Nishida, Kitarō

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Gereon Kopf
Keyword(s):  
Nishida Kitaro

Japanese Phenomenology

2015 ◽  
pp. 630-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tōru Tani
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Nishida Kitaro ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter is an introduction to Japanese phenomenology, which was brought to Japan in the early twentieth century by Nishida Kitarō and others, soon after Husserl launched the movement in Germany. Beginning with a brief historical and cultural overview, the chapter focuses on four major phenomenologists: Sakabe Megumi, Nitta Yoshihiro, Noé Keiichi, and Washida Kiyokazu. Each of the four, each in a different way, articulates a fundamental aspect of Japanese phenomenology: the criticism of subject-object dualism and the attending idea of an autonomous being-in-itself. All attempt to inquire more deeply into the nondual dimensions underlying that dualism: Sakabe through an inquiry into betweenness (aida or awai), encounter, and reflection (utsushi); Nitta by probing the depths of “verticality” and “mediality”; Noé by investigating the relationship between narrative and experience; and Washida by transgressing the borders of philosophy and pursuing more “reversibility” in human relationships.

Traditional Motives in the Aesthetic Views of the 20th Century Japanese PhilosophersKuki Shuzo, Karaki Junzo, Kato Shinro

2021 ◽  
pp. 175-186
Author(s):  
Elena L. Skvortsova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
Meiji Period ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Nishida Kitaro

The article is devoted to the views of three Japanese philosophers of the 20th cen­tury with their example we are convinced the relevance of the traditional world­view in contemporary Japan. Since the Meiji period, Western philosophy and aes­thetic theories have constantly influenced the views of Japanese thinkers, but up to this day, traditionalism plays an important role in Japanese thought. This also applies to the emphasis on corporality, human incarnation – the Buddhist position on “the unity of flesh and mind” (shin-jin – itchinyo) and the uncertainty fluidity of all forms of existence of things (mujo), relations, the ephemerality of life itself. This is also true for acceptance of Nothingness (mu) as a metacategory of philoso­phy which Nishida Kitaro put at the foundation of his system, explaining the his­torical world and the position in it of a person through the identity of absolute contradictions resolved in the field (basho) of Nothingness. This philosophical position, Buddhist-Taoist in essence, is especially vividly present in the works of Japanese thinkers who study the traditional culture of their homeland and try to give a modern interpretation to its categories.

Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Maraldo
Keyword(s):  
Buddhist Philosophy ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Japanese Imperialism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
Pure Experience ◽  
Political Essays ◽  
Nishida Kitaro

Considered Japan’s first original modern philosopher, Nishida not only transmitted Western philosophical problems to his contemporaries but also used Buddhist philosophy and his own methods to subvert the basis of traditional dichotomies and propose novel integrations. His developmental philosophy began with the notion of unitary or pure experience before the split between subject and object. It developed to challenge other traditional opposites such as intuition and reflection, fact and value, art and morality, individual and universal, and relative and absolute. In its organic development, Nishida’s philosophy reacted to critiques that it neglected the social dimension with political essays that sometimes aligned it with Japanese imperialism. It culminated in the ‘logic of place’, a form of thinking that would do justice to the contradictory world of human actions.

Nishida, Kitarō [西田 幾多郎] (1870–1945)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Van Overmeire
Keyword(s):  
Pacific War ◽  
Kyoto School ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Meiji Era ◽  
Pure Experience ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Nishida Kitaro ◽  
Foreign Ideas ◽  
East West

Arguably the most important Japanese philosopher of the 20th century, Nishida Kitarō was one of the first thinkers to engage deeply with the sudden massive influx of foreign ideas that characterized the Meiji era, while still maintaining a distinctive place for Asian ideas. Beginning with An Inquiry into the Good (1911), Nishida’s lifelong philosophical goal was to identify the foundation of consciousness and existence, something he later called the "place" [basho]. Successive works identified this foundation as "pure experience," "absolute will," and, finally, "absolute nothingness." All these "places" have in common the fact that they lack any distinctive features: being fields (another term Nishida employs) that contain oppositions (such as subject-object, me-you, knowledge-feeling), they cannot of themselves have distinguishable qualities. Although Nishida’s actions during the Pacific War have been the subject of significant debate, his influence is uncontested: the so-called Kyoto School of Japanese philosophy comprises those building on or reacting to his ideas. Because he valued both Christian and Buddhist traditions, Nishida has also been a pivotal figure in East-West religious dialog.

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