NEWS

2023.11.01

【Report】The Book Launch of Dr. MATSUI Nobuyuki’s new publication, Evolving Postwar Japanese Philosophy, was held!

The AJI Book Launch was held online on October 18. This time, Dr. MATSUI Nobuyuki, an assistant professor of the Asia-Japan Research Organization at Ritsumeikan University, introduced his new book released in March 2023, entitled Evolving Postwar Japanese Philosophy: Odyssey Towards a Contemporary Cosmology through the Human Body, Technology, and Ecology, published by Asia-Japan Research Institute. Dr. Fernando WIRTZ, an assistant professor of the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University, moderated the session.

In this book, Dr. Matsui casts multiple and comprehensive lights on intellectual issues in postwar Japan such as the historical memory of the defeat in World War II, the “Japanese” logic of the “place of nothingness” and its relationship with institution, freedom, and good/evil, the philosophical history of “imagination” in Japan for the post-capitalist world, and relationships between technology and cosmology from the perspective of “rhythm.” During this Book Launch, Dr. Matsui provided a broad overview of his book and his reasons for attempting to grapple with these issues. Finally he introduced further philosophical tasks that extended from the questions raised in this book. In the ensuing Q&A session, participants shared lively discussions about the author’s basic assumption of the title and how we can grasp the “nothingness,” and whether it isn’t “something,” if one can comprehend it. About the latter question, Dr. Matsui answered that while this is true, it is more important to understand how philosophers faced what they called “nothingness” as the fundamental point from where we propel ourselves to create something yet to become.

Dr. Matsui talking about his book

Please visit the following link for the Previous AJI Book Launch series:
https://en.ritsumei.ac.jp/research/aji/publication/aji_book_club/