Some Problems of Takada's Social Theory
1972 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 47-64,109
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1972 Volume 23 Issue 2 Pages 47-64,109
Takada's social theory was constructed under the social background of class struggles developed into a new stage by the formulation of monopolistic capitalism in Japan. The social aspects of the development of his social theory will be evaluated from three points.
First, his theory is constructed as a way to fill a gap left unfilled by traditionally dominant social theories, the organic theories of states, between the capitalistic reality within the limits of absolutistic Tenno system and to follow as thoroughly as possible “the thought and history of the national polity” under the Tenno system. Secondly, it is built as a process to strengthen the separation from and the antagonism against a scientific social theory of Marxism. Thirdly, it is thought to be a theory which “takes before others” the reality accompanied with the reactionary monopolistic capitalism and “legs” behind the reality stepping into the fascistic system.
Takada's highly abstract social theory can be characterized, in one word, as a Japanese variation of relativistic social theories which are composed on the epistemological basis of agnosticism. Materialistic-dialectic contents, which are indispensable for scientific social theories, such as history, economy and labor as their basis, are intentinally omitted in his theory construction from his common-sence judgement on the social reality in Japan. He composes a highly abstract “law of constant quantity of associations” with various sophisticated concepts abstracted one-sidedly, such as the will, the association, the social relation, the group and the society in its totality. His law, itself, may be regarded as a metaphorical expression of “the intensity of associations” which is presupposed for the stable superordination by the ruling class in the class society. Here we must emphasize that Takada's social theory constructed before W.W. II was nothing more than a kind of unscientific Japanese “formal sociology” whose methodological individualism had not been established to its full extent.
