Miki Kiyoshi’s Philosophy of Institutions

Miki’s philosophy of institutions is guided by three fundamental goals: to clarify the concept of institutions, to develop an inquiry into their origins, and to trace the logic of their development. Besides clarifying the meaning of institutions in Miki’s writings, this paper shows that Miki’s philosophy of institutions can be understood in four frameworks, those of philosophy of culture, philosophy of technology, philosophical anthropology, and philosophical meontology. My claim is not that we need to choose within which of these framework we are to interpret Miki’s reflections, but rather that we need to recognize how these frameworks complement each other. On the one hand, as we transition from one framework to another, we progressively enrich the meaning of Miki’s philosophy of institutions. On the other hand, these frameworks are not of equal significance. The meontological framework, whose development relies upon Miki’s creative fusion of Kant’s and Heidegger’s reflections on productive imagination coupled with Nishida Kitaro’s philosophy of nothingness, provides access to the most fundamental level of Miki’s philosophy of imagination.