Abstract
In “Philosophical Essays” Kitaro Nishida has so wide a concern beyond his field of specialization that he deals with not only philosophy but also such disciplines as natural science. It is conceivable that his thinking with regard to science enfolds much that deserves more attention today. This paper will clarify the relationship between his and J. S. Haldane’s position as a former stage of elucidating the modern significance of his thought on life.
J. S. Haldane is a specialist of respiration physiology. He has a holistic viewpoint of life. He defines it as the active maintenance of a normal and specific structure of an organism. Nishida gets much inspiration from him. He takes Haldane’s idea of life into his system by paraphrasing it into the self-determination or maintenance of form (katachi). He distinguishes historical and biological life. In the historical world everything contains self-contradiction. The world moves by this. So this is the historical life. What is created has some form as determinated. In the case of an organism it is a specific form. As the historical world is the world of historical life, various organisms have come into being in it. He gives a philosophical basis to Haldane’s biology.
