Kunimasa SatoLecturer

■Researcher basic information

Organization

  • College of Education Training Course for School Teachers Program for Subject Education　／　Major in Social Studies Education
  • Graduate School of Education（Course for Professional degree ） Division of Professional Teacher Education Professional Course in School Subjects
  • Faculty of Education Domain of Language, Social,& Natural Sciences

Research Areas

  • Humanities & social sciences, Education - general, Ethics of Education
  • Humanities & social sciences, Philosophy and ethics, Epistemology, Ethics

Research Keyword

  • Epistemic Injustice
  • 信念の道徳性
  • Transformative experience
  • Epistemology of Ignorance
  • Non-Ideal Educational Epistemology

Degree

  • 2015年03月　博士（文学）（日本大学）
  • 2007年03月　修士（教育学）（東京大学）

Educational Background

  • Apr. 2014 - Mar. 2015, Nihon University, 文学研究科, 哲学専攻
  • Apr. 2014 - Mar. 2015, 日本大学大学院, 文学研究科博士後期課程, 哲学専攻 修了
  • Apr. 2008 - Mar. 2011, Nihon University, 文学研究科, 哲学専攻
  • Apr. 2007 - Mar. 2008, The University of Tokyo, 教育学研究科, 総合教育科学専攻
  • Apr. 2005 - Mar. 2007, The University of Tokyo, 教育学研究科, 総合教育科学専攻
  • Apr. 2000 - Mar. 2005, The University of Tokyo, 教育学部

Career

  • Oct. 2024 - Present, The University of Tokyo, College of Arts and Sciences, Part-time lecturer
  • Jul. 2023 - Present, TRiSTAR Pre-Fellowship
  • Apr. 2021 - Present, Keiai University, Faculty of International Studies, 非常勤講師
  • Apr. 2021 - Present, Meiji University, School of Arts and Letters, 兼任講師
  • Apr. 2018 - Present, Sophia University, Faculty of Human Sciences, 非常勤講師
  • Apr. 2021 - Mar. 2024, 茨城大学, 教育学研究科、教育学部, 助教
  • Feb. 2022 - Jul. 2022, CUNY Graduate Center, Philosophy, Visiting Scholar
  • Apr. 2016 - Mar. 2021, Keiai U, International Relations, Associate Professor
  • Jul. 2013 - Jun. 2014, University of Miami, Philosophy, Visiting Scholar

Member History

  • Dec. 2019 - Present, 国際交流委員, 教育哲学会

External link

Message from Researchers

  • (Message from Researchers)

    (1) I am primarily working on transformative injustices that prevent one from automously making new selves and on the nature of transformative selfhood.,,(2) I am constructing a non-ideal epistemic aim of education that focuses on redressing an educational varient of epistemic injustices.

■Research activity information

Paper

  • Institutional testimonial injustice: A thickly described case study of Japan’s mass media companies
    Kunimasa Sato, Last
    Episteme, Apr. 2025, [Reviewed]
  • Review: Philosophy of Education in Dialogue between East and West: Japanese Insights and Perspectives
    Kunimasa Sato, Japanese Educational Research Association
    Educational Studies in Japan, May 2024, [Invited]
  • Teachers’ Testimonial Betrayal of Children : Toward the Teachers’ Virtue for Resisting Epistemic Injustice
    MATSUMOTO Hiroki; SATO Kunimasa
    茨城大学教育学部紀要(人文・社会科学・芸術), Jan. 2024
  • Testimonial Justice and the Voluntarism Problem: The Virtue of Just Acceptance
    Kunimasa Sato; Ben Kotzee, Lead
    Journal of Philosophy of Education., Dec. 2023, [Reviewed]
  • Testimonial Injustice, Epistemic Bad Luck, and Transformative Responsibility
    Kunimasa Sato, Corresponding
    社会と倫理, Dec. 2023, [Invited]
  • From the Virtue of Testimonial Justice to a Transformative Virtue
    Kunimasa Sato, The Philosophy of Science Society, Japan
    Kagaku tetsugaku, 15 Nov. 2023
  • A non-ideal aim of redressing epistemic injustices in corruptive educational environments: Toward restorative epistemic justice
    Kunimasa Sato, Corresponding, The most important and general aim of the education system is to edify students, epistemically speaking. However, it is a sad reality that the education system is sometimes a corruptive epistemic environment in which a variety of epistemic injustices occur. In this article, I first argue that the special character of educational institutions means that children sometimes suffer testimonial, participant, and hermeneutical betrayals as specifically educational variants of epistemic injustices. Next, I ask what our response should be to such epistemic injustices. I draw a distinction between an ‘ideal’ and a ‘non-ideal’ solution to these problems. I hold that consideration of (a) environmental bad luck and (b) children’s lack of control over their epistemic environments should lead us to favor a non-ideal solution to the problem of epistemic injustice in education. I propose that the non-ideal approach to epistemic injustice in education should focus not on the reduction or neutralization of our implicit prejudices, as has commonly been proposed in the literature, but on providing for the epistemic needs of those who suffer epistemic injustices in corruptive environments in two ways. First, we should aim to care for children who are afflicted by injustice by having their epistemic needs legitimately recognized by caring educators. Second, we should aim systemically to offer an educational curriculum for any child and teacher to develop critical imagination to care about the epistemic needs of those who are vulnerable to epistemic injustices. I conclude by explaining the acts of epistemic caring and critical imagining as parts of restorative epistemic justice that affords vulnerable children due recognition of their epistemic needs beyond merely knowing the mechanisms of implicit prejudices and the epistemic injustices associated with them., SAGE Publications
    Theory and Research in Education, 19 Oct. 2023, [Reviewed]
  • 監訳者解説
    佐藤邦政, Lead
    認識的不正義：権力は知ることの倫理にどのようにかかわるのか, Feb. 2023
  • 学習者の「信仰の火をつける」ことについての一解釈：教えることと知的価値の変容　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    佐藤邦政, Lead, 中央教育研究所
    自律した学習者を育てる言語教育の探究, 30 Jan. 2023, [Invited]
  • Good Learning and Epistemic Transformation
    Kunimasa Sato, Abstract
    This study explores a liberatory epistemic virtue that is suitable for good learning as a form of liberating socially situated epistemic agents toward ideal virtuousness. First, I demonstrate that the weak neutralization of epistemically bad stereotypes is an end of good learning. Second, I argue that weak neutralization represents a liberatory epistemic virtue, the value of which derives from liberating us as socially situated learners from epistemic blindness to epistemic freedom. Third, I explicate two distinct forms of epistemic transformation: constitutive and causal epistemic transformation. I argue that compared with the ideal conception of epistemic virtue, constitutive epistemic transformation that involves good learning has a transcendent value in light of agents constantly renewing their default epistemic status toward ideal virtuousness., Cambridge University Press (CUP)
    Episteme, 10 Jun. 2021, [Reviewed]
  • On the Value of Linguistic Communication
    Kunimasa Sato, Lead
    Inquiry into Education on Language: Fostering Autonomy, Oct. 2020, [Invited]
  • English Education and Questioning　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Kunimasa Sato
    自律した学習者を育てる言語教育の探求, May 2019, [Invited]
  • Hermeneutical Injustice and Vicious Agency: Examining Miranda Fricker’s Idea of Hermeneutical Injustice
    Kunimasa Sato
    倫理学年報, Apr. 2019, [Reviewed]
  • 差異の認識と認識的変容 : 障害者との共生に関する認識論的アプローチ
    佐藤 邦政, Lead, ミュー
    フィルカル : philosophy & culture : 分析哲学と文化をつなぐ, 31 Mar. 2019
  • Virtuous Learners at University　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Kunimasa Sato
    The Virtue of Learning: Keiai University, Faculty of International Relations, Mar. 2019
  • Review of Education's Epistemology　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Kunimasa Sato
    Metaphilosophy, Jan. 2019, [Reviewed]
  • 言葉の固定観念を解きほぐす英語教育：大村はまの〈人を育てる〉言語教育思想からの一考察　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    佐藤邦政
    自律した学習者を育てる英語教育の探求（９）, May 2018, [Invited]
  • An Interpersonal-Epistemic Account of Intellectual Autonomy: Questioning, Responsibility, and Vulnerability
    Kunimasa Sato
    Tetsugaku: International Journal of the Philosophical Association of Japan, Apr. 2018, [Reviewed]
  • 共生の経験に対する認識の在り方についての一試論　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    佐藤邦政
    敬愛大学総合地域研究, Apr. 2017, [Reviewed]
  • Unlearning nursery and education　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Kunimasa Sato
    敬愛大学国際研究, Feb. 2017
  • A SENSITIVITY TO GOOD QUESTIONS: A VIRTUE-BASED APPROACH TO QUESTIONING
    Kunimasa Sato, This paper argues for a virtue-based account of questioning. First, it delineates the unreflective yet rational aspects of questioning and demonstrates that "good" questions - that is, properly focused, pertinent questions - can be obtained not only in reflective but also in unreflective processes. This paper then argues that the unreflective yet rational mode of inquirers in questioning can be characterized by an automatic response to good questions and cues for relevant doubt and further questions, the active and standby modes of responsiveness, and emotional stress on cues for relevant doubt and further questions. Finally, this article outlines how these features can fully be explicated in terms of exercising a sensitivity to good questions as a virtue., CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
    EPISTEME-A JOURNAL OF INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY, Sep. 2016, [Reviewed]
  • Surprise as a cognitive emotion　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Kunimasa Sato
    Contemporary and Applied Philosophy, Sep. 2015, [Reviewed]
  • The Epistemology of Teaching and Learning　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Kunimasa Sato
    Nihon University, Mar. 2015, [Reviewed]
  • Motivating Children's Critical Thinking: Teaching Through Exemplars
    Kunimasa Sato, This study focuses on fostering the motivation to think critically through teaching with exemplars. First, I argue that teachers and parents can be seen as exemplars who exhibit thought processes and attitudes relevant to critical thinking, as can fictional characters in media such as novels and films. Second, I demonstrate that, through learning from exemplars, children may begin to develop their own way of critical thinking. Third, I conclude that admiration for exemplars may motivate children to think critically, even small children who have not yet developed a sensitivity toward evidence and reasons., UNIV WINDSOR, DEPT PHILOSOPHY
    INFORMAL LOGIC, 2015, [Reviewed]
  • Reconsideration of the Paradox of Inquiry
    Kunimasa Sato, It is well known that the Meno presents the argument called "the paradox of inquiry." This paper has two purposes. First, I analyze the paradox of inquiry and reformulate the argument as the "renewed paradox of inquiry." Second, I clarify that the problem of inquiry posed by this paradox concerns the necessary conditions for a novice learner to learn to begin and advance an inquiry on her own. This problem of inquiry will be important to address even today in considering scientific and educational practice related to inquiry., SPRINGER
    SCIENCE & EDUCATION, May 2014, [Reviewed]
  • The Future Analytic Philosophy of Education and the Interdisciplinarity
    SATO Kunimasa, In this paper, I clarify characteristics of analytic philosophy in contemporary philosophy of education and show the possibility of interdisciplinarity between the analytic philosophy of education and other philosophical branches, such as epistemology, and between analytic philosophy and other disciplines relevant to education. I first clarify that analytic philosophy in contemporary philosophy can largely be characterized as a form of philosophy that offers clear and sufficiently rational argumentation, and I argue that this is a precondition for addressing philosophical problems related to education, at least in terms of analytic philosophy in the above sense. I go on to show that philosophical studies on education are compatible with research on past educational thought. I finally observe that there are many philosophical problems specific to education, most of which may well be related to other philosophical branches, such as epistemology, and, in order to address these problems, a collaboration between analytic philosophy and other disciplines relevant to education should be encouraged., Japanese Association for the Contemporary and Applied Philosophy (JACAP)
    Contemporary and Applied Philosophy, Jan. 2013, [Reviewed]
  • What is Meaning or Aspect of Material Object? : Locating Wittgenstein's Consideration on 'as x' in the Context of General Analysis (1)
    佐藤 邦政, 日本大学哲学研究室
    精神科学, 2012
  • The Outlook for a Contemporary Analytic Philosophy of Education
    佐藤 邦政, 日本大学文理学部人文科学研究所
    研究紀要, 2012, [Reviewed]
  • Analysis on the Concept of Uniqueness
    佐藤 邦政, 日本大学文理学部人文科学研究所
    研究紀要, 2012, [Reviewed]
  • ものの存在と事象内容との区別について--ハイデガーによる存在論の問題設定
    佐藤 邦政, 日本大学哲学研究室
    精神科学, 2010
  • The Internal Relation between Wittgenstein's 'Aspekt' (Aspect) Perception and 'Einstellung' (Attitude) : From the Perspective of the Comparison between Kohler's Gestalt and Wittgenstein's Aspect
    SATO Kunimasa, It has already been pointed out that the concept of Wittgenstein's Aspect perception is closely relevant to that of Kohler's Gestalt. However, it has not been elucidated specifically what results Wittgenstein follows from the comprehension and the criticism on the Kohler's concept of Gestalt, and whether Wittgenstein's claim is convincing or not. The purpose of this thesis is to reveal the points mentioned above, and then make it clear that Aspect perception is internally related to an attitude toward objects., The University of Tokyo
    Bulletin of the Graduate School of Education, the University of Tokyo, 10 Mar. 2008

MISC

Books and other publications

Lectures, oral presentations, etc.

Courses

  • Apr. 2025 - Present
    茨城大学大学院
  • Philosophy & Ethics (PEAK)　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Oct. 2024 - Present
    The University of Tokyo
  • SPECIAL TOPICS IN EDUCATION 5: INTRODUCTION TO EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE, TRANSFORMATION, AND EDUCATION　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Oct. 2023 - Present
    Sophia University
  • The Special Lecture in Ethics　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2023 - Present
    Meiji U
  • Apr. 2022 - Present
    茨城大学大学院
  • 社会科科目研究（社会と人間）　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2022 - Present
    Ibaraki U, Graduate Center
  • Apr. 2022 - Present
    茨城大学大学院
  • Special Seminar in Philosophy of Education　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2022 - Present
    Sophia U, Graduate Center
  • Ethics Special Seminar　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2022 - Present
    Ibaraki U
  • Apr. 2021 - Present
    茨城大学
  • Humanities　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2021 - Present
    Ibaraki University
  • Introduction to University Lecture　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2021 - Present
    Ibaraki University
  • Epistemic Injustice　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2021 - Present
    Meiji University
  • Seminar: Philosophy　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2021 - Present
    Ibaraki University
  • Introduction to Philosophy　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2021 - Present
    Ibaraki University
  • Introduction to Ethics　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2021 - Present
    Ibaraki University
  • Seminar: Ethics　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Apr. 2021 - Present
    Ibaraki University
  • Special Lcture on Philosophy of Education II　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Oct. 2021 - Mar. 2024
    Sophia University
  • 敬愛大学
  • College English　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Keiai University
  • 敬愛大学
  • 埼玉医科大学
  • 上智大学大学院
  • 上智大学
  • 東洋大学
  • 敬愛大学
  • 敬愛大学
  • Intercultural Communication　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Keiai University
  • Philosophy　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Keiai University

Affiliated academic society

  • 2019 - Present, 教育哲学会
  • 2012 - Present, 日本倫理学会
  • 2012 - Present, 日本哲学会
  • 2012 - Present, 応用哲学会
  • 2012 - Present, ALPE(Asian Link of Philosophy of Education)

Research Themes

Social Contribution Activities

  • NPO法人 さざなみ 副代表
    planner
    May 2020 - Present
  • 哲学カフェ「アートで問いづくり」
    advisor
    茨城大学, 「まちのイバダイ2025」水戸芸術館現代美術センター「高校生ウィーク」におけるイベント企画, 27 Mar. 2025
  • Epistemic injustice in philosophy for children　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    commentator
    Meiji Institute of Philosophies (MIPs), 19 Jul. 2024 - 19 Jul. 2024
  • 絵本で問いづくりワークショップ
    lecturer
    習志野の海を守る会（NPO法人 さざなみ）, 07 May 2023 - 07 May 2023
  • 自分とは？　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    lecturer
    茨城大学附属中学校, 21 Dec. 2022 - 21 Dec. 2022
  • 大学教員ってなに？　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    lecturer
    常陸大宮市, 14 Dec. 2022 - 14 Dec. 2022
  • 常陸大宮市明峰中学校2年生 「キャリア教育授業」
    lecturer
    常陸大宮市, 14 Dec. 2022 - 14 Dec. 2022
  • 不正義の是正　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    lecturer
    06 Oct. 2022 - 06 Oct. 2022
  • 功利主義　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    lecturer
    水戸桜ノ牧高校, 09 Nov. 2021 - 09 Nov. 2021
  • 生涯学習講座「学びの哲学」　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    lecturer
    敬愛大学生涯学習センター, Aug. 2020 - Aug. 2020

Media Coverage

Academic Contribution Activities

  • Guest Editor: Asian Journal of Philosophy Topical Collection on Duncan Pritchard　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Planning etc
    Asian Journal of Philosophy, 05 Nov. 2021 - 31 Mar. 2023
  • 『フィルカル』Vol.6, No.2&3 「徳と教育」企画編者　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Planning etc
    31 Aug. 2021 - 31 Dec. 2021
  • 変容と信頼：証言的不正義の是正のための相互関係的アプローチ　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
    Panel chair etc
    精神医学の哲学研究会（Zoomオンライン）, 27 Dec. 2020 - 27 Dec. 2020