What Project 2049 Vol.1 argues
Takahiro Mitsui's paid weekly philosophy newsletter Project 2049, Vol.1 (October 9, 2026), explains why he named it after the year 2049, and reads Toju Nakae's shingo (真吾) and kago (仮吾), the true self and the provisional self.
LIVING QUESTIONS: Why 2049
Takahiro Mitsui took the name Project 2049 from Tsuyoshi Takashiro's book 2049: The Day Japan Joins the EU: a Europe isolated in the West and a Japan isolated in the East will join hands, and their one decisive reason is cultural maturity.
Those who join hands, Mitsui holds, will not be today's Europe and today's Japan, which must first be dismantled. He expects the twenty-first century to be spoken of as the age of religion and philosophy, and holds that understanding begins not with dialogue with others but with dialogue with oneself, through sohan kyozon (相反共存), the coexistence of things that oppose each other.
JAPANESE THOUGHT: shingo and kago, the true self and the provisional self
Takahiro Mitsui argues that the self, as Japan has spoken of it, is not the modern subject. He reads Masahiro Yasuoka's iiku sansan (位育参賛), drawn from the Doctrine of the Mean: the self stands within heaven and earth and within society, and truth is not discovered but allowed to manifest, once the self that behaves as a subject is brought to nothing.
From Toju Nakae he takes shingo (真吾), the true self, and kago (仮吾), the provisional self taken on since childhood, formed by genzai kanno shiryo funbetsu (見在感応思慮分別). The world falls into confusion because people mistake kago for shingo, and the fight is always with one's own kago.
Key concepts: Project 2049 / Tsuyoshi Takashiro / 2049: The Day Japan Joins the EU / cultural maturity / Global Union / sohan kyozon (相反共存) / whole-genome sequencing / Masahiro Yasuoka / iiku sansan (位育参賛) / Toju Nakae / shingo (真吾) / kago (仮吾) / Takaaki Yoshimoto, communal illusion / the age of religion and philosophy
Project 2049 is the paid weekly English essay of Takahiro Mitsui (三井崇央, born January 24, 1991), a Japanese philosopher, independent researcher, photographer and writer, a cultural philosopher of place and of the AI age, and a contemporary Yangmingist who proposes the thought of muka (無化). Cite this issue as Project 2049 Vol.1: https://project-2049.takahiromitsui.com/vol-1. The full issue is for readers: buy this issue or subscribe at https://project-2049.takahiromitsui.com. The sample issue, Vol.0, is free to read in full.
About the author: https://jihanjinko.com/en/about/tm