Pathway to Japanese Literature

Science of Thought

There has been much discussion about literature's ideological nature.
According to the hackneyed conventional wisdom of literary circles regarding literature, one could say it was initially assumed to be fundamentally unrelated to anything called thought.
When establishment literature—what was termed pure literature and such—found itself compelled to acknowledge a certain stagnation, this very attempt to overcome that stagnation brought literature's ideological nature back into sharp relief.
This occurred through its conceptual linkage with literature's social nature.
Whether traditional establishment literature truly lacked so-called ideological nature or actually possessed it—I propose we set that question aside for now.
At least, I wish to draw attention to the phenomenon that awareness of this thing called ideological nature has emerged.

Certainly, the former Proletarian Literature—what might be called leftist literature—had its greatest charm precisely in its ideological nature. No—it would be more accurate to say that charm resided in the thought itself. Thus it was undoubtedly this leftist literature that raised the issue of ideological nature in recent literature, yet here I recall a peculiar aspect of the general public's understanding of what constitutes thought. This stems from how people conceived of "thought" as doctrine that crudely exposed academic formulas—indeed, even as social scientific doctrine itself. And since leftist literature took such things as its content while pure literature could remain unrelated to them, pure literature came to be regarded as a type requiring no thought or ideology.

There exists a term called "tendency literature." Though what exactly it should signify remains unclear, it appears certain that it at least contains ideology in the form of "social doctrine." If this holds true, then what is termed ideology in this context becomes something required only for tendency literature—and therefore superfluous for general literature, particularly pure artistic literature. But of course, this very assumption that ideology belonged solely to tendency literature constituted the primary fallacy.

The notion that ideology must take the form of a fixed theoretical doctrine—let alone one shaped into a specific social theory doctrine—is, of course, a ludicrous concept.
To comprehend ideology through such ludicrous notions itself signifies a deficiency in common sense and education regarding what constitutes ideology. But putting that aside for now, ideology is in fact a universal phenomenon found far more ubiquitously in everyday life.
In other words, ideology can even be said to be nothing more than ideas.
Where there are ideas, emotions, and volition—in other words, where there is ideology—one might tentatively say.
And no clear-headed, rational individual exists at any moment without holding ideas.
Ideology is not something particularly grandiose.
Even a three-year-old child likely possesses it.

Nevertheless, it was not so-called pure literature but leftist literature that imparted to literature the theme of ideology in its full sense.
Thus, as leftist literature underwent some degree of shift and came to intersect with pure literature, pure literature itself began to question its own ideological nature and thought.
This constituted the recent theme of the "ideological nature of literature."
—It was argued that literature must become interesting.
To that end, there emerged arguments advocating that literature should acquire the popular appeal characteristic of mass-market novels (the theory of “pure yet popular pure novels”).
This theory attempted to reduce the issue to creative methods in the simple sense—that is, to the realm of technique—and thereby settle it.
In connection with this, entertainment elements and depictions of social customs were also cited as factors contributing to literature’s appeal.
This primarily attempted to bring the issue to what might be called a theme—or subject matter—in the simple sense and thereby settle it.
But such popular appeal and entertainment elements rooted in social customs would lose all meaning if divorced from ideology, provided they existed precisely to make literature interesting.
The truly artistic appeal that captured the interest of the masses existed because it stirred the radiant ideology alive within them.
The reason customs were elevated to artistic appeal was that they took the form of ideology’s direct expression rooted in everyday life.
Thus, the problem of literature's appeal ultimately came down to its ideological nature and ideological power.
Mr. Shimaki Kensaku also strenuously argued that the appeal of literature derived from its ideological nature.
I considered this claim to be substantially substantiated in Mr. Shimaki’s full-length novel *Reconstruction* (particularly in its latter half).

But what exactly is meant by "ideology" in this context? What is being considered in Mr. Shimaki’s case appears to refer profoundly on one hand to social recognition (which may even take the form of social theory doctrine at times), and on the other hand to literary conceptual images. For now, let us set that ideological tendency aside as irrelevant. It is being suggested that the notion of ideology possesses these two aspects and that it refers to something which unifies them.

Now, people often interpreted this unification of dual aspects in the following manner: that the so-called ideological nature in literature consisted either of theoretical thought or some pre-existing ideology which was then formalized, concretized, and embodied—in other words, that literature represented thought's incarnation into flesh and blood. But were this true, they reasoned, ideology itself would ultimately reside outside literature—only through renewed "concretization" and embodiment could it become literature—thereby concluding ideology to be something wholly separate from literature itself. This led them into that irresponsible common sense which claims abstract ideology must first be concretized to become literature. Yet if we speak of ideology's concretization at all—must it not be precisely this concretized ideology that first constitutes true ideology? And if abstract ideology exists—does this not mean it has yet to become fully realized ideology?

To be sure, when speaking of the concreteness or abstractness of ideology, there were various meanings.
Thoroughly contemplating ideology had to be none other than its concreteness in the original sense.
But that would not necessarily amount to the literary embodiment of ideology.
Therefore, using distinctions like "concrete" or "abstract" here in the first place became the very source of confusion.
Abstract ideology did not become literature by being concretized.
It should be stated that literature itself constituted both an expression of ideology and ideology as such.
It was merely that this ideology differed somewhat in its circumstances from ideology in theoretical form.
This was precisely why I asserted that literature itself constituted ideology in its own unique sense.

But then, are the ideologies found in theory or science and those in literature entirely separate entities? They are indeed tentatively separate. As evidence of this, the act of theoretically concretizing an ideology and that of literarily concretizing it belong to quite different domains. Merely "concretizing" theoretical ideology will not make it literary ideology. The ideology found in literature takes a different form from that in theory or science. ―But if one were to conclude that the content of this ideology lacks coherence, this would be the most grave error to guard against. Admittedly, all literature—whether it be domestic novels or anything else—is an expression of ideology insofar as it gives form to ideas. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that all literature possesses ideological power or has an ideological nature. Even if ideas take on flesh and blood in form as ideology, their content remains not yet ideology. If what is today called "the ideological nature of literature" were merely literature expressing conceptual content, there would be no truism more meaningless than this—indeed, this constitutes nothing other than a second fallacy that operates through the inverse of the first fallacy previously discussed: that which definitively reduces ideology to some theoretical or social scientific doctrine. The ideological nature of literature—that is, ideology within literature, or literature as ideology—is by no means merely a matter of digesting ideas. Such matters are problems prior to even discussing the theory of literature’s ideological nature. It means that the idea must be fully digested as ideology. This is because there must be a certain internal correspondence with ideology in theoretical or scientific form. Otherwise, even if it is an idea, it cannot yet be called ideology.

Having come this far in our discussion, I cannot help but conclude that ideology is not merely an idea.
No matter how thoroughly embodied it may or may not be, a mere idea does not constitute ideology.
Delusions and meaningless fantasies never merit being called ideology.
Ideology must contain some form of truth—and truth must investigate its own living interconnections.
Fragmentary truths and self-contained truths are not truth.
Truth possesses both a system (system) and a history (history).
Without these, there can be no ideology.
Just as it constitutes laughable common sense to equate ideology with doctrine, so too does regarding ideology as mere ideas or their aggregation amount to laughable common sense.
Moreover, these two varieties of common sense typically coexist as if symbiotic.
To claim literature requires no ideology on one hand, while asserting literature exists wholly independent from science or other fields with its own unique ideology on the other—these amount to two sides of the same coin.
Both positions ultimately succeed only in demolishing literature's ideological project—that hard-won challenge.

But certainly, ideology possesses a certain duality—one not limited to literature and art alone.
It is wrong to consider it doctrine, and equally mistaken to regard it as mere concept—yet to declare it entirely neither might be an assertion lacking in sympathy.
Ideology possesses at least two aspects that can be interpreted either way.
As I have already touched upon, this is something that in certain cases becomes formulated as the connection between what is called worldview and method.
This can also be restated as worldview and logic.
A worldview is, tentatively speaking, something akin to a mere concept.
In contrast, methods and logic develop by elucidating, decomposing, and reconstructing this mere concept of a worldview.
That which is both its product and foundation becomes, particularly in the case of theory, doctrine and formula.

However, the term "worldview" is sometimes understood in strange ways.
For instance, there exists a view—not entirely absent—that regards Marxist theoretical systems, or more precisely, a formulated set of doctrines in this sense, as what is called a worldview.
Admittedly, since the Japanese translation "worldview" was imported alongside Marxism, it was not unreasonable that it gave rise to such inert conventional notions—but when debated through such common sense, such arguments become utterly untenable.
A worldview, in the same way as a view of life (a term that conversely seems to signify oddly disorganized emotional representations by convention), is precisely a "view" and does not refer to established systems such as theories or doctrines.
A worldview, in this sense, is intuition in that it does not consciously mediate theory or doctrine; it refers to an intuitive reaction to the world.
Therefore, this is a natural sentiment that humans naturally possess through their respective experiences, contemplations, and other outcomes.
It is a concept that has already been substantiated.
In other words, it is nothing more than a concept. This worldview constitutes the psychological foundation upon which we always stand and to which we always return, no matter what we think or feel.
Ideology certainly possesses the foundation of such a worldview.

But I stated that ideology has both a system (system) and a history (history). A worldview is neither something innately given nor something encountered by chance. It is first given only as the product of each respective moment within the historical progression of human or collective human life. Naturally, within this interwoven history exists an unceasing order and system not apparent on its intuitive surface. The ordering, systematization, and organizational structuring of ideas flow through their developmental history like a glacier creaking and shifting as it advances. Here lies theory; there lies method. And it is there that something worthy of being called ideology first emerges. To put it starkly, even in a single preference or taste, the strata of ideology stand clearly visible.

This "ideology" I also call cognition by another name.
To be sure, when speaking of cognition, many people think mainly of scientific cognition alone.
But why should all intuition not be considered cognition from the very outset?
To limit cognition to scientific cognition amounts to nothing more than a characteristic tendency of Neo-Kantian epistemology.
Even moral judgments are in fact cognition.
However, this does not mean moral judgments enter cognition's domain merely by being called judgments.
Morality ultimately consists in nothing but moral judgment; though if one considers judgment solely logic's domain or some arbitrary interpretation, that differs—but why should tasting water, finding it sweet, and drinking it down gladly not constitute judgment?
Bitter water will inevitably be spat out.
Moral actions too belong to this category of judgment.
To presume moral judgment must always precede moral action reflects an ethics-instructor's notion of morality—then what drives movement from judgment to action? Is it judgment itself or action?
Judgment proves nothing but the carriage shaft we call practice.
Thus morality too must be recognized as cognition.
However—and this bears emphasizing—when discussing morality, we must discard that absurd ethics preoccupied with simplistic categorizations of good and bad.
By precisely this reasoning, not science alone but literature and art too constitute cognition.

This argument appeared rather crude and might have seemed somewhat far-fetched.
It might also have appeared not particularly urgent.
But the situation was perfectly clear regardless of the terminology used—something anyone could recognize.
It was simply that the term 'cognition' had not been appropriately and sufficiently established in society.
Or perhaps it was simply that a great deal of provincial noise had crept into literature and other fields.
In literature and other fields, reality could not possibly be forgotten.
Reality is a meaningless term if divorced from cognition.

If we provisionally define as "culture" the term that encompasses science, literature (art), and similar fields, then culture becomes the summation of cognition.
However, this is under the proviso that we set aside the various demands encompassed by the term "culture"—such as objective spirit or its distinction from civilization—and call it as such for convenience sake.
This terminology is extremely convenient—indeed, I suspect people would struggle for words if prohibited from using it—but cognition and culture: these would most appropriately articulate the necessary content of what we call ideology.
Cognition is the cognition of the world.
Ideology is ideology concerning the world.

Now, what had been described in this way was "ideology". Ideology was the central axis that ran through science, literature (art), and all other forms of culture—in other words, through all human cognition. It was not that literature merely possessed some singular ideological nature by chance. As long as literature was cognition, it had to be a form of ideology. Ideology pierced through all cultures. It became the shaft that connected them, caused them to intersect and interact, propelled them forward, deconstructed and reconstructed them.

Now, it is precisely because I have wanted to say the following that I have gone on at such length up to this point: that what we call philosophy is none other than the science concerning this very concept of thought—the science of ideology itself. The vital significance philosophy holds in the modern era resides entirely in its being this science of thought. The various metaphysical systems we observe today amount to nothing more than a species of literary endeavor processed through philosophy—or rather, when we broadly understand cognition in the manner previously discussed, epistemology in this expanded sense constitutes philosophy proper. What has been termed the Leninist phase of philosophy may be said to derive from its self-consciousness as epistemology; for our present purposes, it suffices that we appropriately expand this concept of epistemology. Moreover, if we accept that what has traditionally been designated as logic constitutes the science of thought, then we may equally assert that philosophy is logic itself. This formulation is by no means unprecedented; it requires only that we suitably broaden our conception of logic—that we consider not merely the logic of ratiocination but rather the logic inherent to ideology itself.

Among the tasks of the science of thought, that which holds the greatest significance in daily life was the scientific treatment of common sense.
Within this scope, the science of thought might, so to speak, be called the science of common sense.
Admittedly, in the history of philosophy, there had existed what was called the Common Sense School or Scottish School.
This placed the ultimate basis of philosophical judgment in common sense, and moreover established commonsense intuition—as a fixed body of preexisting judgments—as the final arbiter.
Yet this did not scientifically process common sense but rather merely processed science or philosophy in a commonsensical manner.
But common sense needed to be scientifically processed.
Otherwise, philosophy would have been unnecessary, and common sense alone should have sufficed.

No matter how one puts it, the fact that philosophy must depart from common sense remained a truth that had been stated since ancient times, exactly as it had always been said.
Greek philosophers initiated philosophy as a critique of Greek common sense (doxa).
Aristotle’s comprehensive genius exemplified this most clearly.
In the modern era, the collector and critic of common sense was Kant.
But the one who most consciously carried this out would likely have been Hegel.
Each of his categories represented the most refined form of German common sense terminology.
This contained a social reality that far surpassed the mere systematization of philosophical terminology undertaken by C. Wolff and his school, who had organized Enlightenment philosophy.
It appeared that one of the consistent cultural objectives of Hegel’s theory of categories had been how to endow everyday language with usage that was both richly suggestive and rigorously precise.

Of course, the issue does not lie solely in terminology and categories.
They reside in the everyday common sense of the populace—or the nation—that employs such terms and categories.
Philosophy takes such everyday thinking as both the historical starting point and gateway for its contemplative reflection.
Only in this way can the science of thought organize, sift through, and delve into the fragments of common sense, ultimately piercing through them.
This constitutes the critique of common sense—which is none other than the science of thought fulfilling its great role of creating and imparting to society a more accurate and advanced form of common sense. Though let me clarify that when I speak of common sense here, I do not mean some convenient set of knowledge to be memorized as "essential points one must know."
It refers to the political, social, and cultural psychological movements that social humans actively utilize in their lives.
These are what we call opinions and insights.
In this sense, common sense must fundamentally be a matter of innate moral knowledge and good sense, and must also constitute human cultivation.
By no means is it merely average amateur scholarship or anything of the sort.

However, regarding this point, I have expressed my opinion whenever the opportunity has arisen.
What I want to assert now is that it is precisely this common sense—common sense as the inevitable and indispensable psychological movement of social human life—that constitutes the everyday form of so-called ideology, and that philosophy as its scientific treatment is the philosophy most routinely utilized in society.
From this, one can first understand how philosophy as the science of thought constitutes a living science within social life.
Where there are political, social, and cultural views, there lies the field of activity for the science of thought.
Not even a single instance of common sense can be treated carelessly by the science of thought.

The science of thought is the organizer of common sense.

What is directly related to common sense is morality.
Here, by "morality," I do not necessarily mean that which relates to ethics or similar disciplines whose sole task lies in distinguishing good from evil—as I briefly touched upon earlier.
It does not refer to moral laws or virtues.
What might be called the conscience as a psychological aspect of human self-aware life comes closer to this.
It is not customs or institutions themselves, but rather refers to the psychological foundation underlying customs and institutions.
In other words, it resembles the morality spoken of by moralists—those beginning with Montaigne and extending to someone like A. Gide?
If we proceed thus, how profoundly this connects directly to the common sense I discussed earlier naturally becomes evident.
Common sense as good sense and innate moral knowledge could well have been termed morals.
Now, the philosophy of moralists has historically assumed the form of what might be called tentative contemplative discourses (essais), rather than overtly adopting the framework of a science of thought.
Or at most, it took shape as critical essays.
Consequently, epigone moralists—far from breaking through these historical constraints—have instead sanctified them, now frequently regarding the inability to process morality scientifically as if it were a virtue inherent to moralists themselves.
Through this lens, the testing of contemplation appears to reside in some sacred realm beyond the science of ideology.
Yet whether it be contemplation, meditation, self-reflection, or introspection—what we call the "science of thought" inexorably pursues the mechanisms underlying thinking and ideology.
Even epigone moralists would find this essential point difficult to counter.

In Japan, it could be said that common sense and morality only began to be scientifically processed as ideology over the past dozen or so years.
This was undoubtedly the product of Marxist social science and materialist philosophy.
Until then, philosophy as the science of thought could hardly be said to have existed.
Critical philosophy and cultural philosophy as part of the Reimeikai enlightenment movement prepared the ground.
And that developed into Shinjinkai activities.
Common sense and the moral consciousness of the people became objects of scientific inquiry there for the first time.
The science of thought and its object arose.

But needless to say, this relationship did not merely indicate what might be called the internal ideological movements of common sense and morality.
It was simultaneously directly connected to a certain objective cultural ideology.
This was because neither common sense nor morality could have undergone scientific processing without their connection to various sciences—social sciences, cultural sciences, natural sciences—as well as literature and other arts.
To state this conversely, it was at this time that various sciences first came to possess decisive influence over the populace's social common sense and moral consciousness, while art too for the first time attained—in consciously formed and systematic fashion—the power to sway the populace's common sense and morality.
The task of popularizing science and art could finally be placed on the agenda at this juncture.
This was because the science of thought had ultimately been discovered.
The science of thought mediated internal ideological materials—common sense and morality—into cultural ideological constructs: science and art.
Ideology was officially recognized as social reality for the first time.
This remains an extremely recent development in ideological circumstances that we must not forget.

Now I must address the ideological essence of science.
Science carries its own peculiar social superstitions.
Natural sciences have their specific superstitions, social sciences theirs.
Particularly stubborn appear the superstitions of natural science.
Natural sciences primarily rely on experimental verification.
From this arises the facile conclusion that natural science should be empirical and unrelated to ideology.
Indeed verification cannot be swayed by ideology, motives or desires (in mathematics we might say rigorous reasoning cannot be influenced by mere ideas).
Natural laws operate independently of human ideological tendencies.
The philosophical doctrine called materialism asserts precisely this.
Yet experiments only gain concrete meaning when grounded in theoretical assumptions.
Theory interprets obtained results.
But this theory is constructed using fixed categories.
Through the category of ether we experiment on ether's existence or non-existence.
We posit that ether's presence can be inferred by whether interference wave patterns appear.
The results manifest as ether's non-existence.
Then does ether not exist?
In truth, whether such a thing exists matters not.
What's necessary is reforming the category of ether.
Thus the category of ether undergoes historical transformation into other categories.
Why then can't these historically shifting categories be considered fragments of ideology?

What about gravity?
What about gravitational force?
These are of course borrowed terms from common sense vocabulary.
However, unless we employ such concepts while gradually phasing them out, not only would theory become impossible, but all experimentation would be rendered meaningless.
It is precisely because such things exist that scientific world images can be formed and scientific worldviews can emerge for the first time.

The most reliable method to recognize the ideological essence of natural science was to examine the patterns of its historical development.
That was indeed the history of ideological development.
The notion that natural science was independent of both class character and national character had been vigorously advocated by natural science specialists.
While refuting the national character of science had become a recent task, the manner of rejecting it by equating it with its class character amounted to nothing more than a rehash of an outdated approach from some time ago.
To equate the national character and class character of culture as parallel phenomena constituted crude thinking—but setting that aside, I had encountered arguments in publications such as the lead article of the September 1937 issue of the journal *Science* which stated: “If advocating the class character of science is politically necessary, then we natural science specialists have no interest in such matters; let them have their way.” Yet if this was so, then these proponents’ claim that “natural science lacks class character” must clearly be considered not a “political” statement but a “scientific” one.
Yet within those very scientific discourses, ideological issues such as the claim that science currently lacked class character were being boldly taken up.
What in the world was this?
Thus, even natural sciences could not help but confront their ideological foundations when pressed.

In other words, natural scientists—as specialists in their field—already possess the inherent right to engage with reflections on scientific cognition; that is to say, such epistemology.
This right could not necessarily be considered properly exercised...
Natural science had unwittingly become linked to both epistemological considerations of scientific cognition and—within that framework—the systematic scrutiny of ideology.
I previously noted natural science’s ideological tendencies through Japan’s recent popularization efforts, enlightenment campaigns, and burgeoning science journalism; yet this trend must not be misconstrued as deviating from scientific cognition but rather recognized as scientific advancement—precisely because natural science itself embodies ideological dimensions.
The imperative that modern scientific understanding cannot be divorced from the science of thought must be grasped with genuine seriousness—not dismissed as empty rhetoric.

The same argument could be restated more concisely regarding the social sciences.
But here it would be more pertinent to address what is termed science's national character.
When discussing science's national character, two matters are invariably conflated without due care.
One must distinguish between the national characteristics evident in science's outward manifestations and the scope within which science's logical framework maintains validity across different nations.
That is to say, there persists a muddling of science's national particularity with national limitations imposed upon scientific logic.
Science inevitably bears the particular characteristics of whatever nation produces it.
Yet this fact in no way suggests that science's logical applicability is inherently national.
If science's logical applicability were truly contingent upon national conditions - given humanity's countless historical distinctions between nations - we would lose all means of determining which framework possesses genuine logical validity.
To invoke national character as grounds for restricting scientific applicability across nations would be absurd; short of such misuse, these theories of national character constitute nothing less than a nation's scientific self-destruction.

Many nationalists insist on equating class character with national character, though this equivalence must prove rather vexing for class character itself. When examining class character, we must distinguish between two aspects: the distinctive features manifest in its class-based expression, and the applicability of its theoretical framework across classes. While some leniency might be granted for equating class characteristics with national characteristics phenomenologically, we must recognize that science's national manifestations constitute merely a primary thesis when viewed thematically—whereas tracing phenomena to their essence reveals class character as the fundamental thesis. Such nuanced epistemological distinctions likely prove indigestible for nationalists prone to intellectual agitation.

Regarding class character within science's logical applicability (which inherently presupposes opposition between two classes), what becomes logically clarified is the validity relationship between competing class-based logics. To equate this with the so-called national character of logic—which remains fundamentally opaque regarding which of multiple "national logics" might hold validity or how they interrelate—serves only to demonstrate a deficiency in scientific training regarding ideological analysis. Having addressed national character's limitations within scientific discourse, let us now proceed.

I had previously noted that literature constitutes both a mode of cognition and an expression of ideology itself. While extending this principle to art in general would be straightforward, I shall refrain from such broad generalizations for now. The reason why literary studies—as reflection upon literature—must belong to epistemology in this sense was something I had previously expounded upon in my work “Literary Studies as Epistemology” (contained in Volume 4 of these Complete Works). Therein lay the fundamental question of internal connections between science and art—or literature—and it was precisely epistemology as the science of thought that illuminated these relationships. Unless one perceives literature as both an ideological form and a mode of cognition, this principle will never be discovered—one would inevitably remain confined to haphazard comparisons. Even Natsume Sōseki’s *The Theory of Literature*, the most rigorously conceived work of literary theory composed in Japanese, fails to advance beyond extremely cursory notions regarding the connection between science and literature. It has been claimed that the distinction between literary F (focus) and scientific F lies in their respective orientations toward answering “Why?” versus “How?”; that science dissects while literature synthesizes; that scientists “seek to convey concepts” while literary artists “aim to paint pictures.” This has also been framed as a differentiation between signs and symbols: “Literary artists impart fragrance to the scentless and shape to the formless,” whereas “scientists strip form from the formed and drain flavor from the flavored.” Thus emerges the assertion that “truth in literature” and “truth in science” constitute separate realms.

This is merely a contrast; it is merely a distinction.
It is not yet a connection between literature and science.
Even with Soseki’s erudition, the fact that he ultimately could not advance beyond such questions due to lacking an epistemological perspective remains noteworthy.
When literature is not approached from the perspective of the science of thought, it becomes evident that 'cultivation' fails to attain true cultivation.
Romanticists who seek to extol Soseki’s ‘cultivation’ must first take care not to neglect this point.

However, we of course could not criticize Soseki.
It was not simply because he had been a great figure predating Marxist literary theory.
The literary studies that formulated the concept of literary studies as epistemology were entirely a product of the very recent past, for this represented none other than the modern stage of literary studies.
Prior to this, literary studies had been limited to either poetics ranging from Aristotle to Boileau, literary history, or literary sociology.

Now, the central issue in recent materialist or Marxist literary theory had been the relationship between worldview and method.
While due credit should be given to the efforts of Mr. Moriyama Kei and others regarding the mediation between the two, there had been almost no proper understanding of where the focal interest lay in the connection between worldview and method (or logic) within science.
It became evident that this lack of epistemological perspective harbored a crisis that would lead literary theory astray from literary studies.
No matter how much one debated creative methods, focusing solely on that could only end up as a kind of methodologism, ultimately leading to mismeasuring literature as ideology.
The lesson lay close at hand.

The recent issue taken up in the epistemology of literature is the concept of figuration (as opposed to conceptualization).
However，it seems one can only say that both the logic and psychology of figuration remain insufficient and underdeveloped．
As long as it remains at such a level，one could hardly complain if this were ultimately dismissed as merely another of those usual offhanded comparisons between literature and science．
If handled poorly，it may end up as nothing more than a hollow slogan—approaching literature from the perspective of the science of thought appears to constitute one of epistemology’s future tasks．

Here I would like to touch incidentally upon the problem of national character in literature (and by extension, culture insofar as it is considered through literature). I have already discussed the conflation of their respective dual meanings—national character and class character. However, since literature is not a science, one might question whether there is really such a significant difference between national characteristics and national logic in this context. That is to say, this raises the question of whether the national characteristics of literature here are not identical to literature's national standard of value. If such a question arises, I would like to draw attention to the distinction between "world literature" and "national literature." To clarify: world literature consists of works whose value can gain global recognition through translation in its broadest sense, while national literature remains confined to local limitations as regional literature. Translation strips away what appear to be literature's most vivid and vibrant national characteristics—at least provisionally. The customs and embodied forms found in so-called "customs literature" are regrettably stripped away during this process as if they were mere superfluous adornments. Nevertheless, customs and embodied forms capable of gaining global recognition persist within it. Alternatively, such customs and embodied forms become recast into the customary practices of their respective national traditions. Yet what constitutes the blood of their flesh and spirit of their customs remains entirely undiminished. That which possesses such truth with global universality constitutes world literature. Modern bourgeois literature contained numerous such works of world literature, and recent proletarian literature likewise contains many.

To say that literature born of a nation and enjoyed by its people should be called national literature was not particularly problematic, but it remained a claim utterly devoid of substance.
Therefore, critics like Mr. Asano Akira appeared to believe that those who opposed the concept of national literature simply disliked using the term "nation" instead of words like "the people" or "the masses."
They feigned ignorance of the fact that theories of “national literature”—those which utterly failed to engage with the universal reality that class-based distinctions and antagonisms within the same nation impart decisive characteristics and logic to literature’s very spirit—were being opposed.
No one claimed that the Japanese nation or Japanese ethnicity constituted classes, so there was no need for concern.
It simply demanded that one honestly recognize how class antagonism factually existed within nations and ethnic groups.
A "national literature" that had clarified such recognition would indeed have been worth heeding.
Because such national literature would have ceased to be national literature and instead become world literature.

I cannot comprehend why Turgenev's intellectuals must be framed as incomparably more 'national literature'-type compared to those of Soseki (and Ōgai) (though theories of national literature do make such claims). If any distinction exists here, it lies in this: whereas Soseki's intellectuals remain wholly ignorant of their class role, Turgenev's intellectual protagonists are all class-conscious individuals. Thus, what qualifies as an exemplary type in national literature appears to be precisely that which constitutes an exemplary class-based type. Dostoevsky—perhaps an even greater titan of national literature—has one of his typological characters, Mr. Stepan in *Demons*, declare: "I simply cannot fathom Turgenev." "The Bazarov he created seems like some fictional being who doesn't truly exist." "Even today's youth echo our own past dismissals, speaking as if it were utterly worthless and denying its value altogether." And so Turgenev could only appear national because he was fundamentally class-based (though from the perspective of the science of thought, such matters are utterly trivial).

Criticism and the Scientific Spirit

That which constitutes the science of thought could be said to investigate the living laws of real-world ideologies.
Not merely laws, nor merely formal formulations of ideology, but rather the currently living laws of ideology as present reality.
Or rather, discovering laws is not the ultimate objective; extracting laws from actual ideological phenomena to provide an essential—and indeed timely—explanation for each ideological phenomenon is both its aim and purpose.

The general task of the science of thought lies in apprehending the living form of ideological phenomena; to achieve this, it becomes imperative to examine their historical development up to the present day—the historical progression of thought that advances even through byways, dead ends, and counteractions.
It goes without saying that ideological examination cannot occur without its history.
Yet one must never substitute what is called historical description of thought for the science of thought itself.
This methodological distinction demands attention as a fundamental issue.

After all, historical description itself does not necessarily constitute the entirety of historical research.
Historical description is nothing more than one aspect of the science of history.
The most vital task of historical research is the timely dissection of current real-world phenomena; historical description remains merely a means to be appropriately utilized toward that purpose.
This does not simply mean that historical description must be conducted from modern consciousness and contemporary standpoints.
If that were all, it would ultimately reduce to a question of historical description.
The current timely dissection would then amount to nothing more than being the endpoint of description.
Nor does applying philological examination to the modern era necessarily constitute historical research.
Applying philological examination to the modern era may seem straightforward at first glance, yet it contains a fundamentally difficult problem.
To truly enable such "application," one must fundamentally reassess the significance of what we call historical research and historical description.
Even speaking of applying philological examination to present reality does not necessarily equate to anatomizing current phenomena.
In other words, mere philological scrutiny ultimately reverts to historical description, and therefore still falls short of encompassing all historical research.
It constitutes nothing more than one facet thereof.
This is precisely why historians so often prove misguided fools when confronting real-world issues, and why specialists in historical science demonstrate such surprising insensitivity toward actual phenomena.

The science of thought required historical research concerning ideology to dissect the reality of current ideological phenomena.
It was precisely to fulfill such contemporary demands that this scientific study became necessary—and through assuming this role, what we call the science of thought gained cultural value (which is to say, ideological value).
It also held social reality.
The ideological laws discovered through this science were certainly historical laws—but they qualified as historical precisely because they remained operative in the present.
Let us provisionally state that these constitute not laws of history, but rather historical laws—so to speak.

Regarding the function of laws, major errors often arise from minor misunderstandings.
The statement that science aims to discover laws may not be incorrect, but depending on interpretation, it risks becoming a grave fallacy.
One must recognize that explaining phenomena through laws constitutes science's true objective.
Moreover, the process does not necessarily follow a rigid schema where one first discovers laws then applies them.
In fact, instances where law discovery and application occur simultaneously prove rather more common.
Laws whose extraction and application cannot be separated often represent genuine laws.
This holds particularly true in the ideological and cultural realm.
There are times when truth resides precisely in the apparent impossibility of discovering clearly defined laws; forcibly extracting such pseudo-laws amounts to dredging up worthless scarecrow statutes—an act not merely futile but verging on harmful absurdity.
Were one to posit a "sociological" law like *the more people gather, the more distant their mental interactions become*, it would exemplify precisely this category.

In the realm of real ideological phenomena, ideology does not exist as naked laws but rather manifests through its various forms.
It is not that abstract laws assume concrete shape or anything of that nature; rather, law-like relations operate around these diverse ideological forms.
The legal relations abstracted from these forms may constitute lawful relations in general terms, but they do not represent the lawful relations inherent to the ideological forms themselves.
In such cases, they cease to be laws governing real ideological phenomena—indeed, they become meaningless.
Laws must naturally remain capable of abstraction at all times, yet this abstraction must retain a vestment that encapsulates their formal essence.
The laws under discussion here differ somewhat in character from those like Boyle-Charles’s law or Gay-Lussac’s law.
When the discovery and extraction of laws coincide with their application—it is precisely such laws that exhibit this quality.
The science of thought must engage with ideological laws understood in this particular sense.

It is an undeniable fact that, when viewed historically, ideological laws are dialectical in nature.
However, by formalizing them as the three major laws of dialectics, one certainly cannot derive the laws governing actual ideological phenomena.
Such formulated laws only become an issue within a more abstract and more general background of this phenomenon.
These too are naturally nothing other than ideological laws.
But they are not laws at the frontline of actual ideological issues; rather, they belong to the background of what is called thought or thinking within ideology—matters that are merely general relations.

Now, in fact, we must recall that criticism (critique) possesses precisely this kind of unique systematic lawfulness.
True criticism must simultaneously extract laws from a given cultural phenomenon and, in that very moment, apply these laws to the same cultural phenomenon.
What is called impressionistic criticism is generally considered to be a method of critique that concerns itself with neither the extraction nor the application of laws.
But there cannot be a single criticism that does not begin with impressions.
It is exactly the same as saying there is not a single study that does not begin with phenomena.
If criticism that begins with rich and sensitive impressions constitutes impressionistic criticism, then it must be said that there can be no criticism which is not impressionistic.
The reason impressionistic criticism is deemed inadequate—namely, that it is seen as lacking objectivity and scientific rigor—stems from the fact that the impressions themselves are considered untrustworthy: they may be arbitrary, subjectively distorted, or grounded in low-grade perspectives. Furthermore, this inadequacy arises because there exists no safeguard to expose these flaws, prompt awareness of them, or correct them.

In truth, the impressions of a person lacking sufficient experience and reflection cannot avoid being nonsensical.
To have matters conclusively judged based on such impressions would be unbearable.
However, it is an undeniable fact that the impressions of a cultivated perceiver—one who has accumulated and refined their education through experience and reflection—are truthful.
Now, as for how one can objectively distinguish between nonsensical impressions and truthful ones—while those with discernment can easily grasp this—to concretely and persuasively substantiate it, merely recounting impressions will not suffice.
Only after theoretically analyzing and emotionally developing an impression does one come to understand whether the original impression is excellent or not, correct or not.
Inferior impressions at this point become unmistakably inferior, and superior impressions at this point prove their superiority.

But when it reached this stage, this was no longer "impressionistic criticism". So-called impressionistic criticism stagnated at the stage of impressions, lacking the emotional argumentation necessary for theoretical reflection that would analyze and develop those very impressions beyond their initial state. That was precisely why so-called impressionistic criticism had come to be deemed unacceptable. Such criticism—which knew neither how to trace original impressions through theoretical reflection nor emotional argumentation—expended no effort to extract laws from cultural phenomena serving as impression-objects, let alone made preparations to apply such laws to these phenomena.

What stands opposed to impressionistic criticism is considered to be philological criticism.
When literary historians and scholars of literature engage with cultural phenomena (artworks and the like), they are expected to conduct this type of criticism.
Critics of this type invariably possess fixed principles—a canon or code—when it comes to art.
They seek to determine the value of artworks based solely on whether they conform to these laws.
However, such laws may not always represent measures of artistic value; at times, they are reduced to forms of social law and applied.
Friche’s sociology of art seeks to discover precisely these kinds of “laws” within art.
This—setting aside other aspects—constitutes Taine-esque “criticism,” undeniably sharing affinities with Buckle and Renan in his earlier period, thereby belonging to the lineage of so-called “scientific” criticism (though not truly scientific).
But when we arrive at art sociology, it ceases to be criticism and can only constitute a new form of historical description for art.
Criticism ultimately either delivers rigorous value judgments or presupposes them.
The impartial third-party attitude in criticism never amounts to more than a provisional pose.

As for artistic laws that are merely reducible to social laws, let us set them aside for now.
Whether constituting social laws or not—insofar as they function as laws serving as measures of artistic value, however minimally—philological criticism takes the application of laws as its critical task. Moreover, while approaching its work with certain preexisting laws, these laws had been extracted from philological materials: namely, ancient artworks.
In other words, philological criticism first extracted certain laws as authoritative standards from classical artworks through philological methods, then sought to apply them to contemporary artistic works.
Therefore, such philological criticism was largely grounded in classicism and emerged during classicism's zenith.
Aristotle’s *Poetics* (*Poietika*) concerning Sophocles and Boileau’s poetic theories regarding Racine stand as typical examples of this.

The opposition to such philological criticism lies in impressionistic criticism at its most refined.
What displeases impressionistic criticism is the academic foolishness of that philological criticism—the way it approaches works that ceaselessly emerge in diverse forms under various guises through top-down application of artistic laws established in advance through textual scholarship.
Anatole France, through his excessive antipathy toward philological criticism, came to harbor antipathy even toward the scientific spirit itself within literature.

So-called impressionistic criticism was a form of criticism that disregarded both extracting and applying laws, while so-called philological criticism sought to arbitrarily dissect works—living entities—by applying preestablished philological formulas.
What should characterize criticism was that law extraction and application occurred simultaneously.
Philological criticism attempted to directly apply formulas it had previously extracted.
Works subjected to this process were fated to have these formulas imposed regardless of their inherent forms.
This constituted a misapplication of formulas in such cases.
One might call this formulaism if they wished.
Though it would be problematic indeed if this were mistaken for scientific criticism.

――The form of criticism that posits the simultaneous extraction and application of laws may rather be found within impressionistic criticism―when interpreted with goodwill.
It would seem that Sainte-Beuve likely does not fall into such a category.

But the fundamental dissatisfaction with impressionistic criticism lay in its lack of objectivity and scientificity—or rather, its absence of any guarantee of objectivity and scientificity.
It fell short of fulfilling criticism's demand for scientificity.
Now then, did philological criticism—which stood opposed to this—guarantee criticism's scientificity? This too was not necessarily the case.
It could make philological judgments.
As long as it possessed philological consistency and communal validity, one could not say it was unscientific criticism—at least provisionally.
But the ultimate value of being scientific would lie in being able to understand and explain the very thing in the most realistic manner.
If one brought classical preexisting standards into this equation, one could not simply presume success.

For criticism's scientificity, philological knowledge was certainly necessary.
But for this purpose too, historical understanding—not confined to mere historical description—was first required; however, historical understanding could no longer be considered merely philological knowledge.
For one could not substitute philology and hermeneutics for historical science.
In other words, it was that relationship—self-evident to some yet, precisely because being too self-evident to others, remained poorly grasped by them—which dictated that social and social-scientific understanding must form the foundation of criticism's scientificity.
The impression as comprehensive synthesis—of socio-historical understanding, philological knowledge, and art's unique spiritually realistic sensibility standing in genuine internal relation to these elements (which naturally manifests itself)—constituted in fact the honest core of artistic impressions. Only such an impression became worthy of pursuit, and through its pursuit could criticism—scientific criticism—assume its proper form.
This was something neither so-called impressionistic criticism nor so-called philological criticism could properly achieve.
That law extraction and application occurred simultaneously became possible only within scientific criticism of this nature—this very quality formed the hallmark of "scientificity" in criticism.

The above has merely taken artistic criticism as an example.

Criticism is, needless to say, not something unique to art or literature.
It constitutes a single function exercised across all cultural domains.
The higher criticism's vantage point becomes, the more comprehensive it naturally grows—and the better suited to its purpose.
For criticism fundamentally consists in ascending to the greatest heights to survey phenomena.
Hence criticism itself invariably maintains a cultural perspective.
This stems from how all social phenomena—and indirectly natural phenomena too—become elevated to cultural issues when subjected to critical scrutiny.
Herein lies criticism's distinctive function: this signifies that criticism qua criticism apprehends all phenomena as cultural phenomena—and consequently, as ideological phenomena.
Criticism investigates the laws entwined with ideological manifestations throughout every cultural domain, extracting and applying them.
Thus we must conclude that criticism's function constitutes one task within the science of thought.
Criticism is the labor proper to the science of thought.

I shall refrain from definitively stating at this juncture that the work of the science of thought culminates in criticism.
But at the very least, a science of thought incapable of this work would possess almost no social necessity or actual existence.
At the same time, criticism that has not been elevated to the science of thought is by no means satisfactory criticism.
In Japan, just as the significance of what is called the science of thought has not been properly recognized, there is also no general understanding regarding the significance of criticism.
The lack of freedom of speech and individual creativity aligned with democracy manifests as a paucity of critical spirit—a lack that itself obstructs the recognition of authority granted to "thought" and "culture."
Thus, those who seriously understand the necessity for thought and culture to be scientific remain exceedingly few even among intellectuals.

The scientific nature of criticism—which could be described as a form of demonstrative realism in criticism—must also come to constitute a defining feature of scientificity for thought itself.
To elucidate the reality, laws of form, and value criteria inherent to thought as thought itself in terms of each manifestation of thought constitutes scientific inquiry into thought.
To subject thought to scientific scrutiny, however, must inevitably first involve examining the very reality of thought itself.
This constitutes an examination of the scientific nature of thought.
And it is herein that the scientific nature of the science of thought itself first comes to exist.
This is the problem of scientific credibility between thought and philosophy.

The fact that scientific credibility is low may generally be a characteristic of bourgeois philosophy.

Bourgeois society could even be said to conduct its productive life irrespective of the philosophy it itself had produced.
At that point, philosophy had to either be a kind of intellectual proclivity or else approach being an ornamental luxury.
Be that as it may, philosophy in Europe was rooted in traditions of cultural life, and some of American philosophy possessed actuality for capitalist prosperity.
However, Japanese bourgeois social philosophy had hitherto remarkably possessed the character of a plaything.
It was characterized by having been utterly powerless to penetrate into the very foundations of bourgeois culture.
That such philosophy could not demand social credibility was only natural, and that it had possessed no social reality whatsoever was only to be expected.
It was only natural that the credibility of philosophy had not been a serious issue until now.

In other words, under such circumstances, ideology as such was, to tell the truth, essentially inconsequential.
It was after the emergence of the so-called "ideological problem"—around the end of World War I—that thought in Japan came to be recognized as having acquired social significance and become a real social force.
Until then, ideology had seemingly been a superfluous entity divorced from social life.
Even after the emergence of ideological issues, the general public’s interest in the possession of thought remained woefully insufficient.
In short, that one could live perfectly well without concerning oneself with ideology or such matters—this constituted the practical common sense of Japan's intelligent gentlemen.
This common sense could not, of course, remain stagnant there forever.
Ideological unrest was increasingly becoming a terror among intellectuals of late.
It was not mere anxiety; the awareness of one’s lack of confidence that arose upon recognizing the reality of thought had been intensifying.
Yet that common sense persisted as an already established condition.
In Japan, no matter what spiritual movement might be nationally enforced, the fact that it struggled to become a genuinely ideological movement in its original sense stemmed from this reality.
For a nation to achieve any clear and definite ideological movement at all, both the authorities and the people had to possess considerable education regarding what constituted thought.

For the common sense of the Japanese people up to now, ideology was, so to speak, not a reality.
This testified to the absence of a science of thought and the phenomenality of philosophy in Japan—the inability to believe in the reality of thought also meant being unable to believe in the reality of culture.
The term "culture" was frequently used.
"The term 'Japanese culture' had even become a fashionable buzzword, but if one were to ask what exactly this 'culture' was, there were likely no advocates of Japanese culture capable of providing a satisfactory answer—or so I observed."
For where there could be no faith in ideology, there could be no trust in culture either.
Culture, when understood separately from ideology, would be nothing more than a national facade or an administrative tool.
To call such things by the name of culture was something that should never be permitted.

The dignity of culture was rooted in trust in ideology.
Those who failed to grasp this principle would ultimately become adversaries of culture.
Trust in ideology derived exclusively from its scientific credibility.
Any ideological faith ungrounded in such scientific rigor amounted to little more than a hollow imitation of humanistic posturing.
The scientific credibility of thought constituted nothing less than the bedrock of the scientific spirit suffusing cultural life.
The science of thought itself drew sustenance solely from this scientific spirit while simultaneously dissecting, explicating, critiquing, and directing how such spirit manifested or grew obscured through diverse ideological configurations.

For the science of thought—which examines practical laws of ideology to anatomize, explain, critique, and guide contemporary ideological reality—the immediate necessity for its very establishment and existence lies in none other than the scientific spirit.
Only the scientific spirit can critique ideology.
No—only the scientific spirit comprehends the reality of what we call thought and the actual force of what we call culture. Needless to say, thought and culture are inherently autonomous.
What one receives from others ultimately amounts to mere fashion rather than ideology; even if adorned with culture's coquetry, it cannot possess culture's dignity.
In this sense, thought and culture must inevitably remain spontaneous products of the people.
Precisely therefore, the defense of culture has been elevated as part of twentieth-century international practical agendas.
The issue, insofar as it concerns culture, cannot be reduced to mere cultural refinement.
This point merits particular attention given current circumstances, being directly tied to advocating the scientific spirit.
Today we must not overlook that the scientific spirit has become the very spirit for "cultural defense."
Why would mere "cultural refinement" require the scientific spirit?
Wouldn't something like a "literary spirit" (?) prove far more useful?

The role that philosophy as the science of thought occupies in the modern era—that which gives expression to this role is the scientific spirit.