An dem Leib, der das Objektive ist, erscheint sich das Subjektive. Nämlich darauf wird das Selbst mit dem Ding eins, d.h. wird der Körper zur Formlierung der Seele, und zugleich handelt sich der Geist als Gegenstand. Um die reine Erfahrung, die sub-objektiv ist, einzusehen, ist es deshalb sehr wichtig, daß man vom Gesichspunkt vom Leib Überlegung über die Philosophie von Nishida anstellt. Und noch dadurch könnte man den Weg zur Religion bei Nishida erklären, weil Wissen(Philosophie)und Liebe(Religion)sich auf dem wehmütig fühlendem Leib im Unendlichen schneidet. Kommend folgende Themme zu sprechen, erörtere ich gründlich dieses Problem. 1)Ein wichtiger Punkt“Leib” 2)Das mit der Philosophie von Nishida durchdringende Thema“Wissen und Liebe” 3)“Der echte Mann”beim Zenmeister Rinzai und“Persönlichkeit”bei Augustinus 4)Leib in der Philosophie von Nishida I 5)Leib in der Philosophie von Nishida II 6)“Das schwere Leid auf dem Lebensweg”als ein philosophisches Motiv

View full abstract

The theory of Creation in Christianity has recently displaced its formerly established key concept of“Creation from Nothing”in the ontological form to the periphery and found its most central aspect in the experimental narrative of us who live in this world. The Creation in Holy Spirit indicates the intention of Creation in the future. In modern Japanese Catholicism, Onodera Isao has contributed much to its research and Oshida Shigeto has discerned it in the depth of the daily life world. Oshida’s spiritual journey was indispensable with the indigenous nature of the earth. He found the most primal word(koto-kotoba in Japanese)coming from the hole (ana in Japanese)as radical nothingness and showed himself as a shaman who was possessed with such words. This vision to the depth can be shared with the radical anthropologist Iwata Keiji who critically deconstructed the academically defined concept of“animism”and reconstructed it positively as a pre-interpreted encounter with the invisible“something great.”This intention can be linked with Miyamoto Hisao who sympathizes with the mourning thought of Ishimure Michiko as a spiritual companion with the deeply damaged casualties and patients in Minamata disease. Jürgen Moltmann also collaborates effectively in this stream with his unique idea of the non-created Sabbath. Silent Pentecostal will be expansively seen as an extension of such thoughts.

View full abstract

This paper contrasts Tanabe Hajime’s‘Logic of Shu’and Watsuji Tetsuro’s‘Ethics of Aidagara’in order to understand their common theoretical underpinning. Whilst they are considered as typical philosophers of the Kyoto school, how their respective thinking can be connected in a philosophical discussion remains to be made explicit. The task of connecting Tanabe’s‘Logic’and Watsuji’s‘Ethics’is a task I shall attempt in this paper. I shall begin with a discussion of Tanabe’s November 1934 paper“The Logic of social being”, in which he firstly defines his theoretical basis ‘Logic of Shu’. In his‘Logic’, he criticized not just Nishida Kitaro but also Watsuji Tetsuro and the latter’s“The Ethics as the theory of human being” published in March of the same year. The first section of this paper clarifies the structure of‘Logic of Shu’and how its criticism relates to Watsuji thinking. Next I shall offer a discussion of Watsuji’s magnum opus“Ethics” published in April 1937. He didn’t offer counterarguments to Tanabe directly, but formulated an‘Ethics of Aidagara’as a‘pre-logical’principle and idea that appears to be incompatible with Tanabe’s‘Logic’. The second section demonstrates that Watsuji countered Tanabe’s‘Logic’with the views expressed in his“Ethics”. Finally I shall view Tanabe’s‘Logic’and Watsuji’s‘Ethics’as two theories that arose from a common issue shared by both philosophers. Their different views as to how the society could be and should be, seems to be in conflict. If we re-evaluate their discussion on this issue, we shall realize that they should be considered as theories which complement each other.

View full abstract

In Sueki Fumihiko’s Buddhism vs. Ethics(2013)and Philosophizing in Japan(2012), he provides a novel critique of Watsuji. Despite his fundamental agreement with“relational ethics,”Sueki suggests that Watsuji’s ethics belongs purely in the domain of the human(ningen)and is thus unable to deal with the incomprehensible“other.”For Sueki, a genuine response to the other requires that we go beyond the ethical and into the“trans-ethical.”But does Watsuji’s ethics really lack this trans- ethical moment? In this paper, I argue that while Watsuji set out to construct an ethics of ningen, his introduction of the ideas of emptiness, continuous negation, and other ideas inspired by Buddhism and Nishida brought in a transethical moment that disrupts the closure of his ethical system. Examining Ethics vols. 2 and 3(1943, 1949), we see these concretely expressed in Watsuji’s view of social change and the role the “other” plays in it. However, there are insurmountable limits to Watsuji’s theory, and a careful examination of these limits shows the challenges that any ethics of emptiness/nothingness will need to contend with in order to truly account for the depth of human relations.

View full abstract

Whereas Kuki Shūzō’s philosophy has been typically viewed as a systemic response to continental philosophical trends like phenomenology, this article is intended to argue that Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language can offer an equally fruitful interpreting framework for Kuki’s aesthetics expressed in his The Structure of Iki. The parallelisms between the two philosophers can be unpacked as below:(a)both philosophers focus on the linguistic activities of ordinary people;(b)both philosophers tend to identify the implicitly functioning mechanism of authority either in language-games (in a general sense)or in those related to“iki”(in a more specific sense);(c) both philosophers share a deep understanding of what significant roles that “samples”do play in relevant language games. Moreover, Kuki’s elaboration of the so-called“hexahedral of aesthetical values”substantially reveals the cross-cultural dimensions of his aesthetics, i.e., dimensions that would greatly facilitate some further dialogues between Asian aesthetic values and their western counterparts.

View full abstract