時間と無

前期田辺哲学の「絶対無」理解の変遷と西田の「永遠の今」

抄録

　　Tanabe Hajime is famous as the second philosopher to develop a philosophy based on the idea of “absolute nothingness” in modern Japanese philosophy. In a sense, he deserves to be called the philosopher of “absolute nothingness” more than Nishida Kitaro as it remains a core concept until his death while the term “absolute nothingness” gradually becomes inconspicuous in the late philosophy of Nishida. As is well known, however, Tanabe decidedly refused to acknowledge the philosophical value of this idea in the beginning. Why does he accept the concept of “absolute nothingness” in spite of his criticism towards Nishida? How could he continue to find his fundamental standpoint in this idea while disapproving Nishida’s philosophy of “absolute nothingness”? The key to responding to these complicated questions lies in the problem of time, and more specifically, in Nishida’s idea of “the eternal now” and Tanabe’s interpretation of this concept. Therefore, in this paper, I will examine Tanabe’s understanding of “absolute nothingness” by focusing on his attitude towards the central notion in Nishida’s theory of time, namely “the eternal now.”