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Cover -- Endorsement Page -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Note on Names and Translations -- Preface -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2 East Asian IR Revisited -- Chapter 3 Encounter, Transformation of Time and Self-Colonisation: The Japanese Modernisation -- Chapter 4 Nishida Kitaro and Tanbae Hajime: The First Generation of the School -- Chapter 5 The Transcendental Whole and 'Inclusiveness': The Discourse of the Big 4 -- Chapter 6 Miki Kisyoshi's Philosophy of Imagination: Towards Everyday Life -- Chapter 7 Tosaka Jun's Theory of Critical Relationality: Morality of Everydayness -- Chapter 8 The Reception of the Kyoto School Philosophy in the Post-war Era -- Chapter 9 Bringing Bodily Experience Back In Post-war Japanese IR -- Chapter 10 Conclusion: Towards a Mah ā y ā na Buddhist IR? -- Bibliography -- Index.

What is missing in the ongoing debate over non-Western IR theory building? / Yong-Soo Eun -- Appealing to humane capitalism as the international relations of economics: comparing early and late globalizing asia via Tomé Pires' Suma Oriental (1515) and Mahathirist thought (1970-2008) / Alan Chong -- Indigenization of international relation theories in Korea and China: tails of two essentialisms / Jungmin Seo and Hwanbi Lee -- Koanizing IR: flipping the logic of epistemic violence / L.H.M. Ling -- International relations concerning post-hybridity dangers and potentials in non-synthetic cycles / Chih-yu Shih and Josuke Ikeda -- Identity, time, and language: Nishida Kitaro's philosophy and politics in non-Western discourse / Kosuke Shimizu -- On the necessary and disavowed subject of history in postwar "Japan" / Hitomi Koyama -- Pacific for whom: the ocean in Japan / Atsuko Watanabe.

This article is part of a forum on Karin Fierke's book Snapshots from Home: Mind, Action and Strategy in an Uncertain World. In it, the importance of viewing international relations from the intersection of Buddhism and quantum theory is discussed. The ontological implication of Buddhism and quantum theory is extremely important in an uncertain world, and when we accept the uncertainty, we gain a new vision of contemporary world affairs. This is precisely where the gates of ethics open to us.

Abstract
In an age of relative Western decline, international relations (IR) scholars and practitioners can learn from Japan's attempt to re-envision world order in an earlier era of relative European decline. In both periods, an apparently pluralistic, relational ontology of IR has been articulated by East Asian thinkers. However, a closer examination of the philosophical underpinnings of these Confucian frames reveals a hierarchical, culturalist reasoning. Under conditions of heightened militarism, this tension can lead to another tension between pluralism in theory and universalism in practice. In the case of 1940s Japan, it informed and legitimized an exceptionalist mission civilisatrice and imperialistic expansion. The takeaway for our current age of "Western" decline and "non-Western" rise is that we must resist any utopian temptation emanating from any ethical system, not least Confucian hierarchical relationality, to say "we will save the world."

AbstractIn March 2011, Japan suffered a massive earthquake. The resultant tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor and it was later revealed that the reactor was actually in a state of meltdown. While it is still unclear how many people will be affected, both mentally and physically, by the radio-active fallout, the extent to which our lives are subject to the unimaginable risks of scientific technology has become patently clear. This paper strives to clarify the risks of scientific technology in relation to instrumental reason, critical thinking, plurality, and subsequently, the significance of the public realm in contemporary world affairs, with a specific focus on the Fukushima incident. In so doing, I shall introduce arguments regarding scientific technology by such thinkers as Arendt, Heidegger, and Horkheimer as well as the Kyoto School philosophers. This paper also focuses on the issue of morality in order to address the notion of the lack of critical thinking and the disappearance of the public.

AbstractCulture is a demanding word, particularly when it is used in the context of the contemporary academic discipline of international relations (IR). It is often employed in order to distinguish one identity from another, allegedly illuminating idiosyncrasies embedded in a particular society or group of people. The essentialized understanding of culture is also detectable in the case of the current debate on the non-Western international relations theories (IRT). Non-Western politicians and scholars often employ the term culture in order to distinguish their values from alleged Western values. However, culture has another important function mainly advanced by a left-wing Kyoto School philosopher Tosaka Jun, that is, culture as a mirror for critical reflection for morality (Tosaka, 1966). This article is based on Tosaka's argument that culture has an important function for moral reflection beyond that of a mere means to identify one's distinctiveness from the West, and it criticizes Japan's soft power diplomacy or the total absence of it from that point of view. It also argues that this absence is the result of the soft power discourse's over-simplified interpretation of culture that results in confrontation between the West and the rest, particularly when it is employed in non-Western IRT discourses. Towards the end, I examine Miyazaki Hayao's films,Princes Mononokein particular, as examples of cultural works facilitating a moment of critical reflection, and I extract embedded messages of relevance to critical reflection on contemporary IR literature, particularly non-Western literature.