Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School (review)

Transcription

1 Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School (review) Curtis Rigsby Philosophy East and West, Volume 53, Number 4, October 2003, pp (Review) Published by University of Hawai'i Press DOI: For additional information about this article Access provided by National Taiwan University (7 Sep :43 GMT)

2 abundance of diverse meaning. In contrast, Burton argues that a trans-cultural and trans-historical rationality can bridge the interpretive challenges of time, tradition, and language between contemporary Western scholars and Nāgārjuna, despite the obscurity of the texts, themselves veiled under millennia of accumulated commentarial traditions. This is not to say that Burton believes there is always one definitive meaning of a particular verse, but he considers the possibilities of legitimate interpretation to be limited, and a reasonable and systematic exegesis ought to be able to interpret and critique each one. He therefore rejects Andrew Tuck s claim that as interpreters we are limited by our own cultural horizons, a claim for which Burton s own Anglo-American philosophical limitations seem to provide evidence. Burton s final evaluation is that although philosophically untenable, Nāgārjuna s thought deserves to be studied because it raises deep philosophical issues. Some readers will read Burton s careful arguments and close textual analysis and consider it admirably intrepid scholarship; others will regard his unsympathetic interpretation as naïvely brash. There is no doubt, however, that Burton s exposition and appraisal raise important philosophical and interpretive questions for the study of Mādhyamaka. Notes 1 Curiously, Burton cites Heidegger s notion of Zuhandenheit as an example of implicit conceptualization, although Heidegger emphasizes that it is precisely not a cognitive process. 2 Again, Burton makes a strange choice in citing Husserl to support his own argument. Burton claims to agree with Husserl that the structure of consciousness is intentional; in other words, consciousness is always consciousness of. Because consciousness always requires a subject pole and an object pole, Burton argues that if consciousness is to exist, then there must be an entity at the object pole. But Husserl, who was often understood to be an idealist by his contemporaries, especially following the publication of Ideas I and Cartesian Meditations, occasionally argues for a position that bears some similarity to the one Burton is attacking. Moreover, a philosophical defense of Nāgārjuna could draw on the Husserlian understanding of hyle. Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School. By James W. Heisig. Honolulu: University of Hawai i Press, Pp. xii þ 380. Reviewed by Curtis Rigsby Office of the History of Japanese Philosophy at Kyoto University; East-West Center; and University of Hawai i Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School by James W. Heisig is the first major work in English to offer such a complete introduction to the thought of the Kyoto School. It analyzes the School s three core figures, Nishida Kitarō, Tanabe Hajime, and Nishitani Keiji, whom Heisig, using Takeuchi Yoshinori s terminology (p. 176), has elsewhere referred to as the triangulation around which the School is Philosophy East & West Volume 53, Number 4 October > 2003 by University of Hawai i Press

3 defined. 1 Heisig s work helps the Western reader to understand the School within the context of current Western ideological trends, interests, and expectations. The book is more than an introduction for Westerners, however, as it makes significant contributions to Kyoto School scholarship and should be of serious interest to both Japanese and Western readers. Beyond this, Heisig brings the Kyoto School into the forum of world philosophy (pp. 8 9) by subjecting it to the critical analysis that one associates with the standards and interests of conventional Western philosophy. Heisig begins with the conscious assumption that the Kyoto School was dedicated to the same philosophical project that the West has come to regard as conventional: Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani themselves made no claim to a uniquely Japanese mode of thought inaccessible to the outside world.... On the contrary, their very reason for working in the philosophical idiom and adjusting their own language to accommodate it was that it was a universal idiom (p. 18). Heisig says of those denying the supra-cultural aims of Nishida s philosophy that they not only miss the point of his goal, but they push his ideas in the opposite direction he was headed (p. 37). Offering frequent examples of how problems and developments in the history of Western philosophy and religion mirror developments in the Kyoto School, Heisig provides his readers with a philosophical context in which they can appreciate the aims of the School and feel confident that they will be able to comprehend them. With regard to what appears to be the School s incomprehensible terminology, including notions of absolute contradiction, the union of opposites, and so on, Heisig reassures his Western readers that there is a definite, consistent logic at work, which, he says, in the context of Nishida s philosophy, gives rational thought its rightful place in the scheme of things (p. 79). In a word, Heisig feels that there is nothing logically contradictory about it (p. 66). While aiming to demonstrate that the Kyoto School shares significant commonalities with Western philosophy, Heisig stresses that the Kyoto School is unique in its development and features, and that it is fully capable of making new contributions to world philosophy: It is true that the thinking of the Kyoto philosophers feeds well into the critique of the transcendental subject and the return to the primacy of experience that has marked [the] twentieth century in the west s shift from the nineteenth, and in that sense is more easily understandable. But such points of contact should not obscure the fact that there is nothing in western philosophy that approaches the particular constellation of their thinking. (p. 13) The entire book is dedicated to an exposition of the particular constellation of Kyoto School thought, setting the stage for its unique place and contribution to world philosophy. Notwithstanding the rich variety of thought produced by the School, Heisig follows Sueki Takehiro and Ueda Shizuteru in characterizing its central, unique feature as self-awareness ( jikaku ), which Heisig also calls the transformation of awareness (pp. 14, 17). Elsewhere, Heisig also writes, If there is one 606 Philosophy East & West

4 notion that seems to run like a golden thread throughout the entire, rich tapestry that Kyoto philosophers have woven, it is that of jikaku or self-awareness. 2 While commenting on the School s unique features, Heisig is still careful to stress that it is nonetheless working in the same genre that the West has come to regard as conventional philosophy. With regard to the assumptions of certain multiculturalist or postmodern movements, or of certain Japanese culture enthusiasts, Heisig refers to claims of cultural or linguistic impenetrability as a position grounded deeper in emotion than in fact (p. 18). To those tempted to regard the Kyoto School as primarily a movement of Buddhist apologetics, Heisig says that it is within the confines of traditional philosophical thought that the Kyoto philosophers find their place more than in the circles of Buddhist scholarship (p. 25; see also p. 15). Again, beyond simply offering an introduction to the Kyoto School to a Western readership, Heisig makes significant further contributions to research on the School that should interest a Japanese readership as well. To begin with, his book conveniently lays out common themes and significant differences among Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani, noting lines of influence and opposition among them (pp. 24, 190). Samples of common themes Heisig covers are self-awareness, dialectic (benshōhō ), and true self (shinjin ) (p. 24), while examples of significant differences include Nishida s self-identity of absolute contradictories (zettaimujunteki-jikodōitsu ), Tanabe s logic of species (shu no ronri ) and metanoesis (zange ), and Nishitani s standpoint of emptiness (kū no tachiba ). Moreover, Heisig is careful to distinguish between the fine points of difference among the three thinkers with regard to shared concepts such as nothingness (mu ). Heisig conveniently condenses the fruit of years of study, outlining what he concludes to be the Kyoto School s major characteristic assumptions: the elements I will single out here have been extrapolated from the texts of their writings, where not infrequently they work tacitly, and in any case are nowhere laid out as neatly as they are here (p. 13). With regard to the Kyoto School s own tradition, Heisig concludes first of all that it tends to see philosophy, religion, and culture as having a common identity. For the Kyoto School, philosophy and religion are both modes of thought, with the result that there is no presumed antagonism between them (p. 14). Further, philosophy, religion, and culture are together seen as something whose essence can be talked about independently of the social institutions in which it is encased (pp ). Thus, and second, Heisig concludes that the Kyoto School tends to separate philosophy, religion, and culture from social institutions: The wider sociological and anthropological context of culture, which embraces the genesis, transmission, and transformation of the social order of human relationships, work, commerce, entertainment, political power, and so forth, is left out of the picture (p. 15). As a consequence, philosophy, religion, and culture can criticize social institutions without themselves becoming the objects of criticism (p. 15). Book Reviews 607

5 At the same time, Heisig notes that there are nonetheless significant contexts where the Kyoto School does identify philosophy, religion, and culture with social institutions, with the result that Japanese social institutions are immune to criticism. Locating a strand of ethnocentrism in Nishida s claim that Japan is a culture based on absolute nothingness, Heisig sees this trend in the School: In suggesting a direct relationship between philosophical ideas of reality and underlying culture-specific modes of thought, Nishida would seem to risk relativizing his understanding of the absolute (p. 87). In particular, Heisig illustrates this ethnocentric trend by examining the Kyoto School s venture into nationalism during the war years. While Heisig does identify these trends as working assumptions of the Kyoto School, it is important to note that he balances his claims by noting exceptions to the rule. With regard to the proposition that there is no antagonism between philosophy, religion, and culture, Heisig notes in each of the Kyoto School thinkers a conscious critical spirit that would prevent a blind fusion of the three. This conscious critical spirit is also applicable to the working assumption of the Kyoto School s separation of the three from the surrounding social institutions. This conscious critical spirit is especially exemplified in Heisig s strong insistence that Nishida is not doing a new kind of Buddhist philosophy (pp ), in Tanabe s absolute critique of philosophy itself (p. 157), and in Nishitani s critique of religions (p. 252). This conscious critical spirit is also implicit in the zealous philosophical dialogue among the members of the Kyoto School themselves, and in their struggles with Western philosophy, over issues of philosophy, religion, culture, and even to some degree the surrounding social institutions. With regard to the fusion of the three with surrounding social institutions, Heisig calls such ethnocentric and nationalist ventures on the part of the School a distraction (p. 99) from the natural inspirations of Kyoto School philosophy, less the coincidence of ideas than the coincidence of historical circumstances (p. 24). With regard to their own tradition, then, according to Heisig, the Kyoto School tends to separate philosophy, religion, and culture from their surrounding social institutions. However, This stands in marked difference to their treatment of western culture including western culture imported into Japan where traditional cultural values and present social structures are generally seen together, as they have been in western philosophy and religion at least since the Enlightenment (p. 15). In other words, the Kyoto philosophers approach western thinking as a whole, not only all of philosophy but all of religion, science, and literature as well.... At least until recently, we should add, this is the same way western philosophy and indeed eastern thought itself has tended to treat the intellectual traditions of the Far East (p. 13). Noting the steps that the Kyoto School must take before coming into fully mature dialogue with Western philosophy, Heisig, referring through Nishida to the entire Kyoto School, addresses Kyoto School enthusiasts in the West as well as in Japan who do not yet have a background in Western philosophy: It is a mistake alas, a 608 Philosophy East & West

6 common mistake to confuse western philosophy with Nishida s generalizations about western philosophy... Nishida s philosophy... is based on an impressive but nonetheless limited appreciation of the two worlds he was attempting to wed (p. 39). Heisig balances this criticism by noting that Kyoto School philosophers in many cases are nonetheless good about not making hasty, monolithic generalizations (p. 86). Heisig s account of the working assumptions of the Kyoto School includes strong criticisms of it. The fusion of philosophy, religion, and culture prevents mutual criticism between them. Further, the separation of these three from the surrounding social institutions prevents their being criticized when the social institutions themselves are criticized. In a word, these working assumptions in Kyoto School thought have a double ramification: on the one hand Japanese thought and society go uncriticized at key points, and on the other the full weight of philosophical criticism is brought down upon Western thought and society. As a result, the tendency of the Kyoto philosophers to distance religious consciousness from social conscience, a tendency it shares with much of Japanese Buddhism, has helped to stifle the emergence of overriding principles critical of Japanese culture at the same time as they are free to call on their own traditional ascetic and moral values to abet critiques of western culture and society (p. 15). Through examining the working assumptions of the Kyoto School, Heisig brings it into the forum of world philosophy (pp. 8 9) by subjecting it to a variety of criticisms that one would expect in conventional Western philosophy. He lays out various individual critiques against Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani, some of which emerged from within the Kyoto School itself. Heisig joins Tanabe in criticizing Nishida s account of self-awareness as being egocentric, unreasonably ahistorical, and devoid of love and ethical responsibility (pp ). He joins various Christian and Marxist critics in criticizing Tanabe s political philosophy as having fallen into unseemly nationalism (pp ), and he adds an original criticism that Tanabe s symbolic theory is still largely underdeveloped, especially given the context of complex development already present in the West (p. 178). Heisig criticizes Nishitani s idea of the body for lack of organization and background justification (p. 252), and he criticizes Nishitani s idea of the no-self as a final stage of insight for lacking logical demonstration and self-evidence (p. 221). Heisig further implies that Nishitani lacked resolution in facing concrete social problems (p. 237). In proposing the major working assumptions of the Kyoto School, Heisig concludes that the School did not carry through its critical philosophical mission at certain key points concerning philosophy, religion, culture and their relation to the surrounding social institutions. In particular, Heisig s frequent implicit reference to a lack of social conscience in the Kyoto School (p. 15) suggests that the School s understanding of history and ethics lacked concreteness and depth. In addition to proposing that certain of the working assumptions of the School prevented philosophical development, Heisig makes a bolder claim that the cul- Book Reviews 609

7 tural background of Japan itself prevented philosophical development in the Kyoto School: Japan s intellectual history, like Chinese Buddhism on which it depended so heavily, has lacked the kind of symbolic theory that was essential to the west.... Japanese concern with philosophical questions did not in any important sense initiate from attempts to demythify the cosmos or to separate the literally true from what is only symbolically true. (pp ) Heisig asserts that it was the separation of the literally true from what is only symbolically true that allowed the Greeks to break free from a mythical worldview and begin doing philosophy in the first place (p. 12). Heisig claims that it was because Japan never underwent a demythologization stage in its philosophical history a stage necessary to the establishment of a clear symbolic theory that the Kyoto School did not venture into questions of psychoanalytic theory (pp ). He further claims that an even more direct philosophical ramification of the Kyoto School s lack of a clear symbolic theory was the exclusion of the entire tradition of logical positivism and analytic philosophy from Kyoto School concerns (p. 16). A final ramification of the Kyoto School s lack of a clear symbolic theory is the ambiguity of the ontological status of God in its thought: When it comes to the question of the existence of God, their suspensions of judgement can be particularly vexing. The fact is, all three of these philosophers speak regularly of God,... [and] there is no question of any of them confessing belief in a divine being or beings in the sense in which those terms are normally used.... But... [n]o attempt is made to qualify the term as a symbol of ultimate reality or as a metaphysical principle; nothing is said of an objective ontological reality or a subjective fiction. (p. 16) Heisig concludes with a concern for the Kyoto School s lack of a clear symbolic theory in that the School appears to avoid responsibility for clarifying the ontological status of several issues in their investigations, God being a most central issue: It almost looks as if they get the best of both worlds to claim that they are being religiously Buddhist when a philosophical criticism hits close to the core, and that they are being philosophically western when a serious objection arises from the Buddhist side (p. 17). In conclusion, Philosophers of Nothingness does represent a groundbreaking step in bringing the Kyoto School into the forum of world philosophy. In future editions, however, features that the reader would appreciate might include an introduction to key members of the Kyoto School other than Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani; an indexed glossary of Kyoto School terminology and key Buddhist terms; and, for the sake of those working in the Japanese language, an index of relevant Japanese terms in kanji and particularly a more convenient tabulation system for referencing the original Japanese texts. Such technical details aside, an even greater hope is to see the philosophy of the Kyoto School fully established in the forum of world philosophy. Heisig s 610 Philosophy East & West

8 criticisms of the School have already begun this process. It is clear, given these criticisms, that the Kyoto School faces significant difficulties, some of which may necessitate a partial revision or dismissal of certain of its tenets. Heisig himself notes that with regard to the deficiencies implicit in what he has called the working assumptions of the Kyoto School (p. 13) there are many exceptions, several of which are covered in this review. There is also the very real possibility of deriving positive implications from these assumptions. For example, the recognition of a commonality among philosophy, religion, and culture can be a fruitful method for considering the relationships and overlaps among these conventionally separate fields. Further, the ahistorical separation of philosophy, religion, and culture from their surrounding social institutions can be a fruitful method of discerning certain constants or universals in human consciousness and behavior. Regarding the deficiencies in the School s understanding of history and ethics, Heisig gives an account of how the Kyoto philosophers themselves realized and struggled with these issues. Moreover, the benefits of an ahistorical, impersonal, and general approach to history and ethics are also worth considering. Concerning the inadequacy of the School s attempts at the development of a symbolic theory, Heisig expresses his personal interest in Tanabe s own attempts (p. 178) and recognizes that Nishitani was aware of the connection to psychoanalysis (p. 252). Very significantly it should be pointed out that Nishitani wrote about this very subject in connection with some of Heisig s major concerns, namely the literally and merely symbolically true and the ontological status of God. Any future edition of this book (and any reader with an interest in Kyoto School views on symbolic theory) should refer to Nishitani s essay Buddhism and Christianity, which concludes that the demythologization critique that was formulated explicitly by the German theologian Rudolf Bultmann in the West was implicit from the beginning in the critical spirit of Buddhism concerning metaphysical postulations (such as God), and that this was therefore never an issue for Japanese thought. 3 Finally, it is worth considering the benefits or the implications of a symbolic theory that does not make a strong distinction between the literal and the metaphorical, or at least that is fully aware of the difficulties involved in clarifying this distinction. Heisig hints at this view of symbolic theory in his exposition of the Kyoto School s characterization of the authentic self as a metaphor (p. 15) and of death as a skillful means (Sanscrit upāya; Japanese hōben ) (p. 176) for awakening to the world as it is without the interference of... preconceptions such as literal versus metaphorical truth (p. 16). It should also be noted that some modern Western philosophers have also entertained positions that leave the ontological status of some philosophical terminology unclear, or even as best expressed through metaphor. The Later Heidegger, for example, considered poetry an effective, even a superior, vehicle, for dealing with philosophical questions. Despite the criticisms Heisig brings to bear on the Kyoto School philosophers, his book is still dedicated to demonstrating that the pursuit of the transformation of awareness on which they have concentrated their efforts is in fact capable of sustaining a self-consistent standpoint that can both enhance those areas of perennial Book Reviews 611

9 philosophy that touch on the same kind of question, and at the same time revitalize the closed world of their own intellectual tradition through the full weight of philosophical criticism (p. 17). Notes A Japanese-language version of this review was published in vol. 3 (December 2002) of Japanese Philosophy (Nihon no tetsugaku ), the annual journal published by the Office of the History of Japanese Philosophy (Nihon Tetsugakushi Kenkyūshitsu )at Kyoto University. I would like to express my deep gratitude to those of its members who graciously assisted me in the preparation of the Japanese version. I would especially like to thank Mizuno Tomoharu, Sugimoto Koichi, Miyano Yoshiko, and Waki Takaharu. 1 See James W. Heisig, The Religious Philosophy of the Kyoto School, in The Religious Philosophy of Tanabe Hajime, edited by Taitetsu Unno and James W. Heisig. (Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1990), pp Ibid., p See Writings of Nishitani Keiji (Nishitani Keiji chosakushū ). Kyoto: Sonbunsha, 1990, vol. 6, p Grazia Marchianò and Raffaele Milani, editors. Frontiers of Transculturality in Contemporary Aesthetics. Turin, Italy: Trauben, Pp Lit 58,100. Reviewed by Ashok Kumar Malhotra State University of New York at Oneonta Frontiers of Transculturality in Contemporary Aesthetics is a pioneering volume of the proceedings of an Intercontinental Conference held at the University of Bologna, Italy, during October 25 28, This is a rare publication that contains thirtyseven papers by renowned scholars from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America whose goal is to prepare the ground and build the foundation for the construction of a global aesthetics. By starting a dialogue between and among African, Eastern, and Western philosophers the book displays a novel yet bold approach to transcultural aesthetics, a field of the humanities that until now was regarded exclusively as the brainchild of the West. The book is divided into three parts, each dealing with a unique approach to globalizing aesthetics: first through the construction of an aesthetic theory, second through the discovery of standards of criticism, and third through the presentation of a multicultural vision that attempts to harmonize clashing East-West perspectives. Each part is intriguing and unique in the way it deals with multicultural and transcultural approaches within the context of the last part of the twentieth century and the beginning of the new century. Part 1, Transculturality in Aesthetic Theory, offers distinct approaches to building a global aesthetics. The ten papers included here put forward wide-ranging themes according to three basic cultural perspectives: (1) Western views on the 612 Philosophy East & West Volume 53, Number 4 October > 2003 by University of Hawai i Press