Ethics Can Only Be Hermeneutic and Not Phenomenological: A Critical Assessment of Watsuji Tetsurō’s Thesis

Abstract

Watsuji Tetsurō’s ethics as a study of human relationships or of persons as between-ness (aidagara) is often conceived as a critical, but fruitful, development in phenomenological studies. However, in the last chapter of Ethics as a Study of Human Beings, Watsuji evidently claims that hermeneutic and phenomenological methods are incompatible and that phenomenology cannot make any contributions to ethics. This chapter aims at presenting Watsuji’s ethics as the product of an opponent of phenomenology rather than a good colleague in good standing in phenomenological circles by considering what precisely his criticism of phenomenology is and to what extent this criticism plays a significant role in the framework of his hermeneutic ethics. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section reconstructs Watsuji’s criticism of the basic concepts in phenomenology: intentionality and person. The second section illustrates Watsuji’s observation that the phenomenological account of intentionality and person inevitably fails to treat the communal aspects of human beings: further, it explains how this leads to Watsuji’s rejection of phenomenological methods for ethical thinking. The final section assesses his criticism of what he terms the Cartesian individualism of phenomenology and defends the methodological meaning of the Husserlian version of Cartesianism for ethical considerations.