Kojin Karatani
Japanese literary critic and thinker (born 1941). His real name is Yoshio Karatani. Starting from criticism of Natsume Soseki, he is known for going beyond the bounds of literary criticism into studies of Kant and Marx and then developing his own "theory of modes of exchange". In 2022 he became the first Asian to receive the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, sometimes called "the Nobel Prize of philosophy".
Life
He was born on August 6, 1941, in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture. After graduating from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tokyo in 1965, he entered the English literature program of the university's Graduate School of Humanities, completing the master's course in 1967. In 1969 he received the Gunzo Prize for New Writers (criticism) for "Consciousness and Nature: An Essay on Soseki" (〈意識〉と〈自然〉――漱石試論), which read Natsume Soseki as a problem of existence, and began his career as a critic.
Theory of modes of exchange
At the core of Karatani's thought is the concept of "modes of exchange". Where Marx grasped the history of social formations through the axis of the mode of production (who produces what and how), Karatani took as his axis the form of exchange between people and between communities, and reconceived society as a combination of four modes of exchange: A (reciprocity through gift and return), B (plunder and redistribution through domination and protection), C (commodity exchange through money and commodities) and D (the recovery of A at a higher dimension). This framework is developed systematically in "The Structure of World History" (世界史の構造, 2010) and "Power and Modes of Exchange" (力と交換様式, 2022), among other works.
Hihyo Kukan and NAM
From 1991 to 2002 he edited the quarterly "Hihyo Kukan" (批評空間) jointly with the critic Akira Asada (published over three series). In June 2000, putting into practice the arguments of his book "Transcritique", he launched in Osaka the organization "NAM (New Associationist Movement)", which advocated a counter-movement against the state and capital, but it dissolved after about two and a half years.
Major works and awards
His major works include "Origins of Modern Japanese Literature" (定本 日本近代文学の起源), "Transcritique: On Kant and Marx" (トランスクリティーク―カントとマルクス), "The Structure of World History" (世界史の構造), "Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy" (哲学の起源), "Toward the World Republic" (世界共和国へ), "The Unconscious of the Constitution" (憲法の無意識) and "Power and Modes of Exchange" (力と交換様式). In 2022, for these achievements, he was recognized for his original contributions to contemporary philosophy, the history of philosophy and political thought, and became the first Asian to receive the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture (with a prize of one million US dollars).
To verify
- The exact date of NAM's dissolution (there is information that it "dissolved after about two and a half years", but the specific date on which the dissolution was announced has not been confirmed)
References
- Mentioned in
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