One Hundred Million Philosophers

Science of Thought and the Culture of Democracy in Postwar Japan

Bibliographic Data

ID19989166
AuthorsAdam Bronson (0000-0002-8494-3596, corresponding author)
Year2016
Pages278
Publication date2016-02-29
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueOne Hundred Million Philosophers (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity of Hawaii Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.21313/hawaii/9780824855338.001.0001
OpenAlexW2403468816
Open LibraryOL27435438M
ISBN9780824855338
LanguageEN
Citations received13

After World War II, scholars, journalists, and concerned citizens came together in an effort to foster a new culture of democracy in Japan. One Hundred Million Philosophers explores this effort through the activities of a group of thinkers and activists affiliated with Science of Thought (Shisō no kagaku), one of the most influential groups to emerge out of the field of associations promoting democracy in the years after 1945. The group’s members believed that the estrangement of intellectuals from the general public had contributed to the rise of fascism. To overcome this, they sought to develop a new “science of thought” that might reconnect the world of ideas with that of daily experience, breaking down the boundary between the culture of traditional intellectuals and that of “the man on the street.” The book shows how the group’s many attempts to realize that goal embodied a vision of democratic experimentation that had to be re-articulated again and again in response to challenges that arose in connection with geopolitical events and also with the social changes that accompanied economic recovery and growth

Aesthetics · Art · Democracy · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Geopolitics · Media studies · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · World War II · Chinese history and philosophy · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Law · Philosophy · History · Japan · Political Culture · Shisō no Kagaku Kenkyūkai

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Open DOIOpen Access