One of the central figures in the Kyoto School, Miki Kiyoshi wrote Logic of Imagination as a series of articles between 1937 and 1943. Translating this seminal work into English for the first time, with contextual notes throughout, this book features an introduction and biographical information about the author. Miki's thinking about the imagination illuminates our contemporary understanding of technology and how we behave in the world.

“Myth” comprises the first chapter of the book, The Logic of the Imagination, by Miki Kiyoshi. In this chapter Miki analyzes the significance of myth (shinwa) as possessing a certain reality despite being “fictions.” He begins by broadening the meaning of the imagination to argue for a logic of the imagination that involves expressive action or poiesis (production) in general, of which myth is one important product. The imagination gathers in myth material from the environing world lived (...) by the social collectivity. Its formation of images (Bilder) expresses the pathos of a people vis-à-vis their environment, but myth also contains elements of logos in the form of intellectual representations and figures. And their combination becomes expressed externally by stimulating and guiding action. In this way Miki argues that myths contain both emotive and kinetic elements, which by moving people to action, are capable of making history. Thus rooted in the symbiosis between individual and social and between society and environment, myth possesses a “historical creativity.” And he also argues that myths can be present with a sense of reality at any epoch in history, even today, wherever and whenever their primeval power is felt to function, “drawing out” a new reality, a new world, out of the natural world. (shrink)

“Myth” comprises the first chapter of the book, The Logic of the Imagination, by Miki Kiyoshi.In this chapter Miki analyzes the significance of myth (shinwa) as possessing a certain reality despite being “fictions.” He begins by broadening the meaning of the imagination to argue for a logic of the imagination that involves expressive action or poiesis (production) in general, of which myth is one important product. The imagination gathers in myth material from the environing world lived by (...) the social collectivity. Its formation of images (Bilder) expresses the pathos of a people vis-a-vis their environment, but myth also contains elements of logos in the form of intellectual representations and figures. And their combination becomes expressed externally by stimulating and guiding action. In this way Miki argues that myths contain both emotive and kinetic elements, which by moving people to action, are capable of making history. Thus rooted in the symbiosis between individual and social and between society and environment, myth possesses a “historical creativity.” And he also argues that myths can be present with a sense of reality at any epoch in history, even today, wherever and whenever their primeval power is felt to function, “drawing out” a new reality, a new world, out of the natural world. (shrink)

This book takes us on a fascinating journey through the world of thought of Miki Kiyoshi, one of Japan s pre-eminent philosophers before the Pacific War, and thus makes us discover the man behind the philosopher.

Japanese philosopher Miki Kiyoshi 三木清 wrote an important text on translation entitled “Disregarded Translations”. Among all Kyoto School thinkers, Miki was probably the most prolific writer. His interests spanned various intellectual topics such as philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and journalism. This paper offers a brief introduction to Miki’s conception of translation as well as, for the first time, an English translation of his text. “Disregarded Translations” deals with Japanese scholars’ propensity to revere Western philosophical texts in (...) their original forms, while ignoring the outstanding wealth of insight that their translations can provide in their own language. (shrink)

Original title : 「充足的経験論」『思想』[Pensée], avril 1941, pp. 1–24 ; repris dans mkz 5 : 284–319. La pagination des Œuvres complètes se trouve indiquée entre parenthèses.

In this paper, I argue that Miki’s concept of myth offers a continuation and consolidation of his Philosophy of History, providing an important conceptual tool to comprehend his philosophica...

This is an introduction to Miki Kiyoshi and his philosophy of the imagination and to the translation of the first chapter of his Logic of Imagination, "Myth," published in the same issue of the journal.

This article argues for the importance of using Miki Kiyoshi’s anthropological humanism as a theoretical resource for confronting the unfolding ecological crisis. What makes Miki’s anthropological humanism valuable towards this end, in particular, is in the way he blends multiple theoretical discourses—particularly Nishida and Marx—which speak to the concerns espoused by Deep Ecology and Marxist approaches to environmental philosophy. Unlike other Kyoto School thinkers deployed in the service of building an environmental ethics in recent years, Miki’s (...) philosophical work offers social-economic alternatives to the problem of capitalism within a non-dual framework that seeks to be non-dogmatic. This article will discuss how Miki’s anthropological humanism can enrich those conversations taking place within the “green” and “red” movements by providing them with insights by which to contest and overcome anthropocentric views of reality and the system of capitalism believed to be responsible for the environmental destruction we see today. (shrink)

The paper explicates what the World War 2 era Japanese philosopher, Miki Kiyoshi, of the Kyoto School, called the logic of imagination and of forms as an ontology. I understand this ontology as ultimately an “anontology”, where novelty and creativity are predicated upon the pathos of singularity and contingency that Miki calls “the nothing” (mu). Its productive function that is technological vis-à-vis the environment involves an embodied praxis that Miki, borrowing the terms of his mentor, Nishida (...) Kitarō, calls “enactive intuition”. This productivity unfolds the historical world, on the basis of that deep pathos within us in synthesis with logos, as what can be characterized as the auto-determination of the indeterminate. But the advance of technology today takes this unfolding of the world perhaps beyond what Miki anticipated with his self-professed humanism. To make these points, the paper, for the most part, focuses on the last and longest chapter in Miki’s Logic of Imagination, where Miki discusses and appropriates Kant’s concept of imagination and its schematism from both the first and third Critiques while also showing the influences of Heidegger along with Nishida. But the originality in Miki takes his philosophy of imagination beyond these predecessors while also raising questions as to the relationship between human beings and nature and to the very meaning of “nature” (shizen) in Miki. I will also discuss post-war theories of imagination and technology coming after Miki that respond to the more recent digitization and virtualization of the real. (shrink)

This paper explores the concept of myth in two books written by Kōsaka Masaaki, The Historical World and Philosophy of the Nation. In both, myth appears as a central moment in the transition from primitive to modern societies. The role of myth is closely related to Kōsaka’s notion of nature, since one goal of his reflection is to show how history is supported by the “substratum” of nature. In this sense, he also distinguishes between the natural and historical aspects of (...) nations. After analyzing the subcategories of primordial nature, environmental nature, and historical nature, the paper shows how these layers are articulated by myth. Authority, in the contractual form of potlatch, signalizes the moment of transition to the true self-determination of nations. Miki Kiyoshi was one author who pointed out the problematic aspects of Kōsaka’s theory of nation. A comparison with Miki’s thought uncovers how authority is the main characteristic of Kōsaka’s view of myth. The paper finishes by investigating where this authority comes from. Since it cannot come from nature alone, it should also come from the past character of myth itself, which is an expression of what Kōsaka terms “the eternal now”. (shrink)

La philosophie d'Henri Bergson fait l'objet d'une réception passionnée au Japon au début des années 1910, mais, étant donné un contexte spiritualiste critiquant la raison, elle est généralement interprétée comme un irrationalisme opposant l'intuition à l'intelligence. Le principal problème de la réception de 1941, à l'occasion de la mort de Bergson, est alors de montrer comment l'intuition en réalité collabore avec l'intelligence. Par l'examen de la notion d' « empirisme intégral », Miki Kiyoshi, qui a développé une philosophie (...) dialectique influencée par Karl Marx et Martin Heidegger, tente d'y apporter une solution en rapprochant l'intuition bergsonienne de l'imagination kantienne. In Japan, Henri Bergson's philosophy was received with passion in the early 1910's, but, given a spiritualist context criticizing reason, it was generally interpreted as an irrationalism opposing intuition and intelligence. The main problem concerning how Bergson's philosophy was received on the occasion of his death in 1941 was therefore to show how in reality intuition collaborates with intelligence. By examining the notion of « integral empiricism », Miki Kiyoshi, who developed a dialectical philosophy influenced by Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger, attempted to solve this problem by showing a close relationship between Bergsonian intuition and Kantian imagination. (shrink)

This chapter examines the imagination, its relationship to “common sense,” and its recent development in the notion of the social imaginary in Western philosophy and the contributions Miki Kiyoshi and Nakamura Yūjirō can make in this regard. I trace the historical evolution of the notion of the productive imagination from its seeds in Aristotle through Kant and into the social imagination or imaginary as bearing on our collective being-in-the-world, with semantic and ontological significance, in Paul Ricoeur, Cornelius Castoriadis, (...) and Charles Taylor. The two Japanese philosophers, when brought into dialogue with the above contemporary Western thinkers, can contribute to this recent development of the imagination’s creativity into the collective sphere. Miki shows a connection between the imagination and a certain form-formlessness dynamic he inherits from Nishida. Nakamura in turn points to a connection between imagination and place via his development of the Aristotelian notion of common sense. Both have implications on how we understand the social imaginary. (shrink)

Kiyoshi Miki (1897-1945) fut le philosophe dominant des débuts de l’ère Showa (à partir de 1925) au Japon. Il entama sa réflexion en appliquant l’herméneutique phénoménologique aux pensées de Pascal et de Marx puis il se mit en quête d’une philosophie de l’histoire où la conscience présente de l’historicité est centrale. Il allait reconnaître un type d’humanité dotée à la fois de pathos et du logos qu’il réinteprétait. Son engagement dans le movement de la culture prolétarienne et dans (...) les fondements philosophques du Mouvement de l’Ordre Nouveau fut un double échec. Dans sa poursuite d’une philosophie de l’histoire, qui donne sa place aux considerations économiques, en même temps que d’une anthropologie philosophique, Miki a reflété la difficulté de mener une réflexion philosophique sereine durant cette période au Japon. JEL Codes : B24, B31. (shrink)

Abstract:Miki Kiyoshi's Philosophical Anthropology was written probably between 1933 and 1937, shortly after Philosophy of History (1931–1932) and prior to Philosophy of Technology (1942). Resonating with these major texts, this unfinished work represents Miki's interest in Kantian Anthropologie as well as his own views of the human. This study examines singularity, contingency, and poiesis as key ideas for understanding Miki's anthropology. Singularity of an event is defined by the binary of the present ex ante facto (before-the-fact) (...) and ex post facto (after-the-fact). Contingency of an event is defined by not having a sufficient ground within itself. An important thesis of Miki's anthropology is that an action is an event, singular and contingent by these definitions; it is poiesis (not praxis) irreducible to one's historical agency. This idea of singularity, with the self-contradictory binary of action-intuition ex ante facto and ex post facto, has ethical significance for debates on human cloning and global crisis today. (shrink)

This dissertation examines philosophical and literary configurations of "violence" in discourses of human freedom and imperial subjugation in Germany and Japan. The concept of "violence" marks the ethical limit of normative claims. Without a definition in itself, "violence" serves the critical function of disclosing norms orienting social and political life. Each of the authors studied in this dissertation turned toward a conception of human freedom founded in the confrontation of social norms disclosed by rhetorical violence. Chapter one examines the rhetoric (...) of Immanuel Kant's Zum ewigen Frieden in the historical context of its writing. Kant engages in a performative argument for publicity in his critique of Prussian imperialism and the censorship of revolutionary views. Through rhetorical gestures such as the title of his essay as an invocation of death and the clausula salvatoria as a hedge against his critics, Kant encodes the political upheavals of the historical exterior in the rhetorical movement of his essay. He argues for peace by performing violence in language. Whereas Kant's essay has been conventionally read apart from its historical context, Heinrich von Kleist's Die Herrmannsschlacht has been interpreted strictly in terms of the historical moment of its writing. Chapter two argues instead for a rhetorical reading of Kleist's play in which language emerges as both the central theme of the text and an agent of anti-imperial violence. Kleist concretizes metaphors of the body such that they perform the politics of absolute opposition. Freedom for Kleist means opposition to the other. Chapter three turns to an alternative conception of human freedom grounded in opposition. In his Phanomenologie des Geistes, Hegel produces a performative narrative of the development of subjectivity in relations of violence. As an "unhappy consciousness," the subject no longer opposes an external other but itself as an internal "enemy." The freedom that it attains is constituted in self-subjection. Chapter four examines the appropriation of Kant and Hegel by the Japanese wartime philosophers Miki Kiyoshi and Tanabe Hajime. Both defend the project of Japanese imperialism by arguing for a form of freedom in which the subject negates its attachment to the imperial state. This negation inverts into a performance of subjectivity as the movement of self-subjection. (shrink)