Abstract
“Philosophy as Metanoetics” made an epoch in the development of Tanabe’s philosophical thought. In this “philosophy that is not a philosophy” a human being is considered to be essentially related to the transcendental Absolute (i. e. absolute Nothingness) and to be converted by its action (i. e. Other-power or tariki). Thinking that Tanabe insisted on the autonomy of the reason (i. e. human being’s own power or jiriki) and postulated even the Other-power from this standpoint in the previous period, we recognize here a thorough inversion of positions between the human being’s own power and the Other-power. This inversion brings about inevitably a remarkable change in Tanabe’s view on society and state. The state is now defined as “expedient-being (hobensonzai)” which is grounded on the Other-power and serves to promote the redeeming work of this for human beings, while it was called previously “appropriate manifestation (o-gensonzai) of genus” which should be established through the moral acts by human being’s own power. This paper dedicates itself to an attempt to analyze and to explain as clearly as possible this change of Tanabe’s view on state, which can be characterized roughly as the abandonment of his own previous nationalism and the introduction of a kind of community-doctrine in place of that.
