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The University of Tokyo Center for PhilosophySATŌ Sora*

The University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy 共生のための国際哲学研究センター, from 2002 to 2012, operated as a 21st Century Center ofExcellence Program and a Global Center of Excellence Program under theMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, and thenfrom April 2012 it received support from the Uehiro Foundation on Ethicsand Education. In its Uehiro Research Division for Philosophy ofCoexistence, established in April 2012, it asks how we should handle suchcommon human problems as the increasing diversity of and conflict between
values brought on by rapid globalization; how we should deal with different
ethnic groups, different religions, different cultures, and different societies;
and what the proper relation should be between the global environment andpeople and between science and people. And to deal with such issues, it
promotes the idea of coexistence. The research division is also forming aninterdisciplinary network of domestic and international scholars interested inphilosophical practical knowledge and is training young researchers to be at
the forefront in handling such problems in the near future.
The Uehiro Research Division has established three large projects as partof its core research training project: “Dialogical Practice between Eastern andWestern Philosophy,” “Philosophy of Disability and Co-existence,” and“Philosophy for Everyone.” It also has projects for training researchers indevelopment research. These are flexible, challenging projects to support itslarge projects. The large projects and small projects complement one anotherand are also designed to evolve according to future needs. In addition, theCenter for Philosophy publishes the results of some of its activities in booklet
form (for details about publications, please see the website listed at the end ofthis article).
Below is information about the research division’s large projects and its
activities in the last fiscal year.
* Satō Sora 佐藤空 is a research assistant at the University of Tokyo Center forPhilosophy.

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Dialogical Practice between Eastern and Western Philosophy, a Practicum
The “Dialogical Practice between Eastern and Western Philosophy”
project is a practicum of international collaborative research that seeks toreaddress the relationship between traditional and modern, and between theWest and Japan/East Asia. Such a practicum is no doubt a much-needed
scholarly endeavor in today’s ever more globalized world. In our last fiscalyear, we were active in building an international exchange network for philosophical research with a view toward examining the possibility of an East
Asian philosophy. In addition, we also carried out the following three international scholarly exchanges in pursuing the objectives of this project.
• “A New Universality for East Asia,” an international conference hosted byYonsei University and the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy, April
2014. This collaborative project with Paek Yŏng-sŏ 白永瑞氏 and Kim
Hang 金杭 of Yonsei University sought to give new meaning to the term
“universal” in the East Asian context. In the future we plan to add EastChina Normal University to the project in the expectation that positive
interactions between scholars of various Asian countries will produce
results not seen before.
• A training seminar, in English, on the history of Japanese philosophy, jointly
sponsored with Kyoto University, November 2014. Students from Kyoto
University and the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy, together
with a scholar of Japanese philosophy in the United States, met and readthrough Nishida Kitarō 西田幾多郎 in English. Needless to say, discussing
Japanese philosophy in an international setting requires reading it inEnglish. Our purpose in having young scholars participate in this exercise
was to enable them to engage positively in international forums in thefuture.
• Workshop on Religion and Modernity in the Context of East Asian
Philosophy, January 2015. At National Chengchi University in Taipei, we
held a workshop on Buddhism and modern developments in East Asian
philosophy. The intent of the workshop was to consider the influence ofBuddhist philosophy, which played an important role in the formation ofEast Asian philosophy. In the future the workshop will focus on Mahayana
shraddhotpada shastra (Treatise on the Awakening of Faith in theMahayana 大乗起信論).
In this way the present project has sought clues for solutions to problems
facing modern societies by engaging in international scholarly exchanges andclosely collaborating with foreign scholars.

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The Philosophy of Disability and Co-existenceThis second large project consisted mainly of holding the conference“Philosophy of Disability and Co-existence,” but it also required building a
network of involved persons and researchers of various fields both in Japanand abroad, and it produced many unique studies and practices. With Dr. TomShakespeare, one of Britain’s leading researchers in disability studies, weplanned, in September 2014 in Norwich, Britain, a workshop introducing
studies of involved persons (which were put into practice in places likeBethel House in Urakawa, Hokkaido), and we presented a report. In
November we cohosted a lecture by Roberto Mezzina, the director of theDepartment of Mental Health in Trieste who deinstitutionalized the local
psychiatric hospital in favor of alternative community services. And inFebruary 2015 we jointly hosted the symposium “Knowledge/Technology ofBirth” with the Research Center for Ars Vivendi at Ritsumeikan University.
Since these events were well received both in Japan and internationally, wecan expect more progress on this project going forward. In the future we will
strengthen the research network we have built and expand our collaboration
with other organizations. We also plan to revisit such issues as what counts asa disability and why have we needed the concept of disabilities, and in thisway to elaborate on the philosophy of disability as it applies to the notion ofcoexistence. By means of this work, we plan to explore whether the conceptof disability and the theme of coexisting with disabilities are necessary in thefirst place.

Philosophy for Everyone
This third large project seeks, by means of dialog, to open philosophy toeveryone in all sorts of settings, something that is as simple as asking,thinking, and speaking. It is also an attempt to treat collaboration as theimpetus for philosophy. In particular, during the last three years, we have held
philosophical dialogs in such settings as philosophy cafés, philosophy education sessions in schools, and local community-building efforts. On numerous
occasions, we have seen people of different ages, generations, sexes, occupations, nationalities, cultures, and backgrounds, in dialog, raise positions andassumptions, and deepen and expand their appreciation of others. In our last
fiscal year, we cooperated with people involved in the second large project,
and we began collaboration with nonacademics such as theater personnel,designers, farmers, healthcare professionals, and elderly people and housewives active in local communities. As a result of our efforts, we enlarged thespace for philosophical dialogue in comparison with when project began. In
the future we hope to continue hosting workshops on various themes, expand
our network of practitioners, experts, and educators both in Japan and abroad,218

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and strengthen our cooperation with specialists and other nonacademics.
This is but a brief summary of our large projects. For those wanting more
information on the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy, please visit
http://utcp.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/.