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The Kyoto School, American Empire and the Post-White World > Review The Kyoto School, American empire and the post-white world - Williams, David. 2004. Defending Japan’s Pacific War: The Kyoto School Philosophers and Post-White Power. London and New York: Routledge Curzon. 238 pp. ISBN 0-415-32315-0 Kenn Nakata Steffensen philosophers fashioned a vessel for but something much narrower and ship of Kyoto philosophy to other bod- beyond Japan studies. Williams’ ‘Pacif- Japanology to renew itself, to begin all less scientific: the ethical criticism of ies of thought, especially those broad- ic War revisionism, in the Western lib- wo previous monographs estab- over again’ (p.176). wartime Japan from an Allied per- ly labelled ‘postcolonial theory’. Yet eral mode’ (p.15) is uncompromising. Tlished David Williams as the enfant spective’ (p.154). many of its preoccupations overlap He has ‘offered no quarter and taken terrible of Japanese political studies. Pacific War revisionism both with those of Williams and the no prisoners’ (p. xvii). His impas- With his trademark iconoclasm and ele- versus the Allied gaze Global power imbalance Kyoto School. Postcolonial critique sioned argument for his case and his gant prose, he provokes critical reflec- Williams confronts the ‘Allied ortho- The context in which Williams reads aims to theoretically and politically equally passionate attack on those he tion on the ethnocentrism and political dox’ intellectual history of 1930s and Tanabe and associates is today’s ‘glob- empower ‘subaltern’ subjects in a sim- disagrees with may upset some, but biases of dominant western views on 1940s Japan. This view has tended to al imbalance of power’ (p.9), which he ilar way to Williams’ preoccupation even then it stimulates thought and intellectual and political history. see the Kyoto School ‘as thinkers com- finds unacceptable because ‘uncon- with ‘post-White subjectivity’ and his critical self-reflection. < plicit with wartime nationalism’.3 tained power is unacceptable, no mat- purpose of ‘nurturing, ex nihilo, of Kyoto School as political There has also been a parallel current ter how wisely or generously the hold- agency itself’ (p.110), but he does not Notes philosophy in comparative philosophy and reli- ers of that power may exercise it’ (p.7). explore the possible linkages. 1. The two Tanabe texts are ‘The Philosophy The book is organised into five parts gious studies, which ‘for decades pre- He considers the book a contribution of Crisis or a Crisis in Philosophy: Reflec- in 12 chapters and an appendix with sented Nishida, Tanabe and Nishitani to ‘liberal opposition to the neo-con Scholarship and propaganda tions on Heidegger’s Rectoral Address’ the author’s translation of two texts by as essentially apolitical religious agenda’ (p.9) and to how ‘the rest of While he ‘aims to stamp firmly on the (1933) and the secret lecture ‘On the Logic Tanabe Hajime, whom he considers thinkers’ (p.34), resulting in a lack of the world might be able to compel propagandist who pretends to be a of Co-prosperity Spheres: Towards a Phi- the dominant figure of the Kyoto ‘recognition that the Kyoto School also America, peacefully, to ease the fetters scholar’ (p.15), the parts of his mono- losophy of Regional Blocs’ (1942). School’s middle phase from 1928 to produced a profound meditation on of its global domination’ (p.8). Like graph that predict a ‘post-White’ future 2. Christopher S. Goto-Jones goes against 1946.1 The term ‘Kyoto School’ was the nature of politics, history and soci- Chalmers Johnson and the Kyoto for the United States and the wider this convention when he argues that coined by Tosaka Jun to designate the ety in a world dominated by the West’ philosophers, he sees himself as a world can also be considered propa- Nishida’s early works contained elements group around Nishida Kitarm at Kyoto (p.79). ‘loyal critic’ of his country’s foreign gandistic. Chapter 4 points out some of a political philosophy. See Jones, Imperial University. It dominated policy. Williams links his concerns serious flaws in Harootunian’s Over- Christopher S. January 2003. ‘Ethics and Japanese philosophy from the 1920s, If the Kyoto School has been ‘attacked over contemporary developments in come by Modernity, but it is not clear Politics in the Early Nishida: Reconsider- with all major thinkers belonging to or from both the right and the left’5 since the US with the wartime Kyoto School how Williams distinguishes between ing Zen no Kenkyt’. Philosophy East & West defining themselves against it. The the 1930s, Williams’ defence defies because he believes it holds resources scholarship and propaganda. The clos- 53-1. first phase of the school is conven- easy categorisation. Where Graham necessary for the ‘post-White world’ est he comes to a definition is the 3. Arisaka, Yoko. 1996. ‘The Nishida Enigma: tionally considered apolitical and Parkes held that ‘To criticize the crit- that he is confident is dawning: statement that ‘The academic defence ‘The Principle of the New World Order’ metaphysical in orientation.2 Chal- ics, however, is not to condone the of this wartime discourse, a defence (1943)’. Monumenta Nipponica 51-1. lenged by Kawakami Hajime’s Marx- political writings of the Kyoto School Among all non-White thinkers who which is rife with bias and prejudice, 4. Townsend, Susan. ‘Japan’s New Order in ism, ‘the focal concern of the middle thinkers’,6 Williams goes a step fur- have dwelled on the nature and conse- persuasive definitions and value Asia, 1938-45: Rethinking Globalism’, p.2. phase of the Kyoto School was politi- ther by both criticising ‘the black leg- quences of the planetary hegemony of claims, does not qualify as scholarship’ http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/iaps/SueArt cal philosophy’ (p.176). end of the Kyoto School’ (Chapter 7) the White West, Japanese philosophers (p.4). If Harootunian’s obsession with icle.pdf and defending it as ‘liberal nationalist’ have a unique place. They even pro- ‘fascism is the conceptual fallacy that 5. Arisaka 1996, op.cit. Williams focuses on four works by in character (p.152). In doing so, he posed a cure for Western hegemony. sinks this great galleon of a mono- 6. Parkes, Graham. July 1997. ‘The Putative Tanabe and four colleagues: ‘The departs more radically from even the Their insights are as unforgiving as graph’ (p.60), one might argue that Fascism of the Kyoto School and the Polit- Standpoint of World History and Japan relatively sympathetic assessments of they are indispensable at this decisive Williams’ claims about the coming ical Correctness of the Modern Academy’. by Kmyama, Suzuki, Kmsaka and Nishi- Tanabe in other recent studies, e.g. hour in the destiny of the American ‘post-White world’ is his Achilles heel. Philosophy East & West 47-3. tani’ and Tanabe’s ‘response to Hei- Goto-Jones’ inaugural volume in the Republic (p.4). If Harootunian is guilty of propagan- 7. Goto-Jones, Christopher S. 2005. Political degger’s controversial rectoral address Leiden Series in Modern East Asian da for the ‘Allied orthodox’ interpreta- Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto of May 1933 that appeared in three Politics and History.7 He elaborates ‘a post-nationalist vision tion of the past, is Williams himself School and Co-Prosperity. Routledge: Lon- parts in the Asahi newspaper in the of America’s post-White destiny with not propagandising for his imagined don and New York. autumn of 1933; his secret lecture of The main targets for his sometimes the aid of Kyoto philosophy (p.xvii). utopian future? 1942 on the philosophy of co-prosper- scathing criticism are the ‘so-called For Williams, the relevance of the Kenn Nakata Steffensen ity spheres, which was part of Tanabe’s progressive intellectual historians who Kyoto School and the purpose of his Defending Japan’s Pacific War is a major Doctoral student intellectual alliance with the Imperial serve under the neo-Marxist banner’ analysis of its political philosophy is to achievement for which the author Department of Political and International Navy to resist Tojo’s policies, and Tan- (p.47) and ‘some of the most influen- help ‘the achievement by non-Ameri- must be congratulated. A necessarily Studies, SOAS, University of London. abe’s magnum opus, The Logic of the tial Western students of modern cans of mature subjectivity’ (p.11). selective review cannot do full justice [email protected] Species, that appeared in 13 parts Japanese religious thought’ (p.34). He A conspicuous silence is the relation- to it. It deserves a wide readership between 1934 and 1946’ (p.18). The finds both groups guilty of misrepre- book, however, goes far beyond mere senting the Kyoto School’s positions exegesis and commentary on these before and during the Pacific War, but four texts. James Heisig and other religious stud- ies scholars are seen in a more The emphasis is on Tanabe and, to a favourable light than historians Peter lesser extent, Nishitani. Little is said Dale and Harry Harootunian: about Kmyama, Suzuki and Kmsaka. In chapters 8-11 Williams reads the Unlike their neo-Marxist colleagues, attacks on the Kyoto School for its these Western scholars did not abandon alleged complicity with ultra-national- proper standards of research or their ism in the context of the debate on hard-won understanding of Kyoto Heidegger’s relationship with the Nazi thought. But there was an implicit regime, and exonerates both Heideg- endorsement of the reasoning behind the ger and Tanabe. Rather than acting for victor’s justice meted out by the Tokyo the military government, Tanabe and War Crimes Tribunal. The implied associates were aligned with parts of moral simplicities – Allied virtue versus the navy in a ‘struggle against Tojo’ Japanese evil – are so morally satisfying (Chapter 5).
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