Differences in East Asian STS: European Origin or American Origin?

Differences in East Asian STS: European Origin or American Origin? Hideto Nakajima Published online: 28 March 2008 # National Science Council, Taiwan 2008 More than five years have passed since we started East Asian STS activity. It is growing more rapidly than we expected. The number of STS’ers joining in is increasing rapidly. East Asian conferences provide important meeting places for exchanging our regional experiences from and with each community. At last, the East Asian STS journal is coming into being, thanks to the enthusiastic commitment of the Taiwan STS community. Though the future of East Asian STS seems to be bright, we have, of course, our difficulties. The biggest seem to me to be the differences in the orientation of research interests, which could lead to deep antagonism. It is true that differences are a stimulus to productivity. However, to make use of them, we need to know what are the real differences among us. The purpose of this presentation is to identify them. First, I will describe a short history of Japanese STS. And at the end of the paper, I will briefly compare it with STS in East Asia. In my presentation, I will divide the history of Japanese STS into four stages. But first, I would ask East Asian colleagues to consider my comments below on a characteristic of the Japanese modernization process since the Meiji Restoration (1868): modernization under the strong influence of the European countries. For example, Japanese engineering infrastructure including railway & road transport system was designed, or even constructed, by British engineers. The Navy also learned much from Britain, and we bought battleships from there. But the Meiji leaders were careful not to introduce the British legal system, which was ‘unnecessarily’ democratic. They showed the ‘wisdom’ of implementing German law. Indeed, not only law but also the Japanese academic setting in general was designed following the German one, reflecting the backwardness of the society. So, for example, the German philosophical trends of Kant, Hegel, neo-Kantians and even Marx were, or still are, dominating in the academic sphere in Japan. If we look at the history of Japanese STS, German influence was conspicuous from the beginning. Japanese STS started as science studies (科学論) at the first East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (2007) 1:237–241 DOI 10.1007/s12280-007-9021-6 H. Nakajima (*) Tokyo Institute of Technology, Box W9–56 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan e-mail: nakajima.h.ab@m.titech.ac.jp stage, and liberals and Marxists were active in the field. For example, Jun Tosaka (戸坂潤), who started his research as a Neo-Kantian, converted to Marxism, and published his book Science Studies ( 『科学概論』 ) in 1935. He was one of the organizers of the Materialism Research Society (唯物論研究会, 1932). Jun Isiwara (石原純), the liberal physicist who hosted Einstein’s visit to Japan in 1922, was a member of the Society. Science studies were a hiding place for liberal or left wing thinkers under Japanese fascism. History of science played a similar role, but it came rather later, as the Japanese Society for History of Science (日本科学史 学会) was inaugurated only in 1941. The second stage of Japanese STS started in 1945, when the Japanese Empire collapsed. Science was a tool for democratizing Japan against old-fashioned prewar ideology. Liberals and Marxists, who were forced to hide underground during the repressive military regime, started their movements openly in public. They organized the Society of Democratic Scientists (民主主義科学者協会), including researchers in the humanities and social sciences. Physicists played an important role in the movement as in the case of Mitsuo Taketani (武谷三男).1 His books on science studies attracted wide audiences. He was a leading figure in the anti A-bomb movement. It is worth mentioning that books written by British scientists also had a strong influence on the democratization process. For example, J. D. Bernal’s The Social Function of Science, an important work of sociology of science, was translated by Sakata (坂田昌一), a communist physicist, in 1951. The books of Joseph Needham, L. T. Hogben, etc. were also introduced. Again, Japan was influenced by Europe (though in this case mainly by the UK). However, the democratization process got stuck when the...