was a prominent

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

. He published his ''Doctrine of the Three'' ''Stages of Scientific Development'' in 1936. This was the first Japanese contribution to the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

. He was jailed in 1938 following making contributions to the Marxist journal ''Sekai Bunka'' (World Culture). However, following the intervention of

Yoshio Nishina was a Japanese physicist who was called "the founding father of modern physics research in Japan". He led the efforts of Japan to develop an atomic bomb during World War II. Early life and career Nishina was born in Satoshō, Okayama. He rece ...

, he was released into the custody of his professor,

Hideki Yukawa was a Japanese theoretical physicist and the first Japanese Nobel laureate for his prediction of the pi meson, or pion. Biography He was born as Hideki Ogawa in Tokyo and grew up in Kyoto with two older brothers, two older sisters, and two yo ...

''Doctrine of the Three Stages of Scientific Development''

Taketani applied

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

's theory of

dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...

s, with the triad

Phenomenon A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfrie ...

, Substance, and

Essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...

. Having worked with Yukawa as he developed his discovery of the

meson In particle physics, a meson ( or ) is a type of hadronic subatomic particle composed of an equal number of quarks and antiquarks, usually one of each, bound together by the strong interaction. Because mesons are composed of quark subparticles, ...

, he used this as an example of a new substance. With his fellow peer and collaborator

Shoichi Sakata was a Japanese physicist and Marxist who was internationally known for theoretical work on the subatomic particles.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Sakata Shōichi''" in ; n.b., Louis-Frédéric is pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussbaum, '' ...

, Taketani developed a Marxist philosophy of science known as the three-stages theory. According to the theory, science starts from a Phenomenal Stage where its role is to describe our experience. Next, science then asks what sort of substance may make up the objects of experience, and also what is the structure they may have, which he calls the Substantial Stage. However, he then argues the question of an essence of both substance and phenomenon emerges as the Essential Stage, which syntheses of the previous two stages. The process is then reiterated with a similar cycle repeated at a higher level.

References

Is Philosophy of Science Alive in the East? A Report from Japan
by Soshichi Uchii, accessed 12 January 2008 1911 births 2000 deaths Japanese Marxists Japanese physicists Philosophers of science Kyoto University alumni Riken personnel {{physicist-stub