Otaka Workshop on June 16, 2023
研究会の報告者は、デレク・ロビンズ(Derek Robbins)、フランチェスコ・カンパニョーラ(Francesco Campagnola、リスボン大学))、ヴォルフガング・シュヴェントカー(Wolfgang Schwentker、大阪大学名誉教授)、森川剛光(Takemitsu Morikawa、慶應義塾大学)、高艸賢(Ken Takakusa、千葉大学)の5人であった。本書には、Grundlegungの翻訳のほかに、編訳者によるイントロダクションと、4人の研究者による尾高に関する論稿が収録されている。研究会ではこれらの執筆者5人が、それぞれの論稿に基づいて報告を行った。
- 1932年の著書とその後の著作の関係
- 学際的な学者としての尾高
- 尾高と京都学派との関係
- 尾高の思想と神道との関係
- 尾高と宮澤俊義の論争
- 1930年代後半からの尾高の著作と戦争という状況との関係
- 尾高のウェーバー批判についての議論
- 尾高のネオ・ヘーゲリアン的側面
研究会を通じて、未だ汲み尽くされていない尾高の思想の主題的広がりが確認された。その広がりが示唆する方向性は、尾高個人の研究というよりは、尾高をひとつの準拠点とする知の生産の研究(思想史・歴史社会学の対象としての尾高)と、当時の思想の批判的吟味(哲学・社会理論の対象としての尾高)という、相互に関係する2つの方向性であるように思われる。本書Tomoo Otaka: Foundation of a Theory of Social Association, 1932は、そうした今後の研究の展開可能性を予感させるものとなっている。
[English version]
Peter Lang will publish Tomoo Otaka: Foundation of a Theory of Social Association, 1932. The book contains an English translation of Grundlegung der Lehre vom sozialen Verband (1932, Verlag von Julius Springer) by Tomoo Otaka (1899-1956), a Japanese legal philosopher and social theorist. The editor and translator is Derek Robbins, professor emeritus at the University of East London.
The Book Launch Workshop for this book was held on June 16, 2023 at the Stratford Campus of the University of East London. The following is a report on this workshop.
The presenters were Derek Robbins, Francesco Campagnola (University of Lisbon), Wolfgang Schwentker (Professor Emeritus, Osaka University), Takemitsu Morikawa (Keio University), and Ken Takakusa (Chiba University). The introduction by the translator and four articles by these researchers are included in this volume. The authors presented their papers at the workshop.
Derek Robbins introduced the contents of Otaka's Grundlegung and then commented on it from the perspective of a Bourdieu scholar. In 2019, Robbins published The Bourdieu Paradigm: The Origins and Evolution of an Intellectual Social Project, in which he examined the phenomenology of Alfred Schutz and Aron Gurvitch. This provides the basis of Robbins’s interest in Otaka. Robbins also considers Otaka, a prewar Japanese thinker who published in German, as a rare example of the international transfer of ideas.
Francesco Campagnola's paper historically dealt with the economic and social context of interwar Japan that surrounded Otaka's study abroad. Against the background of Japan's shifting international political position after the World War I and the hyperinflation in Germany, many Japanese scholars studied in German-speaking countries for academic purposes during the interwar period. From this movement, Campagnola attempts to consider interwar Japanese thought as an active academic subject, rather than as an exotic research object in the West.
Wolfgang Schwentker’s paper examined five book reviews written in German-speaking contexts in response to Otaka's Grundlegung. The fact that the reviews were written is significant in itself, as it means that Otaka’s book elicited responses on the part of Western scholars. In addition, the fact that the book review ranged across various disciplines is also important in considering the interdisciplinarity of Otaka's work.
Takemitsu Morikawa‘s paper examined Otaka's theory in relation to Hans Kelsen, one of the theorists Otaka criticized. The difference between Otaka's and Kelsen's standpoints on law was the difference between viewing law in relation to "outside law" and viewing law as an autonomous system independent of "outside law.” From this, Morikawa reinterprets Otaka as a communitarian thinker, but at the same time, he mentions the danger of the idea that Otaka's concept of Körpershaft (translated as cooperation in this book) has ended up in.
My (Ken Takakusa’s) paper made a theoretical comparison between Otaka and Alfred Schutz. Otaka met Schutz when he was studying in Europe, and they formed a friendship. They both published books in the same year, 1932, by the same publisher. Both Otaka and Schutz were interested in the philosophical-phenomenological foundation of the social sciences, but there have been various views as to how close their positions were. In my paper, I examined Schutz's book review of Otaka and argued that they both "looked at the same subject from different perspectives.”
In addition to these five presenters, three discussants (Sam Whimster, William Outhwaite, and Simon Susen) participated in the discussion. While the details of the discussion are beyond the scope of this report, the following topics were addressed in the discussion.
- The relationship between his 1932 book and his subsequent writings
- Otaka as an interdisciplinary scholar
- The relationship between Otaka and the Kyoto School
- The relationship between Otaka's thought and Shintoism
- The Debate between Otaka and Toshiyoshi Miyazawa
- The Relationship between Otaka's Writings and the Situation of War from the Late 1930s
- Discussion on Otaka's Criticism of Weber
- Otaka’s Neo-Hegelian aspects
The workshop confirmed the thematic variety of Otaka's thought that has yet to be fully explored. This seems to suggest two interrelated directions: research on the production of knowledge using Otaka as a reference point (Otaka as an object of history of ideas and historical sociology) and critical examination of the ideas of the time (Otaka as an object of philosophy and social theory). This book, Tomoo Otaka: Foundation of a Theory of Social Association, 1932, foreshadows the possibilities for the future development of such research.