was a Japanese philosopher who promoted the concept of

World Government World government is the concept of a single political authority governing all of Earth and humanity. It is conceived in a variety of forms, from tyrannical to democratic, which reflects its wide array of proponents and detractors. There has ...

for purposes of peace.

Career

Tanikawa studied in the Department of Philosophy at the

University of Kyoto , or , is a national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan. The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen graduate schools, and t ...

, where he was one of the students of Kitaro Nishida, the leader of the Kyoto School. Tanikawa introduced philosophical ideas in Japan through his translations of

Georg Simmel Georg Simmel (; ; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach ...

and

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...

. His major philosophical influence was

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

. He questioned how world peace could be realized in the face of

nuclear proliferation Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries, particularly those not recognized as List of states with nuclear weapons, nuclear-weapon states by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonl ...

at the beginning of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. He was the father of the poet

Shuntarō Tanikawa was a Japanese poet and translator. He was considered to be one of the most widely read and highly regarded Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad. The English translation of his poetry volume ''Floating the River in Melancholy'', translated ...

References

1895 births 1989 deaths 20th-century Japanese translators Kyoto University alumni 20th-century Japanese philosophers {{Japan-translator-stub