Nishida Kitaro Research Articles

An Evolution of Nishida Kitaro's Thought on the “Contradictory Correspondence” from Shinran's Expression “For me only”

An Evolution of Nishida Kitaro's Thought on the “Contradictory Correspondence” from Shinran's Expression “For me only”

SUBJECT AND SUBSTRATUM : ON JAPANESE IMPERIAL NATIONALISM

This paper addresses the theoretical and philosophical questions concerning how an individual identified him/herself as a member of an ethnic, racial, or national community in the context of Japanese Imperialist discourse during the 1930's. The central focus is Tanabe Hajime. Together with his mentor Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe established the so-called Kyoto School of Philosophy in the 1920's. With his background in the philosophy of sciences and mathematics, and modern European metaphysics, Tanabe created a philosophical argument for the multi-ethnic nation-state, and proposed the universalistic concept of Japanese national identity which positively evaluates and integrates individuals of different ethnic backgrounds into one. He constructed the Logic of Species (Shu no Ronri) according to which a member of the Japanese Empire could identify with Japan precisely because she or he can participate in the Japanese State which represents the whole, inclusive of all the ethnic groups. Relying upon the Hegelian concept of negativity, he explained the two different levels of belonging: particularistic belonging to the specific identity (shu) such as ethnicity, and universalistic belonging to the generic identity (rui). And he further demonstrated that ethnic identity is far from fixed, and is brought into the subject's self-awareness only insofar as the subject negates it and is free from it. In other words, the subject becomes aware of her/his ethnic origin only when s/he negates it thereby participating in a higher order of social formation, the State, under which ethnic multiplicity is subsumed. Thus the species of ethnicity is constituted only insofar as it is negatively mediated by the genus, that is, the State. Tanabe saw the essential form of human freedom in this negative relation of the subject to his ethnicity, and understood a subject's belonging to a nation as a dialectic and negative process of mediation between the species and the genus. While postwar Japan was built upon the premises of ethnic nationalism, Japanese imperial nationalism of the pre-war period was afraid of ethnic nationalisms which could challenge the Empire's rhetoric of multiethnicity and pluralism. Tanabe's Logic of Species was a response to such needs of Japanese Imperialism and it represented a philosophical attempt to undermine ethnic nationalism. Not surprisingly, it served as a metaphysical foundation for the idea of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere.

Reflections on Time, Space and Ethics in the Philosophy of Nishida Kitaro and Watsuji Tetsuro

Etude de la relation dialectique entre spatialite et temporalite dans les philosophies morales de Nishida Kitaro et Watsuji Tetsuro, representants de l'ecole de Kyoto. Mesurant l'influence de la phenomenologie existentielle du premier sur la conception de la conscience du second, l'A. montre que Watsuji depasse l'heritage de Heidegger en developpant les deux aspects, individuel et social, de l'existence humaine.

Philosophy and Inflation. Miki Kiyoshi in Weimar Germany, 1922-1924

T NHE custom of sending promising young scholars abroad to study began even before the Meiji Restoration with the opening of Japanese ports to the West. The main mission of these students was to report back home about things Western: scientific knowledge, engineering technology, jurisprudence, or learning in the humanities. In the twentieth century the government sent higher school teachers, university lecturers, and assistant professors abroad for further training. Others went overseas to study on their own resources, or with the support of a private institution or well-to-do patron. In their letters to friends and colleagues back home these young scholars abroad reported about the courses their universities offered, conferences they attended, the intellectual trends they encountered, impressions of daily life, and other observations of the West, sometimes in great detail. Published from time to time in scholarly journals as correspondence from abroad, such reports helped Japanese intellectuals to keep informed of contemporaneous events and trends in the West. The ties they developed also served to bridge the worlds of Western and Japanese scholarship on a more personal level. For instance, it was through contacts established by colleagues and former students studying abroad that Nishida Kitaro N[IB&*M (1870-1945), who never left Japan himself, established personal links with the German philosophers Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Heinrich Rickert (1863-1936). Japanese scholars abroad also

Nishida and Hearn

O_XW N Saturday afternoon, 19 March 1910, three friends, Nishida Kitaro A [B+RI, Suzuki Daisetsu Xtkt1I, and Yamamoto Ryokichi LUtR+, appeared at the house in Nishi-Okubo, Tokyo, where Lafcadio Hearn (also known as Koizumi Yakumo 'j,7%J-), 1850-1904, used to live. The three men were guided by Tanabe Ryuji 1 a former student of Hearn's at the Imperial University of Tokyo from 1896 to 1899. Mrs Hearn, or Koizumi Setsu 'E]'7%, cordially greeted her guests and ushered them inside. Nishida was greatly impressed by what he saw that day: Hearn's study with his belongings neatly kept as they were during his lifetime. Tanabe was a devoted student of Hearn's and maintained contact with him even after the author's dismissal from the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1903. Tanabe had taught at the Fourth High School in Kanazawa from 1889 to 1907, and it was during this time that he came to be closely acquainted with Nishida, his colleague. After moving to Tokyo to become professor of English as the Women's Division of Gakushain, Tanabe remained a friend of the Koizumi family, mainly because he was living nearby and acted from time to time as an interpreter for Mrs Koizumi, who did not speak much English. By March 1910, both Nishida and Suzuki were living in Tokyo; Nishida moved there from Kanazawa in August 1909, and Suzuki, following his return to Japan in April 1909 after a decade of living abroad, also took up residence there, both of them to teach at Gakushain. Yamamoto was then the Dean of Students at the Imperial University of Kyoto.' He might have come to Tokyo to attend a memorial service marking the forty-ninth day after the death of their mutual friend Fujioka Sakutaro )Pf'1tPF, although no mention of this is found in Nishida's diary. Possibly Nishida avoided recording the event because, as he stated years later, any recollection of Fujioka, who had died abruptly on 3 February at the prime of his life, caused him too much pain.

The Political Thought of Nishida Kitaro

T NHE political commitment of Nishida Kitaro #H9P,B 1870-1945, Japan's foremost contemporary philosopher, has given rise to continuous controversy for close to forty years. The problem is similar to that of the support given by Martin Heidegger and Mircea Eliade to political views that would be identified with the extreme right in any liberal democracy. In the case of Nishida, the difficulties are no less, for condemnation of the extreme right and what is expected of intellectuals are about the same in both Japan and the West. From the moment a work is published, it no longer belongs solely to its author, but is shared by the entire society to which it is addressed. It is this second aspect that we propose to study here: not the relation of Nishida's thought and public commitment to his philosophy and personal development, but how these were situated within the political tendencies of his time. In other words, to which political leaning did Nishida Kitaro belong?'

Comparative Dialectics: Nishida Kitaro's Logic of Place and Western Dialectical Thought

Comparative Dialectics: Nishida Kitaro's Logic of Place and Western Dialectical Thought

The nothingness beyond God: an introduction to the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro

One of the 20th century''s most profound inte rpreters of Western philosphy, Nishida Kitaro, lived his ent ire life in Japan. This book will prove an invaluable introd uction to the work of a true world philosopher. '

Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness. By Nishida Kitaro. Translated by Valdo H. Viglielmo with Takeuchi Toshinori and Joseph S. O'Leary. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987, xxvi, 198 pp. $34.50 (cloth); $10.95 (paper). - Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview. By Nishi Kitaro. Translated by David A. Dilworth. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987. 140 pp. $18.00.

Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness. By Nishida Kitaro. Translated by Valdo H. Viglielmo with Takeuchi Toshinori and Joseph S. O'Leary. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987, xxvi, 198 pp. $18.00. - Volume 48 Issue 1

Japan and the world: essays on Japanese history and politics in honour of Ishida Takeshi

Takeshi Ishida Frontispiece - Notes on the Contributors - Notes on Names and Citations - Preface - Introduction G.L.Bernstein & H.Fukui - PART 1 WAYS OF SEEING THE WORLD - World Without Walls: Panoramic Vision in Late Tokugawa Japan H.D.Smith II - Anglo-American Influences on Nishida Kitaro A.Hirai - PART_2 DEVELOPMENT, AUTHORITY AND CONFORMITY - A Non-traditional View of Japanese Modernisation E.F.Vogel - Women in the Silk Reeling Industry in Nineteenth-Century Japan G.L.Bernstein - Tenko and Thought Control P.G.Steinhoff - The 1960s Student Movement in Retrospect E.S.Kraus - PART_3 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND PRACTICES - Electoral Laws and the Japanese Party System H.Fukui - The Institutionalisation of Policy Consultation in Japan E.Harari - Japanese Politics: Good or Bad? J.A.A.Stockwin - The Impact of Domestic Politics on Japan's Foreign Policy F.Quei_Quo - PART_4 JAPAN'S IMPACT ON THE WORLD - Japanese Policy-Making on Issues of North-South Relations S.N.Fukai - The Japanese Management System in Europe S.J.Park - Japan as a Model for Economic Development, The Example of Singapore T.A.Stanley - Conclusion G.L.Bernstein & H.Fukui - Index

The Kyoto School: Modern Buddhist Philosophy and the Search for a Transcultural Theology

AbstractThe author argues that the Kyoto school of modern Japanese Buddhist philosophy can contribute much to Christian reflection on the problem of a transcultural theology. Starting with the work of Nishida Kitaro in the early part of this century, the Kyoto school has attempted to express Mahayana Buddhist thought in Western philosophical categories. Articulating his own “logic” based on the Mahayana notions of emptiness and nothingness, Nishida went on to advance a fully developed philosophy of religion which offers a unique interpretation of Christian theism while presenting the Mahayana tradition in a critical and systematic language accessible to a Western readership. Nishida's colleagues in the School include Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keiji, Takeuchi Yoshinori, and Abe Masao among others. A review of the literature available in Western languages is offered, as well as a discussion of some of the salient theological problems raised by this Mahayana critique of Christian theism and its contribution to the problem of a transcultural theological standpoint.

An Explanation of Beauty. Nishida Kitaro's Bi no Setsumei

N i 'ISHIDA KITARO 99FRR , 1870-1945, widely recognized as Japan's foremost modern philosopher, wrote Bi no Setsumei !SoA, 'An Explanation of Beauty', in 1900, eleven years before publishing his first major work, Zen no Kenkyu QoOfJE, 'A Study of Good'.' As one of his first original essays, Bi no Setsumei presents an initial formulation of certain ideas and themes characteristic of what has since become known as Nishida tetsugaku FHV*, or 'Nishida philosophy'. Bi no Setsumei holds additional interest for scholars insofar as it fills a gap in our knowledge of Nishida's early intellectual development. As Valdo H. Viglielmo notes, although Nishida regularly kept a personal diary as well as correspondence with close friends, rather mysteriously there are no journal or letters for the entire year of 1900.2 His journal breaks off abruptly on 3 October 1899 and is not resumed until 1 January 1901. Furthermore, aside from Bi no Setsumei, Nishida produced no other philosophical works during this period. Hence the significance of Bi no Setsumei is further increased in that it is the only surviving document from this hiatus in the otherwise carefully recorded life and thought of Nishida's early years. At the philosophical level of discourse, Bi no Setsumei represents an original essay on the nature of beauty that synthesizes principles derived from both Western and Japanese aesthetics. Nishida begins the essay with an effort to formulate an adequate definition of 'beauty', or bi. First he directs his critical remarks against the identification of the 'sense of beauty' with a merely hedonic kind of 'pleasure' (kairaku 9+), arguing that there are many

The Kyoto School and the School of Consequent Eschatology

DerBuddha-Chrstusals der Herr des Wahren Selbst (The Buddha-Christ as the Lord of the True Self)' is Fritz Buri's latest contribution to Buddhist-Christian dialog. With characteristic insight and industry the author introduces his readers to the of religion of the Kyoto School and its understanding of Christianity. Nishida Kitaro functions as the founder of the Kyoto School, and three generations of the Kyoto School are discussed beginning with the founder, Nishida, his friend Suzuki Daisetz, as well as Tanabe Hajime and Hisamatsu Shin'ichi as members of the first generation, followed by Nishitani Keiji and Takeuchi Yoshinori, and ending with Ueda Shizuteru and Abe Masao. Nishida's philosophy and Schweitzer's understanding of Christianity show, according to Buri, a certain parallel development. Both were influenced by European philosophy at the end of the 19th and the beginning 20th century. Both emancipated themselves, at least partially, from that influence and engaged more recent philosophical and theological movements: existence-philosophy in the case of Nishida, dialectic theology in the case of Schweitzer. Finally, in both schools the successors continued and deepened the engagement with existence-philosophy and dialectic theology begun by their teachers. One of the problems for any Buddhist-Christian dialog is the state of information the participants have about each other. Buri is aware that the type of Christianity addressed by members of the Kyoto School has often been the mission variety, even though some members of the Kyoto School were/are, at least to some extent, familiar with the understanding of Christianity as represented by the School of Consequent Eschatology. Buri's book is a valiant attempt to

Nishida Kitaro, Art and Morality. (Translated by David D. Dilworth and Valdo H. Viglielmo). Honolulu, The University Press of Hawaii, 1973, pp. 216, $ 8.00

Nishida Kitaro, Art and Morality. (Translated by David D. Dilworth and Valdo H. Viglielmo). Honolulu, The University Press of Hawaii, 1973, pp. 216, $ 8.00

Book Reviews : Nishida Kitaro, Art and Morality. (Translated by David D. Dilworth and Valdo H. Viglielmo). Honolulu, The University Press of Hawaii, 1973, pp. 216, $ 8.00

Book Reviews : Nishida Kitaro, Art and Morality. (Translated by David D. Dilworth and Valdo H. Viglielmo). Honolulu, The University Press of Hawaii, 1973, pp. 216, $ 8.00

David A. Dilworth (tr.): Nishida Kitaro's fundamental problems of philosophy: the world of action and the dialectical world. (Monumenta Nipponica Monograph Series.) xiii, 258 pp. Tokyo: Sophia University, [1970]. $10.75.

David A. Dilworth (tr.): Nishida Kitaro's fundamental problems of philosophy: the world of action and the dialectical world. (Monumenta Nipponica Monograph Series.) xiii, 258 pp. Tokyo: Sophia University, [1970]. $10.75. - Volume 34 Issue 1

The Initial Formations of `Pure Experience' in Nishida Kitaro and William James

The Initial Formations of `Pure Experience' in Nishida Kitaro and William James

Absolute Nothingness. Preliminary Considerations on a Central Notion in the Philosophy of Nishida Kitaro and the Kyoto School

Absolute Nothingness. Preliminary Considerations on a Central Notion in the Philosophy of Nishida Kitaro and the Kyoto School

Life is Tragic. The Diary of Nishida Kitaro

ON JUNE 7, i965 it was twenty years since death of man who has been called the most demanding thinker Japan ever produced.1 On this occasion Nishida's publisher is issuing a new edition of his complete works.2 Though parts of his work have been in meantime translated into English, German and Spanish,3 his true significance in world perspective will probably not be fixed till a comprehensive, globe-circling history of modern ideas can be written. What is usually known of his work, even in Japan, is Zen no kenkyu (A Study of Good), but one first step on a long journey in quest of philosophical analysis. The following article, written before a comprehensive estimate of Nishida's work even in context of modern Japanese intellectual history alone, had been made in a Western