E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 5, 2020

Beyond the Difference in Language:
A Comment
Yasuo IMAIJapan Women’s University

I would like to begin my comment with anecdotes from my personal experience.
After studying at the Graduate School of Education here at the University of Hiroshima,
I studied further in Göttingen, Germany, for two years. I found my main research field in
the German tradition of educational thought. So the choice to study in Germany was byno means accidental. During these two years in Göttingen, I discovered many themes andideas that would be of crucial importance for my entire career as a researcher. One ofthem was the significance of “media” in education. I was particularly interested in therelationship between film and education in Germany in the first half of the 20th century.
After returning to Japan, I wrote a paper pursuing this idea, in Japanese of course.
Based on a detailed reading of the journal Film und Bild, published from 1912 to 1915,
it attempted to explicate the changing relationship between film and education. I
submitted it to a Japanese journal. I will say only that this journal was not one publishedby our society; it was a major journal in the field of history of education. In Japan, it was
not unusual to discuss a closely delimited topic in the European or American history ofeducation. But my paper was rejected, and what disturbed me were the comments on it.
I found them pointless and too narrow-minded to take a novel issue like “education andmedia” seriously. I was upset because I was firmly convinced that my paper presented
something really innovative. Such conviction is probably typical of arrogant young
academics.
Moved by this arrogant conviction, I began to translate my paper into German andsubmitted it to a German journal, Bildung und Erziehung. It became my first essay
published in a foreign language. I was deeply impressed by the open-mindedness andfairness of my German colleagues in their professional judgement. This sort of trust inGerman colleagues remains with me even now. My own interpretation of this experience,
however, has changed in the meantime.

96

Y. IMAIMy early interpretation had been simple: Japanese narrow-mindedness toward
something new vs. German open-mindedness, Japanese unfairness when judging vs.
German fairness, Japanese immaturity in terms of academic professionality vs. Germanmaturity. But gradually, I came to recognize that my paper discussed its theme in more ofa German context than a Japanese context, albeit largely unconsciously. I got the themefrom my experience in Germany. The idea that the media, especially film, could besignificant for educational thought as a whole was reasonably convincing in a Germancontext; however, such a shared perception was simply lacking in the Japanese context
at that time. Now, I interpret my experience rather as an indication that profounddifferences in perception exist, even among academic communities, concerning what isworth pursuing and what can be described as persuasive.
Please let me mention one more personal experience that points in the same
direction. In my late thirties, I concentrated on Walter Benjamin, a 20th century German
philosopher, and attempted to reconstruct his thoughts as an educational theory, focusing
on his concept of media. As part of this project, I wrote a paper comparing Benjamin withJohn Dewey in regard to their concepts of experience. I thought the paper would beinteresting for my American colleagues. I translated it into English and submitted it to afamous American journal. The paper was rejected with devastating comments alleging
that it was far beneath the level of a scientific contribution. I could not agree with thecomments, so I submitted the same paper to a British journal, the Journal of thePhilosophy of Education. The British comments were slightly encouraging: the ideas
presented in the paper were interesting, whereas its English was terrible. After a drastic
linguistic improvement, it was published in the British journal.
This second anecdote seems to correspond with what Liz Jackson mentioned asdifferences in academic culture between the USA and the UK. In fact, my paper did notstate a clear-cut position either for or against Dewey. It might have been neither obvious
enough nor politically-oriented enough for my American colleagues. Such differences ofperception among different academic cultures are expressed through statements (forexample “its argumentation is a mess”—more or less the comment I got from theAmerican journal), but the possible origins of such differences should be sought insomething other than natural language. We might name it “discourse” in the Foucauldian
sense. “Discourse” means, as far as I understand it, a system of organizing statements,
which also acts decisively on perception regarding the place value of research. The“translation” Naoko Saito proposed might be productively actualized on the level ofdiscourse.
In Figure 1, I have attempted to illustrate the landscape of academic exchange
Thematic Research: Globalization, Internationalization, and Universality of Philosophy of Education

Beyond the Difference in Language

97

relating to the philosophy of education that I observed from my perspective. Myperspective is most probably confined and biased; it is a shame that I do not have any
experience in international academic societies like the PESA. The figure might notcorrectly depict the reality of international exchange today, but my anecdotes seem tosuggest that there are differences in perception and difficulties in mutual understandingon the level of the discourse on education. By contrast, however, the names ofphilosophers can serve as our common frame of reference, as I was expecting when I
mentioned the name of Foucault above.
Such differences and difficulties should not be understood as obstacles that aresimply to be removed. As Naoko Saito convincingly stated, they offer a chance to “learn
from different cultures as the other” and to “expose [one’s] framework of thinking andlanguage to the other.” Seen from my perspective, such a chance is desirable largely
because it enables us to discover anew what we are already meant to understand: the fieldof education.
The concepts of “education,” “(教育 kyôiku),” “Bildung/Erziehung,” etc. are neither
identical nor completely separate. They represent a “family resemblance” on the basis of
the common human condition (here again, we are referring to a philosopher—
Wittgenstein in this case—as our frame of reference). Differences in educational
discourse have their reasons in the different configurations of the field of education itself.
The “education” diverges according to its cultural, social, and historical context. As areflection on the diverse field of education, educational discourse shows diverse traits
accordingly. Translation offers a chance, through experiencing such differences, torecognize the field of education anew. The experiences of difference enabled bytranslation become productive for the philosophy of education, as well as for educational
inquiry as a whole, if they are directed toward a re-cognition of the field of education.

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 5, 2020

98

Y. IMAI

Figure 1

Dewey
Kant
DerridaCavellAgambenNietzsche Heidegger
Wittgenstein
Foucault

FRCH

DEUKUS

philosophers asframe of reference

discourse

JPCNHKTW

on education“translation”

education as
research field(family resemblance)

Thematic Research: Globalization, Internationalization, and Universality of Philosophy of Education