A Mysterious Power | Ken Kawazoe (Dean of the Faculty of Policy Management)

2015.10.19

Professor Teruo Inoue passed away on August 25, 2015. He was involved in the establishment of SFC and dedicated himself to its management during its founding years. He taught French and was a scholar of French literature as well as a poet. To me, he was a tennis partner, and I fondly remember him running all over the court in his tight shorts. He always had a smile on his face, whether he made a nice shot or a bad one.

This fall, "God and Man in the Koran" by Toshihiko Izutsu will be published by Keio University Press. I felt a mysterious power at work, so I would like to share a little about how this came to be. It all started with a lecture Professor Inoue gave at SFC in July 2013. The title was "From Toshihiko Izutsu's 'Consciousness and Essence' to Private Language: Communication and Communion." As a mathematician, I usually shy away from this type of lecture. However, as I had just become dean, I wanted to greet the professor, so I visited the Lambda Building to attend. I was familiar with the name "Toshihiko Izutsu," but I was astonished by the grand scale of his work, which ranged from Islamic thought to Eastern philosophy. Then, in August, I happened to run into Professor Inoue at a lecture by Oliver Stone in Tokyo. He told me he had come to Tokyo from Azumino for a checkup and seemed to have slipped out of the hospital to be there—so typical of him. After the lecture, we talked more about Professor Izutsu at a coffee shop in Shinanomachi. During that summer of 2013, my knowledge of "Toshihiko Izutsu" grew exponentially. In the winter of 2014, I met a philanthropist who lived in Ascona, Switzerland. Ascona is where Professor Izutsu gave annual lectures on Zen, Eastern thought, and other topics to the world's scholars of religion and philosophy (at the Eranos Conferences). This person was also deeply impressed by Professor Izutsu's writings, and we hit it off immediately. We agreed, "We must let Keio students, especially those at SFC, know about Professor Izutsu's ideas." A short while later, I met with Hiroshi Sakagami, the chairman of Keio University Press. He told me that the publication of Toshihiko Izutsu's collected works in English, one of the publishing projects commemorating the 150th anniversary of Keio University's founding, was not proceeding as planned due to a lack of donations. Somehow, Professor Izutsu had appeared in my life three times. This had to be more than a coincidence; it felt like fate. I introduced the philanthropist to Chairman Sakagami, and thanks to that person's support, the book is now being published.

I believe about 100 copies of "God and Man in the Koran" will be donated to SFC. I am thinking of reading this book in my research group next semester. When you open the book, you will be surprised to find many conceptual diagrams. Perhaps a solid mathematical structure was built at the foundation of Professor Izutsu's thought. I would like to explore that aspect in my research group.

I truly wish I could have given the first donated copy to Professor Inoue.

May he rest in peace.