Abstract

Modern Japanese thinkers tried to understand “history” as processes of translation through which the Japanese culture/society/nation integrated itself into world history. This paper analyzes Miki Kiyoshi’s (1897-1945) Philosophy of History [1932], a prominent example of such an approach to history. His understanding of history is deeply influenced by Martin Heidegger’s thoughts about facticity. The most essential part of Miki’s notion of “history” lies in his practico-poietic conception of history, which is elaborated through his own interpretation of Heidegger (via Marx). This paper attempts to investigate how Miki developed such a practico-poietic theory as well as how he was faced with its limit, not only on a theoretical level, but also in the specific historical contexts in the 1930s and 1940s. To seek answers to these questions enables us to understand why Miki came to re-create philosophical discourse to describe the space of history in approaching the question of translation, that is, the question concerning the transformation by and through language.