Academic Year 2019
Vol.005 Embodies "Freedom and Progress" - Kiyoshi Miki and Jun Tosaka
October 29, 2019
Academic Year 2019Kiyoshi Miki and Jun Tosaka, two of Hosei University's faculty members in the early Showa period, were two of Japan's leading philosophers who, through their lectures and books, demonstrated to the world the importance of maintaining ideals at a time when academic freedom and people's rights were being eroded.
Miki was born in Hirai Village, Ibo County, Hyogo Prefecture (present-day Tatsuno City) in 1897. While a student at Kyoto Imperial University (now Kyoto University), which he entered in admiration of Kitaro Nishida, he wrote about the philosophy he was pursuing in "Unspoken Philosophy. On the first floor of the Ichigaya Library, there is a copper plate philosophy monument inscribed with this passage in Miki's distinctive style.
After returning to Japan, Miki became a professor of Department of PhilosophyFaculty of Letters University of Tokyo, succeeding Watsuji Tetsuro, who had been taught by Heidegger, Levitt, and others during his studies in Europe. One of his most famous works is "Notebook on Life Theory. As the Sino-Japanese War became a quagmire and academic freedom and university autonomy were threatened, Miki continued to send messages to the world on themes such as happiness, death, and hope.
Left: Portrait photo of Kiyoshi Miki (circa 1944) Right: Portrait photo of Jun Tosaka (circa 1936)
However, in March 1945, Miki was detained again for harboring a suspect in violation of the Public Security Law, and after the war ended, he was found sick to death in his cell without being released. After receiving the news by telegram, Miki's students at the university, including Keizaburo Masuda and Kakuzaemon Nunokawa, rushed to the prison. While teaching at the university, Masuda also devoted himself to editing the 16-volume collection of Kiyoshi Miki's works, leaving his achievements to posterity.
Jun Tosaka (born in 1900 in Kanda, Tokyo), known for his writings on science and ideology, was also a Kyoto Imperial University graduate who succeeded Miki at the university, but was forced to resign due to ideological unrest.
The presence of these two professors, who maintained a vein of resistance even during wartime, has been passed down to TUAT students as the "Miki/Tosaka tradition," and in the fall of 1949, the student government organized a memorial service for the two professors. The portraits of Miki and Tosaka displayed on the podium are kept in the University library.
Although they died tragically during the war, Miki and Tosaka have survived in the academic culture of the University as the embodiment of "freedom and progress" and continue to provide us with great inspiration through their writings.
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Telegram to Masuda announcing Miki's death
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Commemorative photo taken after the "Memorial Service for Professors Miki and Tosaka," held on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the university. The portraits of the two men in the center of the photo are in the University's library. (From "Keizaburo Masuda Collection Catalog")
(Courtesy of the Center for the History of Hosei University)
(First published in the June/July 2019 issue of Hosei, a public relations magazine)
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