A paradox, it is claimed, is a radical form of contradiction, one that produces gaps in meaning. In order to approach this idea, two senses of “separation” are distinguished: separation by something and separation by nothing. The latter does not refer to nothing in an ordinary sense, however, since in that sense what’s intended is actually less than nothing. Numerous ordinary nothings in philosophy as well as in other fields are surveyed so as to clarify the contrast. Then follows the (...) suggestion that philosophies which one would expect to have room for paradoxes actually tend either to exclude them altogether, or to dull them. There is a clear alternative, however, one that fully recognizes paradoxes and yet also strives to overcome them. (shrink)

‘Mathematics is the science of the infinite, its goal the symbolic comprehension of the infinite with human, that is finite, means.’ Along this line, in The Open World, Hermann Weyl contrasted the desire to make the infinite accessible through finite processes, which underlies any theoretical investigation of reality, with the intuitive feeling for the infinite ‘peculiar to the Orient,’ which remains ‘indifferent to the concrete manifold of reality.’ But a critical analysis may acknowledge a valuable dialectical opposition. Struggling to spell (...) out the infinity of real numbers mathematicians come to see the active role of emptiness. Pondering over the essence of self-awareness, the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō comes to see the ‘place’ where it abides as absolute nothingness. Thus, the two ways of seeing coalesce into a perspective in which infinity and nothingness mirror each other. (shrink)

مارتین هایدگر در آثار متأخر خود تشریح می‌کند که متافیزیک به مثابه هستی‌ـ‌خداشناسی چگونه با توجه صرف به هستندگان آنها را از یک سو به جهت چیستی یا ذات مورد بررسی قرار می‌دهد و از سوی دیگر به جهت بودگی و قرار گرفتن در زنجیرۀ علّی ذیل برترین هستنده یا همان خداوند. وی با نگاه نقادانه به ساختار هستی‌ـ‌خداشناسی متافیزیک، بر آن است تا تبیین کند که رویکرد هستی‌ـ‌خداشناسانه هم سبب از دست رفتن فهم هستی شده و هم در نتیجۀ (...) آن الوهیت را از جایگاه اصلی خود خارج کرده است. در این مقاله بر آنیم تا معنای هستی‌ـ‌خداشناسی را در تفکر هایدگر متأخر بررسی کنیم و بدین منظور در پی آن هستیم که چگونه متافیزیک نزد هایدگر از نگاه همدلانۀ هستی‌شناسی بنیادین به رویکرد انتقادی هستی‌ـ‌خداشناسی تغییر جایگاه پیدا کرد و آثار دورۀ گذار و دورۀ متأخر وی را بدین منظور مورد تأمل قرار می‏دهیم. در این مقاله با تبیین ساختار هستی‌ـ‌خداشناسانۀ متافیزیک از منظر هایدگر نشان خواهیم داد که چگونه هستی مغفول واقع شده سبب تولد الهیات متافیزیکی شده است. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article analyses Nishitani Keiji’s persistent critique of modernity and how it intertwines with other issues—such as nihilism, science and religion—in his philosophy. While Nishitani gained some notoriety for his views on overcoming modernity during WWII, this article will look at his relationship with the issue more in the scope of his whole philosophical career. Pulling together various strands that weave through Nishitani’s treatment of modernity, its relation to nihilism and his views for overcoming both, we find that it motivates (...) his themes of Heideggerian critique of technology and Nietzschean redemption of tradition that combine with a reverse-Hegelian search for an originary ground that is grasped via existential realisation revealed through religious praxis. However, Nishitani’s approach raises some problematic questions on the social level due to the way it conceptualises modernity through a Nietzschean lens that leaves little room for modernity as a social and political phenomenon. (shrink)

Seeing of emptiness and mystical experience — the case of Madhyamaka: The problem of Buddhist religiosity is one of the most classic problems of Buddhist studies. A particular version of this issue is the search for mystical experience in Buddhism. This is due to the conviction that mystical experience is the essence of religious experience itself. The discovery of such an alleged experience fuels comparative speculations between Buddhism and the philosophical and religious traditions of the Mediterranean area. Madhyamaka is the (...) Buddhist tradition which many researchers saw as the fulfillment of such mystical aspirations in Buddhism. In this paper I specify the standard parameters of mystical experience (non‑conceptuality, ineffability, paradoxicality, silence, oneness, fullness) and I conclude that they either cannot be applied to Madhyamaka or that the application is only illusory. (shrink)

The question “What is the nature of experience?” is of perennial philosophical concern. It deals not only with the nature of experience qua experience, but additionally with related questions about the experiencing subject and that which is experienced. In other words, to speak of the philosophical problem of experience, one must also address questions about mind, world, and the various relations that link them together. Both William James and Kitarō Nishida were deeply concerned with these issues. Their shared notion of (...) “pure experience” is the conceptual cornerstone of their attempt to deal with the philosophical problem of experience. This dissertation is an analysis of “pure experience” and its relevance to several issues in contemporary hilosophy of mind. Drawing upon James’s and Nishida’s “pure experience”, I argue both for a sensorimotor-based, “extended” conception of consciousness and a bodily skills-based account of moral psychology. (shrink)

RESUMO Hans-Georg Gadamer retomou e elevou a atividade hermenêutica ao status de filosofia. Uma das suas idiossincrasias consiste em entrelaçar, no seu discurso, experiências de ordem ética, política, metafísica e estética. A hermenêutica filosófica pauta-se pela prática do diálogo sobre questões relativas ao pensar e à conduta humana. O presente artigo tem por meta realizar um exercício dialógico entre o projeto filosófico de Gadamer e o pensamento oriental - mais especificamente, o budismo zen da tradição da escola de Kyoto, representada (...) pelo pensamento de Nishida Kitarō. Nossa reflexão será articulada sobre quatro momentos distintos, mas que devem ser tomados dialeticamente: inicialmente, apresentaremos um quadro geral, indicando o estado da questão da hermenêutica gadameriana relativo ao pensamento oriental; a seguir, sustentaremos as semelhanças sobre o modo de proceder de ambas, sua metodologia dialética; posteriormente, aprofundaremos a noção fundamental de experiência e as proximidades que permeiam as perspectivas de ambas as tradições; enfim, como implicação das reflexões precedentes, sustentaremos a hipótese de um saber intuitivo enquanto experiência e ação intuitivas. Ao final, apontaremos algumas conclusões instauradas a partir desse exercício dialógico para a prática filosófica. ABSTRACT Hans-Georg Gadamer has taken over and raised hermeneutic activity to philosophy status. One of his idiosyncrasies is weaving, in his speech, ethical, political metaphysical and aesthetic experiences. Philosophical hermeneutics is guided by the practice of the dialogue on issues related to thinking and human behavior. This paper aims to perform a dialogic exercise between Gadamer's philosophical project and the Eastern thought-more specifically, the Zen Buddhism of Kyoto school tradition, represented by Nishida Kitarō's thought. Our reflection will be divided into four distinct moments that should be taken dialectally: first, we will present a general framework mentioning the status quaestionis of Gadamer's hermeneutics concerning Eastern thought; then, we will maintain the similarities on how the way to proceed in both, its dialectical methodology; subsequently, we will go deeper into the fundamental notion of experience and the proximities that permeate the perspective of both traditions; finally, as implication of foregoing reflections, we will maintain the hypothesis of an intuitive knowledge as intuitive experience and action. In order to conclude, we will consider some conclusions instituted from that dialogical exercise towards philosophical practice. (shrink)

Japanese philosopher and literary critic, Kōjin Karatani, introduces a ‘third position’ that seeks to correct the limitations of post-modern thought and the problems of global capitalism. By restoring Kant’s ‘transcendental’ as the methodological basis for capturing the structural interstice between different theoretical positions, Karatani’s ‘third position’ allows for a re-introduction of Marxism in addressing the circulation of the capital-nation-state trifecta and its relationship to ideological superstructures operating within a closed discursive space. Many years earlier, Nishida Kitarō, the father of the (...) Kyoto School, had also developed a ‘third position,’ except that this standpoint seeks to overcome the cultural-philosophical logics of ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ thought. As Nishida claims, Western epistemologies cannot be converted into universal standpoints because they fail to make visible the conditions that both precede and structure contradictory categories. In this paper, I will discuss and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Nishida’s and Karatani’s standpoint of the ‘third.’. (shrink)

This translation of Tosaka Jun's “The Philosophy of the Kyoto School” is as unembellished as possible. As far as is known, this is the original statement of the philosophical nature and scope of the Kyoto School. Making it available in English serves the purpose of documenting how the Kyoto School was conceived, not only in terms of philosophical themes and approaches, but also in terms of who was included. Returning to the first written source reveals that Tosaka's views on both (...) what characterized the philosophy of the Kyoto School and who its leading thinkers were differ somewhat from the dominant post-war conceptions filtered through Tanabe and Nishitani, and disseminated by, among others, Takeuchi, Heisig, Ōhashi, and Davis. Thus this source can stimulate a rethinking of what the term “Kyoto School” meant historically and whether this has any implications for how Kyoto School studies are constituted today. (shrink)