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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan
Editorial Board
Chief Editor
Fumio ONO (Doshisha University)
Board Members
Koki HIRAISHI (Kanazawa University)
Sunji LEE (Hosei University)
Yasushi MARUYAMA (Hiroshima University)
Reiko MUROI (Iwate University)
Mika OKABE (Osaka University)
Kunimasa SATO (Ibaraki University)
Atsushi SUZUKI (Kyushu University)
Masamichi UENO (Sophia University)
Assistant Editor
Kazunao MORITA (Osaka Shoin Women’s University)

Title: E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Societyof Japan, Vol. 7
Published: 21 October 2022
© 2022 Philosophy of Education Society of Japan
ISSN 2435-5364
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published annually by the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan. The Office Address: Graduate School of Education,
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Contents
The 7th Research Promotion Award Article (2021)

The Dynamics between Quality, Subject, and Meaning in Dewey’s Naturalism:
Rebuilding Agency as Medium
1
Meguru INOUE

Symposium
Emotion, Democracy and the Philosophy of Education

Summary Report on the Symposium “Emotion, Democracy and Philosophy of
Education”
21
Shinji NOBIRA
Keita FURUYA

Rousseau’s Dissent from “Civil Society” as Community of Emotion
Reiko MUROIPolitics of Emotions and Preventive Pedagogy against Authoritarianism:
Theodor W. Adorno’s Educational Theory and his Utopianism
Natsuki SHIROKANE

25

38

Nuchidutakara (life is a treasure): The Spirit of Okinawa in Resistance to the
Fascism of Democracy
46
Mai TAKAHASHI

Thematic Research
The Challenges for the Philosophy of Education in a “Data-Driven Society”:
Reconsidering “Data,” “Information” and “Knowledge” for the Future of Education

The Challenges for the Philosophy of Education in a “Data-Driven Society”:
Reconsidering “Data,” “Information” and “Knowledge” for the Future of
Education
Yoshimitsu MATSUURA
Ryohei MATSUSHITAThe Challenge for the Philosophy of Education in a “Data-Driven Society”
Shoko SUZUKI

53

55

Can Chance be Tamed by Probabilistic Data?: On the Ontological Weakness of
Education
61
Hirotaka SUGITA

Knowledge with Sharing and Empathy: Lessons for the IT-Driven Modern World
from Views on Knowledge in African Oral Culture70
Shoko YAMADAE-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 7, 2022

The Dynamics between Quality, Subject, and Meaning in
Dewey’s Naturalism: Rebuilding Agency as Medium
Meguru INOUEThe University of Tokyo
Abstract
After the linguistic turn led by R. Rorty, recent pragmatism has assumed a dichotomy between social
language and experience, and has neglected the latter, which is now taken to be ineffable, private, andqualitative. However, as various researchers and thinkers have suggested, the possibility ofreconstructing social norms seems to exist in what has not yet been named. Therefore, this paper aims
to elucidate the dynamic interactions between quality and meaning in J. Dewey’s naturalistic
philosophy. To start this inquiry, it is necessary to remove the stigma of such qualitative immediacy.
The qualitative is supposed to work as an eternal foundation or a “given” for knowledge, so this turns
into an epistemological problem. However, if experience is understood in terms of its temporal andtransitive character, the problem is dissolved, because we can then properly treat experience as a field
in which knowledge develops. The concept of meaning in Dewey’s theory shows us mainly two facts:
1) meaning connects the qualitative actuality and its potentiality, and changes immediacy itself, and2) meaning works as a method or rule to enable collaborative behavior and support the system ofsocial customs and normative standards. In addition, the theory of qualitative thought shows that
qualitative situations direct and control the thinking that reorganizes meanings or statements. The
discussion above indicates the interactive linkage of language (meaning) and experience (quality).
This paper claims that Dewey’s naturalism defines a human subject as an agency that rebuilds thepreexisting objective order. Moreover, because the agency is located in the intermediate status between
the qualitatively formless mode and publicly new objects, such a subject is termed a medium.
Keywords: John Dewey, naturalism, quality, meaning, subject

Correspondence:
Meguru INOUE, The University of Tokyo. Email: inoue-meguru@g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between experience andlanguage—or, following the terminology used in this paper, between quality andmeaning—in John Dewey’s (1859-1952) empirical naturalism. In other words, the aim
is to draw out the logic inherent in Dewey’s naturalistic philosophy of weaving words
and speaking in contact with sensitively given and ineffable experiential reality, and the
dynamics of such activities that operate through the world, the individual, and society.
In setting this objective, the following background is involved: (i) the question of
the boundary between experience and language is closely related to the way theindividual and society are connected and to the question of the subject; (ii) nevertheless,in the context of pragmatism, especially in the post-linguistic turn led by Rorty, there are
difficulties in questioning the boundary between experience and language. I will further
elaborate on these points.
(i) Why can the boundary between experience and language be a pedagogical issue?
First, it stems from the fact that language plays a central role in the introduction(socialization) of the individual into the community. In a few recent issues of Studies in
the Philosophy of Education, the connection between language action, society, andeducation has been discussed with reference to the ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein and
Judith Butler (e.g., Miyadera, Okuno). Through language use, individuals internalize therules of the community and are included as participatory members. However, since thissocialization through language use is at the same time a subordination of the individual
to the existing system (cf. Foucault), this argument is connected to the issue of the subject.
For example, Okuno sees the possibility of “resistance” to the situation in which thesubject is constructed as the subordinate through social institutions. The possibility arises
from the “instability of language itself,” which fixes “I” in the same existence (Okuno
95). What this “instability” implies is the predominance of inherent existence overlanguage and meaning. This leads to the second point of contention. As language
functions as the law of the community, its renewal requires the role of experience beyond
language. In addition to Okuno’s point above, the discussion of Jacques Rancière by
Kawakami, for example, shares the direction of this hypothesis. Kawakami states that
linguistic activity as the “translation” between consensus and silence is an important
occasion for “Le partage du sensible” (the distribution of the sensible) that opens thedimension of “politics” in Rancière’s theory of education. These suggest a perspectivethat questions the possibility of subjectification, as distinguished from subordination, inthe movement for the creation of a new language. The importance of such an inquiry
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becomes even more pronounced in the contemporary context of what Bernard Stiegler
calls “misère symbolique” (symbolic poverty). This is an age in which the “decline ofindividuation” is becoming more common, and the individual is losing their subjective
opportunity because they can no longer participate in the production of the symbols thatmake them unique. In close proximity to these problem areas, Toraiwa’s research can becited as an application of Dewey’s philosophy. Toraiwa sees in “the ineffable” in Dewey’s
reflective thought the possibility of re-creating a new self that does not fall into the mere
reproduction of existing dominant discourses or one’s own discourses.
Taking its cue from this discussion, this paper focuses on the concept of quality in
Dewey’s philosophy as the equivalent of “the ineffable.” Quality is the direct experienceof things and situations enjoyed sensuously as “feeling,” which is “irreducible, infinitely
plural, undefinable and indescribable” (EN 74). At the same time, meaning refers to thisquality. The boundary between the non-cognitive, aesthetic, sensory, and bodily
experience of the pre-meaning realm and the language-based, cognitive experience of
meaning and the dynamics of its crossing is the decisive moment in which what is sensed
in a “private” and singular way in the individual passes onto the social and the public. To
question this aspect of the logic of Dewey’s naturalism is to question the core ofnaturalism’s intrinsic logic. Dewey’s Experience and Nature (1925), in which hedeveloped his empirical naturalism, focuses on quality as one of the key concepts. In theoverall picture encompassing the discussion, there is a cyclical progression from primaryexperience, which occurs in a state of subject-object inseparability, and secondary
experience, which is intelligently compartmentalized.1 Of course, there are many studies
in Japan and abroad that discuss naturalistic thought in relation to both experience andquality (e.g., Kaga, Alexander, Boisvert, Sleeper). However, the relationship between
quality-subject-meaning, which is encompassed in the logic of Dewey’s naturalism andwill be discussed in details in this paper, has not necessarily been elucidated.
(ii) When we approach Dewey’s philosophy from the above mentioned perspective,
we are forced to confront the problems presented by today’s currents of pragmatism.
Richard Rorty is especially significant in this case. While Rorty placed himself in the
pragmatist genealogy, as the leader of the linguistic turn, he adhered to the dichotomy
between experience and language, seeking to dissociate the concept of experience fromphilosophical discussion.
This paper, therefore, first presents a way to resolve the dichotomy between
experience and language and to rescue the status of qualitative experience (Section 1).
1

On this point, see, for example, Nishimoto and Tanaka.

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Then, while confirming the various characteristics of the concept of meaning in Dewey’s
naturalism, it examines the intersection of the two terms presented in the concept (Section2). The intersection of the two brings up the following point as the aspect of the subject
in Dewey’s naturalism is examined (Section 3). In other words, what Dewey calledsubject is the function of a medium that responds to the qualitative orientation that comeshistorically beyond the personal framework of “I” and throws it back into the publicworld through a reorganization of the semantic order.

1. Experience and Language after the Linguistic Turn
1.1. Elimination of the Concept of Experience: A Foundational Given?
In contemporary pragmatism, the influence of Rorty, who led the linguistic turn,remains significant despite its numerous detractors. Its influence remains, for example, inthe form of the “experience-language dichotomy” that Richard Bernstein has critically
noted (Bernstein 128-29). The implications of this dichotomy are straightforwardly
expressed by Rorty when he states that “Dewey should have dropped theterm‘experience’. . .” (Rorty 297). In other words, it is an assertion that the concept ofexperience, which should have occupied a central position in the philosophy of Jamesand Dewey, and which constitutes the source of pragmatism, should now be replaced bylanguage as a social practice, and linguistic and prelinguistic activities should be viewed
as fundamentally discontinuous.
This dichotomy is supported by the idea that direct, qualitative experience can play
an abject foundational role in an epistemological context. From an anti-representationalist,
anti-essentialist, and anti-foundationalist standpoint, Rorty repels epistemologicalassumptions that recognize ultimate and universal foundations of knowledge, such as
empirical directness and natural properties common to all human activity (Yaginuma
154-57). In his essay “Dewey’s Metaphysics,” Rorty criticizes the metaphysical aspectof Dewey’s naturalism, finding in it the residue of transcendental idealism. He asks,“Have we solved the problem of the relation between the empirical self and the material
world only to wind up once again with a transcendental ego constituting both?” (83).
There is, at the same time, a condemnation of the ambiguity of the concept of experience,
which is unnecessarily brought out as an all-powerful and mystical solution. As
Koopman states, when experience is an epistemological given, it heads toward thedeadlock of foundationalism, as the endorsement of the given principle implies rampant
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foundationalism (696).
However, Dewey’s prelinguistic experience is not posited as the measure of truth ofcognitive experience, as Rorty’s critique implies. Qualitative directness is had, not known.
That is, directness does not become a cognitive experience without it being named,
linguistically distinguished, and “objectified” (EN 198).
Therefore, as Richard Shusterman states, we can be sure that “in insisting that only
language constitutes qualities as objects of knowledge, Dewey has already taken the
linguistic turn which requires that the realm of cognitive justification be entirely
linguistic.” Nevertheless, Shusterman asserts that there are still aspects of Dewey’s
metaphysics that move toward an a priori metaphysics, pregnant with foundationalism,
which is still justified by transcendentalist arguments. This is because, in Dewey’s
argument, the quality of experience ensures the coherence of all argumentative thoughtand determines its validity by grounding and orienting thought in every situation(Shusterman 163,165 = 250, 254). Drawing on Dewey’s Logic: The Theory of Inquiry(1938) and the article “Qualitative Thought” (1930), Shusterman analyzes the following
five logical functions that direct experience serves for thought: (1) to bring together thecontextual situation on which thought depends and forms a discrete whole; (2) to control
the objects and things that thought recognizes, selects, and uses within the situation; (3)to provide a sense of adequacy, sufficiency, and validity of contextual judgment; (4) toprovide unity and direction to inquiry, allowing it to be maintained and carried out as aprocedure; and (5) to enable the intellectual association of thought objects (Shusterman
162-65 = 251-54). These, he says, invite a subtle grounding in the way that prelinguistic
qualitative experience provides guideposts and criteria for all thinking.
By accepting this criticism, can direct experience in Dewey’s philosophy still bepositioned as a kind of a given that introduces transcendentalist arguments and cannot
escape the approach to foundationalism? Hence, should Dewey’s line of reasoning, thatis, the quality of experience that gives a certain orientation to thought, be dismissed as abad singularity in his own philosophy, which is consistently anti-foundationalist?
1.2. Defending Immediate Experience: From its Historicity
The above issues cast doubt on the very thematic setting of this paper— theinteraction of experience and language—if not directly questioned from anepistemological context. However, as Bernstein states, reducing the scope of inquiry fromexperience to language not only fails to take into account the extrinsic and resistive
constraints that experience imposes on us, but also significantly narrows the broad field
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of human experience (historical, religious, moral, political, and aesthetic experience) thatphilosophy is to address (Bernstein 152 = 229). Thus, it is necessary to defend thequalitative directness of experience without falling into foundationalism. This paper,
therefore, responds to this issue by supporting Colin Koopman’s argument. That is, given
the historicity and temporality of the concept of experience that Dewey’s naturalism
embraces, this direct experience is not valid for a given, which provides an invariant
epistemological foundation.
In Koopman’s view, the philosophies of James and Dewey could not be sufficiently
anti-foundationalism in their statements because they had no theoretical tools after the
linguistic turn. Similarly, defenders of the concept of experience in the present day, who
support them, are not always sufficiently alert to the danger that their arguments run
toward Givinism (Koopman 696-702). Hence, though the significance of paying heed toneopragmatist voices arises, the approach of the linguistic turn has its limitations as well.
This is because it is difficult to respond to the critique of whether the consensus ofsociolinguistic practice it presupposes as the sole limitation of inquiry can provide a morerobust standard than relativism without falling into foundationalistic
representationalism—as, for example, John McDowell has theoretically called for the
existence of an object outside of judgment and beyond current practice. In addition, thecriticism that Rorty’s verbalism unfairly shuts out nonverbal experience is also invalid.
Rorty merely states that there is a sociolinguistic domain of experience involved in thelegitimization of knowledge and a domain of experience unrelated to it; but he does notstate that the latter does not exist (Koopman 706-08).
However, Barry Allen criticizes that this argument of Rorty is silent about the factthat not only actual knowledge but also knowledge concepts are founded on thecontribution of equally diverse skills and performances/techniques and that they cannot
be reduced to linguistic, propositional, or doxa entities. Noting this, Koopman says that
we need to find ways to reclaim the concept of supra-linguistic experience without
reverting to its givenness as an epistemological foundation, and that “such a third version
of pragmatism is made viable by focusing on the thoroughly temporal quality ofexperience” (709). The idea has its origins in the philosophies of James and Dewey, as
illustrated by James’ use of the metaphor of experience as a stream in motion to depict its
transitive character.
This position, which emphasizes the historicity of experience, is named“transitionalist pragmatism.” It states that truth is grasped as something that is situatedand established within experience. In other words, knowledge is neither grounded in theultimate, nor is it a mere consequence that we agree upon, but is redescribed as a relation
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between prior and future experience. By positing experience as “a temporal field within
which knowledge develops” (710), the concept of experience, like language, allows roomfor historical contingency. This position also considers language as a form of experienceand de-privatizes it in an epistemological context. The fact that foundationalism andlinguisticism have taken truth to be a property of sentences, propositions, and beliefs,
amounts to an unjustified limitation of the domain of philosophy to such linguistic truths.
By understanding language as a form of experience, the various non-linguistic
phenomena included in experience can be encompassed within philosophical discussion
as necessary tools for the success of human practice (Koopman 713-18).
By emphasizing the transitive character of experience, as described above, thefunction of prelinguistic experience has been presented in a way that is not a universal
given. This perspective on the historicity of direct experience is—although not elaborated
in Koopman’s argument—also in keeping with Dewey’s naturalism, which defines
quality of experience as the dynamic consequence of history in transition and persistence
by regarding quality as both the singular and pluralistic ends of natural events (Inoue).
These arguments resolve the problem of the “experience-language dichotomy” byencompassing language as a form of experience and defining the two as nonconfrontational.

2. The Intersection of Quality and Meaning in Dewey’s Naturalism
Through the previous section, we have secured a space in which we can argue theintersection of prelinguistic and “private” experience (i.e., quality)—though we will
reserve some of this “privateness” for the end of this paper)—and social language without
being accused of foundationalism. However, the relationship between the two, as
outlined by Koopman in his introduction to the perspective of temporality, is limited inits content to a response to an epistemological context. If there is a back-and-forth
relationship between the ineffable experience and the speaking experience, and if theprivate and the public interact in this back-and-forth, how does Dewey’s naturalism
depict this relationship? In what follows, instead of the concept of language itself, I will
first focus on Dewey’s description of meaning, which is the premise of linguistic activity(meaning makes linguistic activity possible), and explore the aspect of the linkage
between the two.
In this section, relying on Experience and Nature, we will first confirm the point thatmeaning is posited as: (i) a transformation of direct reality through the insertion of
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possibilities; (ii) generated from and functioning as a rule for cooperative action. Then,(iii) from Dewey’s theory of qualitative thought, we may conclude that the generationand development of thought is executed in a correspondence with the silent quality that
constitutes the situation. These establish that direct experience arises with a historical andsocial dimension (i.e., secondary experience) to it and pre-segmental qualities gain apathway into the social dimension as they are embodied and represented into meaning
through thought and communication.
2.1. Meaning as a Node of Reality-Potentiality: From Meaning to Quality
In Dewey’s naturalism, meaning, which corresponds to secondary experience,transforms primary experience itself, which is bodily sensed as qualitative directness.
This is because things and situations that are qualitatively present in the here-and-now
are connected to the dimension of their potentiality through the intervention of meaning.
For specific consideration, let us reconstruct the example Dewey presents in linewith this argument (EN 140-44). Consider a phase in which person A wants a flower at
hand that is a short distance away. Person A then points out the flower to Person B. In
response to A’s action of pointing to the flower, B reacts by understanding that the action
is not A’s behavior per se, but that it means something specific. B will then act toward thefuture situation to be achieved, which is either to give the flower to A or to reject the
proposal. At this point, a leap toward an absent consequence has occurred in the situation.
According to Dewey, meaning is firstly a property of movement, sound, behavior,etc. It is a sign that arises as an intent, which cannot be completed privately (the action ofpointing to a flower first has meaning (EN 142)). However, “secondarily the thing
pointed out by A to B gains meaning” (EN 142; emphasis Dewey), and meaning
simultaneously becomes a property of the indicated object when it attains the phase ofcompletion as possibility. In other words, the indicated flower, by being given meaning,
is experienced beyond its own directness as something that can be carried in the future
and as containing such potentiality.
This situation, in which things are experienced beyond themselves, can also be
expressed as follows:
If we consider the form or scheme of the situation in which meaning andunderstanding occur, we find an involved simultaneous presence and crossreference of immediacy and efficiency, overt actuality and potentiality, theconsummatory and the instrumental. (EN 143; emphasis Dewey)
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Some qualitative immediacy, when it has meaning, will appear in a figure of reference, ameans-object relationship, with other consequences tied to it.
What a physical event immediately is, and what it can do or its relationship are
distinct and incommensurable. But when an event has meaning, its potential
consequences become its integral and funded feature. (EN 143; emphasis Dewey)
This statement suggests that primary experience contains within itself the secondary
experience that mediates it.
The same is confirmed in the following explanation that this coexistence of meaningand quality gives things a “double life.”
Events when once they are named lead an independent and double life. In addition
to their original existence, they are subject to ideal experimentation: their meanings
may be infinitely combined and re-arranged in imagination, and the outcome of thisinner experimentation—which is thought—may issue forth in interaction with
crude or raw events. Meanings having been deflected from the rapid and roaring
stream of events into a calm and traversable canal, rejoin the main stream, and color,temper and compose its course. (EN 132)
Here “events” is used synonymously with the qualitative directness of a being that has ahistory unique to itself. Such quality is likened to a rushing torrent that continues to passaway because of its recurrent characteristics, while meaning is depicted as emerging fromthe torrent of qualities, interconnected with it by being placed in the field of nontemporality and transforming it by returning to qualitative experience again. The domainof meaning experience, characterized as intellectual, constitutes and conditions affective
and holistic qualitative experience.
2.2 Meaning as the Rule of Cooperative Action
The preceding discussion speaks to the ideas of Niklas Luhmann, who defined
meaning as a form of processing of experience, where one possibility is selected from thehorizon of possibilities. On the other hand, Dewey’s second argument for meaning
approximates the narrative of the late Wittgenstein, who viewed meaning in terms of use
and described it in terms of phases of action rather than representations of nature. Hence,
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Dewey presents language and meaning as methods and rules for establishing cooperative
action.
To verify this point, we will again use the specific example of pointing to a flower
mentioned earlier. When B reacts in this sense to A’s movement of pointing at a distantflower, this reaction is based on the perspective of functioning in A’s experience, awayfrom B’s own self-centeredness. Dewey sees the essence of communication, signs, andmeaning in the commonality of something at several different centers of action, such as
A and B.
To understand is to anticipate together, it is to make a cross-reference which, when
acted upon, brings about a partaking in a common, inclusive, undertaking. (EN 141)
The heart of language is not “expression” of something antecedent, much lessexpression of antecedent thought. It is communication; the establishment ofcooperation in an activity in which there are partners, and in which the activity ofeach is modified and regulated by partnership. (EN 141)
This explains the universality of meaning. The fact that meaning is a method ofcooperative action is due to the generality or the capability of being diverted of themethod itself, regardless of the individual concrete thing or situation to which themeaning is applied each time. “Meanings are rules for using and interpreting things;
interpretation being always an imputation of potentiality for some consequence” (EN147). “It [Meaning] is universal also as a means of generalization” (EN 147). Thus,
meaning is rapidly and autonomously applied to new cases as well as for launching acommunity of action.
At the same time, meaning is a social register of relationships between things,
regarded as an established pattern with objectivity.
. . . essence [as an ulterior and permanent meaning] is the rule, comprehensive andpersisting, the standardized habit, of social interaction . . . (EN 149)
Transitive natural events can only be intentionally utilized through the fixation of “someeasily recoverable and recurrent act,” such as “gestures and spoken sounds” (EN 146-47),
and it is here that the ritualization and institutionalization of things through meaning isestablished. Meaning thus supports institutions, communal practices, and morecomprehensively, cultural networks. The regular character and objectivity of meanings
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are fundamentally involved in the constitution of social conventions and norms. This fact
forms the premise for the individuality of the mind as deviance and deviation to be
declared subjective in the reorganization of the meaning order, which will be discussed
later.
2.3. Implications of Qualitative Thought Theory: From Quality to Meaning
At the same time in which meaning in the social phase transforms the qualitative
directness of experience as it manifests itself in the individual, the quality that permeatesthe situation is reverted in the direction of the creation and reorganization of meaning.
What Dewey calls qualitative thought is the description of a situation in which a totalityof qualities in an undifferentiated state that is beyond language, evokes, develops, andgoverns the thought that accompanies speech. Again, these qualitative orientations ofthought are not immutable but the result of historical consequences inherent in each
moment of transition. This nature of thought represents the second brackish-water region
where quality and meaning intersect in this paper.
Dewey, for example, layers quality onto what has been called the subconscious,
working behind the thoughts. It is the feeling of a myriad of cognitively unnoticed organic
actions—such as a sense of rightness or wrongness—that numerously influence thought
and action (EN 227). At the same time, this pre-reflective quality, closely related to what
has been conventionally named intuition, guides reflection, reasoning, and rational designprior to them (QT 249). What derives thought especially is the quality that permeates thewhole situation that is vaguely held as problematic before being segmented into terms
and relations.
The sense of something problematic, perplexing, or to be resolved reveals thepresence of something that permeates all elements and considerations. Thought isthe operation by which it is transformed into a proper and consistent nominalism.
(QT 249)
The qualities that are directly experienced before they are segmented into words ina narrative are not meaningful in themselves.
[H]owever, it is recognized that predication—any proposition having subjectpredicate form—marks an attempt to make a qualitative whole which is directly andnon-reflectively experienced into an object of thought for the sake of its own
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development, the case stands otherwise. (QT 253)
Dewey states that in this statement, the copula is as an active verb that contains the
anticipation of a dynamic change and is understood in terms of its own consequence. In
other words, what “that thing is sweet” means is “‘that thing’ will sweeten some otherobject” (QT 253; emphasis Dewey) and implicates consideration and attention to theimminent consequences of what it can do. The term also imposes a boundary on a qualitythat has, within itself, a dynamic transition, movement, and direction. In the preceding
predication, the changing event is intellectually symbolized and transformed into an
object of thought by the definition of its boundaries as “that thing” or “sweet” (QT 25255). These reconfigurations of logic by Dewey are directed toward the recombination andcreation of objects and new relations through the demarcation of their boundaries withthe existence of dynamic qualities as a background for language.

3. Subject as Medium
So far, we have examined aspects of the linkage between quality and meaning
encompassed by Dewey’s naturalism. In light of the interest of this paper, we can say thatthe linkage is a cyclical movement that generates new quality by forming meanings andopening to others by figuring, expressing, and sharing experiences in response to thehyper-linguistically produced experiences. More importantly, if this movement isconnected to Dewey’s discussion below, it is the very condition for the existence of
subjectivity.
Let us present the points in this section up front. The subject, in Dewey’s sense, isthe individuality of the mind, which has been discovered and utilized since the modern
era as an originator and innovator reorganizing the existing order of meaning. The subject,as the one that renews, has an intermediate character and is a preliminary step before
taking the form of a segmented meaning that can be publicly manifested. In the context
of Dewey’s argument, the paper positions the subject as a “medium” that connects thequalitative reality, which historically and uniquely arrives at the individual and directs
each person’s thinking, with the field of meaning, which opens up to social
communication.
3.1. Subject as the Agent of Renewal

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To begin with, it should be confirmed that Dewey, in Experience and Nature, refers
to the subject as the moment of creation and renewal of order. The recombination is an
event triggered by individuality, especially individuality of the mind. In what follows, I
would like to extract this line of reasoning from Dewey, which has been buried under the
convoluted arguments peculiar to Experience and Nature.2
In Dewey’s naturalism, the personal individuality of human beings is considered to
be both fundamental and continuous with the individuality of natural things in general.
Such individuality is recognized not only in organic life, such as animals and plants, butalso in the dimension of simpler natural events, such as physical and chemical
phenomena. It is exemplified by the fact that atoms and molecules show and try tomaintain their own specific preferences and centrality in their reactions and sensitivities.
Personality, selfhood, subjectivity are eventual functions that emerge withcomplexly organized interactions, organic and social. Personal individuality has its
basis and conditions in simpler events. (EN 162)
This individuality of things, including the personal and spiritual, when viewed inrelation to the total order in which it is contained, implies a state of difference, deviation,and exception. There was a historical shift between antiquity and modernity regarding
how to grasp and locate individuality as a difference from wholeness, and in these twocontrasting shifts, Dewey sees the discovery of the subject.
In ancient Greece, individuality was positioned as a mere exception outside of
the universal and systematic system, species, and familial kind of things. It was a failure
to realize an objective aspect, a defect that was merely a source of ignorance, timidity,
and error. This conceptual position given to individuality is permeated with the social
experience of the time: “[s]uch a marked difference in the estimate of the status ofindividuality is proof of difference in the empirical content of ancient and modern culture”(EN 163). In primitive cultures, the individual had no more status than a part of the whole,and thus it was important to absorb the customs and traditions possessed by the group asa whole. Then, established patterns, standards, and methods were considered theobjective nature of things to be accepted without question, and individuals’ potentialities
were viewed as dangerous deviations. In eliminating deviations and maintaining tradition,
2

Some of the discussion of the subject dealt with in Section 3 has already been organized by Hiroo Kaga as anaturalistic theory of syukansei (i.e., subjectivity, also see Note 4) (Kaga 347-50). This paper, on the other hand, takes
the position that the renewal of order that the subject takes on is also a theory of syutai, as it requires the practical actof communication as a necessary condition for such renewal.
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M. INOUE“[c]ustom is Nomos, lord and king of all, of emotions, beliefs, opinions, thoughts as well
as deeds” (EN 164). Thus, individuality was grasped as a fixed part of a completed andestablished static system of order.
However, the individuality of mind as an exception to the established order can work
constructively toward the inception and invention of new things. Even at a time wheninnovation was seen as a threat to the collective, human beings were not entirely subject
to the demands of convention.
Even in cultures most committed to reproduction, there is always occurring somecreative production, through specific variations, that is, through individuals. Thus,
while negatively individuality means something to be subdued, positively it denotes
the source of change in institutions and customs. (EN 165)
Thus, Dewey raises the following proposition: “Empirically, it [subjective mind] is anagency of novel reconstruction of a pre-existing order” (EN 168).
It is noteworthy here that the concept of subjectivity thus formulated is founded ona critique of both ancient and modern views. In other words, there is a sublation of thetwo views: the ancient Greek view of individuality as a deviation from the universal order,
and the post-modern view of the individual as an isolated and independent center of desire
and thought.
After making a sharp distinction between “individuals with minds” and “individual
minds” as fundamentally different, Dewey criticizes the concept of self and subject
assumed since the modern era as an unburdened fiction of social and historical traditions.
The mind, which is theoretically imparted to the modern subject, is such that it is directly
and genuinely observable from a privileged position, isolated from historical andtraditional burdens.
But the whole history of science, art and morals proves that the mind that appears inindividuals is not as such individual mind [that is responsible for the renewal of
tradition]. The former [i.e., individuals with mind] is in itself a system of belief,
recognitions, and ignorances, of acceptances and rejections, of expectancies andappraisals of meanings which have been instituted under the influence of custom
and tradition. (EN 170; emphasis Dewey)
The mind in the “individual with mind” is solely a system of meaning-ordering that isshared historically and communally and is enforceable in both perception and practice.
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3.2. Subject as Medium
This subject, which is responsible for renewal, departs from the restraints of thehistorically given order, which is an aspect missing from the modern subject. It adds
something new to the existing order, which is an aspect of individuality that was ignoredin ancient Greek thought, and is considered to have an intermediate character.
The point in placing emphasis upon the role of individual desire and thought insocial life has in part been indicated. It shows the genuinely intermediate position ofsubjective mind: it proves it to be a mode of natural existence in which objects
undergo directed reconstitution. (EN 171)
Since the “objects” to be reorganized is the event that is endowed with meaning in thescheme of Dewey’s naturalism,3 what is occurring here is a recombination of public
meanings.
The thoughts and desires held by this individual are subjective and a medium oftransforming the old object and bringing it into a new public and objective object. The recreation of the object involves imagination, which is not “mere reverie” but “terminatesin a modification of the objective order, in the institution of a new object” (EN 170-71).
This imagination “involves a dissolution of old objects and a forming of new ones in a
medium which, since it is beyond the old object and not yet in a new one, can properly
be termed subjective” (EN 171). These statements clearly indicate that subject is anintermediate medium in the process of construction that is being transformed into a new
object that is accepted in the public world.4
3

This is confirmed in statements such as “[e]vents turn into objects, things with a meaning” (EN 132). Thus,
Dewey’s locating the object as an event doubled by meaning and the subject as the agent of a renewal of the meaningorder indicates that the subject-object symmetry in Dewey’s naturalism hinges on meaning. That is, subject andobject correspond to the one that imparts meaning and the one that is imparted meaning.
4

The discussion so far and Dewey’s writing in the text suggest that this subject concept crosses the boundary of“syukan/syutai” that is distinguished in the Japanese translation of the word “subject.” In light of this duplexity, I
have literally used the term “subject” rather than syukan or syutai in the original paper. This different Japanesetranslation of the two generally corresponds to a difference in their epistemological (i.e., shukan) and practical (i.e.,syutai) contextual emphasis—this distinction refers to Paul Standish’s explanation, which depends on Naoki Sakai’s
discussion (Standish 31-32). However, as Dewey’s instrumentalist theory of inquiry is a good example, the two aregrasped as continuous, as his position rejects the dualism of epistemology and practice. This is logicallydemonstrated in the theoretical construct that subject is viewed from the function of modifying the objectively
accepted order of meaning, and that the meaning being modified is at once cognitive and practical (cf. Section 2“Meaning as a Node of Reality-Potentiality,” “Meaning as the Rule of Cooperative Action”).
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Now, the subject as a medium presents a fluidity that straddles language (i.e.,
meaning) and non-verbals and continues to transform in an indefinite manner.
There is a peculiar intrinsic privacy and incommunicability attending the
preparatory intermediate stage. When an old essence or meaning is in process of
dissolution and a new one has not taken shape even as a hypothetical scheme, theintervening existence is too fluid and formless for publication, even to one’s self. Itsvery existence is ceaseless transformation. . . This process of flux and ineffability is
intrinsic to any thought which is subjective and private. (EN 171)
Thus, Dewey portrays the sensing and thinking being as one who is representing a new
object that can be shared in the public world. It is the process of adding and redrawing
boundaries in response to an ineffable qualitative reality, as qualitative thought theory
suggests.
However, the experience, which plays the role of an occasion for order restructuring
by evoking thoughts and words, is not possessed privately and exclusively by anindividual who is enclosed and isolated as the so-called “subjective,” as distinguishedfrom Dewey’s use of the word. “It is absurd to call a recognition or a conception
subjective or mental because it takes place through a physically or socially numericallydistinct existence” (EN 171). Rather, qualitative sensation, which seems “private,” is an
event open within “objective” nature that arrives impersonally with an a posteriori
appropriated self as its locus.
. . . [I]t is not exact nor relevant [to the intent of Dewey’s statement] to say “Iexperience” or “I think.” “It” experiences or is experienced, “it” thinks or is thought,
is a juster phrase. Experience, a serial course of affairs with their own characteristic
properties and relationships, occurs, happens, and is what it is. Among and withinthese occurrences, not outside of them nor underlying them, are those events which
are denominated selves. (EN 179)
In this way, experience, by its very nature, is not localized as someone else’s, butarises historically as an event between the places involved. However, when it is virtuallyand fictionally attributed to an independent self, the subject stands a posteriori as a newly
added social event. Therefore, the implication of making “I” rather than “it” the locus ofthoughts, beliefs, and desires is the recognition and acceptance of the responsibility thatis established there, and the identification of the self as the independent and external
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origin of beliefs and feelings (EN 179-80).
The argument that what brings about a reorganization of meaning in a medium isthe quality that precedes the self and arises as a historical consequence has allowed thesubject as medium to be shifted even further, going a little beyond Dewey’s statement.
To reiterate, the subject was situated at the intersection of quality and meaning. The
subject, guided by what comes historically in an impersonal way, takes on the utteranceof that thought from the starting point of “I” and returns it to public society as a newmeaning. This subject’s way of being can be understood as a mediumship that listens towhat can now be called the “voice of nature” and translates it into human language.

Conclusion
This paper has explored Dewey’s naturalistic philosophy to depict the movement
between the pre/supra-linguistic experience (i.e., quality) and language (i.e., meaning),
which has been ignored in the face of the “experience-language dichotomy” that has been
rampant in the thought context of pragmatism since the linguistic turn. In Section 1, wesecured for this purpose the status of the directness of qualitative experience. The focus
on the historicity and temporality of experience repels the epistemological problem ofpossibility as its foundational givenness. In Section 2, the character of the concept of
meaning in Dewey’s naturalism was examined to see how experience and language
interact. Intellectually segmented and socially shared meanings expand and transform
direct experience by inserting a dimension of possibility, and conversely, quality, whichis always already historicized and acculturated, drives and guides thought, directing thereconstruction of new meanings and discourses. In Section 3, we have confirmed that
Dewey’s views subject as an agent of renewal of the meaning order that sustains
conventions and norms. The subject, guided by a voice that arrives impersonally as ahistorical consequence of natural events, has an aspect of being a medium that gives
meaning anew and returns that voice to a social dimension.
Finally, I would like to conclude by pointing toward two implications of this
discussion. The first is the distance between Rorty and Dewey. Rorty’s abandonment of
the concept of experience may be related to the distinction between the public and private
spheres, which is another gap between Rorty and Dewey, and to his liberal ironist
arguments that are possible under this distinction; but I did not go that far in my analysis.
On the other hand, in relation to that point, the following discussion by Ken McClelland
suggests an interesting fact. McClelland points out that when Rorty speaks of “metaphors”
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M. INOUE

and “the invention of new idioms,” he is effectively sheltering a place for the noncognitive and nonverbal via linguistic devices, which is a qualitative starting point for recreating the web of beliefs, desires, and practices that bind us. This point indicates that,considering the previous discussion, Dewey and Rorty, despite their presuppositional gap,
are on the same track in that they are both open to the re-creation of society in the wakeof their qualitative starting point.
The second is a response to Gert Biesta’s criticism of Dewey. Biesta states that theunderstanding that Dewey’s presentation of action, communication, and learning adopts,
at its root, a hermeneutic worldview that continually brings the world back to an internal
understanding on “my” part (Biesta 46 = 73). He says that it remains at the limit of a selfcontained or, in Emmanuel Levinas’ terminology, “egological” worldview that closes
itself off to external voices by the world and the “other.” However, this criticism is onesided when we reconsider Dewey’s naturalistic philosophy as a premise to support sucha theory of education. The subject as medium in Dewey’s naturalism is the very logic ofworld-centered activity that accepts and responds to what comes as an event.

References
Works of John Dewey
The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston,
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008 (Later Works = lw).
EN = Experience and Nature (1925 lw.1)
QT = “Qualitative Thought” (1930 lw.5)
Other Works
Alexander, Thomas M. John Dewey’s Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature: The
Horizons of Feeling. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.
Bernstein, Ricard. The Pragmatic Turn. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010. = Tetsugaku no
Puragumatizumuteki Tenkai. Translated by Satoru Hirose and Shun Satō,
Iwanami Shoten, 2017.
Biesta, Gert. The rediscovery of teaching. New York: Routledge, 2017. = Oshieru Kotono Saihakken. Translated by Masamichi Ueno, Tōkyōdaigaku Shuppankai,
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2018.
Boisvert, Raymond D. Dewey’s Metaphysics. New York: Fordham University, 1988.
Inoue, Meguru. “Shizenteki Dekigoto no Owari Toshite no Shitsu: Keikenronteki
Shizenshugi ni Okeru Endo towa Nani ka (John Dewey’s Naturalistic
Metaphysics of End: Quality as the End of a Natural Event).” Nihon Dyūi
Gakkai Kiyō (Bulletin of John Dewey Society of Japan), no. 57, 2017, pp. 2134.
Kaga, Hiroo. Dyūi Shizenshugi no Seisei to Kōzō (The Generation and Structure of
Dewey Naturalism). Kōyō Shobō, 2009.
Kawakami, Hideaki. “Konsensasu to Chimmoku no Aida ni okeru Gengokatsudō: Jakku
Ranshiēru no Kyōikuron ni okeru Futatsu no Gudonka karano Kaihō no Ronri(The Languages in between Consensus and Silence: The Two Logics of the
Emancipations from Stultifications in Jacques Rancière’s Educational
Theory).” Tōkyōdaigaku Daigakuin Kyōikugaku Kenkyūka Kisokyōikugaku
Kenkyūshitsu Kenkyūshitsu kiyō (Bulletin of the Division of Basic Theories of
Education, Graduate School of Education, the University of Tokyo), no. 44,
2018, pp. 49-58.
Koopman, Colin. “Language Is a Form of Experience: Reconciling Classical Pragmatism
and Neopragmatism.” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, vol. 43,
no. 4, 2007, pp. 694-727.
McClelland, Ken. “John Dewey and Richard Rorty: Qualitative Starting Points.”
Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, vol. 44, no. 3, 2008, pp. 412-45.
Miyadera, Akio. “Gengo, Kisoku, Kyōdōtai: Gengotetsugaku no Shakaiteki=Kyōikuteki
Impurikēshon wo Yomitoru (Language, Rule, and Community: Elucidating
Social=Educational Implications of the Discussions in Philosophy ofLanguage).” Kyōiku Tetsugau Kenkyū (Studies in the philosophy of education),no. 96, 2007, pp. 1-21.
Nishimoto, Kengo, and Tanaka Satoshi. “Shūshō: Renkansuru Futatsu no Keiken: Dyūi
to tomo ni Kyōiku wo Tetsugakusuru (Last Chapter: Two Experiences in a
Circle: Philosophy of Education with Dewey).” edited by Satoshi Tanaka,Kyōikutetsugaku no Dyūi: Renkansuru Futatsu no Keiken (Dewey’s
Philosophy of Education: Two Experiences in a Circle), Tōshindō, 2019. pp.
326-41.
Okuno, Sayako. “Gengo no Pafōmativitī ni yoru Shutai Kōchiku ni kansuru Kōsatsu:
Judisu Batorā no Shisō wo Tegakari ni Shite (The Constructed Subject by
Performativity of Language: With Reference to Judith Butler’s Work).”
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Kyōiku Tetsugau Kenkyū (Studies in the philosophy of education), no. 93, 2006,
pp. 85-101.
Rorty, Richard. Consequences of Pragmatism (Essays: 1972-1980), Brighton: The
Harvester Press, 1982. = Tetsugaku no Datsukōchiku: Puragumatizumu no
Kiketsu. Translated by Hisashi Muroi, et al., Ochanomizu Shobō, 1994.
————. “Dewey Between Hegel and Darwin.” Truth And Progress PhilosophicalPapers. Volume 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Shusterman, Richard. Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life.
New York: Routledge, 1997. = Puragumatizumu to Tetsugaku no Jissen.
Translated by Satoshi Higuchi, et al., Seori Shobō, 2012
Sleeper, Ralph. W. The Necessity of Pragmatism: John Dewey’s Conception ofPhilosophy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Standish, Paul. “Dai 1 shō: Shakaiseigi to Okusidento. (Chapter 1: Social Justice andOccident.” Translated by Naoko Saitō., edited by Naoko Saitō, Paul Standish,and Yasuo Imai, Social Justice in Translation, Tōkyōdaigaku Shuppankai,
2018, pp. 23-40.
Stiegler, Bernard. De la misère symbolique: 1. L’époque hyperindustrielle. Paris: Galilèe,
2004. = Shōchō no Hinkon: 1. Haipāindasutoriaru Jidai. Translated by
Gaburieru Meramberuje, and Meramberuje Maki, Shimpyōsha, 2006.
Toraiwa, Tomoka. “Hanseisei no uchi no Gengo wo Zessuru Isō to Keiken no
Saikōchiku: Jon Dyūi no Hanseiteki Shikō no Feminisuto Kyōikugaku e noEnyō (The Ineffable Aspect of Reflectivity and Reconstruction of Experience:
Application of John Dewey’s Reflective Thinking to Feminist Pedagogies).”Nihon Dyūi Gakkai Kiyō (Bulletin of John Dewey Society of Japan), no. 55,
2014, pp. 21-31.
Yaginuma, Ryōta. Rotī no Kyōikuron: Neo-Puragumatizumu kara no Teigen (Rorty’s
educational theory: Recommendations from Neo-Pragmatism). Yachiyo
Shuppan, 2008.

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Summary Report on the Symposium “Emotion, Democracy
and Philosophy of Education”
Shinji NOBIRA
Aichi University of Education
Keita FURUYATokyo Gakugei University
1. About the theme
On January 6, 2021, a shocking incident occurred in the United States of America
when the U.S. Capitol, a place of democratic decision-making, was destroyed by angry
people who claimed that the results of the presidential election were invalid. According
to a 2019 report published by the V-Dem Institute in Sweden, for the first time in 18 years,
the number of non-democracies exceeds the number of democracies, indicating a clear
trend of democratic decline. Considering these, it is apparent that emotions are often amajor factor in politics today, and democracy is said to have failed in the face of the riseof populism and authoritarianism. Under these circumstances, reexamining the position
and function of the irrational - emotion - in democracy is considered one of the important
issues of today, which includes the philosophy of education. Based on this idea, “Emotion,
Democracy, and Philosophy of Education” was chosen as the theme of the symposium
at the 64th annual meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan.
Since the Enlightenment, pedagogy has been exclusively concerned with thedevelopment of the rational subject. Nevertheless, there is a rich lineage of thought that
focuses on the significance of the irrational, including emotions. In this symposium, Mr.
Natsuki Shirokane (Kwansei Gakuin University), a researcher of Adorno, Ms. Reiko
Muroi (Iwate University), a researcher of Rousseau, and Ms. Mai Takahashi (Japan
Women's University), who is studying the possibility of education for coexistence basedon her research in Okinawa, served as symposiasts.
Mr. Shirokane proposed the concept of education that avoids evil and heteronomy
Correspondence:
Shinji NOBIRA, Aichi University of Education. Email: nobira@auecc.aichi-edu.ac.jp
Keita FURUYA, Tokyo Gakugei University. Email: kfuruya@u-gakugei.ac.jp

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S. NOBIRA & K. FURUYA

as a means of resisting authoritarianism, the enemy of democracy. Based on thearguments of M. Foucault and A. Ferguson, Ms. Muroi pointed out that modern civilsociety has the character of an emotional community, and that Rousseau, in order tocriticize this, advocated a political community based on a social contract and the controlof emotions through pity (“pitié”). Criticizing the fascism inherent in democracy, Ms.
Takahashi reported how the ideals of coexistence, such as Nuchidutakara (life is atreasure) and Chimugurisa (my heart suffers), were developed in Okinawa.
The annual meeting in 2021 was held online, same as in the previous meeting. The
three symposiasts posted their reports both in video and in manuscripts on the meetingwebsite in advance, followed by a discussion using an online meeting tool on the day ofthe meeting.

2. Discussion in the symposium
The discussion began with an exchange of views among the three symposiasts. First,
Ms. Muroi asked Mr. Shirokane about the implications and limitations of resistancewithout setting goals, and Ms. Takahashi about the actual situation of fostering andpassing on the Nuchidutakara philosophy. Mr. Shirokane, referring to Rosa Parks, who
is called the mother of the American civil rights movement, answered that thesignificance of resistance of Adorno lies in the fact that it criticizes barbarism by focusing
on the difference between goals and results. Ms. Takahashi stated that today, theNuchidutakara philosophy is being learned throughout the prefecture through peaceeducation in schools. She also stated that this philosophy could easily turn into praise forhomogeneity, and that the concept of Han (resentment) has the potential to overcome thisdifficulty.
Mr. Shirokane then asked Ms. Muroi about the understanding of collective catharsis
in Rousseau, and Ms. Takahashi about the possibility of mutual understanding among
heterogeneous individuals or groups. Ms. Muroi responded as follows: Rousseau's task
is to criticize the emotional community of fallen reality, and festivals that evoke collective
catharsis do not appear in “Émile”. The Clarin community depicted in “La NouvelleHéloïse” has a different character from civil society as an emotional community.
Referring to Okinawan thinkers and activists such as Mr. Minoru Kinjo and Mr. Shoichi
Chibana, Ms. Takahashi said that questioning oneself may be an alternative condition forsharing the suffering of others.
Ms. Takahashi asked Mr. Shirokane about the possibility of communication with
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Summary Report on the Symposium “Emotion, Democracy and Philosophy of Education”

23

authoritarian people, and Ms. Muroi about the possibility of collaboration through pity.
Mr. Shirokane said that the approach of analyzing patterns of authoritarian discourse andcritically enlightening people may be effective to some extent. Ms. Muroi responded that
Rousseau was thinking of emotional education to control desires through pity.
Following the exchange among the symposiasts, the discussion took place between
the symposiasts and online participants. First, moderator Keita Furuya pointed out the
deceptiveness of the concept of "authentic learning" used in contemporary educational
policies, and then asked the presenters if, based on Rousseau or Herder, authenticity is an
important concept in ensuring the fulfillment of the inside of one’s mind. In response tothis question, Ms. Muroi pointed out that in his autobiographical writings, Rousseau
revealed his own feelings of authenticity, and stated that it may be possible to read it as atheory of self-formation in solitude as resistance to a corrupt society. Mr. Shirokane
suggested that a utopian way of being that transcends both identity and non-identity could
be considered as something close to authenticity. Ms. Takahashi said that it is importantto question the imaginary character of the modern nation-state from the perspective ofauthenticity.
Mr. Sho Yamanaka (Hiroshima Bunka Gakuen University) then asked whether it isdifficult to dismiss the function of emotion, as seen in populism, which seeks what one
can identify oneself with. In response, Mr. Shirokane stated that, on the one hand, this istrue, but on the other hand, a reflective approach to questioning political thoughts anddiscourses is effective to some extent. Regarding that, Ms. Takahashi expressed the view
that, paradoxically, it is precisely because, in general, we are mutually heterogeneous thatsolidarity is possible.
Mr. Kanji Uechi (University of the Ryukyus) also asked whether we can consider
the key to breaking the democratic deadlock to be found in virtue and emotion rather thanin intellect. In response to this question, Ms. Takahashi responded as follows. Okinawa
is pursuing a higher level of democracy through its struggle with the mainland. However,
the way of pursuing democratic thoughts and ideas varies from culture to culture. In
Émile's case, the refinement of his ideas led him to elite inequality. Further study is neededon the meaning of democratic thoughts and ideas. Mr. Shirokane stated that he believes
education that avoids evil, which may be similar to human rights education or peaceeducation, is more important than education that targets desirable virtues. Ms. Muroi said
that, based on Rousseau, it is dangerous to look for clues to break through political
blockages in pity, and that she would like to clarify the meaning of Rousseau's last movetoward autobiographical writings.

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3. Summary
This symposium has highlighted the complex relationship between emotion anddemocracy. Emotions are often destructive to democracy, but at other times they are thedriving force in the struggle for recognition and can reinvigorate democracy. Emotionsof suffering and sharing them are conditions for the possibility of coexistence that
overcomes identification and division. As for the image of human beings, it could be said
that the one who can reflect and reorganize themselves through encounters with others ofa different nature, including emotions, is more worthy of exploration.
We look forward to continued discussions on this topic in the future. We would liketo express our sincere appreciation to the three symposiasts for their thought-provoking
presentations, as well as to all the participants who took part in the symposium.

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Rousseau’s Dissent from “Civil Society” as Community of
EmotionReiko MUROI
Iwate University
Abstract
How do we constitute our “society”? Is it by a “contract”? Does our society need a “social contract”
as its basis? Some arguments on “civil society” in 18th Century Europe responded negatively to thesequestions and instead tried to construct a social theory based on an assumption that human social
bonds are formed within spontaneous (natural) occurrences, in which the principle or ties to connect
individuals are found in “emotion/sentiment.”
However, Jean-Jacque Rousseau (1712-1778) critically confronted such arguments in those days
and their concept of “civil society as it exists” as a community of emotion. For Rousseau, humanemotions are brought about by society, therefore “natural emotions” as natural (spontaneous) social
bonds never exist. Rather, emotions caused by societies have led humankind to corruption; the peakof human historical corruption has been reached with civil society as an emotional community.
Rousseau also worked on how a human being can exist as a “natural person,” without degradation
in a corrupted “civil society as it is,” in his book on education Emile, or On Education (1762).
Rousseau attempts there to describe how Emile is taught the art to survive in a civil society as acorrupted community. This art consists of controlling emotions by other emotions, as though fighting
evil with evil. This art of survival is discussed in section 3. Section 1 reviews the transformation ofcivil society in the 18th century. Section 2 examines Adam Ferguson’s argument on civil society as acommunity of emotion/sentiment. Michel Foucault’s works are utilized throughout this article.
Key words: J.-J. Rousseau, M. Foucault, A. Ferguson, civil society, emotion, sentiment

Correspondence:
Reiko MUROI, Iwate University. Email: muroi@iwate-u.ac.jp

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R. MUROI

Introduction
How do we constitute our “society”? Is it by a “contract”? Does our society need a “social
contract” as its basis? Some arguments on “civil society” in 18th Century Europe
responded negatively to these questions and instead tried to construct a social theory
based on an assumption that human social bonds are formed within spontaneous (natural)
occurrences, in which the principle or ties to connect individuals are found in“emotion/sentiment.”
However, Jean-Jacque Rousseau (1712-1778) critically confronted such argumentsin those days and their concept of “civil society as it exists” as a community of emotion.
For Rousseau, human emotions are brought about by society, therefore “natural emotions”
as natural (spontaneous) social bonds never exist. Rather, emotions caused by societies
have led humankind to corruption; the peak of human historical corruption has beenreached with the civil society as an emotional community. In one of his main books On
Social Contract (1762), Rousseau searched for and planned a civil society as a legitimate
political community which is governed under people’s sovereignty grounded by a social
contract. At the same time, he also worked on how a human being can exist as “natural
person,” without degradation in a corrupted “civil society as it is,” in his book on
education Emile, or On Education (1762: hereinafter Emile). Rousseau attempts there todescribe how Emile is taught the art to survive in a civil society as a corrupted community.
This art consists in controlling emotions by other emotions, as though fighting evil withevil.
I will treat this art of survival in Section 3 of this article. Section 1 will review thetransformation of civil society in the latter half of the 18th Century. Section 2 will examine
the argument of Adam Ferguson on civil society as a community of emotion/sentiment.
Throughout this article, I will make use of Michel Foucault’s works as references.

1. Transformation of Civil Society in the Latter Half of the 18th Century
In the latter half of the 1970’s, Foucault shifted the priority of his argument on “rulingpower” from “disciplinary power” to “bio-power” and began to study the nature of social
ruling (governmentality). He describes then the development of bio-power and biopolitics in the 17th and 18th Centuries as transformation from “rasion d’État (statereason)/government of police” to “liberalism/government of political economy.” Afterthe Treaty of Westphalia (1648), a competitive space of states opened up in Europe. There
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emerged the theory of “rasion d’État” (state reason), which, according to Foucault (cf.
Foucault, 2004a: 293-318=2007: 285-310),1 was intended to respond to problems suchas enhancement of national strength, maintenance of a state and order among states. The
governance by state reason aimed to “regulate its subjects unlimitedly” within thegovernment of police. Against this tendency, the principle of “droit” (laws and/or rights)
was asserted in order to restrict the regulations of the state. This latter argument developed
into theories of natural law and social contract in the 17th Century (Foucault, 2004b: 711=2008: 6-10).
In the mid-18th Century, “coordination” of governance began to be sought, not byan “external principle” of droit, but by an “internal principle” of political economics. As
far as political economics aimed to enrich the state through coordination of population
and resources, we can say it was within the framework of state reason. But thecharacteristic of political economics was in that it attempted to judge the success or failureof governance under the criteria of whether or not it is in accordance with “nature” and“effectiveness”. This made it possible for government to self-restrict according to thenature of objects (subjects) of governance (Foucault, 2004b: 15-19=2008: 13-17).
Furthermore, this self-restriction led the government to “govern as least as it can” or “least
government” according to the nature of things, instead of maximum government as in
the 17th Century (Foucault, 2004b: 29-31=2008: 27-29).
However, this internal self-restriction of the governance system, even if it isachieved by minimum governmental reason, must be formulated in terms of droit.
Because of this necessity, the problem of limitation on exercise of public power against
the sphere free of governmental intervention has arisen after the advent of political
economics, until today, in place of the arguments on legitimate justification of sovereignty
before and in the 18th Century. Two paths have been proposed. One intends to define
natural or fundamental rights of individuals first, and then determine the limits ofgovernmental intervention against them. This approach would be named “Rousseau’s
approach” or “the path taken by the French Revolution.” The other starts fromgovernmental practice itself and tries to crystallize de facto limitations of governmentality
either from history and/or tradition, or in relation with the purpose of growth of national
wealth, and then formulate those limitations in legal terms (Foucault, 2004b: 3842=2008: 37-41). These two approaches may lead to different ideas of freedom. The
former asserts that individuals have certain fundamental freedoms by nature; a subject of
1

In this article, references to M. Foucault are indicated with the page(s) of the original texts and then with that of
the English translation edition. As a general rule, citations are from English translations, except for some revisions I
made for this article to fit its context.
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such freedoms is called “homo juridicus”. The latter grasps the sphere to which a ruler
should not intervene (the independent sphere of the ruled people) as the freedom; asubject of non-interference (laissez-faire) is called “home œconomicus” (Foucault,
2004b: 43-44, 286=2008: 41-42, 282-283). The homo juridicus accepts a dogma of“restraint by social contract” (cf. Supiot, 2005). The homo œconomicus determines
whether or not to keep a promise according to one’s own interest, or to the standard ofusefulness (Foucault, 2004b: 276-280=2008: 273-276).
Political economics admitted the fact that the economic space was complicated likea labyrinth, that homo œconomicus was embedded in contingencies, and that one’s act
could serve others in unintended ways. These facts were utilized to assert that an intentionof totalitarian governance would not work and that it would be better as a whole to let
individuals pursue the maximization of their interests. The economy/market was
regarded as an uncontrollable sphere in this sense. Such a logic of economics led to adenial of logic of droit and politics, as well as to an idealization of homo œconomicus
who would follow the logic of economics. There still existed attempts to confine thesphere of uncontrollable economics/market, in order to maintain the form ofgovernmental reason itself. But they did not succeed, as Foucault says. Then appeared a
new attempt to reconstruct the concept of “civil society,” totally different from theconcept in the former half of the 18th Century. The new concept consisted of a sphere ofgovernance which practiced self-restriction without violating laws of economics nor lawsof droit, and, or rather, in a way different from these laws. Such a civil society appeared
as a sphere of “governance of liberalism/political economics” (Foucault, 2004b: 280-285,
296-301=2008: 276-281, 292-298).
This is how the “civil society” or the concept thereof changed in the mid-18th
Century. I would like to review the details of this concept in the next section, focusing on
an essay by Adam Ferguson, which is, according to Foucault, the most basic text of thetime on this topic.

2. Civil Society as “Community of Emotions”: the Case of Adam
Ferguson
Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) is a figure in Scottish Enlightenment, who had an
acquaintance with David Hume (1711-1776) and Adam Smith (1723-1790). His book
An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) was read widely in Europe at that time,
including German and French translated editions (Ferguson, 1995: xvi-xvii). Foucault
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pointed out four characteristics of his argument on civil society.
First, Ferguson asserts that a civil society is a given, beyond which lies nothing toresearch. (Foucault, 2004b: 302=2008: 298). He rejects any attempt to assume a state ofnature or to trace its transition to a social state, calling such attempts “wild suppositions”
that ignore the records of history (Ferguson, 1995: 7-8). For human beings, society is as
old as individuals; “Mankind are to be taken in groupes, as they have always subsisted.
The history of the individual is but a detail of the sentiments and thoughts he hasentertained in the view of his species: and every experiment relative to this subject should
be made with entire societies, not with single men” (Ferguson, 1995: 10). In short,
Ferguson approves no special theoretical operation to found a society, nor prehistories tosocial bonds.
Second, he grasps civil society as a natural, spontaneous principle which guarantees
the integration among individuals, who are social beings from the beginning. Civil
society is not constituted under a pact of subjection to establish sovereignty. The
integration of civil society is brought about by individual satisfactions in the social bonditself (Foucault, 2004b: 304=2008: 300-301). And the principle of integration lies in“emotions,” as he says:[…] neither a propensity to mix with the herd, nor the sense of advantages enjoyedin that condition, comprehend all the principles by which men are united together.
Those bands are even of a feeble texture, when compared to the resolute ardour withwhich a man adheres to his friend, or to his tribe, after they have for some time run
the career of fortune together. Mutual discoveries of generosity, joint trials of
fortitude, redouble the ardours of friendship, and kindle a flame in the human breast,
which the considerations of personal interest of safety cannot suppress. The most
lively transports of joy are seen, and the loudest shrieks of despair are heard, when
the objects of a tender affection are beheld in a state of triumph or of suffering.
(Ferguson, 1995: 22)
Mere acquaintance and habitude nourish affection, and the experience of society
brings every passion of the human mind upon its side. Its triumphs and prosperities,
its calamities and distresses, bring a variety and a force of emotion, which can only
have place in the company of our fellow-creatures. It is here that a man is made toforget his weakness, his cares of safety, and his subsistence; and to act from thosepassions which make him discover his force. (Ferguson, 1995: 23)

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Even emotions such as malice, hatred, anger and so on, which bring about hostility, arenecessary to the formation of civil society. Without them “[…] civil society itself could
scarcely have found an object, or a form” (Ferguson, 1995: 28).
Third, in a civil society which is brought about through spontaneous bonds ofemotion, political power also comes about spontaneously. The division of labor emerges
spontaneously according to functions and missions among individuals in the society;
Some become persons to order, the others to obey, thus emerges a political power(Ferguson, 1995: 63-64). Political power exists in civil society in advance of its legitimate
creation, authorization and regulation. The legal structure thereof comes ex post facto(Foucault, 2004b: 307-308=2008: 303-304).
Incidentally, Ferguson examines “democracy” “aristocracy” “monarchy” and“tyranny,” in accordance with Montesquieu, who considered forms of government fromthe viewpoints of “sentiments” and “maxims of action” (Ferguson, 1995: 67). But
Ferguson emphasizes that he examines forms of government according only to “ideal
limits” and that in “reality” human characteristics, external circumstances, moral
sentiments as people may say, and so on are mixed up in different ways so that forms ofgovernment are infinitely diverse (Ferguson, 1995: 71-72). “Democracy, by admitting
certain inequalities of rank, approaches to aristocracy. In popular, as well as aristocratic
governments, particular men, by their personal authority, and sometimes by the credit of
their family, have maintained a species of monarchical power. […] All these varieties are
but steps in the history of mankind, and mark the fleeting and transient situation throughwhich they have passed, while supported by virtue, or depressed by vice” (Ferguson,
1995: 72).
Civil societies vary infinitely and change constantly. This characteristic links to thefourth feature of civil society that it is the driving force of human history. This is so
because civil societies are communities consisting of spontaneous subordination in which
individuals connect to each other by natural bonds of favorable emotions such as loveand friendship. There also exist “by nature” interests of homo œconomicus and egoism(selfishness), as the principle of such connections and separations (Foucault, 2004b: 308311 =2008: 305-307). Thus, according to Ferguson, emotions drive the history of civilsocieties as communities of emotions.

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3. “Natural Person” in a Civil Society: Rousseau’s Works on
Emotional Education
It would be safely presumed that Ferguson counted Rousseau as one of those who wereon “wild suppositions,” since An Essay on the History of Civil Society referred criticallyto Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1755: hereinafter
Discourse on the Origin) (Ferguson, 1995: 10-11). But for Rousseau, the theme ofDiscourse on the Origin was to “explain” “what chain of wonders” caused moral andpolitical inequality in human beings. In order to achieve this, it was necessary for him to
reject all the “facts” and suppose a “state of nature” which excludes thoroughly the ideas
we acquired in society and deduce conditionally and hypothetically (Rousseau, 1964:
131-13=1997: 131-132).2 In such hypothetical reasoning Rousseau described humanhistory up to the formation of civil society as a history of corruption and degradation.
Then, in On Social Contract, Rousseau searched for and planned a new politicalcommunity governed under the sovereignty of people by a social contract (cf. Omoda,2013).
In contrast to this, Emile explores how a human being can live in a corrupted anddegraded “civil society as it is.” At the final stage of educating Emile, his teacher took
Emile out to a two-year journey around Europe, in order to have him consider “where tolive” as if he is a “natural man” (Rousseau, 1969a: 831=2010a: 644-645).
Emile’s assignment was to observe countries and societies all around Europe, toobtain extensive knowledge of various governments, political customs and axioms ofstate, and to find the finest government (Rousseau, 1969a: 836-837=2010a: 649-650).
The “measurement” (échelle) for the judgment was “our principles on state law” (nosprincipes de droit politique), that is, the theories developed in On Social Contract(Rousseau, 1969a: 837=2010a: 650). A summary of On Social Contract is inserted in thebook V of Emile as the “measurements” to observe and evaluate various countries andsocieties, and not to have Emile construct an ideal political community after his comingof age.
Emile could not find an ideal country on this journey, but rather realized that there
was no such country, and finally settled down in the country he was born (Rousseau,
1969a: 857-859=2010a: 666-668) and chose not “big cities,” but a “country,” where his
future spouse Sophie and her parents live. Then he aimed, together with Sophie and her
2

In this article, references to J.-J. Rousseau are indicated with the page(s) of the original texts and then with that of
the English translation edition. As a general rule, citations are from English translations, except for some revisions I
made for this article to fit its context.
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parents, to revive and restore the “golden age” of the region they lived, which had been
devastated at the cost of urban areas (Rousseau, 1969a: 859-860=2010a: 668).
This “golden age” to be restored resembles the beginning society formed by people
in the primitive state (“the genuine youth of the world”), which was depicted at the
beginning of part II of Discourse on the Origin (Rousseau, 1964: 171=1997: 167). These
communities do not overlap perfectly, since agriculture is a main industry in the place
Emile and his companions settled, whereas the original state in Discourse on the Origin
is supposed to exist before metallurgy and agriculture. But they may overlap, when
considered under the viewpoint of “sentiment.”
In the part I of Discourse on the Origin, almost the only emotion human beings(natural persons) possess is “pity” (pitié). This is an emotion which Nature endowed tohuman beings, a sentiment suited to human nature (Rousseau, 1964: 156=1997: 154).
“There is, besides, another Principle which Hobbes did not notice and which, having been
given to man in order under certain circumstances to soften the ferociousness of hisamour propre or of the desire for self-preservation prior to the birth of amour propre,
tempers his ardor for well-being with an innate repugnance to see his kind suffer”(Rousseau, 1964: 154=1997: 152). Natural persons did not possess any other passions
nor sentiments (Rousseau, 1964: 157-158=1997: 154-155). These other emotions arebrought about artificially to society by customs. In part II of Discourse on the Origin, it
is supposed that human beings began to band together by various coincidences, began toform families, and began to obtain abstract ideas, among which are the first sentiment of
one’s own existence, then secondly diversification into affection, jealousy, admiration,and so on. These sentiments have made human beings’ ties closer and closer, making
their bond tighter and tighter (Rousseau, 1964: 164-170=1997: 161-166). But the growthof these emotions and the strengthening of ties are to be understood, at the same time, as
the first step to inequality and vice, that is, to corruption (Rousseau, 1964: 169-170=1997:
166).
Nonetheless, Rousseau viewed human beings who were on the first step to vices
and corruption in the beginning society to be, in fact, in the finest condition.
[…] whereas nothing is as gentle as he in his primitive state when, placed by Nature
at equal distance from the stupidity of the brutes and the fatal enlightenment of civilman, and restricted by instinct and by reason alike to protecting himself against theharm that threatens him, he is restrained by Natural pity from doing anyone harm,without being moved to it by anything, even after it has been done to him. For,according to the axiom of the wise Locke, “Where there is no property, there can be
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no injury.” (Rousseau, 1964: 170=1997: 166)[…] although men now had less endurance, and natural pity had already undergone
some attenuation, this period in the development of human faculties, occupying ajust mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of
our amour propre, must have been the happiest and the most lasting epoch. The
more one reflects on it, the more one finds that this state was the least subject torevolutions, the best for man, and that he must have left it only by some fatal
accident which, for the sake of the common utility, should never have occurred.
(Rousseau, 1964: 171=1997: 167)
Human beings were restrained from harming each other, not only because full-scale
property was not realized there, but also because the harsh activities of “amour propre”(self-love) were controlled by the emotion of pity.
In the case of Emile, he could not find an ideal political community illustrated in On
Social Contract. Nevertheless, he was educated to live as if he was a man in the primitive
state, who would try with Sophie to restore the golden age in the land he was born, which
was not his “homeland”, but a “civil society as it exists.” With regard to this, Rousseau
gives caution about passions in Emile as follows:
It is an error to distinguish permitted passions from forbidden ones in order to yield
to the former and deny oneself the latter. All passions are good when one remains
their master; all are bad when one lets oneself be subjected to them. What isforbidden to us by nature is to extend our attachments further than our strength;
what is forbidden to us by reason is to want what we cannot obtain; what isforbidden to us by conscience is not temptations but rather letting ourselves beconquered by temptations. It is not within our control to have or not to have passions.
But it is within our control to reign over them. All the sentiments we dominate arelegitimate; all those which dominate us are criminal. (Rousseau, 1969a: 819=2010a:
634)
What is important is not emotions themselves, but whether we have control over them.
If human beings fail to control emotions in a civil society as it exists, they immediately
fall into dependence on others, no longer can retain their free existence, and thus become
corrupt.
For Emile, “pity” was the controller of evil emotions and sentiments. His teacher
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was very careful to help Emile control by pity his “amour-propre” (self-love), which wasperverted from “amour de soi-même” (love to oneself), especially after his adolescence.
By the way, Emile did not succeed to restore the golden age and live in happinesswith Sophie. In Emile and Sophie, or the Solitaries (a sequel of Emile), Emile and Sophie
suffered the deaths of their child and her parents, and then moved to Paris, the city
regarded as the least suitable place to live after the two-year journey around Europe
described in Emile. Unfortunately, Sophie became pregnant after being deceived byanother man in Paris. Emile decided to leave Sophie and throw himself into lonesome
wonderings. Emile was educated to live in a corrupted society as a natural person or ahuman being in the original condition. It was his fate to become miserable, being rejectedby a corrupted society.
Rousseau aims to have readers realize how our society is absurd and evil byintentionally breaking down his search on education (cf. Sakakura, 2018). It should beemphasized, however, that Emile’s education half-succeeded, since he recognized thevalue of the education he received, even in the midst of misfortune, as follows:[…] you, my dear master, […] Never have I known the value of your efforts better
than after harsh necessity made me feel its blows so cruelly and deprived me ofeverything except myself. I am alone, I have lost everything, but I have myself left,and despair has not annihilated me. (Rousseau, 1969b: 882=2010b: 685)

Conclusion
I reviewed in this article why and how civil society transformed into the emotional
community, according to Foucault’s works. I also examined how this transformation was
evaluated and confronted, as well as what problems the civil society rose and what
responses were made, along with two figures in contrasting positions, Ferguson andRousseau.
According to Rousseau, we are unable to constitute an authentic society or
legitimate political community without a social contract for it. Therefore, a civil society
as an emotional community without social contract is found at the peak of humancorruption history as depicted in Discourse on the Origin. Such is the civil society
described in Emile which the protagonist must live with. His teacher attempted to help
Emile survive in the society, by teaching him to control emotions with other emotions.
Though Rousseau internationally halfway breaks down this search in a sequel work, theSymposium: Emotion, Democracy and the Philosophy of Education

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attempt in Emile seems to reveal one phase of modern education in regard with civilsociety.
According to Ferguson, to the contrary, we need no contract at all to let a society
emerge; where there are human beings or individuals, there is a society. It is spontaneousemotions that connect individuals naturally, and that brings about a government or
governance naturally. The modern liberalism government required civil society to exist
as such. This sort of idea became radicalized into the Neo-liberalism government
afterwards.
It should be noted, however, that Ferguson himself also describes such a civilsociety critically. As Sonoe Omoda points out, “on the other hand, he [Ferguson]
recognizes shadows of civilization such as full (rotten) maturity of commercial society,loss of bravery virtue, laxity of national moral, decadence related to the pursuit of wealthand extravagance, and so on. […] Ferguson thus overpaints gloomy corruption anddownfall above the glorious history of refinement from the primitive state to thecivilization and its delicacy” (Omoda, 2018: 471-472).
Discussions on politics and emotions tend to develop as criticism of modern politics(and its theories). Against the background of the transformation of civil society in the 18th
Century, though, it is revealed that it is in the Modern Era when sentiments came to thecenter of the political sphere and that emotions and politics became inseparable thereafter.
Foucault says that politics is a function of various governing arts and that arguments
triggered by governing arts bring about politics (Foucault, 2004b: 317=2008: 313). The
modern government and its governing arts are correlative of civil society as an emotional
community. Therefore, as far as the former is possible within the latter, modern politics
is indivisible with emotions.
Furthermore, discussions on politics and emotions often criticize the support for“reasonableness/rationality” of modern politics (and its theories) and often tend to rethinkpolitics (and its theories) from the viewpoint of “unreasonableness/irrationality” (cf.
Yoshida, 2014; Yoshida, 2020). Perhaps we need to note Foucault’s remark on this point:
Undertaking the history of regimes of veridiction […] obviously means abandoning
once again that well-known critique of European rationality and its excesses, which
has been constantly taken up in various forms since the beginning of the nineteenth
century. From romanticism to the Frankfurt School, what has always been called
into question and challenged has been rationality with the weight of power
supposedly peculiar to it. Now the critique of knowledge I would propose dose notin fact consist in denouncing what is continually […] oppressive under reason, for
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after all, believe me, insanity (déraison) is just as oppressive. (Foucault, 2004b:
37=2008: 35-36)
Probably we need to abandon criticisms based on binary schema of “rational/irrational,”“reason/emotion,” and so on. This may be necessary work to be done in education study,
too.

References
Ferguson, A. (1995) An Essay on the History of Civil Society, edited by Oz-Salzberger,
F., Cambridge University Press.
Foucault, M. (2004a) Sécurité, territoire, population: Cours au Collège de France. 19771978, Gallimard/Seuil. [Foucault, M. (2007) Security, Territory, Population:
Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-78, translated by Burchell, G., Palgrave
Macmillan.]――――(2004b) Naissance de la biopolitique: Cours au Collège de France. 1978-1979,
Gallimard/Seuil. [Foucault, M. (2008) The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the
Collège de France, 1978-79, translated by Burchell, G., Palgrave Macmillan.]
Nagami, F. (2021) “Dai 1 shou: Émile wa doko ni sumunoka? (Chapter I: Where does
Emile live?)” in Nagami, F. (ed.) Rousseau Ronshû: Rousseau wo shiru, Rousseau
kara shiru (Collected Works on Rousseau: Learning Rousseau, learning fromRousseau), Chûô-daigaku shuppanbu. [in Japanese]
Omoda, S. (2013) Shakai-keiyaku-ron: Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau and Rawls (Social
Contract: Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau and Rawls), Chikuma-shobô. [in Japanese]――――(2018) Tôchi no Kôsô shi: Foucault Kôgi 1978-79 (The History of Governance
Strives: Lectures by Foucault 1978-79), Keisô-shobô. [in Japanese]
Rousseau, J.-J. (1964) Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité, Œuvres
completès, t. III, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. [Rousseau, J.-J. (1997)
Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, in The
Discourses and other early political writings, edited and translated by Gourevitch,
V., Cambridge University Press.]――――(1969a) Émile, ou de l’éducation, Œuvres completès, t. IV, Gallimard,
Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. [Rousseau, J.-J. (2010a) Emile, or On Education,translated by Bloom, A., in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, Vol.13, DartmouthCollege Press.]――――(1969b) Émile et Sophie ou les solitaires, Œuvres completès, t. IV, Gallimard,
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Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. [Rousseau, J.-J. (2010b) Emile and Sophie, or theSolitaries, translated by Kelly, C., in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, Vol.13,
Dartmouth College Press.]
Sakakura, Y. (2018) “Kitai toiu yamai” wa ikanishite fukou wo manekunoka: Rousseau
no Émile wo yominaosu (How “Illness of Hope” Leads to Misery: Rereading
Rousseau’s Émile), Gendai-shokan. [in Japnese]
Supiot, A. (2005) Homo juridicus: Essai sur la fonction anthropologique du Droit, Seuil.
Yoshida, T. (2014) Kanjyô no Seiji-gaku (Politics of Emotion), Kôdan-sha. [in Japanese]――――(2020) After Liberal: Ikari to Zôo no Seiji (After Liberal: Politics of Rage andHate), Kôdan-sha. [in Japanese]

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 7, 2022

Politics of Emotions and Preventive Pedagogy against
Authoritarianism: Theodor W. Adorno’s Educational Theory
and his Utopianism
Natsuki SHIROKANE
Kwansei Gakuin University
Abstract
The current affective turn in social sciences, the spread of emotional politics in social media, and thecrisis of democracy and liberalism facilitate the reexamination of some traditional educational ideas
regarding to children’s emotion, their nature, and democratic education.
This paper focuses on Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno’s critical theory due to the conceptual
ambiguity of “enlightenment” in his works. His pessimism is known with Dialectic of Enlightenment,
but his works on education stressed the importance of “enlightenment” as the social critique fordeveloping democracy and autonomous personality in West Germany. Adorno demanded of
education that the social critique would work as the antidote, vaccination, and critical self-reflection
against authoritarianism. However, he did not systematize democratic education. Here, I focus on his
negative utopianism. Adorno believed utopia would be togetherness of diversity and the state in which
the rational dominant principle is unnecessary. Therefore, from education he expected the contribution
to vigilance, resistance, and elimination of the cause of suffering, taking the sensitive suffering ofreality as a starting point. Such education that avoids the perspective of natura naturata, such as thecontrol of emotions, and aligns with suffering, hoping for what can be achieved in/by vigilance,
resistance, and elimination of suffering, would be a form of natura naturans. I call Adorno’s
educational theory “preventive pedagogy.”
Adorno’s “preventive pedagogy” would provide a critical perspective on today’s “dialectic of
democracy” in which popular political fervor endangers the democracy that is its requirement.
Furthermore, this perspective would be suggestive to consider education with post-foundationalism,
agonistic democracy, deliberative democracy, emotional architectures, the Beutelsbach Consensus in
Germany, education against propaganda tricks, solidarity, and pity.
Key words: Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno, democracy, authoritarianism, utopianism, enlightenment,
Auschwitz, politics of emotions
Correspondence:
Natsuki SHIROKANE, Kwansei Gakuin University. Email: 09kaneshiro@gmail.com

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Introduction
The spread of social media and the disturbance of democracy and liberalism by the“politics of anger and hatred” [Yoshida 2020] are currently recognized. Traditional ideasthat have dichotomized reason and emotion are criticized in the current “affective turn”
in social sciences, and Japanese pedagogy is no exception [Okabe/ Ono eds. 2021]. The
ideal relationship between emotion, democracy, and education, “by rational nurturing
rational democratic society members while respecting the spontaneity and authenticity ofchildren’s emotions,” also requires reexamination.
This paper focuses on the conceptual constellation of emotion, democracy, andeducation in Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno’s critical theory. In the Dialectic ofEnlightenment, co-written with Max Horkheimer, Adorno analyzed the complicity of therational and the irrational from the perspective of the improvement of civilization by
the domination of nature. However, he criticized anti-Semitism and the culture industry,
which appealed to the emotions of the masses, and expected the masses’ enlightenment
and education to resist the status quo and contribute to democracy. However, his theoryof education primarily focused on resistance to antidemocratic realities. This paper
contrasts the uniqueness of his thought with current discussions in philosophy ofeducation concerning emotion and democracy.

1. Authoritarianism Disturbing Democracy
Adorno questioned the dominance of authoritarianism over democracy. Thisdichotomy between authoritarianism and democracy is common in political science, but
Adorno, using Freudian psychoanalytic theory, focused on social psychology and the
media.
Adorno criticized the personality type susceptible to authority(“Autoritätsgebundenheit” [GS9 — 2:367]), which includes both authoritarian andmanipulative characters. This type is characterized by sado-masochism, stereotypicalthinking, cruelty, narcissism, cynicism, obsession with control and manipulation, evasionof responsibility, identification with the inner group, and unconscious desire fordestruction and its transfer to the outer group. Such personality is "particularly susceptible
to antidemocratic propaganda "[GS9—1:149], and it is considered as an expression of ego
weakness.
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Adorno’s analysis of the political “tricks” that rationally divert irrational impulses isnoteworthy here. These tricks include the politician’s “personalized” appeals (whenpoliticians spend large time in speaking either about themselves or their audiences), thecompatibility of the elimination of enemies with the compulsion to identify with allies,
the “salami method” (the removing a piece from a complex), the repetition of fragmental
and illogical statements, and the appeal to crisis and reform while affirming the current
system of power. These tricks supply collective narcissism, sadism, and masochism to
the weak ego that seeks an outlet for its impulses with the anxiety of isolation:“Propaganda, Hitler reasoned, has to adjust itself to the most stupid ones among those towhom it is addressed; it should not be rational but emotional.” [ GS20—1:271]. Bothsender and receiver are aware of irrational feelings but dare to surrender to the trick.

2. Education for Democracy, against Authoritarianism
Based on Adorno’s critique of authoritarianism, what kind of education would be
required? Strength and development of the ego in a family and the education of a rational
and intellect might be demanded. However, Adorno preceived the decline of the modern
family as the basis for ego formation, and the primacy of instrumental reason as a problemof the modern age. Therefore, he hoped for the removal of the blind, opaque authority
from schooling [EzM:131], and a social critique as the “enlightenment.”
According to Adorno, schools and teachers wield opaque authority and power, andconsequently, children form cliques, in which there is a hierarchy of physical strength,
violence, and cunning [EzM:84—85, GS20—1:375]. Therefore, Adorno urged schools andteachers to eliminate this structural authoritarianism and then recommended respect forchildren’s self-expression, inspiring friendship rather than collectivity, and tolerance forthe emotions of self and others. However, he emphasized the need to develop a sense of
disgust/shame to counter the problem of physical violence [EzM:131]. His
recommendations for schools were generally intellectual and moderate, however, heaffirmed the necessity for emotional and intellectual work to resist the violence.
Regarding “enlightenment”, the following three specific methods wererecommended for individuals approximately older than 10 years of age, which would
contribute to democracy. (1) “antidote” (Gegenmittel) [EzM:27], which accuses
individual interests of the disadvantages of authoritarians, (2) “vaccination”(Schutzimpfung) [EzM:27, NSV1:466], which spreads a list of propaganda tricks andSymposium: Emotion, Democracy and the Philosophy of Education

Politics of Emotions and Preventive Pedagogy against Authoritarianism

41

culture industry stereotypes, and (3) sociological political education that analyzes real,concrete social problems [NS V1:381—386]. He expected them to make people aware of
their susceptibility to influence from propaganda [GS20—1:273] and to promote “criticalself-reflection” [EzM:27, NSV1:465] in addition to social consciousness. Furthermore,this “enlightenment” causes shock and resistance to authoritarianism. This does not alter
people’s unconsciousness fundamentally, nevertheless, it can be expected as acounterinstance at the pre-conscious (das Vorbewusstsein) [EzM:103].

3. Adorno’s Utopian Perspective and his Preventive Pedagogy
Why did Adorno affirm the ego-established individual, democracy, and“enlightenment”? Why did he not systematize democratic education, and why did he notcall for his education to be thorough? The main reason would be Adorno’s utopian
perspective. According to his Negative Dialectics, “Utopia would be above identity andabove contradiction; it would be togetherness of diversity” [GS 6: 153]. It cannot be
grasped by reason, nor can it be promised to be realized by rational means. Utopia would
be a state in which the rational dominant principle is unnecessary [NS IV10:215—216].
The rationally depicted and formed individual and democracy were not utopias for
Adorno. If we set it as a goal and enforce it identically, we will fall into a “dialectic” andturn into the opposite, as in the former Enlightenment [GS4:86, GS4:223]. Adorno foundthe penetrating state of identity in “Auschwitz” [GS6:355]. Modern society is not theworst because in this non-identity remains even under the overwhelming compulsion ofidentification. However, its contradictions and distortions are negative suffering (Leiden).
However, according to Adorno, this distress facilitates a contemporary “metaphysicalexperience” that is proof that the “togetherness of diversity” is not just an illusion.
Consequently, Adorno had great expectations for the practice of education. Of
contemporary education, he expected not the rational realization of rational goals, but thecontribution to vigilance, resistance, and elimination of what causes suffering, taking thesensitive suffering of reality as a starting point. The vigilance, resistance, and eliminationof authoritarianism and heteronomy in modern society are considered as the realistic
contemporary signs that the established individual, democracy, and utopia would not be
impossible, and the embodiment of its emergent potential. Such a perspective ofeducation could be described as a “preventive pedagogy for avoidance of evil”[Shirokane 2019]. Here we can also read here Adorno's concern with Mimesis as natura
naturans (productive nature) [Früchtl 1986]. Education that avoids the perspective of
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natura naturata (nature as product), such as the control of emotions, and aligns withsuffering, hoping for what can be achieved in/by vigilance, resistance, and elimination of
suffering, would be a form of natura naturans, or “togetherness of diversity,” in addition
to contemporary philosophy and art [GS6:26, GS7:35].

4. To Criticize of Emotion, Democracy, and Education Today, in
Perspective of Adorno’s Thought
Currently, social divisions due to social media and populism, contemporary
capitalism in which globalism and nationalism coexist, and the similarities between Nazi
Germany and modern society are discussed. What is evident in this situation is the“dialectic of democracy,” in which “the people’s political enthusiasm puts democracy,
which is its requirement, in danger.” Against this “dialectic,” Adorno’s “preventive
pedagogy” suggests a critical perspective. Although his theory of education
recommended concrete and moderate practices and recognized the significance oftraditional culture, it may seem conservative and unsatisfactory because it did demand afundamental change in education and its thoroughness. Furthermore, this perspective on
nouvelle naturae, which entrusted the spontaneity and authenticity of “diverse things” tosuffering in the current situation and to its elimination and what is produced withresistance, is insufficient as a bulwark against the domination of nature [Imai 2017].
However, for Adorno, democracy and education may have been a stage on which hecould stake his unforeseen hopes in the midst of an evil reality.
Finally, we will contrast discussions of the philosophy of education with Adorno’s
perspective. His view of politics would be more similar the recent post-foundationalism[Tabata/ Tamate/ Yamamoto eds. 2019], which is interested in the avoidance of evils, or
agonistic democracy than deliberative democracy that promises legitimacy andrationality of all constituents. These ideas suggest the possibility of citizenship educationthat does not force all people towards the goal of a “good citizenship.”Given the current development of social media and other “emotional architectures”[Wahl-Jorgensen 2019] with anonymity, his media-theoretical “enlightenment” isprobably more effective than Adorno’s critique of gerrymandering personality types.
The Beutelsbach Consensus in Germany [Endo 2004], which encouraged students’
analysis of political realities in view of their own personal interests, and the publishinga new edition of Prophets of Deceit [Löwenthal/Guterman 2021], that is a list of
propaganda tricks to whose original research Adorno contributed. The contemporary
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43

significance of education as an “antidote” or “inoculation” is evident. However, it isimportant to understand the difficulties of the “elimination of authoritarianism” in thecomplex dynamics within schools [Yamana 2015] and the tradition of Japanese
postwar education which has produced “fun classes” [Matsushita 2003]. The
spontaneity and authenticity of children’s emotions should not be naively consideredself-evident, and the actuality of the idea of natura naturans requires careful
examination.
According to Shannon L. Mariotti, Adorno and Paulo Freire are similar regarding
the social issues they analyze and their expectations of democratic education; however,
Adorno’s insight into solidarity is insufficient than Freire [Mariotti 2016:105—121].
Adorno maintained that negation of suffering can only be realized through solidarity[GS6:203—204]; however, he never systematized it. From his perspective, what would
be expected of theories for the negation of suffering would be the “solidarity” of various
theories rather than the rational thoroughness of a particular rational system. For
example, Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition [Honneth 2005], Jean-Luc Nancy’s
understanding of the human being as “singular plural” [Nobira 2019:119], and JeanJacques Rousseau’s insight into absolute human “weakness” as the principle of equality
and pity [Morita 2015:71], may be theories that contribute to such solidarity. However,caution is required against theories of solidarity and pity not to be enforced by education.

Acknowledgments
This paper was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 17K04546.

References
EzM: Adorno, Th. W.: Erziehung zur Mündigkeit. Vorträge und Gespräche mit Hellmut
Becker 1959-1969. Kadelbach, G. (Hrsg.), Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1971.
GS: Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno Gesammelte Schriften. 20 Bde. Tiedemann, Rolf/
Adorno, Gretel/ Buck-Morss, Susan/ Schultz, Klaus (Hrsg.), Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp 1971-86.
NS: Adorno Nachgelassene Schriften, Schröder, Th. u. a. (Hrsg.), Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp 1993 ff. (erscheint noch).

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Endo, Takao (2004) Kanri kara Jiritsu he: Sengo Doitsu no Gakkou Kaikaku (FromControl to Autonomy: School Reform after World War II in Germany), Tokyo:
Keiso Shobo [in Japanese].
Früchtl, Josef (1986) Mimesis. Konstellation eines Zentralbegriffs bei Adorno,
Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann.
Hammer, Espen (2006) Adorno and the Political, London: Routledge.
Honneth, Axel (2005) Verdinglichung. Eine anerkennungstheoretische Studie, Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp.
Imai, Yasuo (2017) “Shizen-shugi to Kyoiku no Aida (Between Naturalism and
Education: Finding the Limits of Naturalism in Education)”in: Kindai-kyoiku
Forum (Forum on Modern Education), Vol.26, pp.42-45 [in Japanese].
Löwenthal, Leo/ Guterman, Norbert (2021) Prophets of Deceit: A Study of theTechniques of the American Agitator, London/ New York: Verso.
Mariotti, Shannon L. (2016) Adorno and Democracy. The American Years, Kentucky:
The University Press of Kentucky.
Matsushita, Ryohei (2003) “Tanoshii Jyugyo-gakko-ron no Keifugaku: Kodomo
tyushin-syugi-teki Kyoiku-rinen no aironi (Archaeology of the discourse on
fun lessons and schools: Irony of the Concept of Child–centered Education)”in: Morita, Hisato/ Morita, Nobuko/ Imai Yasuo (eds.) (2003) Kyoiku to Seiji:
Sengo kyoiku-shi wo Yominaosu (Education and Politics: A Reinterpretationof Postwar Educational History), Tokyo: Keiso Shobo , pp. 142-166 [inJapanese].
Morita, Nobuko (2015) “Ruso ni okeru Kokka no Kouso to Kyoiku no Shiso (TheThought of State and Education in J.- J. Rousseau),” in: Kindai-kyoiku Forum(Forum on Modern Education), Vol.24, pp.65-73 [in Japanese].
Nobira, Shinji (2019) “Kyo-sonzai to Kyoiku-teki Kankei (Being-with and Pedagogical
Relation),” in: Sakakoshi, Masaki (supervisor), Maruyama, Yasushi/ Yamana,
Jun (eds.) Kyoiku-teki Kankei no Kaisyakugaku (The Hermeneutics ofPedagogical Relation), Tokyo: Toshindo, pp. 113-125 [in Japanese].
Okabe, Mika/ Ono, Fumio (eds.) (2021) Kyoikugaku no Patosu-ron-teki Tenkai (ThePatho-logical Turn of Education), Tokyo: The University of Tokyo Press [inJapanese].
Shirokane, Natsuki (2019) Adoruno no Kyoiku-shiso (The Educational Theory of
Theodor W. Adorno: Enlightenment ‘after Auschwitz’), Hyogo: Kwansei
Gakuin University Press [in Japanese].
Tabata, Shinichi/ Tamate, Shintaro/ Yamamoto, Kei (eds.) (2019) Seiji ni oite Tadashii
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toha Douiu Koto ka (What Does the Correctness Mean in Politics: PostFoundationalism and the Place of the Normative), Tokyo: Keiso Shobo [inJapanese].
Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin (2019) Emotions, Media and Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Yamana, Jun (2015) Toshi to Arkitekutya no Kyoiku-shiso (Educational Ideas of Cities
and Architectures), Tokyo: Keiso Shobo [in Japanese].
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Tokyo: Kodansha [in Japanese].

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 7, 2022

Nuchidutakara (life is a treasure): The Spirit of Okinawa in
Resistance to the Fascism of Democracy
Mai TAKAHASHIJapan Women’s University
1. Nuchidutakara — The thought of as an oath to inherit the memoryof warNuchidutakara has become a widely-known word that expresses the spiritual andideological character of Okinawa. It is a popular idea that thoroughly embodies peaceand rejects any spirit of sacrifice. The term holds a very important position considering
the future state of Japanese society and world peace.
However, Okinawans have not always recognized and circulated this term as asymbol of the heart of Okinawa. According to Osamu Yakabi, an Okinawan modern andcontemporary history researcher who carefully explored the coining of the term
Nuchidutakara, “The word Nuchidutakara is hardly confirmed in texts written during
and in early postwar times.” (Yakabi 2009:199). After the introduction of the term Nuchi
in the late 1960s, “In June 1987, a local newspaper reported that the description of theJapanese genocide in the Battle of Okinawa was completely removed from high school
textbooks by the Ministry of Education” (ibid.:199). Two newspaper companies, theOkinawa Times and the Ryukyu Shinpo, immediately began a three-month long series.
Related organizations also responded quickly to the “fight against the power that comesto crush” (Kinjo et al. 2019:129). They “broke the silence of 37 years and started talking
about the deletion of massacres by the Japanese military in the textbook examination
because they felt bitter that ‘if we don’t talk now, it will be miserable again.” One of themost notable aspects of this struggle was that not only organizations and researchers but
also readers who had subscribed to newspapers received the daily testimonies (Yakabi
2009:203). Furthermore, in the process of collecting testimonies from people andquestioning about the experience of the Battle of Okinawa, researchers extracted the word
Nuchidutakara and it was published in the Okinawa Times. This was the moment when
Correspondence:
Mai TAKAHASHI, Japan Women’s University. Email: mai0718@smile.ocn.ne.jp

Nuchidutakara (life is a treasure)47

the word first appeared in a newspaper (Yakabi 2009:204). Thus, Nuchidutakara is a new
popular idea with less than 40 years of history that represents the Okinawans’ earnest
desire for peace and their oath of determination to inherit war memories in collaboration
with researchers.
However, the word had already been used in the speech of the Crown Prince during
his visit to the prefecture in 1983 to promote blood donation and in the speech of U.S.
President Bill Clinton at the Okinawa Summit in 2000. The intended ideological nature
has also been used in the language of the opposition（Kinjo 1987:20-22; Kano 2011:230).
The Okinawa People's Thought Movement, which continues to this day, is in the midstof a battle to refine its ideological character, in which the words Nuchidutakara are noteasily taken away by the authorities.
This report focuses on this point. Specifically, the author focuses on two thinkers
from the Yomitan village who have led the Okinawans’ ideas to this day, the sculptor
Minol Kinjo and the Shinshu Otani monk Shoichi Chibana. Through an overview of how
the ideological character of Nuchidutakara has been refined by these two thinkers, I
examined the ideological conditions and significance of Nuchidutakara which protects
people from war and enables them to live truly democratically.

2. Who coined the term Nuchidutakara?
The sculptor Kinjo adopted the term as his own way of life, but Nuchidutakara is
not originally invented by him. Kinjo testified that he had first heard the words in the
postwar streets as the voice of the people who had sacrificed a lot in the war (Kinjo
1987:21-22). However, he said that he learned the spirit of the term in his childhood justafter World War II. Kinjo was raised by his maternal grandfather Makari Miyagsk (Kinjo
2001). His father had gone to war and died in battle on Bougainville Island when Kinjo
was less than a year old. Kinjo said that his grandfather, who was a fisherman's boss,
never exploited his fellow fishermen. He recalled, “If there are ten fishermen, some ofthem have been fishing for four or fifty years, and some of them have gone out to sea for
the first time yesterday or today, but they have the same share. In fact, what I've
experienced is that the deaf, who had just started fishing, worked in the sea together, but
we divided all the fish and shellfish in the harvest into equal parts. I think it was the
Nuchidutakara that supported this behavior, which is that life is a treasure.” (ibid.:1-2)
Thus, the term Nuchidutakara supposedly existed long before it was ideologized as thelanguage and spirit of the people, but it was reconceived out of the language of the people
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M. TAKAHASHI

who lived during the war. According to what Kinjo has learned from his predecessors,
Nuchidutakara can be understood as a spirit of equal distribution on the premise that there
is no superiority or inferiority in life.

3. Word of Okinawa in resistance to the fascism of democracy
Yomitan village, the birthplace of Shoichi Chibana, contains the remains of the war,
Shimukgama and Chibichirigama, known as the most important bases for Okinawa
peace learning (Yakabi 2009:65-75). Two people who had immigrated to Hawaii were
evacuated to Shimukugama. They realized that the U.S. military was not as cruel as thevillagers had been taught by schools and Japanese soldiers (as being “the demons, theU.S. and the British”) but that “they wouldn’t kill them if they didn’t even fight back.”
Therefore, the two of them left Gama and negotiated with the U.S. military, and as a result,the lives of 1,000 residents were saved (ibid.:71-72). On the contrary, a veteran soldier
and two nurses accompanying him on the Chinese front were evacuated to Chibitirigama.
They had only seen the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China and they told
the residents that they were the demons of the U.S. military. According to the testimonyof the survivors, this account triggered a group suicide by yelling “Tenno Heika Banzai”(Shimonoshima 1984). Parents killed children and adults set fire to futons, thinking that
it was better than being humiliated and brutally killed by U.S. soldiers. In fact, 85 out of
135 people were killed. Simukgama and Chibichirigama are considered indispensablefor peace learning because they demonstrated that “imperialization education” was thecause of life and death, depending on where the residents of the same district evacuatedto.
However, during Chibana’s youth, there was no such place for peace learning in
Yomitan village. Shoichi Chibana revived the memory of Chibichirigama that had been
reduced to a garbage dump (Kinjo et al. 2019:129), along with non-fiction writer Tetsuro
Simojima in 1983, and opened it up as a place to think deeply about peace. Chibana
continues to narrate the memories of the places as a peace guide to this day. Chibana’s
reputation as “the person who burned the Japanese flag” (Chibana 1996) was based on
his belief in peace and attempts to revive and inherit the memories of Chibichirigama’s
war so that there would never be another war. It is important to note that Chibana has kept
the Hinomaru as a treasure in the Buddhist altar drawer to this day. This Hinomaru is thenational flag of the country that Chibana had bought before Okinawa’s return to Japan in1972 (Ogasawara Islands returned to Japan in 1968), and waved many times to return toSymposium: Emotion, Democracy and the Philosophy of Education

Nuchidutakara (life is a treasure)49

Okinawa’s homeland. It is therefore kept as a precious memory of Chibana’s youth, who
lived under the occupation of the America Yu. Chibana recounts that under American rule,
which was marked by unjust oppression, only Japanese schoolbooks provided
democratic things at the time (Asahi Shimbun Digital, 2011). Therefore, the Hinomaru
became a symbol of Chibana’s dream of breaking through the unjustly damaged situationand obtaining equal human rights. However, Okinawans who returned to the JapaneseConstitution and the Japanese democratic state for the first time in 27 years viewed theHinomaru as a symbol of fascism that completely betrayed the “nuclear-free mainland”(Chihana 1996:6) demanded in the movement to return to their homeland. Chihana
learned from this experience that democracy and fascism were not counter-concepts that
presented opposite societies to the people; whether it was prewar militarism or ademocratic country, fascism could be realized under the right conditions.
Media control enables populism and creates a majority that cleverly incites popularsentiment and crushes a small number as a result of legitimate consensus (Chibana 2017).
The use of the term Nuchidutakara by the side that imposed control eliminated the coreof the idea and modified it to suit the principle of majority rule. That is why Chibana
emphasizes the spirit of not abandoning the minority, that no one should be sacrificed, asa core part of Nuchidutakara that should not be exploited.
Then, through what kind of action do the Okinawans embody the idea of
Nuchidutakara? The code of conduct that Okinawans follow to interact with others is
also considered to be the feeling of Chimugurisa, which exists as the unique language of
Okinawa.

4. Act of finding pride as a human being in the vessel of one’s mind
that can conceive of the pain of oneself and others
The translation of Chimugurisa into Japanese is similar to the meaning of the word
Kawaiso（I’m sorry）. However, in this translation, the most important aspect ofChimugurisa is omitted. The word Kawaiso implies that one can break off relationships
with others, such as “I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything for you” or “I feel sorry for you,so I’ll leave you alone.” This feeling gives one the choice of how to deal with otherpeople’s wounds. On the contrary, Chimu means “heart” in Japanese and Gurisa means
suffering, which together means “my heart aches.” However, the word Chimugurisa also
implies the feeling of empathy for other people’s suffering. In other words, Chimugurisa
does not include the choice of whether or not to suffer the pain of others. Others’ suffering
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M. TAKAHASHI

and that of one’s own are equally implied in “my heart suffers” without boundaries, andthe spirit of “equal life” (Kinjo 2003:3) is embedded in Chimugurisa. Therefore, those
who have a Chimugurisa mind overwhelmingly incorporate the suffering and sadness ofother people’s lives into their own compared to those who have a Kawaiso mind thatallows them to freely choose the extent of other people’s and their own suffering. It is no
exaggeration to say that the process of life from the beginning to the end is the process of
forming a vessel of mind filled with the pain of oneself and others. When those with sucha vessel of heart shout Nuchidutakara for example, in a democratic country, they would
not be allowed to say that there is a “life” that can change its value inside and outside thenational boundaries.
However, Kinjo posits that it is not enough to have a Chimugurisa to truly live in thespirit of Nuchidutakara and advocates bringing in the traditional feeling of the Korean
people called Han (resentment).
The term Han strongly incorporates ethnic Korean ideas that are different fromthose incorporated in the Japanese term Urami and refers to “emotional activities” inwhich feelings of sadness, suffering, and resignation are precipitated and deposited within
oneself (Hanpuri) and created and sublimated into a new life (Unno＆Gombeye 1987;
Hanazaki 1981; Kinjo 2001; Kawase 2018). Kinjo sees the possibility of life in Han’s
work to solve his grudge. The empathy of Chimugurisa, which is accompanied by the
suffering of others and one’s own, enables a solidarity that does not isolate others, but if
suffering only builds up like a dam, people will have no choice but to be overwhelmedby life. Also, if these sufferings are caused by discrimination or exploitation, the victim’s
resentment, despair, and anger will most likely transform into aggression and create astructure that engenders new sacrifices. If so, Nuchidutakara loses its original meaning.
However, if the dam of pain is the source of a new and desired life, Nuchidutakara will
mean exactly what it states. Kinjo said that “human pride” (Kinjo2001, Fukushima 2015,
Kawase eds. 2018) can only be revered by people who have been hurt can be seen in Han
Toki（solving）(Kawase eds. 2018). By adding the idea of Jodo to the term, Kinjo thenreaches the word “You live Jodo by solving Han.” The term Jodo refers to a new worldof life that can be seen before the end of resentment. Jodo refers to a world that is worthyof being a society where everyone lives together. It refers to a world where the sufferingof others and oneself is associated not only with each other but also with the pride anddignity that sublimates pain. As this Jodo is a state that can only be seen in the world oflife, it can be said that the spirit of Nuchidutakara which should not be sacrificed by any
person, can be an idea of peace that resists fascism in democracy.

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Nuchidutakara (life is a treasure)51

Acknowledgments
This report has been made possible thanks to the tremendous cooperation of Minoru
Kinjo, Shoichi Chibana, and the Association of NPO Okinawa Han no Hi no Kai that has
supported the democratic ideas of Okinawa. You have my heartfelt gratitude.

Funding
This report is part of the research that received a grant from the JSPS Research Expense(20K02502).

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Norio＆Jo, Katu＆Asato, Eiko＆Kinjo, Minoru◎Photo: Makita, Kiyoshi,
Wachimu(Waga Kokoro no) Okinawa, Kaiho Syupansya, 151-161
Kinjo, Minoru (2001) Minsyu wo Horu Okinawa/100Metoru Rerifu ni Idomu, Kaiho
Syupansya
Kinjo, Minoru (2003) Shitteimasuka? Okinawa 1mon1tou Dai2han, Kaiho Syupansya
Kinjo, Minoru (2007) “Senso to Ningen” to Ima no Okinawa, Kikan Zenya Dai1ki12go
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2007nen Natu, Kage Syobo, 114.
Kinjo, Minoru＆Chibana, Syoichi＆ Takahashi, Mai (2019) “Keisyo” no Ba ga Yori
Ijou no Kioku Kukan ni naru Kanousei –“Syudan Jiketsu” no Kioku wo
Nokosu Chibichirigama no Keisyo Jissen kara--, Forum on modern education.
History of Educational Thought Society 28, 127–135.
Okabe, Mika& Ono, Fumio Editors（2021）The Pathological Turn Of Education, Tokyo
Daigaku Syupansya
Shimojima, Tetsuro (1984) Haebaru no Fuku Hi Okinawa Yomitanson Syudan Jiketsu,
Doushinsya
Unno, Fukuju & Kwon, Byung-tak (1987) Han Chosenjingunpu no Okinawasen,
Kawade Shobo Shinsha
Yakabi, Osamu (2009) Okinawasen, Beigun Senryoshi wo Manabinaosu Kioku wo Ikani
Keisyosuruka, Seori Syobo
Yoshida, Toru (2020) After・Liberal –Ikari to Zouo no Seiji, Kodansya Gendaishinsyo
1990/10/30-11/1, Han wo Muneni Kankokujin no Okinawa Ireisai (jo),(cyu),(ge),Okinawa Times, 26men,24men,28menkiji.
2021/8/18,17:00, Asahi Shinbun Dijital.

Symposium: Emotion, Democracy and the Philosophy of Education

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 7, 2022

The Challenges for the Philosophy of Education in a “DataDriven Society”: Reconsidering “Data,” “Information” and“Knowledge” for the Future of Education
Yoshimitsu MATSUURA
Keio University
Ryohei MATSUSHITA
Mukogawa Women’s University
Purpose of the Discussion
What impact will the Fourth Industrial Revolution which is bringing about the new
vision of society, such as so-called “Society 5.0” or “Data-Driven Society” have on thenature and concept of “education” and “human beings”? The new society will becharacterized by an expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT), utilization of big data
through artificial intelligence (AI), the development and spread of robotics, and otherrapidly advancing innovations. How would education and learning in the new society betransformed or how should we transform them?
Considering the issue of education in the new society, we tend to focus on it as amethod to develop human resources for innovation and new technologies. There is also
a position, as is evident in the discussion of “Singularity” that reads the future oftechnology and human beings as conflicts or confrontations and attempts to conceive ofeducation as countermeasures against them (e.g., “Education will never lose to AI.”)
What these discussions have in common, however, is the concept of education todevelop useful human resources in response to changes in the social structure. This is,
so to speak, an “educational technology” approach. Though it is clear that education
plays a functional role in responding to changes in society, this approach is based on theidea and concept of education that prevailed after the Industrial Revolution (Society 3.0),
when education was organized and institutionalized on a global scale as a powerfuldevice contributing to the development of nation-states and their economic and industrial
Correspondence:
Yoshimitsu MATSUURA, Keio University. Email: ymatsuur@keio.jp
Ryohei MATSUSHITA, Mukogawa Women’s University. Email: matsushitaryohei@gmail.com

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growth. In the new society (Society 5.0), following the information society (Society4.0), which is envisioned as a “human-centered society that achieves both economic
development and solutions to social issues through a system that highly integrates
cyberspace (virtual space) and physical (real) space,” these ideas and concepts ofeducation and human have become the dominant conception. Will the ideas andconcepts of education and human be retained in this new society (Society 5.0)? The
philosophy of education has its own challenges in dealing with the advent of a newsociety brought about by rapid technological innovation.
In particular, the innovation currently underway is forcing a fundamental
redefinition of the concepts of “data,” “information,” “knowledge” and theirinterrelationships which have served as the foundation of human intellectual capacity.
This in turn calls for a transformation of the modes of learning and education themselves.
This discussion aims to look at the transformation of the nature and concept of
education and learning in the new society, and to clarify the theoretical and philosophicalissues as well as the practical challenges. We will also focus on the reconstruction of
the relationship and meaning of “data,” “information,” and “knowledge” in the newsociety, and deepen our discussion on how these changes will affect the practice andtheory of education in the future.

Points of the Discussion
1. General discussion of current trends in AI and other innovations and theireducational and humanistic implications.
2. Discussion on the reconstruction of the relationship between “data,” “information,”and “knowledge” in a “data-driven society” and its impact on the nature and concept of
education.
3. Discussion on the challenges and implications of a “data-driven society” on
educational academic research and philosophy of education.

Thematic Research: The Challenges for the Philosophy of Education in a “Data-Driven Society”: Reconsidering“Data,” “Information” and “Knowledge” for the Future of Education

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 7, 2022

The Challenge for the Philosophy of Education in a “DataDriven Society”
Shoko SUZUKI
Kyoto University / RIKEN

Abstract
The world we live in is now a Cyber-Physical System (CPS), where the cyber and physical realms areinterconnected. Human beings living in this system are constantly mobilising data simply by virtue of
their existence and behaviour in the world. Can philosophy of education respond to this digitaltransformation in the view of humanity, which has the power to reconfigure the nature of humanexistence, leading to states such as the posthuman and the transhuman?
Keywords: Cyber-Physical System, Internet of Things, posthuman, transhuman, humanity

I. What a “data-driven society” brings
Rapid development of information and communication technologies in recent years
has spurred the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT), in which computers embedded
in objects work together, as well as digitalization and AI networking, in which artificial
intelligence is connected to the web. This has led to an explosive increase in the amountof data being circulated, accelerating analysis of accumulated big data and use of AI for
this purpose. In such a “data-driven society,” it is essential to effectively promote thecollection, accumulation, analysis, and feedback of data to the real world, andexpectations for innovation based on data are high (Minister of Internal Affairs andCommunications -Japan 2018).
The world we live in is now a Cyber-Physical System (CPS), where the cyber andphysical realms are interconnected. Human beings living in this system are constantly
mobilising data simply by virtue of their existence and behaviour in the world. A
Correspondence:
Shoko SUZUKI, Kyoto University / RIKEN. Email: shoko.suzuki.ue.@riken.jp

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characteristic feature of a data-driven society is that human existence and activity imply
the production and accumulation of data, and its use or consumption.
A data-driven society contains data that in itself has the same value as land, labour,or capital. For example, data covering a person’s lifetime create value. Such data range
from maternity records to medical examinations, genetic information, and various
learning and behavioural history data collected by schools and companies, etc. It is also
necessary to decide in advance what will happen to such data at the end of life and what
will happen to legacy data, for example whether the surviving family will redeem thedata for cash or whether it will be made available to an institution. In addition, there is anurgent need to consider legal mechanisms to ensure that collected data is usedappropriately for examinations or employment purposes. Individual optimisation is
optimisation within a pre-conceived framework, and the increasing number of justifiable
preventative interventions based on correlative predictions made by big-data analysis will
emerge in a variety of settings in the future, including self-medication, nursing care,disaster prevention, and education.
Changes in industrial structure will once again call into question the value of public
education. These include the convergence of information technology and manufacturingindustries, the introduction of IoT into components, raw materials, products, andequipment, the networking of supply chains from raw material procurement to
distribution and sales, factory automation, and mass customisation to enable mass
production while meeting customer needs. In addition, new industries are emerging thatmake full use of information technology, such as fintech (IT and finance) and agritech(IT and agriculture). The reconfiguration of industrial structures and rapid changes inwork styles make it difficult to predict changes in the labour market. It is also challenging
to know what kinds of human resources will be required in the next stage and what
minimum skills and competencies will be required.
People’s lives are also undergoing major changes. The resistance to online forms ofeducation and work that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic was a stark reminderof how deeply ingrained social systems are in our habits; human lives have taken for
granted the fostering of contact-based social experiences (Suzuki, 2022). The shift froma consumer lifestyle of owning things to a lifestyle of sharing things with others is likely
to continue, even though the pandemic has temporarily stalled this trend. What do weown and what do we experience as we move back and forth between the cyber andphysical worlds, and how do we perceive our position and self-consciousness throughperformances on the web, such as communicating anonymously or through avatars in the
metaverse? These experiences in the CPS also transform one’s view of life and death.
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Today we access the storehouse of information, which can be called collective
intelligence, as needed (on demand) and acquire a lot of information each time. Thismeans that the processes of learning through memory and recall, feeding on experience,
mastery through repeated practice, changing stages as things suddenly become clear tous, and so on, are all part of the process of learning from the earliest stages of life. It will
mean a transformation of the intellect, the emotions, the will, and the body, and a change
in human nature itself. Can philosophy of education respond to this digital transformationin the view of humanity, which has the power to reconfigure the nature of humanexistence, leading to states such as the posthuman and the transhuman? This is a question
pertaining to the raison d'être of philosophy of education as an academic discipline.

II. Future challenges for pedagogy and philosophy of education
From the perspective of the new technological civilization brought about bytechnologies such as artificial intelligence, I would like to point out three issues in thephilosophy of education that I think we will confront in the future.
(1) New turn in science and technology ethics and redefinition of humanity
Technological innovation, such as artificial intelligence, requires the wisdom to“fear rightly and use wisely” (Berberich/ Nishida/ Suzuki 2021). Technology will emerge
as one of the most important issues for education in the future. The nature of ethics
regarding the research, development, and use of science and technology is approachinga turning point. We require the kind of ethical thinking that predicts possible future
situations and simulates how to deal with them. In other words, it has become necessary
to anticipate situations that have not yet occurred, but may occur in the future as scienceand technology progress and spread, and to consider in advance how to deal ethicallywith such possible cases. While linking to certain kinds of strategic thinking and taking
traditional ethics as its base, this thought process will also link to meta-ethics in the senseof requiring a new type of ethics that maintains an overview of ethics itself. At the sametime, it will reinforce the aspect of providing suggestions for risk perception andsituational judgment. Ethics education for the acquisition of ethical thinking and attitudes
is also likely to change dramatically in the future.
Moreover, the development of AI technologies is enabling partial substitution forhuman intellect and physical functions. Such substitution carries the danger of weakening
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functions that until now have been acquired by humans themselves, such as those relating
to memory, recall, emotional cognition, and empathy. One example is increasing
extrapolation of memory effects. We have already begun to take for granted the ability toacquire information by leaving it to external storage devices or accessing on-demand theencyclopaedic functions of so-called collective intelligence on the web. There is also a
danger that “knowing,” which is based on the intertwining of various aspects of such“knowing,” such as retaining information, knowing things, and having a sense of reason,
will be reduced to the act of acquiring data. We experience various things in the cyberworld without activating our bodies. In the physical world, coordination between sensors
and emotions activates our senses. Human beings have confirmed their nature as humans,in other word their humanity, by drawing a boundary between animals and machines.
Such boundaries often depend on stereotypes, preconceptions, and prejudices. Fromthe point of view of contemporary post-colonialism, the definition of “humanity” basedon a universal model of humanity, which can only be described as the Western view ofhumanity based on white male supremacy, has begun to show various discrepancies.
When the human intellect, emotions, and body are altered by highly invasive
technologies, for example, psychic avatars developed through combination of artificial
intelligence and genome technologies, it is time to redefine “humanity” (Bostrom 2014;
Suzuki 2020).
(2) Reviewing the concept of competence and skills and the significance of learningin the school space
At the same time, the question of “humanity” implies a rethinking of abilities andskills. Today, when we are constantly connected to a variety of information devices anduse them in our daily lives, is it sufficient to think of human abilities and skills in the same
way as before? In past school education, ability was generally regarded as the ability toperform a certain task, based on the ability to perform it visibly. In an age of digitaltransformation, when people are closely connected to one another and to objects, simply
regarding abilities and skills as attributable to individuals may no longer be seen as
adequate. If we are to adopt a world-view of human beings as actors in a so-called
environmental intelligence made up of data and information, it will be necessary to grasp
human abilities and skills from a new viewpoint.
In a sense, online learning, which has seen rapidly growing demand triggered by the
COVID-19 pandemic, may offer suggestions for a new form of education. On the other
hand, this is also an opportunity to reassess the significance of face-to-face learning,
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where people share the same place and time. From a viewpoint of historical anthropology,
the classroom can be seen as a stage where communication between teachers and students
takes place, resonating through the interplay of various performances to form a shared“place” of learning. Field research and interviews in families and schools in Japan andGermany has clearly shown that through such communication and performances, rituals
that are performed repeatedly and have become a kind of custom are passed on throughmutual imitation by those who share the space. Schooling can be regarded as a process
of updating, modifying, and editing according to individual circumstances. In this sense,
school is a space in which students can experience diverse ways of learning.
Bearing in mind guidelines for learning, whether you study on your own at home oronline with a teacher in the form of individualised learning, the path to understanding
something is limited only to the process by which you come to know it. However, in theclassroom, students have opportunities to see how other students have different ways ofunderstanding the content of the class. We help our fellow students who seem tounderstand more slowly than we do, explaining things to them and asking them where
they are stuck. Sometimes you think you understand something, but find a completely
different way of thinking about it. It is no simple matter to identify what kind of abilities
and skills are developed by experiencing these different ways of understanding. Elements
deeply related to the fields of non-verbal and non-cognitive capabilities, such as physicaland tacit knowledge, play an important role. These include non-verbal communication,
anticipating others’ intentions, mutual gestures, facial and bodily expressions, and tone ofvoice. The significance of such face-to-face learning, which could be called theatricallearning, or the significance of learning through practice, needs to be further elucidated
in the future (Suzuki 2021; Wulf 2013).

III. The impact of the “data-driven society” on education andeducational philosophy researchBig-data analysis and other new research methods are showing signs of a majortransformation not only in the natural sciences, but also in the humanities and social
sciences. There are high hopes for the potential of digital humanities, a field which
introduces new technologies to research subjects in the humanities, such as old maps anddocuments. As the accuracy of predicting the future through data analysis improves, we
can expect to see significant progress in correlation-based research in education-related
fields. In this context, educational research will inevitably undergo a paradigm shift as a
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result of digital transformation, with changes in the focus of research and thedevelopment of joint projects with other related disciplines, including the natural sciences.
In this paradigm shift, researchers will increasingly be called upon to search for new paths
to renewal of educational research while questioning the raison d'être of the philosophyof education.

References
Berberich, Nicolaus, Nishida, Toyoaki, Suzuki, Shoko (2020). Harmonizing Artificial
Intelligence for Social Good. In: Philosophy & Technology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00421-8.
Bostrom, Nick (2014). Superintelligence. Paths, Dangers, Strategies, Oxford University
Press; New York.
Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications -Japan (2018). The Conference toward
AI Network Society-Draft AI Utilization Principles, 17 July 2018. Accessed
June 30. 2019. http://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000581310.pdf
Suzuki, Shoko (2022). Humanity and Rituals in the Age of Living with COVID-19. In:
Suzuki, Shoko/ Chr. Wulf (eds.) “Paragrana – Zeitschrift für Internationale
Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropologie,” Vol.30, Bd.2, De Gruyter Verlag;
Berlin, pp. 21-27.
Suzuki, Shoko (2021). Sieben Fragmente über Takt, V. Kapitel, in: Burghardt, Daniel/
Krebs, Moritz/ Napoles, Juliane Noack (Hrsg.): Weiterdenken - Perspektiven
pädagogischer Anthropologie: Festschrift für Joerg Zirfas, Beltz Juventa
Verlag; Weinheim.
Suzuki, Shoko (2020). Redefining Humanity in the Era of AI- Technical Civilization. In:
Paragrana – Zeitschrift für Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische
Anthropologie, Vol.29, Bd.1, De Gruyter Verlag; Berlin, pp. 83-93.
Wulf, Christoph (2013). Anthropology – a continental Perspective, University of Chicago
Press; Chicago.

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 7, 2022

Can Chance be Tamed by Probabilistic Data?: On the
Ontological Weakness of Education
Hirotaka SUGITA
Hiroshima University
Abstract
Gert Biesta puts the “ontological weakness of education” opposed to “strong language,” which aims
to establish a strong and secure connectuion between educational inputs and outcomes that is the coreof data-driven approach to educational practices and policy-making. To deepen our understanding of
ontological weakness, this study examines the ontological significance of chance, which is seen as
something that can be controlled through strong language for maximizing effectiveness of education.
First, this study focues on Giorgio Agamben’s critique of the superimposition of the realm of
probability onto that of reality. In probablistic thinking, a certain real event then becomes the object ofprobabilistic calculation of why it occurred. The case is determined by causal consequences of various
possible cases, and that the world is being so while it could be otherwise (chance) is made calculable.
However, to replace and suspend real events with imagined possible cases and calculate theprobability of their actualization to reality is, as Agamben claims in reference to Wittgenstein's notionof cases, to lose connection with reality. Second, this study points out that the concept of probability
has historically belonged to the category of opinion, not knowledge. Given his theological perspectiveon the concept of probability, Pascal’s argument about the wager that God either exists or does notsuggests we should live believing in the existence of God, even though we are aware that we are
powerless before God, equal to nothing. Finally, Agamben’s remark about the irreparable in the
appendix to his The Coming Community are helpful to look at the world with wonder, without looking
for a necessary reason to be so or being disappointed that there is no reason to be so. Thus, howsubjectification occurs in education emphasized in Biesta’s argument should not be controlled, butseen as wonderful.
Keywords: Probablistic Thinking, Chance, Ontological Weakness of Education, Agamben, Case

Correspondence:
Hirotaka SUGITA, Hiroshima University. Email: hiro9525@hiroshima-u.ac.jp

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Introduction
Data-driven education or evidence-based education is a model in which statisticalcausal inference of large amounts of data is used to determine effective interventions.
Data is used as the material for producing evidence through statistical causal inference.
An individual's data is considered to be a case in a homogeneous set, a realization of oneof a variety of potential outcomes. Randomized controlled trials, in particular, aim togenerate counterfactuals through randomized sampling to probabilistically postulate
effective interventions.
However, is it reasonable to attempt to tame chance through data probabilization for
effective education? It is not enough to claim that educational relationships, which consistof mutually interpretive acts between teachers and students, are different from physicalmechanisms. Furhter, statistical causal inference only seeks to increase the probability ofintervention, not the certainty of it (Hacking, 1990). Taken together, we have theuncertainty of prediction; we can call this the uncertainty of knowing the effectiveness ofinterventions, or “the epistemological weakness of education.”
In contrast, Gert Biesta's critique relies on “the ontological weakness of education”(Biesta, 2010, p. 361). Biesta puts the “ontological weakness of education” opposed to“strong language,” which aims to establish a strong and secure connectuion between
educational inputs and outcomes based on evidence-based education and numericalmeasures of educational effectiveness. Biesta believes that the purpose of education since
the Enlightenment has been “subjectification.” The condition of becoming a subject, heargues, requires educators to allow their students to act in new ways as they respond to“the event of being taught” and “the event of being spoken or addressed by the other, thatis the world.” Having developed this ontology of education, Biesta calls it a beautiful risk
to dare to close one’s eyes to the evidence and bring incommensurability into theeducational environment (Biesta, 2017).
The point is that all these possibilities only become real when trust is given, when
we bring in this incommensurable element, something that is not based on any
knowledge or evidence and may even go against all the knowledge and evidence
we currently have. What is important from an educational point of view is that trust
precisely open us a “space” where the child or student encounters its freedom andwhere they need to figure out what to do with this freedom. (Biesta, 2017, p. 92)

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Biesta’s conception of ontological weakness as in making students subject isdifferent from the epistemological weakness argument that is similar to data-driven
education. However, Lewis (2013, 2018) claims that Biesta’s theory of being a subject
based on ontological weakness also assumes that students will eventually actualize thepossibility of being a subject. According to Lewis, neither progressivist pedagogy, which
critiques conventional education, nor Biesta’s concept of subjectification escapes the ideathat investment, along with standards and actualization entail measurability, in that theyseek to actualize the potentialities or capacities of children.
To deepen our understanding of ontological weakness, this study examines the
ontological significance of chance, which is seen as something that can be controlled
through strong language for maximizing effectiveness of education. Chance is whatallows one to move from the actualization of what is possible (could be) to what is thecase (fact), that has a sufficient reason as to why that is the case (must be), and it is whatfalls out of a strong language that aims for effective intervention.

1. Superimposition of the realm of reality with that of probability
Giorgio Agamben in “What is Real?” writes an interpretation of the physicist Ettore
Majorana’s disappearance as an attempt to awaken the illusion that probability represents
reality, to show that reality cannot be grasped by probability calculations.
Majorana seems to suggest that it is precisely the exclusively probabilistic characterof the phenomena at stake in quantum physics that authorizes the investigator’sintervention, that is, renders him capable of “commanding” the phenomenon itself
to move in a certain direction. (Agamben, 2018, p. 12-13)
What is at stake there is the superimposition of the realm of probability onto that ofreality. Probabilistic thinking calculates which of the various possible cases willprobabilistically actualize to reality. A certain real event then becomes the object ofprobabilistic calculation of why it occurred. But is it reasonable to treat the real event as
a probable case calculable in the realm of probability?
In addressing this question, Agamben takes up Simone Weil’s Sur la science where
the latter criticizes quantum physics and its probabilistic thinking (Agamben, 2018).
According to Weil (1966), classical science has tried to represent the truth of a world inwhich various events are continuously and necessarily determined. In contrast, in
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quantum physics, the world is considered as a discontinuity of atomic systems and should
be represented through the calculation of probabilities. As a result, the connection withreal events in the world is lost. From here, Agamben argues as follows. Calculating riskin the realm of possibility suspends the real world, and because it does so, it makes it
possible to intervene and govern the real world (superimposition of the realm of reality
with that of probability). However, to replace and suspend real events with imagined
possible cases and calculate the probability of their actualization to reality is to lose
connection with reality. What gets lost is the very wonder of what is happening.
Modern science – and every single human being with it – directs its decisions
according to a criterion that cannot directly refer to the case in question, but only a“probable case” that can coincide with the former only “randomly”. (Agamben,
2018, p. 32)
Agamben has Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (hereafter
abbreviated as Tractatus) in mind when he opposes the “probable case” to the “case” thatmodern science, which adopts probabilistic thinking, cannot directly refer to. In Tractatus,
which begins with the claim that “The world is everything that is the case (Die Welt ist
alles, was der Fall ist),” (Tractatus, §1) Wittgenstein denies that there is any value within
the world. The real events of the world (the cases) are what actually happens in the logicalspace, in situations that could be otherwise. However, Wittgenstein does not argue thevalue of the world that is the case; instead, the mystery is that it is as is, “Not how theworld is, is the mystical, but that it is.” (Tractatus, §6.44)
Probabilistic thinking makes it possible to calculate and account for why the worldis being so. Probabilistic thinking has a framework of thought that categorizes equally thecases that are possible (possibilities) and then calculates which of these probable cases
can be actualized to reality and why. The case is determined by causal consequences ofvarious possible cases, and that the world is being so while it could be otherwise (chance)
is made calculable. “What we call a ‘case’ is the fiction according to which the probableand the possible ‘fall’ into reality, while the opposite is true" (Agamben, 2018, p. 33).
However, can chance be tamed as something calculable?

2. Putting probability back into historical context
Before examining whether chance can be tamed as something calculable, let us put
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the concept of probability back into its historical context. The starting point for
probabilistic thinking is often said to be the analysis of the game of chance in Pascal’s
Pensées(1962). Agamben notes that hasard (luck) is used there, and probabilité(probability) is reserved for theology. According to Hacking (1984), “probability”
originally meant the acceptability of “opinion” as distinguished from “knowledge,” andthe reliability of opinion was based on the testimony of authoritative others. In the 17th
centry, “probability” came to mean the reading of the laws and probabilities of the worldin which God’s will was written.
McMyler (2011), who discusses the ontological significance of testimony in lightof this historical background, positions knowing something through testimony as being
relational and ethical, supported by authority and responsibility, as opposed to theepistemological tradition that has emphasized autonomy, where “knowledge” is ajustified and true belief that individuals attain by themselves. As long as testimony isconceptually classified as so, the speaker shares responsibility for the truth of the beliefs
held by the listener, and it is essential for the listener to find trustworthiness in the speaker.
If these conditions are met, as McMyler suggests, the speaker's telling should berecognized as evidence in a broad sense.
When we return to the historical context, we find that for Pascal, the problem of“chance” is related to the bet on the existence of God. According to Omoda (2018),
Pascal's point is that “human beings, who are in the middle of infinity and nothingness,
perceive the tremendous chaos or bottomless abyss that lies between infinity andnothingness, and yet turn their attention to the gamble that is made beyond the infinite,that is, the gamble as to whether God exists or not” (Omoda, 2018, p. 256). Pascal’sargument about the wager that God either exists or does not suggests we should live
believing in the existence of God, even though we are aware that we are “powerlessbefore God, equal to nothing” (Omoda, 2018, p. 255).1 If this is the case, chance is not
something that can be calculated based on probabilistic thinking. Pascal’s wager was
something that contributed to the decision to gamble in spite of the acknowledgement of
uncertainty (weakness) that could not be incorporated into knowledge.
1

The issues raised by Pascal’s wager were carried over into the debate between William Clifford and William James.
Clifford pointed out the problem of a shipowner who believes that a ship carrying immigrants will not be wreckedbased on their faith in God, stating that “(i)t is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on
insufficient evidence” (Clifford, 1877, p. 295). In contrast, James defends the rationality of religious faith, even whenit lacks sufficient evidence. Currently, for example, McCormick (2015) points out that the value of knowing the truth
on which “evidentialism” (Conee & Feldman, 2004; Shah, 2006) emphasizes, is only of ultimately pragmatic value
when the matter in question is related to the meaning of life. Then, McCormick says, believing something without
evidence or even against evidence can be justified if doing so is related to meaning of life.
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3. The necessarily contingent
Again, can we tame the wonder of chance encounters as something calculable? As
we have seen, Agamben cited the “case” in Tractatus as something missed by thesuperimposition of the realm of reality with the realm of probability. To elaborate thispoint, it is helpful to refer to the appendix of Agamben’s The Coming Community, “TheIrreparable”, a commentary on section 9 of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, as well
as section 6.44 of the Tractatus.
In the first half of The Coming Community, Agamben argues that “the punishmentof unbaptized children who die with no other fault than original sin… turns into a naturaljoy” (Agamben, 1993, p. 5). The meaning of their lives cannot be told under a narrative
within the realm of perdition and salvation. Hope is found in the irreparable light thatrains down on them.
By the word “irreparable,” Agamben means that “things are just as they are, in thisor that mode, consigned without remedy to their way of being.” (Agamben, 1993, p.90).
The fact (the case) that the world is thus and so, whether sad or joyful, unhappy or happy,
is irreparable. Even if we attempt to ponder why the world is like so, why it is necessary
for certain possibilities to actualize into reality, the mystery of it will never be intelligible.
Nevertheless, if confronted with the fact that it could be otherwise (chance), we posit any
power or (God’s) will behind it and try to explain the reason, value, and necessity of whythat case has come about.
Referring to the principle of sufficient reason, which states everything must have areason or cause to be, that is everything has reason to exist rather than be nothing,
Agamben put change or contingency, that is the possibility of not-being, into a new place
within necessity, that is impossibility of not-being.
Language opens the possibility of not-being, but at the same time it also opens astronger possibility: existence, that something is. What the principle properly says,
however, is that existence is not an inert fact, that a potius, a power inheres in it. But
this is not a potentiality to be that is opposed to a potentiality to not-be (who would
decide between these two?); it is a potentiality to not not-be. The contingent is not
simply the non-necessary, that which can not-be, but that which, being the thus,
being only its mode of being, is capable of the rather, can not not-be. (Being-thus is
not contingent; it is necessarily contingent. Nor is it necessary; it is contingently

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necessary.) (Agamben, 1993, p. 105)2
The case that things are as they are is of value neither because it has reason to berather than being nothing, nor because the potentiality of opposing the potentiality of notbeing has actualized to the case compared to when it is not actualized. If we focus on thevalue of existence only from the viewpoint of which possibilities of being have reason to
be actualized, there will be no way to talk about the meaning of the life of an infant who
has just been born and died. We tend to see what the case is as having some reason forbeing so, and talk about the reason or value of that existence in terms of actualization of
the potentially of being. Probabilistic thinking seeks to control or command which
possibilities of being has probable potentiality to actualize. The “necessarily contingent,”
that is the possibility of not not-being, is a conceptual device that suspends suchprobabilistic thinking. The following remarks from the last part of The Coming
Community suggest looking at the world with wonder, without looking for a necessary
reason to be so or being disappointed that there is no reason to be so.
Seeing something simply in its being-thus ----irreparable, but not for that reason
necessary; thus, but not for that reason contingent---- is love.
At the point you perceive the irreparability of the world, at that point it istranscendent.
How the world is ----that is outside the world. (Agamben, 1993, p. 106)Conclusion
When confronted with the fact that a case could have been otherwise, we tend to
2

The emphasis on “rather” here is connected to Bartleby's attitude of replying in Merville’s story, “I would prefer
not to,” when asked, “you will not?” According to Agamben, Bartleby is questioning the superiority of will overpotentiality. “Prefer not to” does not mean “refuse to do” what is asked of him (“nothing is further from him than theheroic pathos of negation” [Agamben, 1999, p. 256]), but it wedges the process that if one has the potentiality, one
should exercise one’s will and actualize it. Bartleby’s reply is an experiment in which potentiality follows theprinciple of sufficient reason. According to Agamben, Merville’s story can be formulated in a question of thefollowing form: “Under what conditions can something occur and (that is, at the same time) not occur, be true nomore than not be true?” Bartleby’s experiment without truth “concern[s] not the actual existence or nonexistence ofa thing but exclusively its potentiality. And potentiality, insofar as it can be or not be, is by definition withdrawn fromboth truth conditions and…the principle of contradiction.” (Agamben, 1999, p. 261) The position of potentiality isrelated to contingency in which a being can both be and not be. Agamben names such contingency de contingentia
absoluta (Agamben, 1999, p. 261) that suspend the actualization of potentiality of being true. From this contingency,
the fact that is the case is not being than nothing, but rather or no more than not be.
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seek the reason why it was the case. The case is taken as one of the “probable cases”
which are accounted as the data calculable through probabilistic thinking. Probabilistic
thinking seeks to command which possibilities of being has probable potentiality toactualize. A data-driven society accelerates superimposition of the realm of reality withthat of probability. The more the predictability of what happens, the more chance will betamed and contingency will be excluded form evidence-based policy making. However,as Agamben bases “the case” in the sense of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus by focusing on thenecessarily contingent, it is possible to see with wonder how things are as they are.
It is in this context that “the ontological weakness of education” should be read.
According to Biesta, the condition of becoming a subject requires educators to allow theirstudents to act in new ways as they respond to others. Yet, for Biesta, it is why teaching
is not a constraint of freedom for students who are being subject, and cannot and ought
not be controlled. Subjectification does not lead to a tendency to actualize the possibilityof being a subject. That students arise as being subject may by contingent. However, thatis neither the actualized possible case nor the data calculable by probabilistic thinking.

Acknowledgments
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers JP17K04546,
JP20H01638, and JP21H00819).

References
Agamben, G. (1993) The Coming Community (M. Hardt, Trans.). Minneapolis &London: University of Minnesota Press (original work published 1990).
Agamben, G. (1999) Bartleby, or on Contingency. Potentialities: Collected Essays in
Philosophy, pp. 243-271 (D. Heller-Roazen, Ed. and Trans.). Stanford,
California: Stanford University Press (original work published 1993).
Agamben, G. (2018) What Is Real? (L. Chiesa, Trans.). Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press (original work published 2016).
Biesta, G. (2010) On the Weakness of Education. Philosophy of Education Yearbook
2009, pp. 354-362.
Biesta, G. (2017) The Rediscovery of Teaching. London & New York: Routledge.
Clifford, W. (1877) The Ethics of Belief. Contemporary Review, 29: 289-308.
Conee, E., & R. Feldman (2004) Evidentialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Hacking, I. (1984) The Emergence of Probability. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Hacking, I. (1990) The Taming of Chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lewis, T. E. (2013) On Study: Giorgio Agamben and Educational Potentiality. London& New York: Routledge.
Lewis, T. E. (2018) Inoperative Learning: A Radical Rewriting of Educational
Potentialities. London & New York: Routledge.
McCormik, M. S. (2015) Believing Against the Evidence: Agency and the Ethics of Belief.
London & New York: Routledge.
McMyler, B. (2011) Testimony, Trust, and Authority. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Omoda, S. (2008) Touchi No Kousoushi: Foucault Kougi 1978-79 (The Struggle forGovernance: The Foucault Lectures 1978-9). Tokyo: Keiso Shobo.
Pascal, B. (1962). Pensées. Éditions du Seuil.
Shah, N. (2006) A New Argument for Evidentialism. The Philosophical Quarterly, 56:
481-498.
Weil, S. (1966) Sur la science. Éditions Gallimard.
Wittgenstein, L. (1922) Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus (C. K. Ogden, Trans.). London& New York: Routledge.

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 7, 2022

Knowledge with Sharing and Empathy: Lessons for the ITDriven Modern World from Views on Knowledge in African
Oral Culture
Shoko YAMADA
Nagoya University
Abstract
Today it is easy to acquire information with advanced information technology, but I argue that mere
pieces of information gathered by internet keyword search are not knowledge. Then how can we turninformation into knowledge? Conventionally, learning proceeds from basic to advanced materialpresented hierarchically in textbooks and reference books. But nowadays schools are playing a
steadily diminishing role in teaching the knowledge needed to live. Given real-world demands,
learning is becoming less hierarchical but more networked, requiring learners to judge and select fromvarious sources, cutting across disciplines and including audio and visual as well as textual material.
In this paper, to consider the changing nature of learning and knowledge, I investigate theepistemology of traditional oral cultures in Africa. By doing so, I try to objectify and reflect onacademic education and the classic Western epistemology underlying it, which we have taken for
granted. Unlike written culture, where ideas are preserved in the texts, a predominantly oral culture
constructs knowledge collectively, with speaker and audience responding to the context. While
writing is predominantly cognitive and irrespective of context, the oral transmission of knowledge issensory. In such a culture, an educated person is one who not only has a lot of information but also
can interpret and apply it to meet the present situation. The speaker’s moral authority is also essential
to the audience’s acceptance of what is said.
Today, with advancing communication technology and social changes, knowledge is less likely
to be acquired exclusively by reading. Other media and sensory learning are gaining in importance.
Based on these trends, I argue that we have entered a secondary oral culture. Accepting that knowledge
is constructed through multifaceted interactions among presenters and recipients in writing, listening,and seeing, I point out the importance of fostering the moral quality of individuals to better enable
them to judge and select knowledge.
Keywords: oral culture, writing culture, networked knowledge, epistemology, value judgment
Correspondence:
Shoko YAMADA, Nagoya University. Email: syamada@gsid.nagoya-u.ac.jp

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71

Introduction
How can humans say that they “know” something? Today, acquiring information
has become very easy and we can easily feel like acquiring knowledge. Meanwhile,school subjects and academic disciplines have not kept up with the rapid changes insociety, and increasingly we cannot learn what is required to live in modern society fromtextbooks and reference books. In other words, passive learning according to existing
systems is not enough; what is required is an ability to generate knowledge independently.
But how can one logically structure easily available information and convert it toknowledge? Many of us may end up being mere collectors of scraps of information.
In this paper, I reflect on academic education and the classical Western epistemology
underlying it. To objectify these concepts, which we take for granted, I will discuss the
epistemology of traditional African societies based on oral cultures. The reason for thisexercise lies in my experience as a researcher on education and knowledge in African
societies. I frequently visited countries that are said to be “underdeveloped,” with a slow
pace in spreading school education, and I questioned why the formal school systemdominates the world as if it were the only way to teach and learn. Even when there wereno schools, even before the culture of writing took root, people transmitted knowledge
from generation to generation. Perhaps some societies have different perspectives onways of knowing. Even though institutions like schools may qualify students for
employment and social success, they may not impart knowledge that is rooted in daily
life.
With the spread of the internet and new modes of communication brought about by
information technology, in Japan it is now said that 21st-century problem-solving skills
are needed to survive in a knowledge-based society. In addition, the COVID-19
pandemic has dramatically hastened changes in the environment for learning. As students
could not attend school, self-directed learning using tablets and other devices became
common. In light of questions about the value and nature of school-centered education, I
have come to believe that African societies’ ideas about knowledge may have usefulimplications for understanding how knowledge is acquired in contemporary Japan.

1. Knowledge generated in relationship(1) Value judgments as the basis of knowledge generation
Earlier, I stated that knowledge is different from mere information. Then what
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exactly is knowledge? Floridy, a philosopher of information, states that data is a list of
meanings without interpretation; information involves interpretation, but without ajudgment as to whether the connotation is right or wrong; knowledge is this semantic
information linked with judgments about values (Floridy 2011, xiii).
In the genealogy of Western epistemology, cognition has been considered a mental
process that consists of three elements: an object in front of an individual; an individual,
who recognizes the object and comprehends what it is; and reliable reasoning as the basisof such recognition. Of these, the last corresponds to value judgments, the basis of thesemantic system of knowledge, according to Floridy. In fact, much of the controversy inWestern epistemology stems from differences about where to look for such reasoning.
Authoritarian epistemology posits the existence of divine or supra-scientific authority as
the premise for any subjective judgment. Rationalism based its judgments about
reasoning on scientific evidence, while empiricism believed that the accumulation ofexperience leads the subject to reasoning (Todayama 2002). Although it is not the purposeof this paper to pursue these arguments in depth, I would like to point out that the various
schools of thought agree that it is the human subject who judges the correctness ofcognition and what constitutes knowledge. At the bottom of such judgment is reasoning.
The challenge today is uncertainty about where individuals should look for reasoning as
the basis for judgment.
(2) Networked knowledge generation in an IT-driven societyWith the advancement of information technology, today it is easy for people tocollect information online by typing keywords according to their spontaneous interests.
Pieces of information gathered this way do not become knowledge unless there is aproactive decision to relate and unify them under a single semantic system. At the sametime, the computer algorithm may present information according to the ranking(popularity) of search results for the typed keywords, without following the logic of any
academic field or established structure. Such conjunctions of information, devoid of any
established disciplinary structure, would not have happened in the past. In other words,
in the modern world, knowledge can be formed in a networked manner by combining
information from a variety of sources, using the searcher’s interests as an entry point. The
package of knowledge created in this way may well provide an opportunity to overcome
the limitations of conventional frameworks of logic.
Further, in today’s world, the sources of information can be music, videos, or
cartoons as well as text. Transmission of information through these media is accelerating,
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with circulation and interpretation of information happening almost simultaneously.
These transmissions are lifelike and highly interactive; the meanings attached to theinformation and the modes of presentation constantly change in response to reactions of
the audience and the environment.
Seeing such changes, we must accept that acquiring knowledge happens now not
only by reading written texts but also by other methods that are increasingly important.
Examining the nature of knowledge in traditional oral cultures may provide insights into
how knowledge is generated in contemporary society.

2. Differences in knowledge generation and transmission in oral andwritten cultures(1) Communication in oral cultures
In general, speaking is to convey a message to another person in the same physicalspace, face-to-face, in real time. It is also a process that collectively constructs a common
understanding: not only does the presenter influence the receiver but also vice versa. Oral
messages are transient and ad hoc. Because of this simultaneity, oral communication
takes on a sensory nature.
The sound and rhythm of speech, the beauty of expression, and the speaker’s
charisma can elevate oral expression to the level of art. In oral societies, it is notuncommon for sharing and transmitting knowledge to take the form of theater. Taking
the ancient Greek art of rhetoric and poetry as an example, Goody (1987) argues that notwo performances, even of the same play, are exactly the same, since the characteristicsof oral expression depend on the environment and the audience who share the same
experience. But the introductions, episodes, and method of linking moral implications
with the performance are consistent. Also, unlike written expressions, which can be readmuch later, oral messages can be recalled in detail for only a limited time. Therefore, topromote the recipients’ understanding and memory, oral expressions often use sensory
signals, such as rhyme or repetition of similarly-structured sentences, which give arhythm to the utterance (Goody 1987, 211–220).
(2) Communication in written cultures
While communication in oral cultures is simultaneous and co-creative, in written
cultures it is unrestricted in space and time, since utterances can be noted and stored. As
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a result of careful examination of the structure and grammar of the written language,
systematic methods for classifying and analyzing language are developed, and trained
professionals are sought to deal with this complex system. Through writing, words areaccumulated from the past to the present, and the vocabulary grows.
Writing also enables people to think about concepts that are not directly connectedto their own lifeworld. Abstraction allows people to reconstruct memories and ideas
logically in accordance with set objectives. The possibility of autonomous discourse, freefrom the context of the lifeworld, creates the opportunity for scientific progress and forstructures such as governments and companies to manage activities between physicallydistant individuals (Ong 1982, 77).
While oral expressions are dialogical, collective, using all five senses, written ones
are introspective, with cognition predominating over the other senses. If, as mentioned
above, the accumulation of abstract and logical thought and the exchange of ideas
through documents enabled the emergence of modern systems of politics, economics,
and education, then it can be said that the foundation of modernization was written culture.
On the other hand, it is a mistake to consider oral culture a lower developmental stage ofsociety. Writing would not exist without speech; even in the most modern societies,
aspects of orality remain. Writing and orality are not mutually exclusive but coexistent.

3. Theory of knowledge and education in traditional African societies
With a few exceptions, such as the Ethiopian Orthodox and Muslim clergies andMediterranean traders, traditional agrarian and pastoral societies in Africa did notaccumulate knowledge in writing, nor did they have an academic system to teach it to thenext generation. Education in traditional societies is practical, experience-based learning,whereby people acquire the skills, values, and codes of conduct necessary to be part of acommunity through the various stages of life (Ishengoma 2005, 16). Furthermore, inmany African ethnic groups, aphorisms and stories with educational significance arepassed down orally.
(1) Oral narratives and education
In many African countries . . . aphorisms are used only by the truly educated andcultured, who give speeches full of imagination and metaphor. Aphorisms containthe philosophy, humor, symbolic meaning, and religion of the person who uses them.
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They are imbued with a deep knowledge of the world around them, of materiality
and spirituality, and of social reality. . . . Education in traditional societies takes placethrough oral communication, not written. And aphorisms are a means of conveying
social and moral teachings.
(Appiah, Appiah, and Agyeman-Duah 2001, xii)
Aphorisms do not convey information in the literal sense. For example, there is an
Akan saying, “The snake does not fly, but it catches the hornbills that live in the sky.”
When this saying is used in conversation, it does not matter whether a snake actuallycaught a hornbill nearby or not. The symbolic content of the saying is that “if you areresourceful, you can achieve what you are not skilled to do.” However, to understand thisrequires knowledge of the culture and lifestyle of the Akan people. If we do not know
that, to live in the rainforest, it is very important but difficult to catch birds as a source ofprotein, then we would not understand the message behind this saying.
Now, after knowing the background and taking in the moralistic meaning of theaphorisms, the most important task of the speaker is to apply it to the situation faced by
the listeners and present an interpretation of why it happened. The event confronting themmight be a simple quarrel within a family, or a case where someone has suddenly been
struck by misfortune without obvious cause. Through education by the seniors, people inoral cultures acquire the ability to find the meanings of such events, applying the suitable
aphorisms and considering the relationships among the spiritual, material, environmental,
and human worlds.
(2) Epistemological difference between Representation and Presentation
Biesta and Osberg states that school education in the modern era has been based onan epistemology that presupposes that knowledge is to be represented (2008, 15–20).
Truth is singular, and knowledge is the precise demonstration of the only way to explain
what exists. The purpose of education is to develop an ability to constantly and repeatedly
represent this relationship between existence and explanations.
By contrast, in traditional African societies, what exists in front of people can havemultiple meanings, and a speaker will choose how to explain a phenomenon in aparticular context. An educated person is the one with the ability to grasp the implicationsof a phenomenon and convey them to others convincingly. In other words, being
educated is the ability to make a presentation based on interpretation rather than arepresentation. The essence of interpretation is condensed in aphorisms, but they are too
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short to make sense on their own. Compelling interpretation requires extensive
knowledge and insight to fill in the gaps.
Abdi states that an educated person in traditional African societies is often someone
who has not been to school but who can think and explain with a good mix of moralistic
wisdom, interpretive wisdom, and rational ideas based on the context in which thecommunity is situated (Abdi 2008, 319).

Conclusion
As early as the 1980s, Ong foresaw that information technology would usher in an
era of “secondary orality” (Ong 1982, 2–3, 133). Technology-enhanced media are theproduct of a sophisticated science developed within a written culture capable ofaccumulating, refining, and logically extending specialized knowledge. In this sense,
communication using such technology is still an extension of the written culture. At thesame time, the dissemination of knowledge today cannot be understood solely throughthe models of how knowledge is formed in existing systems. Precisely because
information is so readily available, one should consider the nature of networked
knowledge not only on its surface but also in terms of the underlying epistemology.
In cyberspace, relationships are constantly changing. An audience in one moment
can be a presenter in the next moment. Opinions presented by influential figures areforwarded, retweeted, and “liked.” At the same time, these spreaders interpret, add
meaning, and sometimes even convert the originator’s intentions. People with common
interests may take collective action, but they remain anonymous to each other, and thegroup is constantly reshaping itself like an amoeba.
Online search engines provide information according to a site’s popularity ranking.
Can “popularity” be a valid criterion for judging information to be true in an IT-driven
society? Can information recommended by algorithms be accepted as knowledge? In
ancient oral cultures, knowledge was passed on with a moral message. The speaker ofaphorisms and folk tales had to be a good performer but also a respected personality inthe society. In contemporary secondary oral cultures, does the presenter have thecharacter to bear the weight of what is presented? Does the recipient have the ability to
distinguish between meaningful knowledge and misinformation? Intrinsic qualities ofmorality and justice hover over both the receiver and the presenter of communication but
are difficult to acquire in cyberspace. Where do we learn the ability to judge thecorrectness of information and assemble our own knowledge packages? That may be theThematic Research: The Challenges for the Philosophy of Education in a “Data-Driven Society”: Reconsidering“Data,” “Information” and “Knowledge” for the Future of Education

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77role of schools today. The social function of schools in transmitting knowledge is inquestion. But school still has a role to play in this information age by becoming the place
where future generations develop morality and the ability to make judgments.

References
Abdi, A. 2008. “Europe and African Thought Systems and Philosophies of Education:‘Re-Culturing’ the Trans-Temporal Discourses.” Cultural Studies 22, no. 2: 309–
327.
Appiah, Peggy, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Ivor Agyeman-Duah. 2001. Bu Me Be:
Proverbs of the Akans. Accra: Ayebia Clarke Publishing.
Biesta, Gert J. J., and Deborah Osberg. 2008. “Beyond Re/Presentation: A Case for
Updating the Epistemology of Schooling.” Interchange 38, no. 1: 15–29.
Floridy, Luciano. 2011. The Philosophy of Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goody, Jack. 1987. The Interface between the Written and the Oral. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Ishengoma, Johnson M. (2005). African oral traditions: Riddles among the Haya ofnorthwestern Tanzania’, International Review of Education, No. 51, pp. 139-153.
Ong, Walter J. 1982. Orality and Literacy. London: Routledge.
Todayama, Kazuhisa. 2002. Chishiki no Tetsugaku [Philosophy of Knowledge]. Tokyo:
Sangyo Tosho Publishing.

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