Abstract for the Kant in Asia
International Conference
at Hong Kong Baptist
University
20-23 May 2009
Toshihiro Hirata, “On the Japanese Personalism
and its Problem”
I
would like to make clear the typical Japanese characteristics of the idea of
the personhood and its problem. 'The perfection of the personality' is the
purpose of the Japanese public education consistently after the World-War-II.
It has usually been interpreted from the viewpoint of individualism based on
the idea of 'the individual dignity' and 'the fundamental human rights'.
However, the words of ‘personality’ and ‘person’ have their origin in the West.
The Japanese Chinese "jin-kaku" was devised
as an equivalent of English 'personality' in 1889. Afterwards the Japanese personalism was built up according to the interpretation of
the English version of Kant's categorical imperative and advocated as a new
education ideology in order to sublate the conflict
between the British and American individualism and the German nationalism. But
because of the exclusion of the transcendent God the Japanese personalism has turned out to be secular, pragmatic,
non-individualistic and intersubjective.