The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shuzo

Reading Kuki Shūzō’s The Structure of Iki in the Shadow of L’affaire Heidegger

148 Reading Kuki Shūzō’s The Structure of Iki in the Shadow of L’affaire Heidegger jon mark mikkelsen The names of Kuki Shūzō (1888–1941) and Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) have long been linked in discussion of Kuki’s work. Consequently, it is hardly surprising that this linkage should be taken for granted in Leslie Pincus’ recent , ambitious study, Authenticating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shūzō and the Rise of National Aesthetics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).1 But should it be taken for granted, or, more to the point, does highlighting Kuki’s relationship to Heidegger even serve Kuki well? Could, in other words, the common practice of linking the name of Kuki with that of Heidegger have actually led to the misinterpretation of Kuki’s work and distorted views of its significance? The purpose of these remarks is to examine these questions. I suggest that this linkage should not be taken for granted, that highlighting Kuki’s relationship to Heidegger does not necessarily serve him well, and that the usual way in which the names of Kuki and Heidegger are linked has likely led to misinterpretations of Kuki’s work and distorted accounts of its significance . To suggest that the names of Kuki and Heidegger should, in effect, be ‘‘de-linked’’ is not, however, the same as claiming that there are no grounds for linking them; nor is it to suggest that nothing of value is to be gained from comparative studies of their works, including, in particular, their respective views of art.To be sure, the reasons typically given for linking these names are clearand well founded.They merit, therefore, some discussion before considering how this practice might also have contributed to the misinterpretation of Kuki’s work and distorted views of its significance. For example, we know that Kuki spent the years 1922–1929 in Europe, primarily in Germany and France, that he met Heidegger at the home of Hei- Reading The Structure of Iki in the Shadow of L’affaire Heidegger 149 degger’s mentor, the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), in Freiburg , Germany, during the summer of 1927, and that he subsequently returned to Marburg with Heidegger to attend his lectures and seminars the following academic year.2 We also know that after Kuki returned to Japan, he published, in 1930, a work, reproduced in a new English translation in this volume, which is typically described as having been written largely under the influence of Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, The Structure of Iki.3 No one who knows anything about Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology need doubt then, when reading The Structure, that Heidegger’s philosophy must have had a significant impact upon Kuki. Norcan there be anydoubt that Kuki played an important role in promoting the studyof Heidegger’s philosophy in Japan during the 1930s.4 To understand more fully why the name of Kuki is typically linked with that of Heidegger, we must, however, recognize that Kuki’s connection to Heidegger did not end with the publication of The Structure, oreven with Kuki’s premature death, in 1941. For nearly three decades after the publication of The Structure, Heidegger memorialized his earlier encounter with Kuki by publishing a brief text that has been translated into English under the title ‘‘A Dialogue on Language.’’5 Further, Heidegger is said to have claimed in the years following the composition of this ‘‘dialogue’’ that he had once hoped to write a preface to a German translation of Kuki’s Structure , or possibly another work, that was to have appeared during his lifetime.6 So, the names of Kuki and Heidegger are also linked because of Heidegger’s apparent interest in Kuki’s work, that is, because Heidegger himself gives the impression in his ‘‘dialogue’’ that Kuki’s use of the term iki faithfully conveys —or anticipates—the leading motifs of his own way of thinking. There is, however, yet another, very significant reason why the names of Kuki and Heidegger are often linked together. This reason is, bluntly stated, that neither Kuki nor Heidegger seem to have been much disturbed by the fact that fascist regimes came to power in their respective nations during the 1930s.This reason for linking the names of these two philosophers has, however , naturally played a far different role in Kuki scholarship than those previously noted. For, viewed in the light of this connection, it should...