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Displaying: 41-56 of 56 documents

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41. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 7
Ralf Müller Kyōto in Davos. The Question of the Human from a Cross-Cultural Vantage Point
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The conference in a nutshell: philosophy in times of crises returned to a crisis in philosophy. The pandemic throws us back on our feet and makes us rethink the question raised at the Davos Disputation between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer in 1929: “What is a human being?” While both had agreed that the initial question was the crucial question to tackle, neither of them could put forth a solution to the question given that their own thought paths proved to have led them into a dead end and to the necessity to turn in a new direction in order to overcome a philosophical crisis. So, in 2020, why not move beyond the scope of this German–German disputation in Davos, and even beyond the horizon of Europe to look for new pathways of thought?
42. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 8
Shinji Hamauzu The Reception of Husserl’s Phenomenology in Japanese Philosophy
43. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 8
Jason M. Wirth The Great Death and the Pure Land: Nishitani Keiji and the Ecological Emergency
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This essay argues for the importance of Nishitani Keiji’s thought as a critical resource to confront what the unfolding ecological crisis reveals about who and what we are. The first part considers the importance of “nature” for Nishitani that accords with insights that both resonate with his Zen practice and heritage, and which open up tacit dimensions of the Jōdo Shin (True Pure Land) tradition. The second section turns to Nishitani’s highly original Zen “existentialization” of science in general, and by extension, contemporary climate science in particular, in order to highlight Nishitani’s Great Death as a response to the unfolding ecological catastrophe. In treating climate science as a kōan, we not only come to see who we are, but also come undone and awaken to a new relation to the Great Earth.
44. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 8
Richard Stone Nishida Kitarō’s Two True Selves: Revisiting Self, Meaning, and Method in An Inquiry into the Good
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In this contribution, I seek to highlight two different understandings of the self that can be found in Nishida Kitarō’s An Inquiry into the Good and show how they relate to one another to form a novel view of selfhood. As several scholars are already aware, Nishida appears inconsistent about how he describes terms relating to our “true” self in his early work, discussing it both as a particular state of consciousness in which unity between subject and object has been achieved and the fundamental activity that generates meaning in otherwise mute experience. While most interpreters have tended to limit themselves to mentioning only one outlook on the self or the other (or otherwise to taking the apparent inconsistency in Nishida’s earliest thought as a sign that he had yet to reach philosophical maturity), I believe this is a mistake. Indeed, as I shall argue in this contribution, Nishida’s early philosophy can only be read fruitfully if these two seemingly different interpretations of the “true self” are reconciled with one another.
45. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 8
Itsuki Hayashi “Friendship of Dharma” as Existential Communion between Enemies: A New Interpretation of “Atsumori” inspired by Tanabe Hajime’s Later Philosophy
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“Atsumori” is a Noh play composed by master playwright Zeami sometime before 1423, featuring characters from the Tales of the Heike. Although popular to this day, the philosophical significance of the play remains underdeveloped and underappreciated. Prima facie, it features a ghost who is liberated thanks to the sincere prayer of the priest who killed him. Simplistic reading would yield simplistic understanding of the characters and their dynamism, and would fail to appreciate, for instance, the agency of the ghost or the liberation of the priest. Accordingly, some regard the play as falling short of the highest aesthetic value, insofar as its protagonist fails to attain liberation through his own effort. Some even contend that the ulterior purpose of the play is to portray ghosts as powerless and desperate so that vanquishers need not fear vengeful ghosts. While it is possible that Zeami indeed held such ulterior intention and regarded it as second rank for the protagonist’s lack of agency, I shall present a different reading that would yield a richer appreciation of the characters and their dynamism. I do so by regarding the “friendship of dharma” that occurs at the culmination of the play as “existential communion” as presented in Tanabe Hajime’s later philosophy. That is, the play need not be read as a story about a living priest saving a dead warrior—it can be read as about two lost souls saving each other, through mutual acceptance, mutual sacrifice, and collaborative mediation of the Absolute. For this purpose, the paper first delineates Tanabe’s later philosophy with a focus on the idea of existential communion. Then it introduces “Atsumori” and discusses its philosophical significance. An impasse due to the scope of the play will be identified, which I call “the problem of epistemic authority,” and to fill the gap I will introduce and discuss another spin-off story featuring Atsumori. The paper intends to offer a philosophically richer reading of the play to invite readers to think deeply and creatively about Noh.
46. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 8
Yi Chen, Boris Steipe The Vital Lǐ 禮 in Play: Exploring the Confucian Self in Japanese Aesthetics
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Confucian state doctrines have shaped Asian cultures for millennia as prescriptive codes of conduct with an emphasis on hierarchy and obligation. Yet a premise at the core of lǐ (禮)—understood as propriety, ritual, or generally a cultural grammar—is authenticity, and authentic respect cannot be commanded. What if the lǐ were to be elegant instead? Hans-Georg Gadamer analyzed play as a fusion of horizons that are absorbed into the same event, co-constituting subject and object in an aesthetic experience, and dissolving their dichotomy. We consider examples from Japanese aesthetics in this framework to give depth to key Confucian concepts: the values that enable a relationality that is not in conflict with autonomy; the points of reference for self-improvement through culture; a social organization that enacts reciprocity; and the essential posture this requires. The radical simplicity of the philosophy of tea, chanoyu, and the aesthetic refinement of the Katsura Rikyū palace illuminate the principle of emotional resonance in encounters, which underlies the fusion of cognitive, ethical, and aesthetic horizons. This view reveals how the relational premise of the Confucian philosophical system entails an ontological commitment to mutuality. This is indeed ethics, but neither particularism nor generalism; in its aesthetic dimension it is the mode of perception of a self fulfilled in play.
47. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
Takahiro Nakajima Guest Editor’s Introduction
48. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
Takahiro Nakajima The Influence of Chinese Sources on the Formation of Philosophy in the Tokyo School: Focusing on Kuwaki Gen’yoku
49. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
Thomas P. Kasulis Tokyo School of Philosophy? A Preliminary Reflection
50. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
Yijiang Zhong Race, Buddhism, and the Formation of Oriental (Tōyō) Philosophy in Meiji Japan
51. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
Maki Sato Guest Editor’s Concluding Remarks
52. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
Maki Sato Ōmori Shōzō and Kotodama Theory: How Can We Overcome the Need for Bodily Encounters?
53. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
Dennis Prooi Kiyozawa Manshi’s Two Theories of Evolution and Their Western Inspiration
54. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
Steve G. Lofts Bret W. Davis, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism
55. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
Griffin Werner Toward a Dialectics of Emptiness: Overcoming Nihilism and Combatting Mechanization in Nishitani Keiji’s Postwar Thought
56. Journal of Japanese Philosophy: Volume > 9
David W. Johnson Reply to Laÿna Droz’s Review of Watsuji on Nature: Japanese Philosophy in the Wake of Heidegger