Parsing the Topos and Dusting the Mirror: A Radical Internalization of “Basho-Topos”

In order to clarify Nishida’s notion of topos (basho), I trace its formation, starting with the notion of “pure experience,” of which he says: “To experience is to know the thing as it is.” By taking the act of “to know” as the thread that connects the ideas of pure experience and topos, I examine his early writings leading up to 1929, going beyond 1926, when Nishida’s essay “Basho” was published. Over against the commonly held “objectified” view of the topos as a “location” or “field” in which the individual exists, a radically ontological reading of this notion emerges, requiring us to shift the vantage point from which we approach it. I conclude that Nishida introduced into his philosophical system a locative dimension as an ontological feature, and we, conscious beings, exist in this world “topologically” (bashoteki). The topos refers to the very logico-ontological mode of our being.