グローバル教養科目（Japanese Philosophy and the Global World）

Is there such a thing called Japanese philosophy? While there is a tendency to think of philosophy as uniquely Western, with some developments having sprouts and branches in Indian and Chinese history, what is not as well-known is that there was an original philosophy that emerged out of 20th Century Japan. What we will look at in this course is one strand of Japanese philosophy: the Kyoto School philosophy (京都学派). The Kyoto School is a name given to a philosophical movement that took place around Kyoto University that both assimilated and challenged the foundational claims within Western philosophy by drawing on its own intellectual heritages and ideas and used them to reformulate religious, political, and moral viewpoints that are unique to the East Asian cultural tradition, and perhaps to the rest of the world, while maintaining a dialogue with its Western counterpart.

What makes this school important and relevant to contemporary philosophy is the fact they took a bipedal stance between the East and West. The goal for many of these philosophers was not to advance a particular Eastern philosophical standpoint as such, but to put forth a vision of dialogue among a multiplicity of worlds. In this sense, the Kyoto School appears rather cosmopolitan when compared with other European or American schools of thought at that time. Given the increasingly global context we currently live in, it is becoming certain that we need other philosophical discourses that are not Western grounded to further understand the pressures, diversity, and problems of contemporary life.

This course will discuss the major figures, principles, and historical controversies of the Kyoto School philosophy and bring these thinkers into conversation within Western philosophy in order to engage the problems of today’s global world. These thinkers shared cosmopolitan visions of the future, seeking to address issues related to colonialism, social conflict, and self/cultural identity; and if we read these thinkers more hermeneutically, we can find that their work touches on issues that afflict us today as well: issues, such as environmental degradation, military escalation, and excess capitalism. Finally, note that this is part I of a sequence of courses I call “The History of Japanese Philosophy” (with part II focusing on the social philosophy of Japanese history and part III on the Marxist tradition within the history of Japanese thought).

Ultimately, what this course aims to do is to have students exercise their analytical and critical thinking skills in English by deploying these authors or texts in the service of demonstrating their relevance to the sustainable development goals that is the center of Global Liberal Arts classes (or students can do the opposite, as an option—to disprove their relevance!).

In this course, the students will:
a) know who the major figures of the Kyoto School are;
b) learn the fundamental arguments proposed by leading Kyoto School thinkers;
c) understand and discuss the controversies around the Kyoto School;
d) explore the personal, social, and political issues raised by the Kyoto School;
e) and theorize the possible connections or relevance the Kyoto School has to contemporary problems or issues related to the sustainable development goals