Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka movement for global citizenship

This article examines contributions to the ethic and practice of cosmopolitanism by Japanese educators Makiguchi Tsunesaburo, Toda Josei and, most significantly, Ikeda Daisaku. Collectively, they are “the philosophers of the Soka movement” that Rizvi and Choo refer to in their call for a special issue on “Asian cosmopolitanism.” The article advances understanding about the Soka movement for cosmopolitanism in two ways. First, it traces the genealogy and thought informing the Soka movement and then examines the substance of each progenitor’s contributions to cosmopolitanism from historical and linguistic perspectives. The author pays particular attention to the inclusion of courage and faith in Ikeda’s framework and also addresses important translational insights invisible to those not fluent in Japanese. Second, the author analyzes today’s Soka movement for cosmopolitanism in education and in the Soka Gakkai International. This section draws on Sato Masaru’s views of the Soka movement and presents concrete examples of how Ikeda’s perspective of global citizenship is understood and actualized curricularly in the U.S. context.