L’État

Dans la section de Rinrigaku intitulée « L’État », Watsuji Tetsurō définit l’État en tant que « communauté éthique des communautés éthiques ». Ce qu’il entend par là, c’est que l’État, pour lui, est la communauté la plus englobante, celle qui n’a pas d’égoïsme et qui place chacune des communautés de rang inférieur dans une structure totalement éthique. Watsuji voit donc l’État comme la forme la plus achevée de communauté. Il considère aussi que l’État, en tant que communauté englobante, peut moralement utiliser la violence pour imposer le respect des lois qu’il édicte, parce que cette violence vient de l’autorité morale de l’État. Enfin, pour Watsuji, l’État possède de lui-même un caractère sacré, qui lui vient de la prédominance de la communauté étatique sur les individus et sur les autres communautés.In the section of Rinrigaku entitled “The State”, Watsuji Tetsurō defines the State as “the ethical community of ethical communities”. What he means by that is that the State, for him, is the most encompassing community, unselfish and giving each community of a lower order its proper ethical place. Watsuji thus considers the State to be the most accomplished community. He also claims that the State, since it encompasses all, is morally justified to have recourse to violence in order to impose respect for the laws it edicts, for that violence derives from the moral authority of the State. Finally, for Watsuji, the State by itself possesses a sacred character, due to the predominance of the community it represents over other communities

Extraits de Fūdo

Fūdo (Milieux humains), publié en 1935, est l’ouvrage le plus célèbre de Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), au-delà même de son oeuvre majeure, Éthique (Rinrigaku). Il a été reçu en effet principalement comme un essai sur l’identité japonaise. Mais définir l’identité japonaise n’était pas pour Watsuji l’objectif principal de ce livre. Fūdo a été conçu en réponse à Sein und Zeit (1927) de Heidegger. À l’accent mis sur la temporalité par le maître livre, il répond en mettant l’accent sur la spatialité ; et à l’historialité heideggérienne (Geschichtlichkeit), il répond par le concept de fūdosei, qu’il définit comme « le moment structurel de l’existence humaine », c’est-à-dire la dynamique de la spatialité concrète où chaque être humain est engagé de par sa relation existentielle avec autrui et avec les choses de son milieu. Ce concept central, créé par Watsuji, est ici rendu par le néologisme médiance (du latin medietas, moitié), qui exprime la dualité de l’humain concrètement replacé dans son milieu (fūdo) : une dimension individuelle (que Watsuji appelle hito) et une dimension relationnelle (que Watsuji appelle aida), le couplage (la médiance) de ces deux « moitiés » de l’être s’incarnant dans l’être humain concret (ningen). La traduction porte sur le préambule et sur le premier chapitre de Fūdo, où Watsuji présente puis expose sa théorie générale des milieux humains et de la médiance, ainsi que, à titre d’exemple, sur deux extraits où il interprète le milieu désertique (c’est-à-dire le monde arabo-musulman) et le milieu bucolique (à savoir l’Europe).Fūdo (Human milieux), published in 1935, is the most famous work by Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), more so even than his major opus, Ethics (Rinrigaku). It was welcomed indeed principally as an essay on Japanese identity. Yet to define the Japanese identity was not for Watsuji the chief objective of that book. Fūdo was conceived in answer to Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit (1927). To the emphasis put upon temporality in that masterwork, he answers by putting the emphasis on spatiality ; and to Heideggerian historicity (Geschichtlichkeit), he answers through the concept of fūdosei, defined by him as “the structural moment of human existence”, i.e. the dynamics of concrete spatiality in which each human being is involved through his or her existential relation with others as well as with things in his or her milieu. This central concept, created by Watsuji, is here rendered by means of the neologism “médiance” (from the Latin medietas, half), which expresses the duality of the human concretely reinstated in his or her milieu (fūdo) : an individual dimension (called, by Watsuji, hito) and a relational dimension (called aida by Watsuji), whilst the coupling (the médiance) of those two “halves” of being are embodied in the concrete human being (ningen). The translation is of the preamble and of the first chapter of Fūdo, where Watsuji presents and exposes his general theory of human milieux and of “médiance”, as well as of two extracts in which he offers an interpretation of the desert milieu (the Arabic and Moslem world) and of the bucolic milieu, namely Europe

From shipbuilding to automobile manufacturing

Istambul, 1996年10月7日-11

Fūdo. Uno studio filosofico

Questo articolo fa parte dell’ottavo numero dei Quaderni di PsicoArt che include molti dei testi raccolti dieci anni fa da Gianni Scalia e Raffaele Milani: erano gli anni in cui si discuteva assai di paesaggio, natura, ambiente, territorio, luogo, spazio, cercando di comprenderne il senso e il valore, la relazione e l’arricchimento reciproco in un ampio registro semantico. Si dà ora forma ai materiali di quella ricerca, conservandone lo spirito. È un viaggio che muove dal lontano mondo greco-latino e arriva alle tesi romantiche sulla natura inserendovi anche un confronto tra le culture: indiana, cinese, giapponese. Autorevoli studiosi commentano filosofi e scrittori, correnti letterarie e di pensiero della più alta tradizione mondiale, affinché la dignità dell’antico possa significare il futuro

The twilight of the Liberal Social Contract? On the Reception of Rawlsian Political Liberalism

This chapter discusses the Rawlsian project of public reason, or public justification-based 'political' liberalism, and its reception. After a brief philosophical rather than philological reconstruction of the project, the chapter revolves around a distinction between idealist and realist responses to it. Focusing on political liberalism’s critical reception illuminates an overarching question: was Rawls’s revival of a contractualist approach to liberal legitimacy a fruitful move for liberalism and/or the social contract tradition? The last section contains a largely negative answer to that question. Nonetheless the chapter's conclusion shows that the research programme of political liberalism provided and continues to provide illuminating insights into the limitations of liberal contractualism, especially under conditions of persistent and radical diversity. The programme is, however, less receptive to challenges to do with the relative decline of the power of modern states

Constitutivism

A brief explanation and overview of constitutivism

Philosophy of action

The philosophical study of human action begins with Plato and Aristotle. Their influence in late antiquity and the Middle Ages yielded sophisticated theories of action and motivation, notably in the works of Augustine and Aquinas.1 But the ideas that were dominant in 1945 have their roots in the early modern period, when advances in physics and mathematics reshaped philosophy

Noguchi Seitai (The Noguchi Technique of Alternative Medicine) – Japanese Traditional Medicine and its Community as a Supplementation of the Social Health System in the Shōwa Period

The aim of this article is to show the communication between the health promoting religious movements and the Japanese state and society in the Shōwa period. Following the American Occupation, the communication originating from Noguchi’s life-health movement proved to help stabilize the social health system in Japan. In the early Shōwa period many groups within Japanese society – from the royal family and the aristocrats to the common citizens – kept themselves in good health through implementing specific reijutsu techniques. The name reijutsu stands for the pro-health/religious movement started by Kuwabara Toshirō (1873-1906), the author of Seishin Reidō (The Excellent Work of the Mind, 1903), which encompassed Western writings on Theosophy, chiromancy, osteopathy and traditional Japanese religious pro-health techniques like shugendō or anma massage. Many schools of reijutsu were at the peak of their popularity in the 1920’s. One of them, taireidō of Tanaka Morihei (1884–1928), also gained popularity in China becoming the foundation for contemporary Chinese qigong breathing exercises. The form that won popularity in the West, due to Japanese emigrants to Hawaii, was reiki. In the 1930’s Mitsui Kōshi (1883–1953) developed reijutsu into a system combining politics and Japanese traditional waka poetry, a system that was aimed at the unity of a human being with the emperor and the universe. As for Mitsui, he became a prominent political figure until 1945. Later the reijutsu movement failed to find continuators. The passing away of charismatic leaders resolved in the dissolution of the reijutsu societies. The exceptions were the reiki movement – which gained global popularity and was subsequently reintroduced to Japan in the 1980’s, and the Noguchi Seitai (Noguchi’s technique) movement. Noguchi Seitai is a pro-health/religious movement founded in Tokyo in 1927 by Noguchi Haruchika (1911–1976). The movement functioned at first as a psychotherapy group, a modification of reijutsu. In the year 1942 the movement was examined by the Ministry of Health committee for osteopathic practices. It established its legal standing as a foundation and was registered as the Seitai Kyōkai (Seitai Association) in 1956. Nowadays it is a public profit organization. The presidents of the organization are former members of the aristocracy or former prime ministers, maintaining a quality and high profile for all of Japanese society. Starting from the 1980’s the organization obtained major support from the young population, since they saw it as a leading force within the Japanese New Age movement. Currently the Association claims around 80 thousand active members, and it is believed the number of people practicing privately, though they do not belong to the organization, is ten times greater. Noguchi Seitai is a movement that is still active today due to excellent communication between the movement and the Japanese state and society established in the Shōwa period. Just as in the case of other reijutsu forms, Noguchi’s transmission is characterized by specific techniques involving physical practices, studying difficult philosophical concepts and painstaking self-development, which has at times caused tension in dealings with police and other state institutions. However, Noguchi Seitai, due to the communication with the state as well as the citizens established during the occupation period, made it so that after the year 1953, the movement became a so called “stabilizing dysfunction” from the sociological perspective, and took on the role of supplementing the Japanese social health system