Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook

Chūōkōron Discussions

1059 Chūōkōron Discussions (1941–1942) Between November 1941 and November 1942, four second-generation professors of the Kyoto School famously discussed the theme “Japan and the Standpoint of World History.” Their discussions appeared in the journal Chūōkōron shortly after they occurred and in 1943 came out as a popular academic book, A World-Historical Standpoint and Japan. Kōsaka Masaaki* (1900–1969) was Director of the Institute for the Humanities at the Kyoto University, where Kōyama Iwao* (1905–1993) and Nishitani Keiji* (1900–1990) were teaching in the philosophy department, and Suzuki Shigetaka (1907–1988) was lecturing on western history. These four met originally at the behest of the Japanese Navy in the hope of creating an intellectual base for turning public opinion against the Japanese Army’s expansionist aspirations. Unfortunately, when the first discussion appeared in print, the attack on Pearl Harbor had already occurred and the editors decided to delete all negative references to Tōjō Hideki’s militarism. The first discussions considered the significance of the fact that modern world history was no longer simply the actions of Europe towards the rest of the world. For the first time in modern history, there was a major national agency in global affairs outside Europe and the United States. The participants explored philosophical issues arising from this new context. These included: conflicting models of polity, a world order based on multiple centers of national agency, the need for every East Asian nation’s self-determination, and the hope for each nation’s tapping its own “moral energy” to define its own role in the new global context. What was needed, the participants agreed, is a philosophy of world history not based in abstract Hegelian ideas but emerging from actual world affairs, from what they called the “world-historical standpoint.” The second round of discussions took place when the Pacific War was well underway and the Japanese military was still advancing, especially into East Asia. The four philosophers wondered how to make this activity into something other than a Japanese version of the imperialist expansionism typical of the old world order. How could one philosophically reformulate the “East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” so that it could follow the ideals outlined in the first discussions? Paradoxically, the participants argued, for example, that Japan had to conquer China to preserve China’s own potential for self-determination. They agreed that only a united China free of European partitioning could, with Japan’s protection, find its own national “moral energy.” That would be its best opportunity to find its own vocation within the new world-historical moment. By the time of the third round of discussions, Japan’s military fortunes had begun to reverse. The devastating defeat at Midway in June 1942 meant Japan would increasingly find itself in a defensive posture, losing its proactive agency in world history. In desperation, the participants realized the only option was “all-out war.” 1060 | c u lt u r e a n d i d e n t i t y In contrast to a “total war” that militarizes all physical resources, an “all-out war” involves all aspects of the people and nation, including their spiritual and intellectual capacities. The hope voiced in the discussions is that not just Japan alone, but the entire East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, inspired by Japanese “moral energy,” would rise to demand an ideological change in global politics. This change would eventually allow each nation to tap its own moral agency and to define its own world mission in a new multi-centered world order. The series of discussions had begun with an idealistic vision of a new philosophy of world history, one arising directly from concrete global events. The participants had believed a new philosophy could inaugurate a new and better way of understanding the “world.” The irony is that by the end of the discussions, it was precisely those concrete global events that had overtaken their philosophizing. The participants found themselves using their intellectual skills to rationalize Japanese actions that their own original philosophy had intended to repudiate. [tpk] First session: 26 november 194 1 ck 1943, 6–8, 11–12, 14, 18–20, 24–6, 30–4, 42–4, 82, 92–102, 106–9, 126 Kōsaka Masaaki*: … Philosophy is more than the academic discipline of laying the ground for what already exists. It takes a further step as the scholarly discipline that gives an orientation to things in historical...