Biography

Seiji TAKEDA

Born in 1947 in Osaka, Japan as a second-generation Korean Japanese. 

Graduated from Waseda University’s Political Science and Economics department.

After teaching at the International Faculty of Meiji-Gakuin University, he is currently Professor of Philosophy at Waseda University’s School of International Liberal Studies (SILS).  One of the most acclaimed philosophers and literary critics in Japan. 

Beginning his career with a unique essay on Korean Japanese literary authors in 1983, he has vigorously devoted himself to philosophical researches, writings and teachings focusing on human nature from existential perspectives, while also working on literary and philosophical critiques. 

With his ethnic background of being Korean Japanese, he has consistently and coherently pursued some principle superseding the logic of ascription to particular ethnicities or communities.  One of his major contributions to philosophical world is the “theory of desire” which he has originally come up with as a most fundamental approach to philosophical thinking based on the thoughts of Plato, Nietzsche and above all of Husserl’s phenomenology.

He has written numerous books on Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, modern Western philosophy, linguistic philosophy and even on pop music, some of which will be translated into English in the near future.