Global citizens, cosmopolitanism, and radical relationality: Towards dialogue with the Kyoto School?. Issue 9 (8th August 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yano, Satoji; Rappleye, Jeremy
• Is Part Of: Educational philosophy and theory. Volume 54:Issue 9(2022)
• Page Start: 1355
• Page End: 1366
• Publication Date: 2022-08-08
• Subjects: global citizenship -- nationalism -- individualism -- metaphysics -- relational ontology -- Japanese education; Education -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Teaching -- Periodicals; Éducation; Philosophie de l'éducation; Théorie de l'éducation; Périodique électronique (Descripteur de forme); Ressource Internet (Descripteur de forme); 370.1
• DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2021.1897570
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-1857

Abstract

Abstract: Recent discussions around education for global citizenship continues to retrace notions of cosmopolitanism first laid out in Europe. Ostensibly seeking global inclusivity, much of this work ultimately returns to a rather narrow set of ontological and epistemic themes, primarily Stoicism and Pauline Christianity. The Kyoto School offers a constructive reconstruction of these core premises of European cosmopolitanism. In resisting the ontologizing of autonomous individualism and abstract universalism, Kyoto School thinkers offered an alternative tripartite structure that drew greater attention to the specific (nation-state): individual and universal are inevitably mediated by the 'logic' of specific histories, languages, institutions, and communities. Rather than naïve nationalism, this view emerged within a radically relational worldview: 'continuity-in-discontinuity' emplaced within absolute nothingness. Kimura Motomori, a leading Kyoto School educational thinker, explicitly extended these Nishidian ideas to challenge Rousseau's contracting individualism, Kantian abstract universalism, and Hegelian teleological temporality, thus offering a fresh vision of cosmopolitanism: self-aware citizens engaging concretely in the task of (re)opening their specific societies. In conclusion, in part to demonstrate the very forms of critique we envisage, we trace historically the impacts of Kyoto School cosmopolitanism ideas on postwar policy in Japan and lament the recent regressive closing.