Inquirer) in a fictional philosophical conversation. Second, I argue that Heidegger’s topological method of interpretating kotoba can be read as a poetic means of thematizing East-West dialogue. Third and finally, exploring the topological sense of kotoba, I engage with third generation Kyoto School thinker Ueda Shizuteru’s idea of “hollow words” of language, situated in a twofold view of the world. I conclude that the true character of Heidegger’s conversation with Tezuka can be identified neither in Heidegger’s “actual” encounter with Tezuka, nor merely in Heidegger’s “hollow” essay. Departing from Ueda’s account of kotoba, it appears that a genuine conversation with language can be located in the dialogue of actuality and hollowness, which finds it expression in poetic language.

Distribution of Responsibility for Climate Change within the Milieu

This article approaches the challenges of the distribution of responsibility for climate change on a local level using the framework of the milieu. It suggests that the framework of the milieu, inspired by Japanese and cross-cultural environmental philosophy, provides pathways to address the four challenges of climate change (global dispersion, fragmentation of agency, institutional inadequacy, temporal delay). The framework of the milieu clarifies the interrelations between the individual, the community, and the local milieu and is open to a conservative view of human communities and an inclusive view of multispecies communities. On this basis, an account of individual responsibility that is anchored in the local milieu and includes a responsibility to collaborate across milieus is developed. It consists of a forward-looking responsibility that balances a degree of contributory responsibility for one’s imprints on the milieu with a degree of capacity-responsibility that varies regarding the individual’s knowledge and powers, and the acceptability of practices within the local milieu.

WORK TIME AND WORK STYLE REFORM AMONG PHYSICIANS IN JAPAN

Background: The April 2019 amendment of the Labor Standards Act in Japan led to a current ongoing work style reform. The amendment set the monthly overtime cap at 100 hours, but physicians are exempt for the next five years. The work style reform for physicians aims to ensure both their health and well-being and to provide appropriate community medicine. From April 2024, the maximum overtime permitted for physicians will be 100 hours a month and 960 hours a year. Community medicine hospitals, however, will have a different time limit and their physicians will be allowed to work up to 100 hours a month and 1,860 hours a year overtime. Junior/senior residents can also apply for exemption by registering for accredited training programs. Exempt physicians are required to comply with additional measures to ensure their good health and well-being.
 Objectives: This paper proposes promotion strategies for work style reform for physicians in Japan.
 Method: The Japan Medical Association Physicians’ Work Style Reform Committee developed proposals using the Delphi methods.
 Results: To manage physicians’ work time, an objective understanding of real work conditions, a review of employment agreements, active use of occupational health teams, task shifting, support for female physicians, and KAIZEN (a Japanese business philosophy) activities are important. The roles fulfilled by occupational health physicians, hospital directors, supervisors, physicians, patients, and community medicine systems are summarized from the perspective of comprehensive management.
 Conclusions: The Japanese health care system defines the work style of Japanese physicians. However, physicians as highly specialized professionals can more or less choose any workplace. A physician being aware of their characteristics and independently choosing their own work style would give meaning to an appropriate work–life balance. True work style reform should aim for this.

Философские исследования в Японии ХХI в. (направления, проблемы, концепции)

The article is focused upon the Japanese philosophical science progress over the last twenty years. The author identifies the most significant and widely debated problems during the given period, observes its principal directions and the most prominent works. The following topics are in the center of consideration: modern vision of philosophy as a science, peculiarity of understanding the phenomenon of life, undertaken within the framework of two interconnected integral ap­proaches, defined as “philosophy of life” (seimei tetsugaku) and “philosophy of coexistence” (kyosei tetsugaku), as well as the latest achievements and vectors of expansion in line with the main philosophical areas – phenomenology, analytical philosophy, traditions of the Kyoto school, and Marxism. This is the first attempt to provide general analysis of the latest Japanese philosophical works published after 2000. The interest in Japanese philosophy is dictated both by the existence of a rich philosophical tradition in this country, by the high level of modern philosophical works, that are beginning to be actively translated into Western languages and are increasingly attracting the attention of scholars over the world, as well as by the situation of social demand for philosophical literature in the do­mestic market, additional incentives to steer its development. The aim of the study is to reconstruct a more complete picture of modern philosophical thought, which is marked by lacunae due to the limited availability of a significant body of research published in national languages. Its practical importance lies in the accumulation of an information and creation of an ana­lytical base, allowing to provide orientations for the expansion of scientific cooperation with modern Ja­panese philosophers. The bibliography covers the most important vectors and significant personalities.

ARCHITECTURE OF CREATIVE BECOMINGS: SOU FUJIMOTO

The study investigates Sou Fujimoto's concept of in between, moving geometry of space, Gilles Deleuze's and Felix Guattari's ontology of becoming, Karen Barad's agential realism and Japanese philosophy of living. The starting premise is that is possible to read Japanese space-time concept of being (which is the ground of Fujimoto's architecture) by the language of Deleuze's, Guattari's and Barad's philosophy and vice versa. Hence, the study aims to prove that Fujimoto's architecture can be read as an example of Japanese New Wave that makes departure from Structuralist theoretical thought, that Fujimoto's architecture can be understand as a practice that is in the act of becoming-nature, that is, that Fujimoto's in-between are space-time concepts in a continuous process of becomings. This is about understanding of Fujimoto's architecture as material-discursive practice (or apparatus) of social production of a multitude of sense and meaning, new sensations and sense knowledge. The study identifies several key concepts of Structuralist theoretical thought and relates them to Fujimoto's thinking about architecture, through analysis of his five key examples ( Serpentine gallery pavilion , House NA , House N , Musashino Art University Museum & Library and L'arbre blanc ). Through this analysis study concludes that it is possible to read Fujimoto's concept of spaces-in between by language of Poststructuralist theoretical thought, that is, by ontology of becoming, and that it can be read as operative rather than representative concept, one that leads toward not only emancipation of architecture, but also toward emancipation of the subject, society and culture by architecture. Key words: Japanese New Wave, (Post-)Structuralism, becoming nature, Sou Fujimoto's spaces in

Feminism in Radical Democracy and Japanese Political Theory: Mouffe, Pateman, Young, and “Essentialism”

Abstract This paper examines feminist arguments in radical democracy and Japanese responses to them. Although feminist insights are significant intellectual sources of radical democracy, recent political theorists have tended to exclusively consider radical democracy as agonistic pluralism. The radical democratic thinker Chantal Mouffe, who is very popular among Japanese political theorists and philosophers, criticizes the “essentialist” tendency of two feminist political theorists, namely Carole Pateman and Iris Marion Young. First this paper examines Mouffe’s critique of the two theorists. Second, it evaluates the relevance of Mouffe’s criticism of Pateman and Young by reconsidering their ideas on democracy and citizenship. Third, it engages the works of a few Japanese political theorists who respond to the issue of essentialism and points out the problems involved in the introduction of radical democracy in Japan and in Japanese feminist political theory. Finally, this paper concludes that we are still in the early stages of introducing and absorbing foreign feminist political theories into Japan as opposed to developing original Japanese feminist political theory to share with the world.

Triplex Entity

This research note intends, first, to provide a clear exposition of“meaningless nonsense”, a philosophical concept propoundedby Japanese philosopher Masaya Chiba, and, second, to indicateits potential to broaden and deepen one’s perspective. Toachieve the aims, the discussion is conducted in the followingorder: after an introduction which succinctly reviews previousstudies of Chiba’s thought, the first part elucidates the precisecontext in which “meaningless nonsense” was invented, andclarifies that the neologism, as an uncountable, stands for beingunambiguously noninterpretable and, as a countable, means anobject as that which exists in such a state; thereupon, the secondpart presents a hypothesis that one could innovate one’sworldview by regarding everything as a “meaningless nonsense”because it enables one to deem an object as a triplex entity—as afinitely significant being, as a potentially infinitely polysemicexistence, and as an unambiguously noninterpretable body.