Liberal Arts Lectures at the University of Tokyo Kūki ha ikani kachika sareru bekika (Valuing Air - For the Philosophy of “Irreplaceability”)

This book contains lectures from an omnibus lecture series titled “Towards the World 30 Years from Now: How Should We Value Air?” at the College of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo (UTokyo), in the spring semester of 2023. The lecture was organized by East Asian Academy for New Liberal Arts (EAA), a research and education organization established under an industry-academia collaboration agreement between UTokyo and Daikin Industries, Ltd., with the aim of building “new liberal arts from the East Asian perspective.” This industry-academia collaboration advocates “valuing air” as a vision for the future society. But what exactly does “valuing air” mean? This provocative proposition inevitably raises such a question.
 
Today, industries are calling for innovation. Creating and providing new value are pressing issues for many companies seeking innovation. “Valuing air” can be considered to mean discovering new value in air and positioning it as a new growth point for industry. However, faced with the serious polycrisis brought about by climate change, we also know that “valuing air” in this sense is nothing more than a further step in human economic activity, which continues to have a profound impact on the Earth’s biosphere. In this double bind, where we must not only avoid the devastating catastrophe brought about by the crisis but also enjoy comfortable air to live in a civilizational life, can we make steady progress towards resolving these issues? Or rather, what exactly are the issues that need to be resolved?
 
If you think about it, this double bind can be said to define the difference in values ​​between a company that defines value as profit and a university that believes value lies in academic research itself. Therefore, the question, “how should we value air?” is directly linked to the question of how companies and universities with different values should cooperate for the common good of the human society. Therefore, the issue that needs to be resolved under the proposition of “valuing air” is ultimately nothing other than the creation of an art that discovers new value by complementing synergies emerging from each other, rather than by denying conflicting values.
 
In this book, experts from various fields respond to this question from their own perspectives. Each lecture is based on different values, which at times clash with those of another lecture. Although the book does not provide a clear answer to the question, it should be clear to the readers that universities, particularly liberal arts in universities, play a pivotal role as places where conflicting values ​​can coexist and where it is possible to inspire people in different ways. This is surely where the hope of universities lies; and the hope of universities leads to the hope of society.
 

(Written by ISHII Tsuyoshi, Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / 2025)