Yoshishiro Tanigawa

Abstract

This paper seeks to highlight the Deweyan moments in the ethics of Shunsuke Tsurumi, a famous thinker and activist in Japan. While it has been recognized that Tsurumi learned from American classical pragmatists such as Charles Sanders Peirce, George Herbert Mead, William James, and John Dewey, previous studies have ignored the fundamental commonalities between the ideas of Dewey and Tsurumi, as most have only focused on the impact of Peirce on Tsurumi’s work. This paper examines Tsurumi’s key ideas of “reflexes” and “dreaming,” and compares the features with Dewey, referring James and Mead as a preparatory or supplementary explanation for it. The main difference between Tsurumi and Dewey can be seen in the “reflexes”; however, both recognized the importance of imagination as dramatic rehearsals. It is shown that Tsurumi’s ethics was based on the fundamental moments from Deweyan ethics albeit he was not aware of it.

AnnalsUnibuc-2018-02-10Tanigawa