SPEP Co-Director's Address: The Basho of Transcontinental Philosophy

This article addresses the place, or basho in Japanese, of transcontinental philosophy within the context of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) and the philosophical profession in general. It also considers the role that silence plays in philosophical discourse. The article consists of a series of reflections, or, rather, a constellation of places, that attempts to situate briefly my own philosophical orientation with respect to SPEP, the place that the SPEP way of philosophizing occupies in the broader context of contemporary Western society and its relation to the non-Western world, and SPEP's identity as a unique philosophical community. In taking up these topical places, in addition to the concepts of absolute nothingness, human existence, language, nihilism, and awakening, the Japanese philosophers Nishida, Nishitani, and Watsuji are considered alongside Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Debord, Deleuze, Guattari, Lingis, and Bordeleau, among others.