Abstract
The aim of this study is to reveal the influence of Aristotle’s concept of ‘hypokeimenon’ upon Nishida Kitaro’s logic of locus.
In An Inquiry into the Good, Nishida discussed two characters of pure experience: (1) Pure experience does not refer to the contents of the ‘that-clause’ which is the object of knowledge as expressed in discursive judgment, rather pure experience refers to the event (or state) of seeing something, hearing something etc., (as it is, prior to discursive discrimination). (2) Pure experience is the original source of our knowledge, which we then proceed to elucidate via judgment(or propositions).
In the process of developing his logic of locus, Nishida adopted (1) as a base, and modified aspects of (2) in light of this. He found in Aristotle’s thought about the ‘hypokeimenon’ an argument that knowledge of perception of objects with non-conceptual content is justified by reference to the individual object itself, prior to(discursive)judgment. Under the influence of this aspect of Aristotle’s thought, Nishida came to develop his logic of locus as a means to locate events within the sphere of reason.
However, there is a crucial difference between Aristotle and Nishida. Nishida was concerned not with the ‘hypokeimenon’ as a means to interpret knowledge of objects with non-conceptual content; but rather with what he termed ‘locus’. With it, Nishida attempted to relate knowledge to our various forms of commitment to the world, thus making it possible to consider knowledge from a practical, rather than purely theoretical, point of view.
