Tanabe Hajime Research Articles

The Kyoto School: An Introduction by Robert E. Carter

Reviewed by: The Kyoto School: An Introduction by Robert E. Carter Bret W. Davis Review of Robert E. Carter, The Kyoto School: An Introduction (with a Foreword by Thomas P. Kasulis) Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013, 236 + xxii pages Over the past two decades, Robert Carter has played an important role in the reception of Japanese philosophy among Anglophone scholars and students. His role has been that of a bridge builder between the specialized research of scholars on the one hand and newcomers interested in getting a first foothold in the field on the other. Trained as a philosopher, Carter later spent some time in Japan, learning enough of the language to work with a Japanese counterpart to translate Watsuji’s magnum opus into accurate and fluid English prose. Yet the niche that Carter has so fruitfully filled is not so much that of a philological expert who delves into and excavates a narrow range of Japanese texts and scholarship. Rather, Carter works mainly with available translations and secondary literature spanning a wide range of traditional and modern Japanese thought, which for his readers he interpretively filters down into a digestible and engaging set of descriptions, explanations, theses, and arguments. This has resulted in a set of monographs that are very well suited to students and nonspecialist scholars, as well as to general readers who want to know whether and [End Page 301] why they should be interested in Japanese philosophy in the first place. Personally, the book of Carter’s I find most useful in the college classroom is the wide-ranging Encounter with Enlightenment: A Study of Japanese Ethics (SUNY, 2001). But his latest book, the one here under review, also admirably succeeds in achieving its aim. That aim is expressly not to provide a comprehensive survey of the major Kyoto School philosophies, the development and detail of which, he cautions, would each more than fill an entire volume. Rather, Carter intends his book to serve as an enticing entranceway into the field. As he acknowledges in his Conclusion, “A difficulty with any introductory text is that it must leave out a great deal if it is to truly serve as an introduction” (153). Letting other available works (especially James Heisig’s Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School [Hawaii University Press, 2001] and also my own “The Kyoto School” [in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]) orient those interested to the fuller array of the thought of and scholarship on the Kyoto School, Carter clearly states that “the aim of the present study is to introduce each thinker and to tie that account to a major, readily accessible, text.” The four thinkers he chooses to focus on are the three leading figures of the School: Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945), Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962), and Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990), plus a noteworthy philosopher more tangentially related to the School: Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960). For each of these four philosophers, Carter focuses his attention on one key book that is readily available in English translation: Nishida’s An Inquiry into the Good, Tanabe’s Philosophy as Metanoetics, Nishitani’s Religion and Nothingness, and Watsuji Tetsurō’s Rinrigaku: Ethics in Japan. Moreover, Carter makes no attempt to systematically or comprehensively analyze these books. Rather, he seeks to go straight to the heart of why he feels these works are interesting and important. Carter is right to warn us that his focus on one key work per philosopher does not allow us to see the development of their ideas. No matter how important the selected books may be, they are but snapshots in the overall trajectory of the authors’ paths of thought. For example, Tanabe is presented as a predominantly Shin (Pure Land) Buddhist thinker, who relies on faith and who is critical of the limits of reason, because the focus is on his 1946 Philosophy as Metanoetics. Yet this text represents a kind of religious turn in Tanabe’s path of thought. Before that time, as Carter notes, Tanabe had emphasized the power of dialectical reason and had been critical of Nishida for relying on what he considered to be transrational mystical experience. Moreover...

Tanabe Hajime’s Elusive Pursuit of Art and Aesthetics

In philosophical circles at home and abroad, Tanabe’s work has attracted far less attention than that of others in the Kyoto School. The rarefied and abstract cast of his prose often impedes contact with the underlying, existential questions that drove him. This is nowhere more apparent than in the way he treats art and the mind of the artist in his mature work. After a review of Tanabe’s comments on aesthetics in his Collected Works , the premises in his general philosophy on which they rely and the questions they neglect, this article suggests that that we cannot stop at accusing him of failing to draw direct, essential connections between artistic sensibility and the guiding principles of his logic, but must attend to the dimly felt presence of an aesthetic at work beneath the surface of Tanabe’s very mode of thought.

Three God Theories and Nothingness: The Case of Paul Ricoeur, Tanabe Hajime and Yang Myung-Su

Three God Theories and Nothingness: The Case of Paul Ricoeur, Tanabe Hajime and Yang Myung-Su

The Kyoto School: An Introduction by Robert E. Carter (review)

Reviewed by: The Kyoto School: An Introduction by Robert E. Carter Richard F. Calichman (bio) The Kyoto School: An Introduction. By Robert E. Carter. State University of New York Press, Albany, 2013. xxii, 236 pages. $75.00, cloth; $24.95, paper. In his foreword to this volume, Thomas P. Kasulis describes The Kyoto School: An Introduction as a nyūmon, an introduction that can be understood [End Page 500] in its literal meaning as an “entry gate.” “Every great Japanese institution has a nyūmon,” Kasulis writes, citing the example of entrances to Zen Buddhist temples, Shintō shrines, and educational sites such as the University of Tokyo (pp. x–xi). To this we can add the more general point that gates do not simply demarcate the space of an entity that has already appeared or presented itself as such; on the contrary, gates help determine the entity in its presentation, invariably transforming it in the course of its appearing and reappearing in the world. By its very nature, in other words, the introduction alters what it introduces. Although introductions are generally regarded as a medium through which an object can be more or less transparently represented, the fact is that this medium subjectively intervenes in the establishment of its object. It is important to keep this point in mind, as there is nothing inherently “Japanese” about Kyoto School philosophy. Both Kasulis and the book’s author, Robert Carter, wish to determine the Kyoto School in this manner, as indeed did many of the Kyoto School thinkers themselves, and this desire is itself of interest given the fact that philosophical discourse typically aims to transcend the relativism of cultural particularity and arrive at something like universal truth. In studies of “Western” philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Henri Bergson, for example, one rarely sees attempts to so intimately link the thought of these philosophers to the specific national cultures of Germany and France, respectively. In the discourse on the Kyoto School, however, one encounters a powerful desire to determine this philosophy as properly Japanese, a product of Eastern culture in its distinction from the West. Rather than question or challenge this desire, Carter unfortunately replicates it. Much could be said about the culturalism that governs such East-West discourse, and how Kyoto School philosophy, which is otherwise sharply critical of such dichotomies, nevertheless participated in reinforcing these cultural binaries. Much too could be said about the whole-part relation that ideologically determines individuals as members, or parts, of national cultural totalities, from which one could then inquire into the possibility of conceiving of forms of resistance to this framework. These questions do not exist outside of philosophy; they are in no way extraneous or incidental to philosophical discourse. Carter, however, regards such issues as strictly tangential to his project of introducing Kyoto School philosophy. He regards this philosophy as, in some sense, an explicit conceptual articulation of a mindset that inheres among the Japanese people and can be seen in latent or inchoate form among certain “traditional” Japanese cultural practices. Before exploring this point, however, let us provide a general overview of the four primary chapters, each devoted to a major Kyoto School philosopher: Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945), Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962), Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990), and Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960). These chapters are clearly laid out and informative in their presentation of the ideas of these [End Page 501] thinkers. The Nishida chapter focuses mainly on his seminal 1911 work, Zen no kenkyū (An inquiry into the good). As Carter explains, Nishida attempted in this text to elaborate a notion of “pure experience” through dialogue with thinkers such as Bergson and William James. This experience represents a primal unity that emerges prior to the distinction between subject and object. For Nishida, the structural unity that governs man in his faculties of thinking and willing is identical to the structural unity that underlies the world of objects. In this way, experience must be conceived as more originary than the individual subject, who can only appear on the basis of that experience. Carter, who has written extensively on Nishida elsewhere, reveals a keen understanding of the philosopher’s thought. Yet it must...

Guest Editors’ Introduction

Guest Editors’ Introduction Jin Y. Park and Kyeongil Jung The State of Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in Korea Buddhism and Christianity are unarguably two of the most dominant religions in contemporary Korea. The period and context for the introduction of each tradition differ significantly. Buddhism was introduced to Korea between the fourth and sixth centuries, and since then, it has played a significant role in the evolution of Korean society. Catholicism was introduced to Korea in the eighteenth century, while Protestantism came to Korea in the late nineteenth century.1 Despite these differences, the roles and influence each of these faiths have had and continue to have on contemporary Korean society and the lives of the Korean people cannot be overemphasized. Although they form integral parts of Korea’s social and religious life, Buddhists and Christians have not always had an amicable relationship, and the conflict between them has at times turned violent. In recent years, efforts have been made by the two religious groups to ameliorate the unfortunate reality of their lack of mutual understanding. This has happened more at the level of practitioners than in academic discourse.2 Korea may be one of the best places for undertaking a Buddhist-Christian dialogue as it has almost an equal number of Christians and Buddhists,3 as Bernard Senécal notes in his essay. Despite this fact, the Buddhist-Christian dialogue in Korea is still in its initial stage. Serious dialogue at the scholarly level is far more needed than people think. This situation stands in contrast to the trend in the West. As Asian religious-philosophical traditions became better known in the Western intellectual and cultural milieu, comparative studies of traditional Western religions (and philosophies) and those of the East began to take shape. One such East-West dialogue of intellectual traditions took the form of Buddhist-Christian dialogue. One can consider two directions in this encounter. From the Eastern side, the Kyoto School thinkers of Japan have produced rich sources for the Buddhist-Christian dialogue that encompass [End Page 5] both philosophy and religion from Western intellectual disciplines. Nishida Kitaro’s Nothingness and Religious Worldview, Nishitani Keiji’s Religion and Nothingness, which is a translation of the text What is Religion?(Shūkyō to wa nanika 宗教とわ何か), and Tanabe Hajime’s Philosophy as Metanoetics,to name a few, offer compelling discussions of the different ways the East and the West envision ultimate reality and religious practice. In this interreligious dialogue along with East-West comparative philosophy, one finds rich sources for the potential of a Buddhist-Christian dialogue. In the context of Korea, as Robert Buswell mentions in his response, Paek Yongsŏng 白龍城 (1864–1940) was the first who found it necessary to consider Christianity.4 Wŏn Buddhism adopted various aspects of Christianity, as Jin Y. Park’s paper discusses. More theoretical engagements of Buddhism and Christianity as religious paradigms can be found in Kim Iryŏp’s 金一葉 (1896–1971) discussion of Christianity from a Zen Buddhist perspective, in which she discusses how God and Buddha share the same ground (Kim 1960, 59; English translation, Park 2014, 96).5 The other direction comes from the West. As Buddhism became known to American society and the American intellectual world, which from the early twentieth century was especially influenced by the popularity of Zen Buddhism, some of the major theologians initiated interreligious dialogues, and scholars, such as John Cobb, Thomas Merton, and Paul Knitter (who participated in the Roundtable for this issue), took the Buddhist-Christian dialogue as the core of their religio-philosophical thinking.6 In the context of the Korean intellectual and religious scene, such scholarly dialogues seem to be fewer than one might expect. Some of the notable scholars of Buddhist-Christian dialogue are Pyŏn Sŏnhwan, Kim Kyŏngjae, Keel Hee-Sung (Kil Hŭisŏng), Oh Kang-nam (O Kangnam), and Kim Sung Hae (Kim Sŭnghye). A Methodist pastor and pluralist theologian, Pyŏn Sŏnhwan tried to construct a “Korean inculturation theology” (t’och’ak hwasinhak 토착화신학), a theology envisioned through dialogue with Asian religions, especially Buddhism. In his writings, Pyŏn discusses the possibility and necessity of a Buddhist-Christian dialogue in the...

The Kyoto School: An Introduction by Robert E. Carter (review)

Reviewed by: The Kyoto School: An Introduction by Robert E. Carter Erin McCarthy The Kyoto School: An Introduction. By Robert E. Carter with a Foreword by Thomas P. Kasulis. SUNY Press, 2013. 258 pages. Hardcover $75.00; soft-cover $24.95. Robert Carter’s skill at making complex philosophical concepts comprehensible is once again in evidence in this excellent book.1 Thomas Kasulis is correct when he states in the foreword that Carter “performs a great service to the study of modern Japanese philosophy in the West” (p. ix). The Kyoto School: An Introduction fills a niche in Kyoto school literature, which—while rich with technical and comparative studies for the specialist—has until now lacked an introductory text for the general reader. The foreword provides some historical background concerning Japanese philosophy in general and presents Kasulis’s own gloss on Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945), Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962), Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990), and Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960). In the chapters that follow, Carter makes the work of these key figures in modern Japanese philosophy accessible and compelling, and he succeeds in his aim to “make available to the general reader four rich and exciting cross-cultural explorations which continue to challenge and inform readers both in Japan and abroad” (p. xix). In his introduction, Carter gives a brief history of Japanese philosophy’s encounter with Western philosophy and how this led to the development of the Kyoto school. He then discusses the ongoing debate about whether or not there is any such thing as Japanese philosophy. He also identifies what he believes to be most distinctive about Japanese philosophy: its refusal to separate itself from religion. “The Western emphasis on reason alone,” he writes, “tended to make philosophy a ‘purely cerebral affair,’ while the starting point for the Japanese was that knowledge is also an experiential affair which can be achieved and honed through practice rather than reason alone” [End Page 145] (p. 7). Among members of the Kyoto school, this experiential element most often reveals itself in two ways. The first is in their concern with how philosophy permeates everyday life. This concern is highlighted throughout Carter’s book to a degree that is not commonly found in the more technical studies of the Kyoto school—indeed, this is part of the book’s appeal. The second is in their engagement with Buddhism: all of the philosophers discussed in the book practiced or studied Buddhism in one form or another, and Carter traces the influence of Buddhism on each thinker’s view of philosophy as practice and as a relevant force in everyday life. Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani are the central figures whose inclusion in the Kyoto school no one would question, but Carter also includes Watsuji (who is often considered marginal to the main group), for several reasons: Watsuji was brought into Kyoto University by Nishida; he was preoccupied with the theme of nothingness, which permeates the Kyoto school’s work; and he made notable contributions to Japanese ethics and culture. Watsuji’s work, Carter argues, “while on the periphery of the Kyoto school, enriches an understanding of a time in Japanese history when philosophical ideas were generated in so very many directions. Watsuji was an important contributor to Japan’s philosophical renaissance” (p. 10). Carter notes also that he chose these four figures because of the availability of their work in translation and because he wished to present “a more comprehensive view of topics and issues” (p. 9) than more technical studies, which tend either to focus on one philosopher or one aspect of Kyoto school philosophy or to concern themselves with detailed arguments about who should be included at all. The chapters have a common structure: each includes an intellectual biography, with a brief discussion of the often vexed question of the political views of each philosopher, followed by a discussion of key works, themes, and concepts. Carter also traces the influence these thinkers had on one another so that the reader can see how Kyoto school thought developed and how the key figures are united by their concern with nothingness, Buddhist practice, and a connection to Kyoto University or to Nishida’s work. While...

Review of: James W. Heisig, Nothingness and Desire: An East-West Philosophical Antiphony

James W. Heisig, and Desire: An East-West Philosophical Antiphony Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press 2013. vi + 193 pages. Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture. Hardcover $44.10; paperback $22.50. isbn 978-0824838867.This book has its origins in the Jordan Lectures on Comparative Religion, deliv- ered by the author in 2011 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Nothingness and desire are put forward as what the author calls guiding fic- tions, through the interplay of which an antiphony-a call-and-response-between philosophies East and West becomes possible, across five critical contem- porary topics: self, God, morality, property, and the nature of the East-West divide.Perhaps ranging is the wrong metaphor of movement: the six lectures that make up this series do not so much range complacently or at random across their themes as circle them repeatedly and with intent. Heisig's contention is that the lingering and mistaken centrality in the western philosophical imagination of humanity and its anthropocentric projections has contributed profoundly harm- ful patterns of thought to our social and political discourse-such that unless new, alternative narratives of life and the natural world begin to take root soon, the social and ecological crises engendered by the old ones seem all but certain to overwhelm us. This gives and Desire the feel of as much an antiphony of poli- tics and philosophy as of philosophies East and West: an examination of how every- day politics-in the broadest sense of our individual and collective pursuit of power and security-and our most fundamental philosophical assumptions unceasingly call out and respond to one another, in such a way that the former can only mean- ingfully be reimagined, or redeemed, in conjunction with the latter.Nothingness and desire, the elucidation of which forms the basis of the intro- ductory lecture, perform a great deal of useful work here both as critical concepts and as symbols drawing us constantly onwards in the asking of ever more refined questions about the five major themes of the book. And while Heisig finds parts in his antiphony for voices as diverse as Daoism, Confucianism, various Buddhist tra- ditions, and Japan's Kyoto School, through to Aristotle, Augustine, Eckhart, and the modern German tradition spanning Hegel and Heidegger, his eschewal of unneces- sary contextual detail ensures that his analysis proceeds apace. Readers may find as a result that prior familiarity with the work of Nishida Kitar? and Tanabe Hajime is an advantage in grasping the basics of this crucial opening chapter, but then again Heisig pitches his prose at the intelligent generalist rather than the specialist-pro- viding in his brief introduction to nothingness, for example, a series of helpful correctives to false assumptions about the term that might easily distort a reader's understanding and misdirect their engagement with the rest of the book. Heisig points out, for instance, that while being operates in parts of the western tradi- tion as the supreme principle of reality, is not a straightforward alter- native. Certainly, there is a sense in which nothingness can be understood as the principle that encompasses and makes possible both and non-being. But it is not solely, or even mainly, a descriptor: depending on the situation, its expres- sive, performative aspects come to the fore, and we encounter nothingness vividly as a dynamism a quality, or a state of mind (23). This point about nothingness verbal as much as it is nominal matters a great deal for later chapters, where practical virtues such as insight, the training of habit, and the ability to respond naturally to the demands of the present situation are recommended over against the problems and self-deceptions that attend established religious or philosophical formulations.If Heisig requires of us a degree of pause and reflection in order to understand the multivalence and implications of here-not to mention the rereading of the occasional sentence, where the philosophical amateurs amongst us are concerned-the same goes too for desire. …

An Essay on Kant’s Theory of Freedom from the Early Works of Tanabe Hajime

This paper presents the first English translation of one of Tanabe’s early essays on Kant. Tanabe marks the occasion of the first translation of the Critique of Practical Reason into Japanese by providing his reflections on Kant’s theory of freedom in this essay. This creative essay by Tanabe represents the hallmark Kyoto School interpretation of Kant. Tanabe weaves his account of Kant with elements from other philosophers in an attempt to think systematically about the nature of freedom. He agrees with Kant that morality itself “rises and falls” with the idea of freedom; however, Tanabe also tries to rescue some of the pitfalls he sees in Kant’s theory by reconstructing Kant’s account. In this brief, but rich essay, Tanabe unfolds one of the more creative aspects of his philosophy through Kant.

Tanabe Hajime, the mediation of absolute nothingness and the problem of God

Tanabe Hajime, the mediation of absolute nothingness and the problem of God

Ecological Imagination in Moral Education, East and West

Relational philosophies developed in classical American pragmatism and Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy suggest aims for greater responsiveness in moral education. To better guide education, we need to know how perception becomes relevant to our deliberations. Our deliberations enlist imagination of a specifically sort when imaginative structures we use to understand ecosystemic relationships shape our mental simulations and rehearsals. Enriched through cross-cultural dialogue, a finely aware imagination can make deliberations of coming generation more trustworthy.Moral education for 21st century must better enable youths to intelligently negotiate complex systems, from economic systems to ecosystems, in private choices and public policies. Educational institutions must do a better job helping youths to see beyond simple relations of consumers to commodities if we are to respond to a global economic milieu in which affluence sanctifies innocence of consumers - an innocence purchased by ignorance of social, environmental, and inter-species hazards posed by our business as usual behaviors. Contemporary moral perception requires supplementation and expansion beyond speck of self-interest around which most daily consumer concerns orbit.In order to clarify and develop aims for moral education that are relevant to global effects of our choices and policies, we need sustained, crosscultural philosophical dialogue that taps intellectual resources for reinvesting our social and natural interconnections while avoiding moralistic or authoritarian instruction that chokes growth. East Asian and American philosophical traditions, despite paucity of environmental virtues in current majority cultures of either, can help us to better perceive relational networks in which our finite lives are embedded. In first section of this paper explore relational thinking in classical American pragmatism and Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy to help develop, in second section, a concept of ecological imagination. In final section draw from foregoing to clarify appropriate aims for contemporary moral education if it is to contribute to greater responsiveness.1. Relational Imagination, East and WestAcknowledging upfront that comparative projects can tend toward selfcentered, monological, and appropriative modes of ... historical thinking,1 it will nonetheless be helpful to identify several general affinities between relational thinking of American pragmatism and many East Asian traditions, inasmuch as these affinities suggest aims for ecologically responsible moral education. To keep scope manageable, draw primarily on wisdom distilled from Kyoto School.Kyoto University is where modern Japanese philosophy began with Nishida Kitaro's (1870-1945) work reconstructing tools and concepts of western philosophy, such as idea of pre-conceptual pure experience in James, to contribute an eastern standpoint to western philosophy. Nishida built philosophy department at Kyoto University, secured an appointment for Tanabe Hajime, launched career of Watsuji Tetsuro, and attracted Nishitani Keiji among other students, continuing what became known as Kyoto School (Kyoto-gaku-ha) tradition.The Kyoto School philosophers were among first to bring a distinctively East Asian perspective to enlarging and challenging philosophical tradition that began in ancient Greece.4 They are part of an ongoing global philosophical dialogue that extends - or should extend - well beyond confines of Asian Studies or Japanese Studies. When say 'philosophy,' Nishitani wrote, I first of all mean Western philosophy, since this is most influential one. ... To think [the Buddhist] standpoint by way of philosophy is my basic concern.5A. The American pragmatist tradition joins many East Asian traditions in avoiding fallacies of reification that privilege agents over situations, static forms over processes, substantive over transitive - what James dubbed psychologist's fallacy, Dewey recognized as the philosophical (LW 1 : 27-29), and Whitehead labeled fallacy of misplaced concreteness. …

Vari aspetti del nulla assoluto nelle filosofie di Nishida e Tanabe

This paper deals with the conception of Absolute Nothingness (zettai mu), one of the pivotal terms in Japanese contemporary philosophy. This idea is generally considered as the philosophical version of the Buddhist notion of Śūnyatā (emptiness). In the thinking of Nishida Kitarō and Tanabe Hajime, two leading philosophers of the so called Kyōto School, Absolute Nothingness becomes the fundamental tool to build a dialectics which is meant to overcome Hegelian system.

The Art of Aidagara: Ethics, Aesthetics, and the Quest for an Ontology of Social Existence in Watsuji Tetsurō's Rinrigaku

This paper provides an analysis of the key term aidagara (‘betweenness’) in the philosophical ethics of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960), in response to and in light of the recent movement in Japanese Buddhist studies known as ‘Critical Buddhism’. The Critical Buddhist call for a turn away from ‘topical’ or intuitionist thinking and towards (properly Buddhist) ‘critical’ thinking, while problematic in its bipolarity, raises the important issue of the place of ‘reason’ vs ‘intuition’ in Japanese Buddhist ethics. In this paper, a comparison of Watsuji's ‘ontological quest’ with that of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), Watsuji's primary Western source and foil, is followed by an evaluation of a corresponding search for an ‘ontology of social existence’ undertaken by Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962). Ultimately, the philosophico-religious writings of Watsuji Tetsurō allow for the ‘return’ of aesthesis as a modality of social being that is truly dimensionalized, and thus falls prey neither to the verticality of topicalism nor the limiting objectivity of criticalism.

A Comparative Study of the Logics of Connecting between Buddhism and Christianity of Tanabe Hajime and Keel Hee-Sung

A Comparative Study of the Logics of Connecting between Buddhism and Christianity of Tanabe Hajime and Keel Hee-Sung

Masao Abe’s Early Spiritual Journey and his Later Philosophy

Masao Abe was born in 1915 in Osaka, Japan. He was the third of six children, and his father was a physician. His mother was the only person in the family who practiced religion, namely, Jodo Shinshu or Shin Buddhism. As a university student, Abe attended what is now Osaka Municipal University, where he studied economics and law. While at the university, he read the Tannisho, a text by Shinran. Abe later said that he understood from that text that self-power was futile and the only hope for salvation was other-power faith in the grace of Amida Buddha. However, he also understood that this life of grace entailed the relinquishment of self-centered calculation. Abe felt that he was not able to set aside his ego-self and began for the first time in his life to experience the tension between Buddha and ego, or, in more Western terms, the duality of God and self. This concern led Abe into a very personal spiritual quest that would define his life and work. Given this concern, after graduation, Masao Abe wanted to attend Kyoto University to study Buddhism. Because of family issues, however, he took a position at a trading company in Kobe, where he worked for four years. Those years were marked by a sense of meaninglessness, and in the end Abe quit his job and entered Kyoto University, where he studied Western philosophy under Tanabe Hajime, who was himself influenced by Shin Buddhism. It was during that time that Abe met Hisamatsu Shin'ichi, an associate professor at Kyoto University and a well-known and committed practitioner of Zen Buddhism. At one point, Abe took his spiritual concerns about the tension he felt between his ego-centeredness and the religious life to Hisamatsu. He asked, I am nothing more than a lump of selfish passions. Yet, isn't it true that in Mahayana Buddhism one can be saved just as one is, selfish passions and all? Hisamatsu responded, The very thought that there are selfish passions is a selfish passion. Originally there is no such thing.' 1 Abe understood from Hisamatsu that there was a more fundamental ground below the dualism between Buddha and ego, a ground in which this dualism is overcome and salvation from any such dualistic struggle could be found. But Abe was not ready to surrender his Pure Land religiosity. In fact, it was during

Masao Abe: A Bodhisattva’s Vow

About ten years ago, enjoyed a fine Japanese lunch with my friend and teacher, late Masao Abe. gathered with him and his wife, Ikuko, in a traditional restaurant in Kyoto. Abe Sensei had been somewhat pensive and withdrawn for most of meal. Mrs. Abe and had been bantering about how late tsuyu rains had been that year and effect was having on Kyoto's hydrangea. Suddenly Sensei began to speak with an unusual tone of voice, as if saying something of great importance to no one in particular. It is enough, he said. Mrs. Abe and fell silent and attentive. He repeated himself in same voice: It is enough. knew immediately what my teacher was talking about. In his old age and after a long and distinguished career of teaching and lecturing about Zen in West, Abe Sensei was talking about a Buddhist teaching dear to his heart, the standpoint of emptiness. Out of politeness, did want to indicate that understood his meaning so directly and sat wondering what should say in response. Finally, settled on something like this: I will continue to study; Sensei, please continue to teach. spoke in most formal Japanese could muster out of respect for my teacher and friend. Sitting on tatami mats in that restaurant in Kyoto was only time that Sensei has ever said it is enough. In April 1942, four months after beginning of Pacific War, Masao Abe entered Kyoto Imperial University to study philosophy of religion. He was twenty-seven years old, buffeted by criticism for enlisting in military, and fearful of power of nihilism at work in his homeland. In Kyoto, he was much attracted by lectures of Tanabe Hajime, who was already filled with foreboding over Japan's impending defeat and looking to Pure Land Buddhism for guidance. Tanabe's comment is far from here brought Abe to weep inconsolably in realization that was he who was moving away from Amida even as Amida was moving toward him. Even still, Sensei would eventually find Pure Land path not enough for resisting forces of nihilism in world and in himself. After war, Abe joined a Zen meditation group that met at Myoshin-ji in Kyoto. The group was directed by Hisamatsu Shin'ichi, a Zen layman and lecturer on Buddhism at university. In December 1951, Abe had a violent encounter with Hisamatsu that people still talk about. Zen had begun to erode Abe's Pure Land faith and threat of nihilism had returned in force. One evening, in great agitation,

Development of the Species-like Society : Tanabe Hajime and French Social Thought(Alterity and Mediation : Kyoto School and French Philosophy,Panels)

Development of the Species-like Society : Tanabe Hajime and French Social Thought(Alterity and Mediation : Kyoto School and French Philosophy,Panels)

The War Over the Kyoto School

The War Over the Kyoto School John C. Maraldo (bio) Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity. By Christopher S. Goto-Jones. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. 192 pages. Hardcover £65.00/$60.00. Defending Japan's Pacific War: The Kyoto School Philosophers and Post-White Power. By David Williams. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. xxvi + 238 pages. Softcover £17.99/$19.99. The political position of Kyoto School philosophers has been controversial ever since they were first identified by Tosaka Jun in 1931 as a group of thinkers who developed or responded to the "bourgeois" philosophy of Nishida Kitarō . Tosaka named Tanabe Hajime , Nishida's younger colleague at the Imperial University of Kyoto, as the prime mover in the development of the school.1 But just who else should be included in what Tosaka termed the Kyōto gakuha is itself an unsettled matter, and one reason is that the political positions of its "members" are so varied.2 Indeed Tosaka himself, as a one-time student of Nishida, is often included as a member despite his Marxist leanings and early distancing from his teacher. For all this variation, the political controversy has tended to focus on a single issue: the alleged support of these thinkers for Japan's war with other nations in the 1930s and 40s. To put the question in one particularly acute form, did the philosophers' application of the idea of an "East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" (Tōa kyōeiken) support the government's war ideology or did it criticize it? The controversy over this single issue, however, has been two-pronged: the matter of what exactly the philosophers' positions were, and the matter of whether these positions were "right" or justified. Tanabe advocated a kind of social democracy and the need for an ethnic state as early as the 1920s; Nishida began to write specifically on political problems in the mid-1930s; and in the 1940s they and their disciples publicly spoke out on the place of Japan in the world and the rationale for war. Their views managed to rouse the ire of both unquestioning patriots during the war and those who, in [End Page 375] the postwar period, sharply criticized wartime policies. Marxists also criticized Nishida both before and after the war. Nishida died in July 1945; Tanabe retired and retreated into the mountains, and protégés like Nishitani Keiji were banned from their Kyoto University positions until 1952. In the ensuing years the controversy grew alternately louder and softer, issuing in public discussions such as a roundtable in 1965 engaging Ōshima Yasumasa , Furukawa Tesshi , Takeyama Michio , and others,3 and critical analyses such as Takeuchi Yoshimi's in the republication of the text of the forum on "Overcoming Modernity" originally held in 1942.4 Outside Japan, intellectual historians such as Tatsuo Arima, author of The Failure of Freedom: A Portrait of Modern Japanese Intellectuals, occasionally and vicariously put the Kyoto School on trial.5 Controversy flared up again starting in 1987 with allegedly new revelations concerning Heidegger's involvement in Nazism-under the assumption that the mistake of the Kyoto School philosophers was akin to Heidegger's. In 1988 the journal Gendai shisō devoted an issue to fascism that included a nuanced article by Karatani Kōjin on De Man Heidegger, and Nishida, and another by Nakamura Yūjirō on "The Case of Nishida Kitarō." At the same time, a few other scholars proposed that Nishida's and Nishitani's visions of a new international order offer valuable suggestions for Japan's role in the world today.6 The momentum of the controversy propelled it well beyond the confines of academia. In Japan over the years I have met people in many walks of life, both old and young, who refuse even to read Nishida and Kyoto School thinkers because they are associated with the war and its untold suffering. All the while, as translations of Kyoto School thinkers increased, a group of philosophers and theologians in the Americas and Europe, oblivious of the political controversy, continued to find in Nishida and the Kyoto School profound Buddhist alternatives to perennial philosophical and religious...

Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity (review)

Reviewed by: Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity Michiko Yusa Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity. By Christopher S. Goto-Jones. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. Pp. 192. Hardcover $105.00. If it is the case that scholars who engage the Kyoto School philosophy in any serious manner may risk their reputation by "being tarred with the brush of fascism" (p. 4), then Christopher Goto-Jones is certainly courageous to set out to redress the predicament that Nishida Kitarō 's thought (Nishida tetsugaku) is apparently in. Indeed, Goto-Jones' effort is to be highly commended. He contends that Nishida tetsugaku "ought to have been liberated from the oppression of the ultra-nationalist orthodoxy of wartime Japan" by "the allied victory," but instead it has been "oppressed under the new weight of post-war historiography" (p. 2). The author hopes to help change the present-day academic environment that still condemns Nishida tetsugaku or Kyoto School philosophy for complicity with the agenda of fascists and ultranationalists, a formidable force in Japan from the mid-1930s through the end of the Pacific War. Believing that Nishida tetsugaku qua political philosophy should gain its rightful place in the academic discourse, Goto-Jones embarks on this task. The way to liberate Nishida tetsugaku, he suggests, is to avoid the approach taken by apologists whose arguments, ultimately "unconvincing," were "not finally rooted in Nishida's philosophy but in his diaries and correspondence" (p. 4). He hopes to bring out the "cultural and political pluralism" that is at the heart of Nishida's political philosophy and to demonstrate that the contribution of Nishida's thought is to "relativize the political conceptualizations of Western philosophy" (p. 5). The strategy is to "re-politicize" Nishida tetsugaku and allow his (political) texts to speak for themselves. Goto-Jones contends that Nishida's political philosophy, properly understood, is neither ultranationalism nor liberalism, but "may be termed radical liberalism" (p. 137 n. 11). In chapter 2, the author proposes to situate Nishida's political thought "in the context of some of its earlier formulations," just as "[m]uch of Western political philosophy partakes in conversations initiated by the Greeks" (p. 28). He therefore begins with the seventeen-article constitution of Prince Shōtoku as the Ur-official text, and then turns his attention to the Japanese Buddhist and Confucian traditions. En route, Goto-Jones tries to connect such ideas as the honji suijaku theory with Nishida's dialectics, or the Tendai meditation practice of ichinen sanzen with the ideology of hakkō ichiu. Whether this approach clarifies Nishida's thought or adds further complications is left to the judgment of the reader. [End Page 361] Contrary to the view that Nishida underwent a "turn" in the early 1930s, Goto- Jones attempts to prove in chapters 3 and 4 that Nishida's political philosophy remained consistent throughout his life. To demonstrate this point, he examines the several theories of good discussed by Nishida in part 3 of Zen no kenkyū (An inquiry into the good), written ca. 1906, and the 1937 lecture "Rekishiteki shintai" (Historical body). The author's evidence to sustain his argument seems to rest on Nishida's personal protest against the intervention of the state in the affairs of education, as well as his lament that his thought was never properly understood. Because the scope of the book extends to Nishida's one-time students (such as Tosaka Jun, Miki Kiyoshi, Kōsaka Masaaki, Kōyama Iwao, and Nishitani Keiji as well as Harada Kumao and Kido Kōichi)1 and his colleagues (such as Tanabe Hajime and Watsuji Tetsurō ), to undertake this project Goto-Jones took on the weighty task of studying biographical information about Nishida and his colleagues as well as their vastly varying political approaches. The author's project is far more serious than a mere debate on the semantics of, for instance, the word "liberal," which, when applied to Nishida-and I tend to agree with him here-is "inappropriate and ahistor-ical" (p. 7), or the term "universal(ism)," which seems to have become another term of contention by sheer chance. The fact that...

A Comparative Study of the Philosophies of Shinran and Tanabe Hajime(Section 3)

A Comparative Study of the Philosophies of Shinran and Tanabe Hajime(Section 3)

Between identity and difference: Three ways of reading Nishida's non-dualism.

The philosophy of Nishida KitarŌ offers the reader today not only a paradigm for a comparative philosophy, but also a methodological framework to construct a Buddhist philosophy. The key and, at the same time, the obstacle to his philosophy is the concept of the self-identity of the absolute contradiction. This conceptual cornerstone of Nishida's philosophy is as controversial among scholars today as it is central to his philosophy. Critics, such as Tanabe Hajime and Takahashi Satomi, argue that Nishida's philosophy privileges the principle of identity over that of difference and falls into a monism; his supporters, most of all Nishitani Keiji and Ueda Shizuteru, to the contrary, claim that it comprises the key to philosophical non-dualism. In general, I am convinced that even his self-identity of the absolute contradiction, if it is read carefully within the context of Nishida's philosophy, will render a paradigm that falls neither into a logical contradiction nor into a monism but that provides the foundation for a non-dualist philosophy. To this end, I will reread it first in the context of Nishida's overall project and, then, on the background of Nishida's debates with his critics.