Japanese Religions Group

Theme: Philosophies of Religion in the Kyoto School

Gereon Kopf, Luther College
Between Self-Power and Other-Power: Non-Dualism and Religion in the Kyoto School

Nishida Kitaro4, the founder of the Kyoto school, has gained notoriety for his philosophy of religion which renders the content of religion (shu4kyo4) as pure experience (junsui keiken) and non-relative contradictory self-identity (zettai mujunteki jiko do4itsu). Tanabe argued that any philosophy and, consequently, any philosophy of religion required a conversion (zange) to other-power (tariki) and an absolute criticism (zettai hihan) of the traditional philosophical project. While I am sympathetic to Tanabe's ethical concerns in his Zengedo4 to shite no Tetsugaku, I agree with Takeda Ryu4sei's conviction that Nishida's philosophy of religion as a thoroughly non-dualistic philosophy transcends the opposition between self-power and other-power. In this paper, I propose to explore the advantages and disadvantages of Nishida's non-dualistic philosophy of religion in a comparative discourse and through the lens of the second generation of the Kyoto school philosophers such as Nishitani Keiji and Miki Kiyoshi.

Michiko Yusa, Western Washington University
How Huayan Is Nishida's Dialectical Vision of the Absolutely Contradictory Self-Identical World?

Some Western scholars are under the impression that Nishida Kitaro's philosophical vision is fundamentally that of Huayan Buddhism (or Kegon, in Japanese). I shall attempt to prove that Nishida arrived at his vision of dialectical world independent of the Huayan thought; I will also discuss similarities and differences between Nishida's dialectical vision and the Huayan doctrine of jijimuge. Nishida's insight into reality, shaped by his knowledge of Zen Buddhism, led him to a universally Mahayanin position, which views concrete happenings in the world as radically interdependent, while these happenings arise independently of one another, and freely, of which worldview the Huayan doctrine is yet another articulation. Nishida's "Logic of topos" or the dialectic of the One and the Many can be applied to interpreting or explaining all sorts of social and historical phenomena. It offers a very fundamental and penetrating understanding of the world and the times we live in.

John C. Maraldo, University of North Florida
Absolute Nothingness, Onto-theology, and God without Being

The notion of absolute nothingness in Kyoto School philosophers offers an instructive contrast to positions taken in the current debate within continental philosophy of religion concerning the possibility of thinking God outside the onto-theological tradition. I first define that debate in terms of Heidegger's description of the tradition and Jean-Luc Marion's response, then clarify the nuanced notion of absolute nothingness of which they seem oblivious, and finally offer a view of their controversy from the perspective of the Kyoto School. The contrast shows that the onto-theology that takes God as ground, Heidegger's way out, and Marion's alternative of God without Being, all stand squarely within the western tradition that privileges Being over nothingness in a specific sense. Ironically, Marion would seem to require Nishida's notion of reciprocal correspondence (gyakutai-o4) to describe the relation between God and human in terms of giving.

Joel R. Smith, Skidmore College
Tanabe Hajime's Standpoint of Absolute Nothingness

Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962), a leading thinker of the Kyoto school of comparative philosophy of religion, drew from both Japanese Buddhism and Western Continental thought in The Philosophy of Metanoetics (1946). First, I agree with Tanabe concerning the ontological bias of much Western thought in favor of being over nothingness. However, I argue that Tanabe does not show the superiority of the ontological standpoint of absolute nothingness over an ontology of being, but simply asserts an inverse ontological bias in favor of nothingness. Second, I agree with Tanabe's claim that absolute nothingness is not, in the end, an ontological standpoint but a profound transformation of awareness. However, I argue that his philosophy of metanoetics does not fully recognize the self's finitude and insufficiency, and this prevents a complete existential transformation of awareness that would constitute authentic repentance. I suggest how both Shinran and Kierkegaard, two of Tanabe's richest sources, develop more complete, existential, and authentic views of human insufficiency and repentance.