Miki Kiyoshi

Miki Kiyoshi (1897–1945) worked at the intersection of Marxism and Kyoto School philosophy. His later work explored the place of imagination in the historical dialectic. Miki held that the power of imagination was apparent in myths, institutions, and technologies, each of which represented the mediation of subjective will and objective reason. This subjective will could be either individual or collective—in his discussion of the institution, Miki posited that a collective subject he referred to as “creative society” drove the creation of new historical forms. Miki described creative society moving toward a new form of egalitarian fellowship that would transcend the existing state; Iwasaki Minoru points out, however, that Miki’s logic was used by the state to support its imperialist projects in Asia. The chapter closes by suggesting the possibility of rehabilitating Miki’s logic of imagination by refocusing on his treatment of affect and desire.