Journal of Nishida Philosophy Association
Online ISSN : 2434-2270
Print ISSN : 2188-1995
The Plotinian One and Nishida’s absolute nothigness
[in Japanese]
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2013 Volume 10 Pages 32-50

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Abstract

‘Absolute nothingness(zettai mu)’, the basis of all reality in Nishida’s philosophy, is prior to both subjectivity and objectivity, and corresponds to the Plotinian One, which transcends both thinking and being. Despite Nishida’s criticism that the Plotinian One is “what is thought in the direction of noema” or “what transcends the Idea in the direction of the Idea”, from the standpoint of Plotinian studies which develops after Nishida’s death, we should rather say that the One is transcendent in the direction of matter or act. Their thoughts are in concord with each other more profoundly than Nishida himself realized. There is in fact an affinity between Nishida's self- awareness and the Plotinian emanation and also between Nishida’s place of nothingness and Plotinus' One. Both are a kind of “nothingness, which is not opposed to being, but envelops being”. However, whereas Nishida’s absolute nothingness is what is found at the depth of ordinariness, the Plotinian One is stated as what is beyond the ordinariness. Different from the Absolute of Nishida which negates itself, Plotinus’ One is static in that it remains in itself and is not moved or reduced by producing everything.

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© 2013 Nishida Philosophy Association
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