Olivier Urbain

Who is Daisaku Ikeda? At one level, he is the leader of a religious movement--Soka Gakkai--which began in Japan, where it still has its headquarters, but which now claims 12 million adherents around the world. At another level, he is a globetrotting figure whose formal conversations with diverse writers, thinkers and diplomats--including Arnold Toynbee, Joseph Rotblat and Mikhail Gorbachev--have garnered him an international profile, as well as academic recognition. Perhaps above all else, Daisaku Ikeda is viewed as a campaigner for peace. And it is Ikeda's specific contribution to peacebuilding, notably through the central emphasis he has placed on the significance of dialogue, that this book explores: the first to do so in a concerted way. Olivier Urbain shows that while Soka Gakkai (the "value society") may stem from the medieval principles of Nichiren Buddhism, under Ikeda's leadership it has taken these classic wisdoms and transformed them. Now essentially classless and secularised, as well as adaptable and sensitive to modern challenges like resource shortages and climate change, this, argues the author, is a pragmatic approach to peace which has proved both popular and eminently transportable.

This volume makes the case for global visioning: the collective process of looking at a larger picture and building common ground for the future. The contributors agree that only by such a process will people be able to address mounting problems like global warming, war, terrorism, and poverty, which threaten the Earth's population. This latest volume in the Peace & Policy series addresses three main themes. "On Spirituality and Ethics" advocates an international culture of nonviolence. "International and Transnational Relations" makes a case for global fellowship. "On Education and Culture" argues that educating children is the first step in reforming the world. The contributors seek solutions to the question of how people can start seeing issues from a global point of view, rather than from narrow national perspectives. In keeping with the global nature and scope of the world's problems, the contributions come from very diverse countries, including Japan, Morocco, South Africa, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the United States. This work will inspire participation in this much-needed exercise of collective global problem solving.

Daisaku Ikeda is the Buddhist leader of one of the most visible religious movements today, the Soka Gakkai International. In this thesis, the main research question concerns the peace philosophy of Ikeda and its contribution to peace theory. Daisaku Ikeda and the SGI have been the subject of several scholarly studies in the fields of religious history and sociology. The focus of this research is on the significance of Ikeda's contributions in the field of peace studies, where his work has not yet been the subject of systematic investigation. It is argued that the originality of Ikeda's philosophy of peace resides in two main elements. First, the starting point is consistently human life and its potential for peace and happiness, not the omnipresence of conflict. Second, he offers a coherent system linking the individual, dialogical and global levels, which can be represented as a triangle made of three conceptual frameworks, that of Humanistic Psychology, Communicative Rationality and Cosmopolitan Democracy. It is also argued that while being inspired by Ikeda's Buddhist spirituality and his loyalty to his mentor Josei Toda, this secular humanist approach to peace offers an effective and original way for all people to participate in the construction of a better world, regardless of their religious or ideological affiliation, social background or cultural practices