In the rising tide of political emotionalism, it has become all the more difficult for people to think critically and to express themselves politically in meaningful ways. In the meantime, with the dominance of attitudes of exclusion regarding immigrants and with religious tensions, the voices of those who live on the border, those who live with fluid identities, are suppressed.

This is a political crisis derived from psychological fear of disequilibrium, from the threat to stability, and from existential anxieties of inclusion.
It is also an educational crisis in that it has brought about a dissipation of thinking and judgment, loss of voice, and a poverty of the imagination with regard to others.
Hence, the creation of equitable space is an urgent task for democracy and education – a space in which co-existence with those who are understood to have caused the disequilibrium is made possible.

In response to this task, this project, on the initiative of Japan, will elucidate the global significance of American pragmatist philosophy through international collaboration with three European countries (from their non-American perspectives).
As an academic background, the possibilities of American philosophy will be explored in dialogue with European post-structuralism and the Kyoto School of philosophy.

Through interdisciplinary dialogue centering on philosophy and education (and with political studies, literature, aesthetics, religions studies, sociology, feminism and the Kyoto School of philosophy), we shall reconsider concepts of equity based upon harmony and unity from the perspective of disequilibrium;
We shall explore the practical implications of an alternative political education (“challenging inclusion”) committed to realizing pluralistic democracy.