Sur les origines de la nouvelle gauche et des mouvements de contre-culture. Nakai Masakazu et la « pensée contemporaine »

Abstract

The thought of philosopher Nakai Masakazu (1900-1952) has exerted a quiet but enduring influence on Japanese culture for more than half a century. Nakai began his career studying Kant, discovering in the process Cassirer. But there is also a Marxist dimension to Nakai’s writings. This paper focuses on his links to thinkers from the Frankfurt School, who were presented in Sekai bunka (World Culture) as early as 1935. It attempts to understand how and in what sense Nakai’s thought can be said – as has been the case since the late 1950s – to provide a model of contemporaneity.

Keywords

• Nakai Masakazu
• Tsurumi Shunsuke
• Frankfurt School
• New Left
• Critical theory
• Marx