This paper explores the significance of the ‘will of the universe’ for Kazuo Inamori’s philosophy. ‘Hearts in Harmony with the Will of the Universe’ is a well-known Inamori idea that appears at the very beginning of the Kyocera Philosophy. Although some people are uncomfortable with the idea, considering it superstitious or dubious, it is the basis that underpins the entire Inamori Philosophy.

The Inamori Philosophy is characterised, I would argue, by its emphasis on morality over economics. This should not be confused with a disregard for economics (profit); Inamori was extremely concerned with making a profit. But he never used morality as a means of making money. He attached more importance to morality than to economics.

In business, if a manager tries to implement the principle of ‘morality over economics’, he/she will inevitably face the worry that emphasising morality would prevent him/her from making sufficient profit. To eliminate this worry and uphold the principle, one must have deep confidence that economic success follows moral motives and actions, in other words, that if you think and do good things, you will get good results. It was the will of the universe that gave Inamori this confidence. If one acts in accordance with morality, one is in harmony with the will of the universe, and therefore, aided by the workings of the universe to evolve and develop everything, one’s actions will bring good results.

How did Inamori come across this idea, why did he become convinced of it, and how did he communicate his conviction to Kyocera employees and to the public in general? This paper examines these questions. Inamori came to this conviction around the mid-1980s, when he made several important decisions, including the establishment of Daini-Denden, and also experienced some unexpected predicaments. The significance of the fact that it was during this period that Inamori became convinced of the will of the universe is also discussed in this paper. It will also be argued that it is not a strange thing to discuss the question in philosophy of how human beings should live in relation to the workings of the universe.

This paper aims to locate the establishment of the Inamori Foundation by Kazuo Inamori in 1984 within the context where the relations between the cultural policy, economic, and academic worlds in Kyoto converged in the early 1980s. The Inamori Foundation developed from “Kyoto Kaigi,” a private organization that Inamori, Toru Yano, and Kishio Sakakida formed to foster academic communication between the economic and the academic worlds in Kyoto. Starting from the relations among them and tracing the relational threads, the paper attempts to clarify the historic and social conditions in Kyoto that the autobiography written by Inamori and other literature did not show sufficiently. Following the establishment of Kyoto Kaigi, Inamori, Yano, and Sakakida made “Hiei Kaigi,” an organization similar to Kyoto Kaigi with Ryuichi Kotani and Tadao Umesao.

The establishment of the Inamori Foundation paralleled two related big projects, “Kansai Bunka Gakujutsu Kenkyu Toshi” (Kansai Science City) and “Kento 1200-nen Kinen Jigyo” (Kyoto 1200th Celebration). The former was a project to build a city for science, technology, and culture in the middle of Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara. The latter was a project to celebrate the 1200th birth of Kyoto by developing several projects and events. They were committed by the Kyoto prefecture, the Kyoto city, “Kyoto Keizai Douyukai” (The Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives), “Kyoto Shoko Kaigisho” (The Kyoto Chamber of Commerce and Industry), and scholars leading cultural policy in Kyoto since the 1970s.

The Inamori Foundation emerged from the network of the people driving the projects “Kansai Bunka Gakujutsu Kenkyu Toshi” and “Kento 1200-nen Kinen Jigyo.”