ABSTRACT
Ienaga Saburo was one of a very few leading Japanese scholars of the 1960s
who clearly recognized the dual aspects of the war experience of ordinary
Japanese-that of having been both assailant and victim-and who
unequivocally argued the need for the Japanese themselves, through their
own judiciary, to pursue the issue of war crimes and address the matter of
war responsibility.1 We should not assume here, however, that his view came
naturally, with Japan’s defeat in World War II. Instead, we need to understand it historically, or examine it genealogically. As Foucault argues, con-
sciousness-including, I would say, the feeling of guilt-is a form of knowledge
and has its own history.
