「逆対応」について

西田の宗教論における

抄録

One of the most important words in the last work of Nishida Kitaro is “inverse correspondence (gyaku taio)”. He makes use of the word 24 times there. However, its notion is not distinctly defined. That makes us face a problem of a right understanding of its meanings and functions. At the same time it causes some difficulties, when we try to position his designed “philosophy of religion” in the whole system of his philosophy. Therefore, I try in this paper to confirm those meanings and functions by means of the analysis of its usage.
The usage of the word is classified into three groups:
1. He employs the word to express the religious relation between God and human beings.
2. The word is used to indicate a dynamical structure of self-mapping within the sphere of the Absolute (or God).
3. The application of an adjective form of the word to the world is carried out to express the structure of the world as the Place-where-in (oite aru basho).
Through the analysis of the usage and making a comparison between meanings and functions of the word in his last monograph and some preceding treatises, I reached such conclusions as follows:
A prototype of the “inverse correspondence” including “inverse auto-determination (gyaku gentei)” can be found in a kind of “inverse self-mapping” of the Absolute as an absolutely contradictory conversion from the absolute Nothingness to the absolute Being within the sphere of the Absolute. The prototype, then, maps itself onto the “Place (basho)” of the absolute Nothingness, and the Place itself becomes inverse correspondent. This Place as the ultimate Place-where-in gives rise to the embodiment of Places where inverse correspondent relations are established between the Place and the individual as the one which is found in (oite aru mono) the Place.