What are the principles for overcoming conflicts of belief?
While modern postmodern relativism respects diverse positions and cultural differences, it tends to avoid points of contention by declaring that "both are correct" when value conflicts arise. It is as if one were to continue walking while ignoring the existence of a map, which could be said to make it easier to lose sight of the signposts indicating where one should head.
In contrast, the phenomenological approach presented in "Instruction! The Essence of Philosophy" by Seiji Takeda and Ittoku Tomano offers clues for overcoming this confusion. In phenomenology, we pause to re-read the "maps of meaning" we have been using and attempt to discover the essential structures that have repeatedly appeared within them. In other words, we carefully observe phenomena and clarify the commonalities (i.e., universality) behind them through "eidetic reduction" (honsitsu kanshu).
Furthermore, a feature of Takeda's phenomenology is the idea that behind everyone's value judgments lie common desires, such as the desire to be understood, not to be ignored, and to be recognized. Through such an "inquiry into desire," it becomes possible to bring to the surface the common human foundation behind differing opinions and emotions.
For example, even the behavior of a person considered to have a "short-tempered personality," when viewed phenomenologically, can be understood by grasping the essence of "anger" and exploring what kind of frustration of desire it arises from, thereby revealing the meaning behind that behavior. And with that as a clue, a dialogue leading to a common understanding can be opened.
In this way, phenomenology can be said to be an endeavor not to discard the map, but to read it in greater detail and find a common path. "Instruction! The Essence of Philosophy" conveys to us such possibilities of philosophy.
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