抄録
This paper explores the meaning of neighborly love in the temporality as
the “eternal now”, found in The Self-Aware Determination of Nothingness by
Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro. Through the development of this work,
Nishida shows considerable empathy toward the concepts of love and time by
Augustine. However, whether these concepts can support neighborly love has
been debated. Augustine limits love for neighbors by adding the condition
“only in God”. However, God and neighbors exist in different temporalities;
God is eternal, while neighbors are to be lost with time. Nishida develops this
point by attempting to define time as “eternal now”. Inspired by Eckhart
and Augustine, Nishida develops the concept of time as “eternal now” and
“continuity of discontinuity” to depict the exact moment when continuous
time emerges from eternity. In such a moment, the continuity of “I” as well
as “you” is questioned. His “dialectic of self-love and other-love” leads to the
conclusion that “I” can be myself and “you” can be yourself only by loving
each other in the “eternal now”—the nexus where history and the creation of
God begin.
