Tosaka Jun’s Political Epistemology: Towards a Theory of Education

Abstract This article explores the intersection between Tosaka Jun’s political epistemology and his views on education, highlighting the implicit pedagogical dimensions of his thought. While Tosaka is recognized primarily for his Marxist critique of the Kyoto School and Japanese militarism, his theoretical concerns extended to a wide range of disciplines, including physics, mass media, and, as this study argues, education. Despite the relative lack of explicit engagement with pedagogical theory in his writings, Tosaka’s epistemology—rooted in historical materialism—entails a critical perspective on knowledge production that necessarily extends to educational structures. By analyzing The Logic of Ideology (1930) and other key texts, this study demonstrates how Tosaka conceives of epistemology as inherently political, rejecting the notion of “pure” or “formalistic” knowledge. The article achieves this by reconstructing some of Tosaka’s key concepts: problem, as the historically determined contradictions that shape epistemological inquiry (opposed to the notion of “position”); character, as the relational and situated nature of knowledge; mass as the subject of education; and system of interest, as the materialistic “mood” that guides education. By analyzing these interrelated concepts, the study elucidates how Tosaka’s epistemology functions as a critique of dominant ideological formations, particularly in relation to education and knowledge production. Ultimately, it argues that Tosaka’s political epistemology provides the conceptual framework for critically examining the emancipatory power of education.