"Resisting with Philosophy"

2022/04/19

I wrote an introductory book on philosophy. However, I did not intend to lead readers down the main path of the history of philosophy. To begin with, I myself am someone far removed from that main path.

Nevertheless, I have continued to think about what philosophy is in my own way, and I have long held the desire to convey those thoughts.

That said, putting it into a book is a troublesome task. To tell the truth, more than ten years ago, I was invited to write an introductory book on philosophy and accepted. However, I was ill-prepared at the time. After years of agonizing over it, I ended up declining the offer.

Now, I am someone who sides with the "democracy of philosophy." In other words, everyone must be able to "philosophize," and I believe that a world where everyone is "philosophizing" is a desirable vision.

Let me use an analogy. There are professional painters, but apart from them, anyone can paint. Even those who think they cannot paint, can. Of course, it is fine to take techniques and art history into account, but that is not essential to the act of starting to paint. It would be a waste to let such things dampen one's motivation.

Philosophy is the same; everyone should be able to engage in philosophy even without a background in its history. While this position might seem self-evident for an introductory work, most philosophy introductions today are, in my opinion, still intimidating. I sense a petty desire to have the reader learn the history of philosophy if possible.

I wanted to strip away the context of the history of philosophy (especially Western philosophy) to the extreme and awaken readers to their own innate power to "philosophize"—or so I thought over ten years ago. To do that, the philosophical moments that visit everyone equally should be emphasized. Thus, at the time, I thought of structuring the book around "inspiration." However, that ultimately did not work out.

The decisive cause of that failure was likely that my thoughts on what generates that very inspiration were not clearly defined. This time, I was able to publish the book because those thoughts have become somewhat settled.

A situation that generates resistance—this is the "source of inspiration." Now, I have run out of space here. Read the rest in the book.

"Resisting with Philosophy"

Kazumi Takakuwa

Shueisha Shinsho

224 pages, 902 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and job titles are as of the time of publication.