Zen and Philosophy

Chapter 20. Development of Personalist Dialectics: (1932–1934)

Chapter 20 Development of Personalist Dialectics (1932–1934) By December 1931 Nishida had finally found his long-sought personal happiness. In stark contrast, ominous events were beginning to cloud Japanese politics. In August 1931 former prime minister Hamaguchi Osachi died of the gunshot wound inflicted a year earlier by an assassin . On September 18 an unauthorized military démarche, known as the Manchurian incident, broke out, marking the beginning of the socalled Fifteen Years War. On December 13 the second Wakatsuki cabinet dissolved after only eight months of existence, and Inukai Tsuyoshi became prime minister. Japan was moving into a period of political turmoil at home and an aggressive military campaign abroad. On April 16, 1932, Nishida moved to Kamakura, where he rented a house in the Ögigayatsu area for six months. Kamakura not only offered him a warmer winter, it was much closer to Tokyo, where Koto was still working. As soon as he settled in, he began working on the essay “Watakushi to nanji” [I and thou]. In this essay Nishida develops his philosophy of the person ( jinkaku) as a dialectical reality, going beyond the Kantian philosophy of a person as an ethical entity. He unfolds the view that each of us is sustained by a personal I-Thou relationship , in which the body is more than just a mere material reality— it is the vehicle that enables interpersonal confrontation and communication . Each personal existence is determined by the absolute other (thou): at the bottom of my existence I am directly open to and connected with thee. We are each open in the depths of our being directly to the other and to the world. In this way, each individual person is irreducible and yet a member of society, just as each temporal moment is independent and yet forms a certain “flow of time.” We always exist in the environment—whether natural (biological), social, or historical. In our personal existence, the environment bears a personal signifi- Development of Personalist Dialectics (1932–1934) cance as something with which we engage in a personal dialogue. Environmental concerns are human concerns in the “personal” world. Nishida’s interest in the theological thought of Karl Barth and Friedrich Gogarten1 informs his dialectical personalism, while the Mahäy äna Buddhist assertion of the radical interdependence and interpenetration of individuals sustains his fundamental position. Without love the world of persons is incomplete. Ultimately the “Thou,” the universal , has the significance of agape. Absolute nothingness that embraces you and me is agape. You and I both exist in this historical world as its creative agents, bearing witness to creatio ex nihilo.2 On May 15 Prime Minister Inukai was shot to death at his official residence by a group of young military officers in a coup attempt. The news shook the entire country. Nishida wrote to Yamamoto: “The shooting of the prime minister by the military—it is as if there is no state control. I wonder what will be the fate of the new cabinet.”3 The so-called May 15 incident seemed more like a fluke than a part of larger things to come. Although the social unrest soon died down, it nevertheless gave the Department of Police (keishichö) a good excuse to establish a “higher special police force” (tokubetsu kötö keisatsubu). Tokkö, for short, the “thought police” had branches throughout the country to monitor social “disturbances.” Nishida’s presence in Kamakura came as a boon to his former students living in the Tokyo area. Miki Kiyoshi, Tosaka Jun, Tanikawa Tetsuzö, Miyake Göichi, and Mutai Risaku were among the callers that spring. Graduates of Sansanjuku, Kawai Yoshinari, now a successful industrialist, and Ösaka Motokichirö, an independent theologian and Christian minister, also visited him after not having seen him for more than two decades. On June 4, at the request of Tanikawa and Miki, Nishida gave a talk at Hösei University at its spring philosophical meeting. He attracted a huge audience, more than one thousand,4 which he did not expect and was disconcerted by,5 feeling that his philosophical reflections were incompatible with so public a display. Nevertheless, Nishida was becoming a “people’s philosopher” over and beyond the academic walls. Ösaka Motokichirö was writing a religion column for the Yomiuri Newspaper, through his connection with his friend from the Fourth Higher School days, Shöriki Matsutarö, who was president of the Yomiuri Newspaper Company. Ösaka got to know Miki through Nishida, and the two...