Kojin Karatani:Other And Otherness

Kojin Karatani(1941-) is the most celebrated theorist of Japanese Postmodern Criticism since1970s. Considering either Karatani’s critical approaches affected by the French communism and Japanese structuralism or the distinctive communistic criticism/campaign he engaged on in and out of the academy, to study Karatani’s work in both ways of postmodern criticism and New left has been a basic standpoint of Japanese foreign and domestic research. While the study up till now seem to neglect that, throughout each period and each subject area of Karatani’s work, there exists an unchanged problem consciousness, which is to fight for subjective/freedom through the definition of concept "other" and "otherness"The concept "other" in Karatani’s work is quite intricate. In a word, before80s, under the influence of expressions from phenomenology-existentialism, it referred to the one inside the community which is coessential with subject and gives subject identity as a mirror image. After80s, affected more by structuralism-post structuralism, it refers to the one outside the community, lack of the common linguistic rule with subject, un-viewable and imperceptible. The "otherness" points to the same direction, though there’re a lot of flexible metaphors, the concept radically has the nature which is fractional, neglected, irreplaceable, unable to be subsumed into metaphysics system. Although conducted in many ways, Karatani’s criticism including ideas of counter-capitalist/nation-state and associationist movement ultimately developed and completed during the study of other/otherness. Karatani redefined the meaning of "other" continually, in order to make the concept more equipped with theoretical and practical militancy. To some extent, in response to the post-Descartes philosophy, Karatani’s work responded to the European-American intelligentsia on their criticism towards "other" and "subject", and it influenced the domestic and foreign study meanwhile.It should be mentioned that, if we neglect these potential cues in Karatani’s work, we will inevitably deem his diversified interdisciplinary criticism to be with an abruption. The study will start with Karatani’s concept of "other" and "otherness", focusing on his literary criticism and the critique work upon das Capital, systemizing his criticism works of each age. Through unscrambling his handling of the "other" problem in intellectual history, the essay tries to integrate in various ways of his foundational problem consciousness.