Zen and Philosophy

Introduction

Introduction Nishida Kitarö (1870–1945) defined for the Japanese what it means to philosophize. His thought was crowned with his name and came to be known as Nishida tetsugaku, or “Nishidan philosophy,” and enjoyed high regard among his peers for its rigor and originality. His endeavors helped shape a major stream of philosophical discourse, known as the Kyoto school, which sought to go beyond merely adapting Western philosophy. His conviction of the universal validity, inherent rationality, and beauty of Japanese culture compelled him to give it a philosophical expression. Even during his lifetime, he was hailed as the representative thinker of Japan and became a cultural icon as well as a source of national pride. Colleagues of Nishida’s who were studying abroad in the 1920s and 1930s brought his thought to the attention of leading European thinkers such as Edmund Husserl and Heinrich Rickert. Nishida corresponded with the two German philosophers as well. In the late 1930s several of Nishida’s essays were translated into German, but before fruitful exchanges could be undertaken, World War II erupted, and whatever discourse had been built up was buried. More than half a century after his death, a healthy interest in Nishidan philosophy and the Kyoto school of philosophy exists among the contemporary generation of thinkers and scholars worldwide. A good number of Nishida’s philosophical essays have been translated into English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, and Korean —and the list continues to grow. Where does this “Nishidan mystique ” originate? Given the interest that Nishidan philosophy has enjoyed in Japan and elsewhere, it is curious to observe that in the late 1930s his thought was considered pro-Western and counter to the “Japanese spirit”; his Introduction physical safety was even threatened by ultranationalists. Following World War II, however, Nishidan philosophy came to be regarded as the expression of prewar “old” Japan, and thus as outmoded. Marxist and progressive thinkers even condemned it as imperialistic and nationalistic by employing the tactic of guilt by association. It was widely felt in the wake of Japan’s defeat that the country had to enter a new period and that any ties with the past had to be severed.1 In this hasty and somewhat forced cultural paradigm shift, leading Japanese intellectuals threw out the baby with the bath water.2 Worldwide intellectual movements after World War II attempted to deny the legacies of pre-1945 totalitarianism and ultranationalism. Martin Heidegger, for example, was targeted, and the trend did not spare Nishida from the list of the “suspicious.” Nishida was branded a kind of fascist or ultranationalist, “blind” to the “demonic aspect of nationalism and imperialism.” He became a convenient scapegoat for those who were inclined to look for immediate answers rather than carry out the detailed historical analyses of the times leading up to 1945 and beyond. From the 1950s through the 1970s, it was fashionable—not just in Japan but worldwide—to embrace Marxist views if one wanted to be seen as socially engaged and intellectually conscientious. Even earlier, during the 1930s in Japan, it was held that to be an intellectual, one must be a Marxist. Although Nishida was open to such aspects of Marxism as the importance of society and action, he kept to his own path. I offer in these pages an intellectual biography that describes Nishida’s philosophical odyssey in the context of his life and that visits him in his time. This biography depicts the social-cultural-political environment in which he lived, for no thinker thinks in a vacuum. Although I hope to dispel various misconceptions about Nishida, my ultimate purpose is to make Nishida’s thought more accessible to the reader by tracing its development in the concrete context of his life. MEIJI: A UNIQUE HISTORICAL JUNCTURE Nishida, born in 1870 (the third year of the Meiji period), grew up during a time when Western (i.e., European and North American) ideas, natural sciences, and technology were changing the traditional Japanese way of life. This dynamic historical period in which East and West came face-to-face, and sometimes collided, on an unprecedented xvi Introduction scale stimulated creative minds. The Meiji era was a period of great intellectual activity in Japan. Internationally, Japan awoke to the expansionism of European and North American powers. Domestically, the country was undergoing changes in the political, educational, economic , technological, scientific, cultural, and religious spheres as it...