What is culture? What can we learn from art, architecture, and fashion about how people relate? Can cultures embody ethical and moral ideals? These are just some of the questions addressed in this book on the cultural philosophy of three preeminent Japanese philosophers of the early twentieth century, Nishida Kitarō, Watsuji Tetsurō and Kuki Shūzō.

This review examines the main topics and the main thesis of Thomas Kasulis’s Engaging Japanese Philosophy. The book covers the entire fourteen-hundred-year history of philosophical thinking in Japan, with a focus on seven key Buddhist, Confucian, Native Studies, and modern academic philosophers. The author’s main thesis is that Japanese philosophers have predominantly aimed at an existentially “engaged knowing” rather than the kind of objectively “detached knowing” that has come to dominate modern western and—by colonial extension—most of modern (...) class='Hi'>Japanese academic philosophy. (shrink)

In the writings of the Japanese Pure Land Buddhist Shinran 親鸞 (1173–1263) we read: “I, Shinran, do not have a single disciple of my own” (SZ Supplement: 10; Saitō 2010: 242; Yuien 1996: 6). Is he simply being modest? Does Shinran defy discipleship? Does he rule out the possibility of the reception of his thought? The answer to these questions is not clear; nevertheless, what we do know is that the reader of his writings is supposed to arrive at (...) the Buddha’s original teaching. Shinran’s voluminous works, however, exhibit more than an introduction to, or simple interpretation of, the Buddha’s preaching. We may say that Shinran has given us sermons and treatises that manifest an authentic and unique appropriation of the Buddhist tradition, and, therefore, his works offer the possibility of a thoughtful reception for his interpreters and disciples. The philosopher KUKI Shūzō 九鬼周造 (1888–1941) wrote remarkable verses about Shinran seven centuries after his death: “I will have no disciple, said Shinran; as for me [Kuki], I long to have his soul” (KSZ Supplement, 146; Saitō 2010: 242). Kuki’s poetic reflections express Shinran’s quest for an authentic life, and echo back the existentialist aspect of his philosophy. More than this, his words commit him to Shinran as his teacher. Do these words not enact the most authentic discipleship possible? In fact, SAITŌ Takako takes Kuki’s verses as empirical evidence of his receiving the intellectual legacy of Shinran. Thus, at the end of her article, the proof of historical facticity of reception retroactively justifies Saitō’s careful comparison of Kuki’s thought with Shinran’s, which began based on presuming similarities in content. In other words, the factual findings prove the validity of comparing Shinran and Kuki, although a truthful reading is impossible to verify historically. Be that as it may, Kuki’s poetic expression demonstrates the history of the reception of a pre-modern Buddhist by a modern philosopher in Japan, regardless of whether this discipleship was ultimately judged to be authentic and perfected, or an untimely failure. (shrink)

Dōgen Kigen (1200–1253 ce) is one of the most revered figures in the history of Japanese culture. A Zen master regarded by the Sōtō School as its spiritual founder, Dōgen is also considered by many to be Japan's greatest philosopher. (The other major contender is kūkai, with whose philosophy Dōgen's shares a number of features.) Possessed of a prodigious and subtle intellect, and master of a strikingly poetic style, he surely ranks among the world's most formidable thinkers.

In the writings of the Japanese Pure Land Buddhist Shinran 親鸞 we read: “I, Shinran, do not have a single disciple of my own”. Is he simply being modest? Does Shinran defy discipleship? Does he rule out the possibility of the reception of his thought? The answer to these questions is not clear; nevertheless, what we do know is that the reader of his writings is supposed to arrive at the Buddha’s original teaching. Shinran’s voluminous works, however, exhibit more (...) than an introduction to, or simple interpretation of, the Buddha’s preaching. We may say that Shinran has given us sermons and treatises that manifest an authentic and unique appropriation of the Buddhist tradition, and, therefore, his works offer the possibility of a thoughtful reception for his interpreters and disciples. The philosopher KUKI Shūzō 九鬼周造 wrote remarkable verses about Shinran seven centuries after his death: “I will have no disciple, said Shinran; as for me [Kuki], I long to have his soul”. Kuki’s poetic reflections express Shinran’s quest for an authentic life, and echo back the existentialist aspect of his philosophy. More than this, his words commit him to Shinran as his teacher. Do these words not enact the most authentic discipleship possible? In fact, SAITŌ Takako takes Kuki’s verses as empirical evidence of his receiving the intellectual legacy of Shinran. Thus, at the end of her article, the proof of historical facticity of reception retroactively justifies Saitō’s careful comparison of Kuki’s thought with Shinran’s, which began based on presuming similarities in content. In other words, the factual findings prove the validity of comparing Shinran and Kuki, although a truthful reading is impossible to verify historically. Be that as it may, Kuki’s poetic expression demonstrates the history of the reception of a pre-modern Buddhist by a modern philosopher in Japan, regardless of whether this discipleship was ultimately judged to be authentic and perfected, or an untimely failure. (shrink)

Japanese Culture: The Religious and Philosophical Foundations takes readers on a thoroughly researched and extremely readable journey through Japan's cultural history. This much-anticipated sequel to Roger Davies's best-selling The Japanese Mind provides a comprehensive overview of the religion and philosophy of Japan. This cultural history of Japan explains the diverse cultural traditions that underlie modern Japan and offers readers deep insights into Japanese manners and etiquette. Davies begins with an investigation of the origins of the Japanese, (...) followed by an analysis of the most important approaches used by scholars to describe the essential elements of Japanese culture. From there, each chapter focuses on one of the formative elements: Shintoism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, Confucianism, and Western influences in the modern era. Each chapter is concluded with extensive endnotes along with thought-provoking discussion activities, making this volume ideal for individual readers and for classroom instruction. Anyone interested in pursuing a deeper understanding of this complex and fascinating nation will find Davies's work an invaluable resource. (shrink)

Although Plato studies occupy an important place in academia, the empiricist stance in considering reality, the modern epistemology of the self-identical ego, the devaluation of the image and imagination, and the restrictions on philosophy within academic research sometimes cause us to lose sight of the essence of Plato's texts and thought when analysing them. Discussing Plato from a Japanese perspective, this paper will introduce three Japanese thinkers, Sakabe Megumi, Izutsu Toshihiko, and Ino-ue Tadashi, who have critically examined modern (...) Western philosophy from their own philosophical backgrounds and provided valuable suggestions. Taking into account the arguments of these Japanese thinkers, this paper emphasizes the notions of separation, purification, and transcendence as core concepts of Plato's philosophy. (shrink)

The paper deals with the tales on the origins of Japanese Buddhism from the 11th scroll of the Konjaku monogatari shū. Particular attention is paid to the stories about Saichō and Kūkai, the founders of the Tendai and Shingon schools, thinkers, whose writings have built two versions of the doctrine of the Buddhist ritual aimed at “state protection” and “benefits in this world.” From the elements familiar to the Western reader – “lives, opinions and sayings,” according to Laertius, – (...) in these stories the first one dominates. Brief information about the doctrines of the famous teachers in Konjaku is embedded in the narrative about their practical activities. The objectives of this activity are, firstly, to adopt in China and root in Japan the Chinese traditions of Buddhist practice, which go back to the Indian models; secondly, to arrange monasteries and monastic orders best suited to serve the country and its inhabitants. The legends about Saichō and Kūkai in Konjaku are placed in context of the narratives about the builders of temples and about the monks who visited the mainland in search of Buddha’s Teaching. This context helps to understand the principle of selecting biographical details for each of the sages in Konjaku. The themes of a wonderful birth and early learning successes are common in these stories; the theme of appeasement of kami deities or the treaty with them also sounds in many of these stories. In the legends about Kukai and Saichō, the themes of the arts in its Buddhist meaning and the separation of the school within the Buddhist community are also important: according to the plan of their founders, the “secret” schools, preaching enlightenment for all, follow their own special path of practice. (shrink)

In this essay I will illustrate how a Japanese philosopher reacted to a newly imported discipline, “bioethics,” in the 1980s and then tried to create an alternative way of looking at “life” in the field of philosophy. This essay might serve as an interesting case study in which a contemporary “western” way of thinking succeeded in capturing, but finally failed to persuade, a then-young Japanese researcher’s mind.

In this anthology, works of ten Japanese thinkers, many of whom are no longer alive but who have been household names among the Japanese intellectual community, are selected and translated into English, accompanied by a brief introduction of each thinker. An additional three substantial essays by scholars of Japanese philosophy make this volume a compelling read for anyone interested in the Japanese philosophical endeavor since 1945. This anthology clearly goes beyond the familiar parameter of the Kyoto (...) School of Philosophy. (shrink)

In my paper, I propose to investigate the philosophical underpinnings of representative indigenous Japanese psychotherapeutic approaches, particularly that of Morita and Naikan therapies, that have, at their foundations, distinctly Buddhist psychological tenets, and that offer to deal with mental health issues in a manifestly different way compared with their western counterparts. I offer a comprehensive account of how the characterizations of madness and mental illness have been shifting over the last two hundred years in Japanese society and culture, (...) and how this has affected mental health care in Japan. Finally, the ways in which modern day thinkers, such as Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki and Keiji Nishitani have been re-shaping the concepts of the self in Japanese religion and philosophy while, at the same time, taking care to remain faithful to the original East Asian sensibilities will also be expounded and connected to the themes of mental health and mental illness. (shrink)

Japanese philosophy can be viewed as consisting of three historical phases. In the first and classical phase, theoretical speculation in Japan is usually seen as a variation of East Asian intellectual tradition, which basically consists of Confucianism and Sinicized Buddhism. Some thinkers nevertheless start to depart from this framework by drawing either on the indigenous culture or on the knowledge of occidental civilization, which eventually leads to the Westernization of Japanese society. In the second, or modern, phase of (...) Japanese philosophy, there arises a theoretical task to synthesize Eastern and Western frameworks, and many pioneering works of modern East Asian philosophy are produced in the first half of the 20th century. The third and contemporary phase of Japanese philosophy spans from the postwar reconstruction of Japan to the present, when eminent researchers lead philosophical studies under the framework either of analytic or continental context. Recent philosophical research in Japan is increasingly getting free from such academic frameworks, producing some remarkable results-- although most of these contemporary works remain unknown overseas. (shrink)

This paper discusses the notions of impermanence and death as treated in the Chinese and Japanese philosophical traditions, particularly in connection with the Buddhist concept of emptiness and void and the original Daoist answers to the problem. Methodological problems are mentioned and two ways of approaching the theme are proposed: the logically discursive and the meditative mystical one, with the two symbols of each, Uroboros and the open circle. The switch of consciousness is suggested as an essential condition for (...) liberation of the Ego and its illusions. Rational logic as well as the sophisticated meditative ways of selflessness and detachment are suggested when treating the Chinese and Japanese philosophical notions, and examples of the discussed topics from the texts given. The instructive seventh chapter of the classical Daoist work, Lie Zi, is analyzed in detail and put into contrast with the answers given to that problem in the Greco-Judeo-Christian tradition. (shrink)

Volume 2. The second of three volumes of essays that engage Japanese philosophers as intercultural thinkers, this collection critically probes seminal works for their historical significance and contemporary relevance. It shows how the relational ethics of Watsuji Tetsurō serves as a resource for new conceptions of trust, dignity, and human rights; how forgiveness empowers the repentance and the sense of responsibility advocated by Tanabe Hajime, and how Kuki Shūzō’s philosophy of contingency puts a fortuitous twist on normative ethics. The (...) author also re-examines the controversy about Kyoto School wartime writings so as to uncover the covert side of today’s empires, and reflects on the hidden consequences of seeing nature as the non-human world. Underlying these investigations is a consistent style that interrogates philosophers for what lies undisclosed and that exposes decisive questions that arise between us and them. (shrink)

What makes Japanese art unique? In The Japanese Sense of Beauty, art critic and historian Takashina Shūji reflects on the aesthetic and philosophical sensibilities underlying Japanese art throughout its history, from the earliest calligraphy and painted screens to modern masters like Hishida Shunso and Yokoyama Taikan. Along the way, Takashina explores themes such as the relationship between subjective perspective and "flat" composition and the playful intermingling of word and image throughout the plastic arts of Japan. He also (...) offers fresh critical perspectives on many individual artists, including Takeuchi Seihō, one of the first to fuse traditional techniques with Western realism, and Takahashi Yuichi, who combined a vivid mastery of texture with deceptively traditionalist compositions. Other essays in this wide-ranging collection touch on everything from the symbolism of Mount Fuji to the ancient music known as gagaku, showing how even the most disparate topics can shed new light on what is essential to Japanese culture. The Japanese Sense of Beauty is an important contribution to the study of aesthetics and cultural history, offering insights that will change the way you think about Japanese art." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

One of Kant’s famous questions about being human asks, “What may I hope?” This question places individual life within an encompassing horizon of human history and speculates on the possibility of perspectives beyond death. In our time mortality is generally repressed, though the development of personal consciousness is closely linked to realization of one’s finitude. This raises especially urgent questions for children, and they are left to deal with them alone. From the time awareness begins, knowledge that death can occur (...) at any moment is one of the a priori determinants of being alive; that is, life is structured in advance by its future pastness. . According to Max Scheler, death reveals itself as a necessary and manifest constituent of all possible inner experiences in the life process. The cultural and individual interpretations of death’s meaning and consequences derived from this insight opened up an ample space for imagined possibilities of “continued existence,” which affected approaches to life. In our research project “Inochi – The Concept of Life after Death in Children’s Construction of the World. A German-Japanese Comparison,” carried out with German and Japanese research support, we examine concepts developed within the community of inquiry concerning “the individual’s afterlife” as soul, angel, animal, star, etc. In this we want to examine whether a globalized media environment leads to a cultural convergence in children’s ideas, and whether there are differences between views of girls and boys. Relevance of ideas about death is seen in the example of Japanese children who, believing in reincarnation chose “killing oneself” with relative frequency as a problem-solving strategy. Our contribution will present children’s imaginings using the drawings they created within this framework, since these can be interpreted as expressions of “narrative philosophizing,” especially for the Japanese children. Here we follow Mark Johnson who says” Human beings are imaginative synthesizing animals” . These imaginations make up a large part of our understanding, not just our beliefs, but rather our socially constructed way of being in and inhabiting a world. (shrink)

Philosophy challenges our assumptions—especially when it comes to us from another culture. In exploring Japanese philosophy, a dependable guide is essential. The present volume, written by a renowned authority on the subject, offers readers a historical survey of Japanese thought that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. Adhering to the Japanese philosophical tradition of highlighting engagement over detachment, Thomas Kasulis invites us to think with, as well as about, the Japanese masters by offering ample examples, innovative analogies, (...) thought experiments, and jargon-free explanations. He assumes little previous knowledge and addresses themes—aesthetics, ethics, the samurai code, politics, among others—not in a vacuum but within the conditions of Japan’s cultural and intellectual history. For readers new to Japanese studies, he provides a simplified guide to pronouncing Japanese and a separate discussion of the language and how its syntax, orthography, and linguistic layers can serve the philosophical purposes of a skilled writer and subtle thinker. For those familiar with the Japanese cultural tradition but less so with philosophy, Kasulis clarifies philosophical expressions and problems, Western as well as Japanese, as they arise. Half of the book’s chapters are devoted to seven major thinkers who collectively represent the full range of Japan’s historical epochs and philosophical traditions: Kūkai, Shinran, Dōgen, Ogyū Sorai, Motoori Norinaga, Nishida Kitarō, and Watsuji Tetsurō. Nuanced details and analyses enable an engaged understanding of Japanese Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintō, and modern academic philosophy. Other chapters supply social and cultural background, including brief discussions of nearly a hundred other philosophical writers. In his closing chapter Kasulis reflects on lessons from Japanese philosophy that enhance our understanding of philosophy itself. He reminds us that philosophy in its original sense means loving wisdom, not studying ideas. In that regard, a renewed appreciation of engaged knowing can play a critical role in the revitalization of philosophy in the West as well as the East. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On Japanese Things and Words:An Answer to Heidegger's QuestionMichael F. MarraIt has been over thirty years since my high school teacher of philosophy, Professor Dino Dezzani, recommended a book from which to begin my study of philosophy: Martin Heidegger's (1889-1976) Unterwegs zur Sprache (On the way to language [1959]). Evidently he was aware of my interest in literature and thought that Heidegger's discussion of words, things, and poetic (...) language would give some sort of direction to my naïve and youthful questions of what literature is about and what I should hope to find in it.The impact that Heidegger's book had on this young student was much greater than my professor could ever have imagined. I would hardly have committed myself to the study of Japan were it not for my reading of "A Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer," which appears in On the Way to Language. The dialogue is a fictional reconstruction of an actual meeting that Heidegger had with Tezuka Tomio (1903-1983), a Japanese scholar of German literature who visited the German philosopher in Freiburg at the end of March 1954.1 In the dialogue the Inquirer (Heidegger) formulates a central question that, in my opinion, should be of fundamental interest to anyone seriously concerned with the study of Japan. The question is deceptively simple, at least compared with the difficulty of coming up with the answer-an answer that, as a matter of fact, the reader will not find fully formulated in the dialogue. The question is: "What is the Japanese word for 'language' "? The Japanese visitor (Tezuka in Heidegger's recollection) appears to have been caught off guard, as we can see from Heidegger's parenthetical remark: "after further hesitation." Had Heidegger posed the same question to a Frenchman or an Italian, the answer would have been immediate: "langue" or "lingua." The challenge for Tezuka was definitely higher since he had a variety of words from which to choose. He could have used, for example, the expression gengo, a combination of two Chinese characters indicating "the speech of words." Instead, he used an ancient Japanese word derived from the native Yamato vocabulary: kotoba, which literally means "the foliage of speech."2There should be little doubt that Tezuka's choice was prompted by his desire to please Heidegger by playing the philosopher's own game-something that Tezuka totally succeeded in doing, as Heidegger's dialogue attests. Tezuka introduced a term that lent itself to etymological play-an enterprise very close to the heart of Heidegger, and one that was also very popular among Japanese thinkers.3 In fact, the expression kotoba incorporates the word koto, which means both "thing" and [End Page 555] "word" and which is found in the basic concepts of Japanese ontology: Mikoto (God, or "the honorable thing"), makoto (truth, or "the true word"), kotodama (soul, or "the spirit of words"), and kotowari(reason, or "the splitting of things"). The association of "words" and "things" in the Japanese word for "language" must have been of particular interest to Heidegger, who, four years before his meeting with Tezuka, had written "Das Ding" (The thing), a major lecture on the notion of things interpreted in light of the fourfold earth, sky, divinities, and mortals. In the dialogue Heidegger refers to this essay, in which "things" are presented in their objectified presence-the disparaged things that modernity and technology have dispossessed of their Being (Sein). Heidegger points out that never has the distance between things and Sein been as great as in modernity, when all distances in space and time have shrunk.4 Given the unflattering position that Heidegger had taken on the notion of "things," Tezuka was forced to come to the rescue of the Japanese word kotoba by endowing koto with the meaning of two Heideggerian keywords: "event" (kotogara) and "affair" (Sache). The thingly component of kotoba was not simply an objectifiable presence that can be counted, analyzed, and disposed of, but rather a poietic "act" that has the power to create a reality by transforming the named thing (koto) into a real thing (koto).In "A Dialogue... (shrink)

The imperative that Japanese philosophy faces today, I assert, is the imperative of environmental philosophy. It is an imperative that has decidedly global origins and indisputable global significance. In discussing this imperative, I revive some age-old, perhaps idealistic, and even romantic themes from East Asian Confucian thinking in the hopes that they might become more central motifs of Japanese philosophizing, charting a way forward in the wake of Fukushima, toward a more sustainable future. In the process, I critique (...) admixtures of environmentalism and nationalism, seeking to elevate instead an ecologically sound philosophical perspective that is more globally inclined than narrowly nationalistic. (shrink)

This book examines the origins and boundaries of Japanese digital role-playing games. A geographically diverse roster of contributors introduces English-speaking audiences to Japanese video game scholarship and applies postcolonial and philosophical readings to the Japanese game text.

The transcripts of the three Kyoto School roundtable discussions of the theme of 'The standpoint of world history and Japan' may now be judged to form the key source text of responsible Pacific War revisionism. Published in the pages of Chuo Koron, the influential magazine of enlightened elite Japanese opinion during the twelve months after Pearl Harbor, these subversive discussions involved four of the finest minds of the second generation of the Kyoto School of philosophy. Tainted by controversy and (...) shrouded in conspiratorial mystery, these transcripts were never republished in Japan after the war, and they have never been translated into English except in selective and often highly biased form. David Williams has now produced the first objective, balanced and close interpretative reading of these three discussions in their entirety since 1943. This version of the wartime Kyoto School transcripts is neither a translation nor a paraphrase but a fuller rendering in reader-friendly English that is convincingly faithful to the spirit of the original texts. The result is a masterpiece of interpretation and inter-cultural understanding between the Confucian East and the liberal West. Seventy years after Tojo came to power, these documents of the Japanese resistance to his wartime government and policies exercise a unique claim on students of Japanese history and thought today because of their unrivalled revelatory potential within the vast literature on the Pacific War. The Philosophy of Japanese Wartime Resistance may therefore stand as the most trenchant analysis of the political, philosophic and legal foundations of the place of the Pacific War in modern Japanese history yet to appear in any language. (shrink)

This book examines the origins and boundaries of Japanese digital role-playing games. A geographically diverse roster of contributors introduces English-speaking audiences to Japanese video game scholarship and applies postcolonial and philosophical readings to the Japanese game text.

Japanese Hermeneutics provides a forum for the most current international debates on the role played by interpretative models in the articulation of cultural discourses on Japan. It presents the thinking of esteemed Western philosophers, aestheticians, and art and literary historians, and introduces to English-reading audiences some of Japan's most distinguished scholars, whose work has received limited or no exposure in the United States. In the first part, "Hermeneutics and Japan," contributors examine the difficulties inherent in articulating "otherness" without falling (...) into the trap of essentialization and while relying on Western epistemology for explanation and interpretation. In the second part, "Japan's Aesthetic Hermeneutics," they explore the role of aesthetics in shaping discourses on art and nature in Japan. The essays in the final section of the book, "Japan's Literary Hermeneutics," rethink the notion of "Japanese literature" in light of recent findings on the ideological implications of canon formations and transformations within Japan's prominent literary circles. Contributors: Amagasaki Akira, Haga Toru, Hamashita Masahiro, Inaga Shigemi, Kambayashi Tsunemichi, Thomas LaMarre, John C. Maraldo, Michael F. Marra, Mark Meli, Ohashi Ryosuke, Otabe Tanehisa, Graham Parkes, J. Thomas Rimer, Sasaki Ken'ichi, Haruo Shirane, Suzuki Sadami, Stefan Tanaka, Gianni Vattimo. (shrink)

To answer the question of whether there is such a thing as Japanese philosophy, and what its characteristics might be, scholars have typi­cally used Western philosophy as a measure to examine Japanese texts. This article turns the tables and asks what Western thought looks like from the perspective of Japanese philosophy. It uses Japanese philo­sophical sources as a lens to bring into sharper focus the qualities and biases of Greek-derived Western philosophy. It first examines ques­tions related (...) to the reputed sole origin and the nature of philosophy in ancient Greece. Using the analyses of Robert Bernasconi, it con­cludes that this reputation is a bias instilled by philosophers such as Hegel in the modern era. It then uses the scholarship of Pierre Hadot to show that Greek philosophy was not argumentative discourse for its own sake, but a way of life where reason was in the service of spir­itual progress. This suggests a definition broad enough to accommo­date Asian and other non-Western philosophies. Under the lens of Japanese philosophy, however, Greek-based Western philosophy often displays a double detachment, from everyday life and from embod­ied existence. In contrast, Japanese Buddhist and Confucian philoso­phies evince an appreciation of embodied existence in the ordinary world. The article raises several questions for further investigation in the prospect that the lens of Japanese philosophy can refocus the task of philosophizing today. (shrink)

While many historians take the view that Japanese philosophy only started with the Meiji Restoration and the entrance of Western culture into Japan, Hajime Nakamura demonstrates that there has been a long history of philosophy in Japan prior to the Meiji. Beginning in 592 AD, when Japan first became a centralized state and continuing into the early modern era, this work deals with the important problems and salient feature of Japanese philosophical thought at all stages in its development.

A translation of a Japanese text written by philosopher Tosaka Jun in 1935, at the moment the country had begun to embark upon a course of fascist authoritarianism that led to war and total destruction. Titled The Japan Ideology, the text purposely recalls its derivation and kinship with Marx and Engels's The German Ideology and expands on the role played by philosophic idealism in preparing the population for both the new politics of fascism and the demands of the eventual (...) war it brought. In its penetrating analysis of the relationship between philosophy and the formation of ideology in a politically critical and crucial historical time, this foundational work in the Japanese Marxist tradition remains accessible and timely, speaking forcibly to conditions that continue to persist in Japan and everywhere in today's world. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper explores philosophically the experiences of laughter and irony, focusing on Japanese sources but with a cross-cultural outlook. I ask whether globally unfavorable attitudes towards the comic in the European canon might have left unexplored or misunderstood several insights offered by the bodily and spiritual dimension revealed by laughter, and examine them through Japanese sources. Following a short but poignant triad of examples in Kuki Shūzō’s work, the paper analyses three instances of Japanese laughter and (...) irony: the orgiastic laughter of the gods luring Amaterasu out of the Heavenly Cave in Kojiki; the anthropomorphic animal scrolls of Chōjūgiga, and the “Tiger Cubs Crossing” stone garden in Ryōanji, Kyoto, concluding how each one of them offers an important insight on the bodily and conceptual phenomenological cluster of laughter and irony. I conclude with a further exploration of laughter in Zen, a religious tradition with a unique stress on the spiritual potential of humor, following Nishitani’s reading of Mumonkan and his connection to the experience of “emptiness”. (shrink)

This paper assesses leading Japanese philosophical thought since the onset of Japan’s modernity: namely, from the Meiji Restoration onwards. It argues that there are lessons of global value for AI ethics to be found from examining leading Japanese philosophers of modernity and ethics, each of whom engaged closely with Western philosophical traditions. Turning to these philosophers allows us to advance from what are broadly individualistically and Western-oriented ethical debates regarding emergent technologies that function in relation to AI, by (...) introducing notions of community, wholeness, sincerity, and heart. With reference to AI that pertains to profile, judge, learn, and interact with human emotion, this paper contends that Japan itself may internally make better use of historic indigenous ethical thought, especially as it applies to question of data and relationships with technology; but also that externally Western and global ethical discussion regarding emerging technologies will find valuable insights from Japan. The paper concludes by distilling from Japanese philosophers of modernity four ethical suggestions, or spices, in relation to emerging technological contexts for Japan’s national AI policies and international fora, such as standards development and global AI ethics policymaking. (shrink)

Comparative environmental philosophy is valuable in many ways. Perhaps it is most valuable because it reveals some of the foundational assumptions that run so deep in the poles of comparison that they might otherwise have gone unnoticed. These revelations may invite us to challenge those assumptions that have led to the kind of thinking responsible for much of the environmental degradation that we see today. Japanese Environmental Philosophy gathers papers focused on the environmental problems of the twenty-first century. Drawing (...) from Japanese philosophical traditions they investigate our relationships with other humans, nonhuman animals, and the environment. The heart of the book consists of chapters written by fifteen top scholars from Japan, the United States, Europe, and Australia. The essays cover a broad range of topics drawn from various strains of Japanese thought—including Zen Buddhism, Shintoism, the Kyoto school, and Japanese philosophy of art and aesthetics—as well as from traditional Japanese culture and the contemporary science of planning for natural disasters. These articles demonstrate that Japanese scientific, philosophical, religious, and cultural traditions can provide meaningful insight to address the current global environmental crisis. (shrink)

Although it seems natural to consider the last fifty years the contemporary period, because this year (1995) punctuates a historical period celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Pacific War, this essay will limit the term “contemporary” roughly to the last twenty‐five years. The reason for this demarcation is that at the beginning of the 1970s, we witnessed a new philosophical mood emerging in Japan. Prior to that period, the Japanese philosophical scene was dominated by the study (...) of European thinkers, such as Husserl, Heiddeger, Sartre, and Merleau Ponty. The end of the students' movement in the early 1970s also marked the end of the ideological disputes launched by Marxism since the early 1930s. Instead, it appears that the Japanese intelligentsia in the early 1970s began to acutely sense problems inherent in the Eurocentric philosophy which had served as a foundation for Western science and technology. This occurred largely through a recognition that scientific technology had yielded, as its unexpected byproduct, a “mind/heartless” society, pollution, and global ecological crises, which had permeated almost all parts of the Japanese archipelago to threaten the psyche of the Japanese people and their mode of living. In this essay, I should like to briefly introduce three representative contemporary Japanese thinkers who have addressed some aspects of these problems in their writings. They are Nakamura Yujiro, Sakabe Megumi, and Yuasa Yasuo. (Because of the limitations of space, this article will restrict itself to these three thinkers, but this should not suggest that there are no other representative thinkers in Japan. Consider particularly those belonging to the neo Kyoto school, such as Nishitani Keiji, Kosaka Masaki, Koyama Iwao, Umehara Takeshi and Ueda Shizuteru. Nishitani's works are well known in the English speaking world, along with those of Abe Masao. Out side of the Kyoto school, we can also mention other thinkers, such as Matsumoto Masao, Hiromatsu Wataru and Ichikawa Hiroshi.). (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy covers, in detail and depth, the entire span of Japan’s philosophical tradition, from ancient times to the present. It introduces and examines the most important topics, figures, schools, and texts from the history of philosophical thinking in premodern and modern Japan. Each chapter, written by a leading scholar in the field, clearly elucidates and critically engages with its topic in a manner that demonstrates its contemporary philosophical relevance.

In this paper, I aim to interpret the mind-body-land connection that Christianity and Buddhism suggestively teach as a three-stage extension process of the field of experience, which proceeds accordingly as the three-step movement of our experience develops. Drawing on the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro, I first show why the mind or one’s subjective consciousness deserves to be regarded as the field of experience corresponding to the first phase of the movement of experience. I then explore how the second phase (...) of the movement of experience requires the body as its corresponding field, which also serves as a seat of super-individual unity provided by the unifying power of nature. On this basis, I finally argue that this transpersonal power of nature is combined with that of society. Inspired by the Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani, I thus seek to clarify that these both powers are merged into the land as the ultimate field of our experience. (shrink)

When I first opened my copy of Thomas Kasulis's Engaging Japanese Philosophy: A Short History, I had planned to skip around, as one might do when reading an edited volume. Initially, I was most interested in how I might excerpt various chapters for classroom use. And I have indeed come away with many ideas for reading this book with students. But, after making it through just the first few pages of Kasulis's highly informative and entertaining history of Japanese (...) philosophy, I found that the book demands to be read in the order in which it was written. In addition to his role as philosopher and historian, in this book Kasulis is a storyteller. And so, as when enjoying a... (shrink)

In this book, 12 contemporary Japanese philosophers of science are presented using a generous sampling of their works as scientists and philosophers who have investigated the foundations of natural science, the philosophy of mind and especially of perception, the logic of inference and of time, causality, and evolution.

This is an interpretation of the experiential/religious meaning of Japanese Shrine Shinto as taught us primarily by the priests at Tsubaki Grand Shrine, Suzuka, Mie Prefecture. As a heuristic device, we suggest lines of comparison between the thought and practice of the Tsubaki priests and two Western thinkers: the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber and the French philosopher Georges Bataille. This in turn allows the construction of three interpretive categories that we believe illuminate both the Shintō worldview and Shintō ritual (...) practice. (shrink)

In tackling the question of what is Japanese philosophy, the paper discusses: philosophy in general, the issue of Japanese philosophy, and the relevance of both philosophy and Japanese philosophy in our present age of globalization. Examining the definitions of philosophy provided by Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger, and looking at the philosophies of Nishida and Nishitani among others, I argue the source of philosophy—its originary and universal motivation—to be the question of meaning of existence. Japanese philosophy is (...) no exception. I then discuss whether there is something unique to Japanese philosophy in particular and look into the question of the essence of Japanese philosophy. Furthermore, I argue that in order to be true to the original motivation of philosophy, the study of Japanese philosophy, if it is itself to be considered philosophy, cannot be reduced to biography, history, or philology. It must be relevant to our life. I then conclude with a discussion of the relevance of Japanese philosophy and the philosophical study of Japanese philosophy to our life today. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy is by all counts an ambitious work. Its primary goal is to provide the reader with a foundational framework in which to engage interpretively the tradition of Japanese philosophy. It would be impossible to summarize, let alone do justice to, the thirty-six rich and illuminating chapters written by many of the most prominent scholars in the field from Japan, Europe, Australia, and North America.Navigating between the "violence of inclusion" that would reduce the (...) philosophically other to our own conception of philosophy and the "violence of exclusion" that would fail to recognize what we share with this other, Bret Davis... (shrink)