Nishidaʼs Response to the Criticism of Psychologism and his Attempt to Break away from it

Abstract

　　In 1911, the same year as the publication of An Inquiry into the Good, Nishida published “On the Arguments of the Pure Logic School in Epistemology,” in which he introduced the criticism of psychologism by Windelband, Rickert, and others, and defended the position of An Inquiry into the Good. However, a change in Nishidaʼs thought from An Inquiry into the Good to Intuition and Ref lection in Self-Consciousness can berecognized. 　　In An Inquiry into the Good, the basis of all truth is found in pure experience. On the other hand, in “Response to the Criticism of Satomi Takahashiʼs An Inquiry into the Good,” the foundation of truth is sought in an a priori or in a position that unifies experience. “Contemporary Philosophy” claims that the foundation of truth lies in self-consciousness. In Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness, Nishida insists that the self-consciousness he refers to is not psychological, but transcendental. It can be said that Nishida realizes that An Inquiry into the Good is psychologistic and adopts a transcendentalist position to break away from psychologism. This approach to transcendentalism can be understood as a characteristic of the position of self-consciousness in Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness in contrast to the psychologistic position of pure experience in An Inquiry into the Good.