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Nishida on Heidegger

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Abstract

Heidegger and East-Asian thought have traditionally been strongly correlated. However, although still largely unrecognized, significant differences between the political and metaphysical stance of Heidegger and his perceived counterparts in East-Asia most certainly exist. One of the most dramatic discontinuities between East-Asian thought and Heidegger is revealed through an investigation of Kitarō Nishida’s own vigorous criticism of Heidegger. Ironically, more than one study of Heidegger and East-Asian thought has submitted that Nishida is that representative of East-Asian thought whose philosophy most closely resembles Heideggerian thought. In words that then and now resound discordantly within the enshrined, established view of Heidegger’s relationship to East-Asian thought, Nishida stated uninhibitedly his own view of Heidegger in the noteworthy statement: “Heidegger is not worth your time… He…does not recognize that which is indispensible and decisive, namely, God.” This present study lays out for the first time in English, the significant differences between the metaphysical and political stances of Nishida and Heidegger, Nishida’s own critique of Heidegger, and Heidegger’s own rather dismal assessment of non-Western philosophy, all of which demonstrate a remarkable, hitherto unrecognized discontinuity between Heidegger and East-Asian thought.

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Notes

  1. Takizawa recorded this statement three times, in TKC 1:441, TKC 2:521–2, and Inquiring of Religion (1976), p. 87, (the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi’s Katsumi Takizawa Timline p. 164). Cf endnote in [3], just before [3.1], for full statement.

    *TKC = The Collected Works of Katsumi Takizawa [滝沢克己著作集] (abbreviated TKC). (1971–1975) Kyoto: Hōzōkan [包蔵館] (all except the first printing of vol. 1, by Sōgensha): vol. 1 (by Sōgensha, 1971), vol. 4, 5, 7 (1973), vol. 3, 6, 8, 9, 10 (1974), vol. 1 (originally publ. 1971 by Sōgensha but republished by Hōzō in 1975), 2 (1975).

    *Inquiring of Religion [宗教を問う] (first ed, 1976). Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō [三一書房].

    *Sakaguchi, Hiroshi [坂口博], ed. (1989) Katsumi Takizawa: Timeline of Selected Works [滝沢克己:著作年譜]. Fukuoka: Sōgensha [創言社].

  2. ibid.

  3. Philosophy East and West, vol. 20, No. 3, July, 1970, p. 221; Parkes, Heidegger and Asian Thought, p. 7.

    *Heidegger, (1970) 1969 letter printed in “Introduction to the Symposium and Reading of a Letter from Martin Heidegger,” by Winfield E. Nagley, in Philosophy East and West, vol. 20, no. 3, July

    *Parkes, Graham, ed. (1987) Heidegger and Asian Thought. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

  4. Sakaguchi, Timeline, p. 148.

  5. Heidegger, in On the Way to Language, references Nishida (p. 1), Tanabe (p. 5, 37), and Kuki (throughout “A Dialogue on Language”).

    *Heidegger (1971b). On the Way to Language. [Grn: Unterwegs zur Sprache (1959)] as translated by Peter D. Hertz. New York: Harper & Row.

  6. Heidegger, ibid, p. 43ff.

  7. Heidegger, ibid, p. 19. Cf also Parkes in May, p. 98.

    *Parkes, Graham (1996) “Rising Sun over Black Forest,” in Reinhard May (ed.), Heidegger’s Hidden Sources: Some East Asian Influences on His Work. London: Routledge (May’s work was first published in 1989 in German. The 1996 publication was translated with a complementary essay, by Graham Parkes). Routledge, USA: Canada.

  8. Heidegger, ibid, p. 50.

  9. Heidegger, ibid, p. 27.

  10. William Barrett, p. xi in “Zen for the West,” the Introduction to Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings, by Daisetz T. Suzuki. Barrett’s entire statement is as follows:

    A German friend of Heidegger told me that one day when he visited Heidegger he found him reading one of Suzuki’s books; “If I understand this man correctly,” Heidegger remarked, “this is what I have been trying to say in all my writings.” This remark may be the slightly exaggerated enthusiasm of a man under the impact of a book in which he recognizes some of his own thoughts; certainly Heidegger’s philosophy in its tone and temper and sources is Western to its core, and there is much in him that is not in Zen, but also very much more in Zen that is not in Heidegger; and yet the points of correspondence between the two, despite their disparate sources, are startling enough. For what, after all, is Heidegger’s final message but that Western philosophy is a great error, the result of the dichotomizing intellect that has cut man off from unity with Being itself and from his own Being.

    *Barrett, William (1956) “Zen for the West” in the Introduction (pp. iii–xx) of Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings, by Daisetz T. Suzuki. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books.

  11. Parkes, p. 6.

  12. Parkes, p. 5.

  13. Parkes in May, Heidegger’s Hidden Sources, p. 81.

  14. Parkes in May, pp. 99–102.

  15. Nishitani, Keiji. “The Deep Sense of Crisis in Contemporary Culture [現代文明に深い危機感],” Yomiuri Shinbun 27 May 1976; trnsl. By Elmar Weinbayr as “Ein tiefes Gefühl für die Krise der modernen Zivilisation,” in Buchner’s Japan und Heidegger, pp. 193–4. Translated into English and quoted by Parkes, in May, p. 101.

    *Buchner, Hartmut, ed (1989) Japan und Heidegger. Messkirch: Jan Thorbecke Verlag Sigmaringen.

  16. Parkes in May, p. 98.

  17. Parkes, p. 6.

  18. Parkes in May, p. 82.

  19. [現象学における新しき転向] in Shisō [思想] 36 Oct 1924; THZ 4:17–24.

  20. NKZ 19:582, letter #2470, October 2, 1927. As quoted in Yusa, p. 198, footnote 38. Nishida received from his student Risaku Mutai, a copy of Heidegger’s Being and Time in 1927, the same year as its publication in Germany (NKZ 18:327, letter #447 to Risaku Mutai (in Freiburg), June 17, 1927; cf also NKZ 19:600, letter #2516 to Hajime Tanabe, June 20, 1927).

    *NKZ = Nishida, Kitarō (1965) The Complete Works of Kitaro Nishida [西田幾多郎全集] (abbreviated NKZ). Iwanami Shotenkan [岩波書店刊].

  21. Seinosuke Yuasa, who studied with Heidegger in 1929, translated Heidegger’s “What is Metaphysics?” for publication in Japan in 1930.

  22. “Heidegger’s Ontology” (1930) & “Heidegger and the Destiny of Philosophy” (1933).

  23. Yuasa in Parkes, p. 158. Cf also Williams, p. 81.

    * Williams, David (2004) Defending Japan’s Pacific War. New York: Routledge.

  24. Williams’ translation, p. 181, from THZ 8:3–9 “A Philosophy of Crisis or a Crisis of Philosophy?” [危機の哲学か、哲学の危機か]

    *THZ = Tanabe, Hajime (1963–1964) The Complete Works of Hajime Tanabe (田辺元全集) (abbreviated THZ). 15 vols. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō (筑摩書房).

    Tanabe, Hajime. 1963–1964. The Complete Works of Hajime Tanabe (田辺元全集) (abbreviated THZ). 15 vols. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō (筑摩書房).

  25. Piovesana, p. 201, footnote 2.

    *Piovesana, Gino K., S. J. (1997). Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought 1862–1996. Richmond: Japan Library (Curzon Press Ltd).

  26. Williams, p. 82.

  27. Cf Yuasa in Parkes, and Parkes in May, for a good historical overview.

  28. Examples of such publications setting up Heidegger as especially compatible with Eastern philosophy include:

    *Existential and Ontological Dimensions of Time in Heidegger and Dogen, by Steven Heine, 1985.

    *“Thinking in transition: Nishida Kitaro and Martin Heidegger,” Weinmayr, Elmar; Krummel, John W. M.; Berger, Douglas, in Philosophy East and West April, 2005.

    *Heidegger’s Hidden Sources by Reinhard May.

    *Heidegger and Asian Thought, a (1987) anthology ed. by Graham Parkes et al.

    *Heidegger figures prominently in The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism and Religion and Nothingness by Keiji Nishitani, and also in Zen and Western Thought by Abe Masao.

    *Japan und Heidegger (in German), (1989) ed. by Buchner von Hartmut.

    *Japanese publications include: ハイデッガーと日本の哲学〜和辻哲郎、九鬼周造、田辺元 (嶺　秀樹) 2002, 他者なき思想〜ハイデッガー問題と日本　(桑田　礼彰、芥　正彦;編集:浅利　誠、荻野　文隆).

  29. Parkes, Heidegger and Asian Thought, p. 7.

  30. Parkes, p. 6.

  31. Weinmayr, p. 248.

    *Weinmayr, Elmar (2005). “Thinking in Transition: Nishida Kitarō and Martin Heidegger.” (translated from the original essay in the anthology, Japan und Heidegger. Sigmaringen: Jan thorbecke Verlag, 1989). Philosophy East & West. Vol. 55, No. 2, April, pp. 232–256.

  32. Williams, p. 29.

  33. Williams, p. 147.

  34. Heisig and Maraldo, Rude Awakenings, pp. vii–viii. Cf Williams p. 144. Cf also Maraldo, “The Problem of World Culture,” 1995, pp. 183, 189.

    *Heisig, James & John Maraldo (1995) Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, and the Question of Nationalism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

    *Maraldo, John C. (1995) “The Problem of World Culture: Towards an Appropriation of Nishida’s Philosophy of Nation and Culture.” The Eastern Buddhist. Volume 28, number 2, Autumn, pp. 183–197.

  35. Williams, p. 129.

  36. Williams, p. 141.

  37. Jan Van Bragt, in Heisig & Maraldo, Rude Awakenings, p. 243. Cf Williams, p. 141.

  38. Williams, p. 141.

  39. Williams, p. 91.

  40. Williams, p. 130.

  41. Arthur R. Luther’s stimulating comparison of Heidegger and Nishida in terms of an “original coming into appearance…immediately and directly experienced…” (p. 345, my italics) may characterize Nishida in more phenomenological terms than Nishida himself would have felt comfortable with. Luther’s most questionable characterizations of Nishida appear in terms of a conflation of Nishida’s thought with Buddhism. Luther concludes that for Nishida, “all sentient existents are essentially empty or void of own-being” (p. 353), karma is integral to cosmic processes (p. 354), and as in Hua-yan (Kegon) Buddhism, “the dependent coorigination of all factors of existence is inclusive of infinite past as well as infinite future” (p. 354). To my knowledge, Nishida himself neither adopts the concepts nor utilizes the corresponding Buddhist terms, “void of own-being” (nisvabhava) or “karma” as integral to his system. However, as Luther correctly notes, self-negation (jiko hitei [自己否定]) is indeed integral to the Nishida Philosophy, although not necessarily in a Buddhist manner; indeed, Nishida’s notion of negation often reminds me more of Hegelian negation and Christian self-denial than Buddhist “voidness of own being.” Further, although Hajime Tanabe’s disciple Yoshinori Takeuchi (in 1963) portrayed Nishida’s philosophy of time as basically a Hua-yan Buddhist past to future/future to past mutual penetration and Western scholars such as Steve Odin (in 1982) have likewise followed this interpretation, Nishida himself in both 1932 (NKZ 6:183) and 1945 (NKZ 11:375), emphasized the irreversible structure of time.

    *Luther, Arthur R. 1982. “Original Emergence in Heidegger and Nishida.” Philosophy Today. Volume XXVI, Number 4/4, Winter.

  42. Williams, p. 145.

  43. Williams, p. 68.

  44. Williams, p. 110. The French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre would define “subjectivism” as pointing to the fact that “man has a greater dignity than a stone,” and as having two meanings, namely, “that an individual chooses and makes himself; and…that it is impossible for man to transcend human subjectivity.” “The Humanism of Existentialism” (1945), in the context of Sartre’s explanation of “Atheistic existentialism.”

  45. Maraldo, “The Problem of World Culture: Towards an Appropriation of Nishida’s Philosophy of Nation and Culture,” p. 185.

  46. Williams, pp. 182–183. Tanabe’s article on Heidegger, “Philosophy of Crisis, or a Crisis of Philosophy?,” appeared in a three-part series printed in the Asahi Newspaper in early Autumn of 1933. Tanabe had recently issued a similar critique of Nishida’s philosophy in May, 1930, in the article, “Looking Up to Nishida’s Teachings.”

  47. Williams characterizes Tanabe’s critique of Nishida as a criticism against “objectivism” (cf Williams, p. 116), and indeed characterizes both Heidegger and Nishida as “objectivists” (pp. 130, 135, 146).

  48. Heidegger. “German Men and Women!”, Freiburger Studentenzeitung, 10 Nov (1933).

  49. “Cooperative resistance” (hantaiseiteki kyōryoku [反体制的協力]) is Ryōsuke Ōhashi’s term for the wartime political stance taken by several members of the Kyoto School, including Nishida, a stance characterized by “negotiating a reorientation by means of immanent critique or cooperative correction.” I would like to acknowledge Bret Davis for making this information available online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kyoto-school/. Cf also Ōhashi, Ryōsuke. The Kyoto School and the Japanese Navy [京都学派と日本海軍], Kyoto: PHP Shinsho, 2001, p. 20ff.

  50. Cf Michiko Yusa’s biography of Nishida.

    *Yusa, Michiko (2002) Zen & Philosophy: An Intellectual Biography of Nishida Kitaro. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

  51. Williams, p. 150.

  52. Williams, p. 156.

  53. Williams, p. 137.

  54. Williams, p. 161.

  55. Williams, p. 146.

  56. Weinmayr, p. 234.

  57. Kovacs, pp. 20–21, 24.

    *Kovacs, George (1990) The Question of God in Heidegger’s Phenomenology. (Part of the Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, ed. James M. Edie). Illinois: Northwestern University Press.

  58. Heidegger, “Identität und Differenz” (Identity and Difference) (1957), p. 71, my translation.

    *Heidegger (1971a) Identity and Difference. [translation by Joan Stambaugh from Identität und Differenz (1955–1957)]. New York: Harper & Row.

  59. Krummel and Berger in Weinmayr, p. 251, footnote 6.

  60. Weinmayr, p. 237. For ease of comprehension, I replaced the singular generic “a being” with the plural “beings.”

  61. Weinmayr, p. 238.

  62. NKZ 11:396.

  63. Inwood, A Heidegger Dictionary, pp. 72–73. “Man” changed to “human beings.”

    *Inwood, Michael (1999) The Blackwell Philosopher Dictionaries: A Heidegger Dictionary. Massachusetts: Blackwell.

  64. Nobuhara, “Portraying Authentic Existence,” part I, pp. 61–62.

    *Nobuhara, Tokiyuki (1992–1993) “Portraying ‘Authentic Existence’ by the Method of Analogy: Toward the Creative Uses of the Analogy of Attribution Duorum Ad Tertium for Comparative Philosophy of Religion.” Bulletin of Keiwa College. Part I No. 1 Feb 28, 1992 (pp. 61–82); Part II No. 2 February 28, 1993 (pp. 27–50); Part III No. 3 Feb 28, 1994 (pp. 1–19).

  65. Von Eckartsberg and Valle (1981) p. 289:

    There has been emerging among consciousness-oriented psychologists an increasing recognition that our personal and collective relationship to the world (man-world-relationships) has to be lived under the inspiration and auspices of some higher, transpersonal power of divinity, of ultimate Being, as the source of legitimation and validation of our activities. This higher, transpersonal God- or theo-dimension is variously spoken of and conceptualized in different traditions. We want to select and compare Heidegger’s work on the Western philosophical tradition of metaphysics and ontology with the major Eastern spiritual traditions, because they bear some striking similarities in their emphasis on a transcendent dimension, the theo-dimension, in human consciousness.

    *Von Eckhartsberg, Rolf, & Ronald S. Valle. 1981. “Heideggerian Thinking and the Eastern Mind.” (chapter 14, pp. 287–311) Metaphors of Consciousness. New York & London: Plenum Press.

  66. NKZ 19:582, letter #2470, October 2, 1927. As quoted in Yusa, p. 198, footnote 38.

  67. Weinmayr, p. 233. The full statement reads:

    Nishida himself played hardly any role in the direct and immediate dissemination and reception of Heideggerian philosophy in Japan. Indeed, only a few publications of Heidegger’s works are found in his library, but nothing can be said of any reference to Heidegger. Appreciation and critical distance are mixed in the few places where Nishida talks about Heidegger.

  68. Even the statements by Nishida about Heidegger, which Weinmayr himself examines, are all negative, pp. 233–234.

  69. Takizawa recorded this statement three times, in TKC 1:441, TKC 2:521–2, and Inquiring of Religion (1976), p. 87, (the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi’s Katsumi Takizawa Timline p. 164).

  70. NKZ 18:489, letter #824, December 19, 1933. (trns. Rigsby) Referenced by Yusa, p. 257. Nishida’s term “substance” (jittai [実体]) can be understood in a colloquial sense or in a philosophically nuanced sense. If Nishida has the philosophical sense in mind—which is to say, “substance” as the unifier and organizer of various properties—then this statement may be a criticism of Heidegger’s account of Being and its insufficiencies in portraying the universal, all-encompassing Absolute which Nishida embraced. Nishida’s Absolute—the Topos of Absolute Nothingness—unifies and determines all concrete individuals and the properties they exhibit.

  71. Takizawa makes this statement three times, in TKC 1:441, TKC 2:521–2, and Inquiring of Religion (1976), p. 87, (the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi’s Katsumi Takizawa Timeline p. 164). I propose the following harmony of Takizawa’s three accounts, avoiding repetition and yet providing all of the information which he records of Nishida’s statement:

    Lately, Heidegger is famous in Japan. However, Heidegger is not worth your time (tsumaranu mono da). He focuses only on such themes as “Angst” and “death,” and although he often relies upon Pascal and Kierkegaard, he does not recognize that which is indispensable (kanjin no [肝心]) and decisive (ketteiteki na nanika [決定的な何か]), namely, God (goddo/kami [ゴッド・神]). There is no philosopher in Germany now that I would recommend, as it appears that there is currently no philosopher of import there. However, in Germany, recently, the theologians are vastly more interesting than the philosophers. There are theologians such as Barth, Brunner, and Gogarten, but the most solid among them is Barth. It would be good to study under him if you can. However, unfortunately, it appears as if he may have been expelled by the Nazis and is no longer in Germany.

  72. NKZ 19:128; letter#1488; September 22, 1940.

  73. NKZ 18:497; letter #846, July 2, 1934. Yusa suggests that this letter should be dated 1933, p. 385, footnote 53.

  74. NKZ 7:400. Cf Dilworth’s translation on p. 218.

    *Nishida, Kitarō. 1987. Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview (trnsl. By David A. Dilworth), Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press.

  75. NKZ 11:237; Nishida also states herein that “All logic exists by itself and acts by itself…” Nishida’s essay: [数学の哲学的基礎附け], first appeared in [哲学研究　第345号,1945] (NKZ 11:237ff).

  76. Piovesana, p. 221.

  77. NKZ 19: 189–190, letter #1648, March 20, 1942.

  78. Takizawa, from “Phenomenology and Dialectics: Regarding Gōichi Miyake’s book, Human Existence,” a 1969 essay later printed in (1987) The Decoding Coordinates, p. 136.

    Takizawa, Katsumi (1987) The Decoding Coordinates: Philosophy, Literature, Education [読解の座標:哲学・文学・教育]. Japan: Sōgensha [創言社].

  79. Takizawa, ibid, p. 148.

  80. Takizawa, ibid, p. 135.

  81. NKZ 18:321, letter #432, January 30, 1927, to Risaku Mutai (in Freiburg).

  82. These semi-mathematical expressions can be found, respectively, in #1 Thelle, p. 73; Ulrich & Yagi, p. 157; #2 TKC 7:322; #3 TKC 7:324.

    *Luz, Ulrich & Yagi, Seiichi, ed. (1973) Gott in Japan: Anstösse zum Gespräch mit japanischen Philosophen, Theologen, Schriftstellern. München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag.

    * Thelle, Notto R (1975) “A Barthian Thinker Between Buddhism And Christianity: Takizawa Katsumi”. Japanese Religions. Vol. 8, October, pp. 54–86.

  83. Bambach, p. 53.

    *Bambach, Charles (2003) Heidegger’s Roots: Nietzsche, National Socialism, and the Greeks. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

  84. Heidegger. Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein.” Winter Semester 1934/35; Ed. By Susanne Ziegler. 1989. Cf Bambach, p. 55.

  85. Yuasa in Parkes, p. 254.

  86. This quote is my own harmony of three statements made by Takizawa, found in TKC 1:441, TKC 2:521–2, and Inquiring of Religion (1976), p. 87, (the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi’s Katsumi Takizawa Timline p. 164).

  87. “Cooperative resistance” (hantaiseiteki kyōryoku [反体制的協力]) is Ryōsuke Ōhashi’s term for the wartime political stance taken by several members of the Kyoto School, including Nishida, a stance characterized by “negotiating a reorientation by means of immanent critique or cooperative correction.” I would like to acknowledge Bret Davis for making this information available online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kyoto-school/. Cf also Ōhashi, Ryōsuke. The Kyoto School and the Japanese Navy [京都学派と日本海軍], Kyoto: PHP Shinsho, 2001, p. 20ff.

  88. Yomiuri Newspaper [読売新聞] May 28, 1933, reprinted in Asami Hiroshi, “Fukkoku sanpen” pp. 139–40. Referenced in Yusa, Biography, p. 255, footnote 34.

  89. THZ 8:3–9 [危機の哲学か、哲学の危機か]. Cf Yusa p. 254. Cf Williams, p. 113.

  90. Parkes in May, p. 109, footnote 13; German translation in Buchnor’s Japan und Heidegger pp.139–145 by Elmar Weinbayr. Cf also Williams’ translation pp. 181–183.

  91. Parkes in May, p. 81.

  92. Yusa, Biography, p. 254.

  93. Quoted by Yuasa in Parkes, pp. 161–162.

  94. Yuasa in Parkes, p. 163.

  95. Cf Dilworth’s discussion, “Nishida’s Logic of the East” in Last Writings, p. 129.

  96. NKZ 18:489, letter #824, December 19, 1933. As translated by Yusa, pp. 257–8. Days later, on New Years Day 1934, Nishida drove this same point home by composing a famous waka poem: “People are people; I am I; Unperturbed; I go on the path; which I take” (NKZ 17:496: Hito wa hito, ware wa ware nari, tonikaku ni, ware yuku michi wo, ware wa yuku nari).

  97. NKZ 18:, letter #846, July 2, 1934. Yusa suggests that this letter should be dated 1933, p. 385, footnote 53.

  98. NKZ 19:160; letter #1570; April 23, 1941. NKZ 19:161; letter #1572; May 3, 1941.

  99. Weinmayr, p. 248.

  100. Heidegger, “On the Question of Being” (1955), from the English language anthology, Pathmarks, p. 321. Heidegger wrote this essay in honor of, and addressed to, his friend Ernst Jünger.

    *Heidegger (1998) Pathmarks. [translation of Wegmarken. Frankfurt/M.: V. Klostermann, 1976]. New York: Cambridge University Press.

  101. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, p. 16.

  102. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, p. 3. (Cf the original Unterwegs zur Sprache, p. 87).

  103. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, p. 37. (Cf the original Unterwegs zur Sprache, p. 131).

  104. Sheehan, “Heidegger and the Nazis,” p. 42.

    *Sheehan, Thomas (1998) “Heidegger and the Nazis.” The New York Review of Books, vol. 35, no. 10, June 16, pp. 38–47.

  105. It is ironic that Heidegger invokes Nietzsche here to support the threefold thesis that only the Germans are specially qualified for philosophy, that this qualification is due to the special relationship between the Germans and the Greeks, and that the special philosophical mission of the Graeco-German trajectory was fatally violated by Latin influence. Nietzsche was adamant that the Greeks were not a single race, nor the first originary culture, nor the only truly earth-bound humans. For him, this interpretive approach is based on “an utterly castrated and mendacious study of the classical world” (Arrowsmith, p. 329/Nietzsche 8:19; Cf Bambach, p. 218). Rather, according to Nietzsche, Greek culture was the product of synthesis between various Asian, Near Eastern, and Hellenic influences, as Nietzsche states:

    Earliest inhabiting of Greek soil: people of Mongolian origin, worshippers of trees and snakes. A fringe of Semites along the coast. Thracians here and there. The Greeks took all of these elements into their own bloodstream, along with gods and myths (several of the Odysseus stories are Mongolian)… What are “racially pure” Greeks? Can’t we simply suppose that Italic peoples, mixed with Thracian and Semitic elements, became Greek? (Arrowsmith, p. 387/Nietzsche 8:96; Cf Bambach, p. 218).

  106. Neske & Kettering, Martin Heidegger and National Socialism (1990), pp. 62–63.

    *Neske, Günther & Kettering, Emil (eds). 1990. Martin Heidegger and National Socialism. (Translated from the original German by Lisa Harries). New York: Paragon House.

  107. Neske & Kettering, Martin Heidegger and National Socialism (1990), p. 63.

  108. As early as 1955, in a lecture on November 18, Heidegger proposed that “the precondition of the inevitable dialogue with the East Asian world” can be nothing other than “a dialogue with the Greek thinkers and their language” (“Science and Reflection” in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, p. 158; cf p x for lecture date). Nishida was also intensely sensitive to the significance of the German and Greek cultures. He wrote large sections of his diary in German. In his 1934 Sequel to the Basic Problems of Philosophy, Nishida even stated: “I believe that our Japanese culture has features which especially resemble the Greek cultural form” (NKZ 7:443). Nishida associates the Japanese and Greek cultures because they both have an “immanent worldview” and both prioritize the aesthetic. However, Nishida qualifies the correspondence between the Japanese and Greek cultures by noting that Buddhism, which constitutes an important part of Japanese culture, adheres to a “transcendent worldview” as does Christianity (NKZ 7:442; Dilworth’s translation p. 247).

    *Heidegger (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row.

  109. Johann G. Fichte, Reden an die deutsche Nation (Addresses to the German Nation) [1808] (Hamburg: Meiner, 1978), p. 72; Quoted and explained in Bambach p. 55.

  110. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, p. 39. Heidegger’s identification of Greek and German language occurs on p. 46, where he suggests etymological affinities between Greek charis (“grace”) on the one hand, and Greek tiktousa and German dichten (“versify,” but meaning “bring forward” according to Heidegger) on the other hand.

  111. Heidegger, ibid, p. 23; cf also p. 5, where Heidegger claims that Europeans and Eastasians dwell in different houses of Being.

  112. Heidegger, ibid, p. 2. My italics.

  113. Heidegger, What is Called Thinking?, p. 224. (Cf the original Was heisst Denken?, p. 136).

    *(1968) What is Called Thinking? [Grn: Was heisst Denken? (1973)]. New York: Harper and Row.

  114. Kitarō Nishida: article under the heading “Philosophy” in the 1912 Iwanami Dictionary of Philosophy [岩波哲学辞典], pp. 667–668.

  115. NKZ 18:497–498, letter #846, July 2, 1934. Yusa suggests that this letter should be dated 1933, p. 385, footnote 53,but I have followed the NKZ format.

  116. NKZ 12:289; from The Problem of Japanese Culture [日本文化の問題] (1940).

  117. Yomiuri Newspaper [読売新聞] May 28, 1933, reprinted in Asami Hiroshi, “Fukkoku sanpen” pp. 139–40. Referenced in Yusa, Biography, p. 255, footnote 34.

  118. THZ 8:3–9 [危機の哲学か、哲学の危機か]; Cf Yusa p. 254. Parkes in May, p. 109, footnote 13; German translation in Buchnor’s Japan und Heidegger pp. 139–145 by Elmar Weinbayr. Parkes in May, p. 81. Yuasa in Parkes, p. 254.

  119. NKZ 12:390–391. Translation as given by Weinmayr, p. 232. Nishida repeats this conclusion in his 1940 work, The Problem of Japanese Culture, wherein he states:

    Is logic (ronri [論理]) nothing but the way of things are seen within contemporary Western culture? Is the way of seeing things in Eastern culture merely an undeveloped form of the way of seeing things within contemporary Western culture? … I feel no reluctance in recognizing contemporary Western logic as the systematic development of a great logic. However, must I learn this first of all as world logic? Is it possible to separate even Western logic…from a special manifestation (tokushusō [特殊相]) of historical life? It would appear that formal abstract logic is the same everywhere. However, it would appear that concrete logic (gutaiteki ronri [具体的論理]), as a form of concrete thought (chishiki [知識]), cannot be separated from its special manifestation as historical life. Is the trajectory (yukue [行方]) of Western culture the one and only trajectory (NKZ 12:287, my translation).

  120. Hsiao in Parkes, p. 98. Heidegger’s response to the calling off of the collaborative Laozi translation can be seen in his August 6, 1949 letter to Jaspers. Jaspers had suggested in a previous letter that Heidegger’s philosophy may have been inspired by Asian ideas. Heidegger responded in his own letter as follows:

    What you [Jaspers] say about Asian ideas seizes my attention (ist aufregend): …Where I am unfamiliar with the language I remain skeptical; and I become all the more so when the Chinese [scholar Paul Hsiao], who is himself a Christian theologian and philosopher, translated a few verses of Laozi with me. Through questioning I learned how completely alien that kind of language is; we then abandoned the attempt… The resonances presumably have a quite different root…

    (Parkes in May, pp. 101–2. I altered Parkes’ translation by substituting “seizes my attention” for “is exciting,” because the original German “aufregend” can mean either “exciting” or “annoying.”).

  121. Heidegger, “A Dialogue on Language” (1954) (in On the Way to Language) p. 30.

  122. Heidegger, ibid, p. 24, pp. 40–41.

  123. Heidegger, “A Dialogue on Language” (1954) (in On the Way to Language), p. 8; quoted also by Parkes in Heidegger and Asian Thought, p. 1.

  124. Heidegger, “A Dialogue on Language” (in On the Way to Language), p. 3ff (regarding the “danger” of prematurely concluding that one understands the other), p. 22 (“we must not touch [what is defining our dialogue]”).

  125. Heidegger, “A Dialogue on Language” (1954), p. 5. Cf Ma & van Brakel, p. 555, footnote 63. Heidegger reinforced his suggestion of East–West difference when he devaluated Karl Jasper’s suggestion of 1949 that Heideggerian philosophy demonstrates “remarkable “resonsnaces” with Asian thought. Heidegger’s own conclusion was: “the resonances presumably have an entirely different root.” Cf Ma & van Brakel, p. 533, quoting Four Seminars (2003).

    *Ma, Lin & Jaap van Brakel (2006) “Heidegger’s Comportment Toward East–West Dialogue.” Philosophy East and West. Volume 56, number 4, October, pp. 519–566.

  126. Ma & van Brakel, on pages 536–7, examine various statements by Heidegger between 1955 and 1969, by which he lamented his ignorance of non-Western languages.

  127. Heidegger, “The Way to Language” (1959), p. 134.

  128. Heidegger, “The Way to Language” (1959), p. 111.

  129. Ma & van Brakel, p. 546, quoting Reden und andere Zeugnisse eines Lebensweges (1910–1976), pp. 721–722. Heidegger wrote in a letter of July 4, 1969, to the Hawaii symposium organizer, Winfield E. Nagley: “Now in regard to the words of welcome and introduction for which you ask, I have to appeal to your kindness to excuse me for not honoring your request.” Nagley did not publish this section of the letter in Philosophy East and West, vol. 20, no. 3, July 1970, which covered the conference. A section of the letter which Nagley did include from Heidegger’s letter reads as follows: “Again and again, it has seemed urgent to me that a dialogue take place with the thinkers of what is to us the Eastern world. The greatest difficulty in this enterprise always lies, as far as I can see, in the fact that with few exceptions, there is no command of the Eastern languages either in Europe or in the United States,” p. 221.

  130. Ma & van Brakel, p. 528.

  131. Ma & van Brakel, p. 530, quoting Heidegger’s April 8, 1936 lecture on “Europe and German Philosophy” (Europa und die Deutsche Philosophie) in Gander, Hans-Helmuth, Europa und die Philosophie (1993), p. 31. In 1952, Heidegger also portrayed post-WWI Europe as “a plaything…for the immense native strength of the Eastern peoples” (Ma & Brakel, p. 531, quoting What is Called Thinking? (1968), p. 67/71).

  132. Ma & van Brakel, p. 526.

  133. Ma & van Brakel, p. 529, quoting “Die Einzigkeit des Dichters” (1943) in Zu Hölderlin—Griechenlandreisen (2000), pp. 35–44.

  134. Ma & van Brakel, p. 530.

  135. Heidegger, ibid, p. 2. My italics.

  136. Neske & Kettering, Martin Heidegger and National Socialism (1990), pp. 62–63.

  137. Parkes in May, p. 99–100, quoting D. T. Suzuki, “Erinnerung an einen Besuch bei Martin Heidegger,” in Buchner, ed., Japan und Heidegger, 169–72.

  138. Karl Jaspers, from a letter he wrote in December 1945 to the de-Nazification committee at Freiburg University, reviewing Heidegger’s case after the war. Quoted in The Heidegger Controversy, ed. Richard Wolin (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), pp. 144–151. Also quoted in Hiroshi Nara, p. 149 (Mikkelsen’s article), cf note 7 on p. 149.

    *Nara, Hiroshi (2004) The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shūzō (with a translation of Iki no kōzō). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

  139. This conclusion—that Nishida’s recommendation of “autonomy” to Japanese scholars is derived from his idea of God—is not explicit in Nishida’s own words. However, I suggest that this conclusion is well warranted because for him, clearly, (1) God’s character, which is to say, the character of Absolute Nothingness, is formless, in contrast to the formed determinations of finite human beings, and (2) self-realized human beings attain continuity with God and thus can be said to attain a formlessness, freedom, or transcendence from worldly determinations which is analogous to the Divine formlessness. For Nishida, “God is the foundational concept of religion” (NKZ 11:372) and “the pinnacle of learning and morality can in fact be reached only by entering the realm of religion” (NKZ 1:172–173).

  140. Huh, p. 368, cf also p. 343 etc. My italics.

    *Huh, Woo-Sung. “The philosophy of history in the ‘later’ Nishida: A philosophic turn,” pp. 343–374. Philosophy East and West. Ed. Roger T. Ames. Vol. XL, No. 3, July (1990)

  141. NKZ 18:473, letter #782, August 22, 1933.

  142. TKC 1:197.

  143. Kopf, pp. 73–74, 84, 95ff. Heisig, Philosophers of Nothingness (2001), p. 4.

    *Kopf, Gereon (2004) “Between Identity and Difference: Three Ways of Reading Nishida’s Non-dualism.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture) 31/1:73–103.

    *Heisig, James (2001a) Philosophers of Nothingness. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

  144. NKZ 6:165, from The Self-realizational Determination of Nothingness (1932):

    Heidegger’s understanding (ryōkai [了解]) can comprehend a sort of active determination (kōiteki gentei [行為的限定]), but it is an action that that has lost self-realization. His world of understanding is merely a world of possibility and cannot generate the present. It is a world of the mere predicative aspect of self-determination.

  145. NKZ 6:168, from The Self-realizational Determination of Nothingness (1932):

    Heidegger’s Being may be similar to that which precedes the opposition of subject and object (shukaku tairitsu izen no mono [主客対立以前のもの]), but Heidegger’s Being does not see the self itself factually. His understanding (ryōkai [了解]) is an imperfect self-realization, and is merely action wherein, so to speak, expression has lost the self (jiko [自己]). The true self is not merely what understands itself, but must know itself factually through action.

  146. NKZ 6:172–173, from The Self-realizational Determination of Nothingness (1932):

    [T]he basis (kontei [根柢]) of knowledge [must be found] in “cogito ergo sum” [which means] the self-determination of the expressive self [and correspondingly] the self-realization of Absolute Nothingness. It is not like Heidegger’s Being, which merely expresses and understands (ryōkai [了解]) the self itself, …[but fails to] see (miru [見る]) the self itself through action. I am not what is situated “there” (soko ni), but I am what resides “here” (koko ni).

  147. NKZ 6:179, from The Self-realizational Determination of Nothingness (1932):

    Hermeneutical phenomenology, which sees the self from Being, may be scientific, but it is not philosophical. … It cannot discard the phenomenological standpoint…which…sees (miru [見る]) the standpoint of the self-realization of the active self from the outside. Heidegger’s standpoint, which sees the self-determinative fact of understanding [has this problem].

  148. NKZ 7:79; Dilworth’s translation, p. 40, from Basic Problems of Philosophy: The Active World (1933).

  149. NKZ 7:179–180, Dilworth’s translation, pp. 94–95, from Basic Problems of Philosophy: The Active World (1933):

    [M]etaphysical problems are prior to epistemological questions. The opposition between subject and object (shukaku no tairitsu [主客の対立]) already implies a standpoint which transcends that opposition. Thus…it is necessary to return again to the standpoint of Logos and to clarify the logical structure of true “Being.” This in turn requires a return to Greek philosophy. Heidegger’s Existenz-philosophie has such a purpose. But needless to say, the reality of modern physical science cannot be grounded in terms of Greek metaphysics. That which moves and acts in time cannot be included within reality taken as trans-temporal Logos. Even though Heidegger’s idea of existence is historical, it is without movement or action and consequently his concept of time does not avoid being one of potential time.

  150. NKZ 11:173, from “Regarding the Philosophy of Descartes” [デカルト哲学について] (1944):

    [Following recent Western philosophical trends,] our country [of Japan] became completely epistemological. … Phenomenology…is unable to avoid intellectualism (chishikironteki [知識論理的]). Even Heidegger’s ontology cannot transcend the standpoint of the subjectivee self. [Inquiry must proceed] from subjectivee to objectivee… I have come to a dead end within recent subjectiviste philosophy, and I believe we face a time wherein we must rethink [philosophy] at its basis (kontei [根柢]). The historical world must not only be thoroughly temporal, but also thoroughly spatial.

  151. In addition to the voices of Tanabe, Watsuji, and Miki, Takizawa’s colleague Tōru Suzuki, himself deeply influenced by phenomenology, criticized even the later Heidegger’s account of Being and beings for not being logical, objectivee, or factual (sachlich) [論理的・客観的・即事的]. Rather, for Suzuki, Heidegger is one-sided by being merely intuitive [感覚的・感性的], and thereby does not even provide an opportunity for the irreversibility [不逆的契機の看過] whereby finite and individual subjective intuition is irreversibly dependent upon the logical, objective, and factual. Shibata, The World of Katsumi Takizawa: Immanuel, p. 82.

    * Shibata, Shū [柴田秀] (2001) The World of Katsumi Takizawa: Immanuel [滝沢克己の世界:インマヌエル]. Tokyo: Shunjūnsha [春秋社].

  152. Williams, pp. 182–183. Tanabe’s article on Heidegger, “Philosophy of Crisis, or a Crisis of Philosophy?,” appeared in a three-part series printed in the Asahi Newspaper in early Autumn of 1933. Tanabe had recently issued a similar critique of Nishida’s philosophy in May, 1930, in the article, “Looking Up to Nishida’s Teachings.”.

  153. Note that the standard reading for [間柄] is “aidagara.” I have included the unconventional reading “gen-hei” set off by quotes, with the “gen” underlined and capitalized, in order to highlight its connection to “ningen” [人間].

  154. In his 1935 work Climate, Watsuji himself follows a Heideggerian approach by etymologically explaining the philosophical roots of Japanese culture, excavating not only a temporal “continuation” (son [存]) but also a spatial “locatedness” (zai [在]) in East-Asian “existence” (sonzai [存在]). The very title of Watsuji’s book, Climate (fūdo [風土])—literally, a compound constituted by the elemental words “wind” (kaze, fū- [風]) and “earth” (tsuchi, -do [土])—implies in its original Chinese-Japanese meaning, both the natural physical environment and the human social environment as conditioned by the surrounding natural physical environment.

  155. Yuasa in Parkes, pp. 160, 162.

  156. Takizawa repeats this statement three times, in TKC 1:441, TKC 2:521–2, and Inquiring of Religion (1976), p. 87, (the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi’s Katsumi Takizawa Timline p. 164).

  157. NKZ 7:118; Dilworth, p. 60. Basic Problems of Philosophy: The Active World (1933). Nishida here refers, respectively, to Heideggger’s original German “Geworfenheit” and “Entwurf.”

  158. Parkes in May, p. 115, footnote 83.

  159. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, p. 19. The original translation “nothingness” has been replaced in order to harmonize with the term “Nothingness,” selected in this study to represent Heidegger’s account of das Nichts.

  160. CD III 3, p. 339.

    *CD = Barth, Karl (1963) Church Dogmatics. English ed. of Kirchliche Dogmatik, Ed. G. W. Bromiley & T. F. Torrance. T. & T. Clark: Edinburgh.

  161. CD III 3, p. 347.

  162. CD III 3, pp. 340, 345, 347.

  163. NKZ 6:26, from [無の自覚的限定].

  164. From the Katsumi Takizawa Association webpage: www.takizawakatsumi.com.

  165. Yuasa in Parkes, p. 160.

  166. Heidegger, On the Way to Language (1959), pp. 9–10.

  167. NKZ 18:239–40; letter #302; November 28, 1921. Quoted in Yusa p. 178, footnote 26. Heidegger’s dissertation: “Duns Scotus’ Doctrine of Categories and the Theory of Meaning” (cf Heidegger’s On the Way to Language, p. 6).

  168. This From three statements made by Takizawa, found in TKC 1:441, TKC 2:521–2, and Inquiring of Religion (1976), p. 87, (the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi’s Katsumi Takizawa Timline p. 164).

  169. Heidegger, ibid, p. 34.

  170. Heidegger, ibid, p. 30.

  171. All of these theologians appear explicitly in Nishida’s first major publication in 1911, An Inquiry into the Good.

  172. Yuasa in Parkes, p. 159. From Miki’s 1926 [パスカルに於ける人間の研究].

  173. NKZ 1:117. From An Inquiry into the Good, 1911.

  174. Miki in MKZ 10:220–228 [キェルケゴールと現代].

    *Miki, Kiyoshi (1968) The Complete Works of Kiyoshi Miki [三木清全集] (abbreviated MKZ). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten [岩波書店].

  175. Tanabe in THZ 11:607–617 [キェルケゴールの宗教哲学], note that Tanabe pays special attention to Kierkegaard also in his book Philosophy as Metanoetics [懺悔道としての哲学] (THZ 9).

  176. Piovesana, pp. 132, 205.

  177. NKC 8.

    *NKC = Nishitani, Keiji (1995) The Collected Works of Keiji Nishitani [西谷啓治著作集] (abbreviated NKC). Tokyo: Sōbunsha [創文社].

  178. These letters of February 1940 appear in NKZ 19:100–101: February 7 to Mutai, letter #1410; February 9 to Hisamatsu, letter #1411; February 12 to Yanagida, letter #1414.

  179. Even before his first meeting with Nishida in October 1933, the young Takizawa was already very familiar with Heideggerian thought. Heidegger featured prominently in Takizawa’s 1931 graduation thesis, and Takizawa completed an essay on Heidegger in September 1933, just before meeting with Nishida. In his first critique of Barth in 1935 and also in his first critique of Nishida in 1936, Takizawa engaged Heidegger’s philosophy. Takizawa also touched on the problem of technology, which was of great interest to the later Heidegger. In his 1974 The Tannishō and the Contemporary World, Takizawa writes that, according to modern socialism (shiminshugi [市民主義]): “From the beginning, human beings construct themselves as subjectsx, relating themselves together for the purpose of using other natural entities (shizen no mono [自然の物]).” In the end, Takizawa credits Marx as having seen most clearly the social implications of technology (p. 174; cf also Forum of Ideas [思想のひろば] (2002) vol. 14, “Heidegger, Shinran, Katsumi Takizawa,” by Tetsunari Fukui, pp. 20–28).

    * Fukui, Tetsunari (2002) “Heidegger, Shinran, Katsumi Takizawa,” Shisō no Hiroba (Forum of Ideas) [思想のひろば], vol. 14, pp. 20–28.

  180. Sakaguchi, p. 148.

  181. TKC 1:324–325, from “Dasein and the Mission and Limitations of Philosophy in Heidegger” (1933).

  182. TKC 1:328.

  183. I translate Takizawa’s term here, “tōiteki ishiki” [当為的意識], as “prescriptive consciousness.” The term “tōi” [当為] is commonly used to translate German “Sollen” or “ought.”

  184. TKC 1:328.

  185. CD III, 3, p. 347.

  186. CD III, 3, p. 335.

  187. CD III, 3, pp. 343–344.

  188. CD III, 3, p. 348.

  189. CD III, 3, p. 346.

  190. Takizawa, Basic Problems of Nishida Philosophy, p. 50.

    *(2004) Basic Problems of Nishida Philosophy [西田哲学の根本問題]. (ed. & commentary by Takayoshi Kobayashi [小林孝吉]). Tokyo: Kobayashi Bunko [こぶし文庫]. [First published by Tōkōshoin [刀江書院] in 1936), published again in the Collected Works of Katsumi Takizawa, 1972.

  191. TKC 1:333.

  192. CD III, 3, p. 348.

  193. Consider the conclusions of Ryōmin Akizuki, Tōru Suzuki, and Tamotsu Maeda:

    ~Ryōmin Akizuki writes in:

    → When the Dharma Appears Clearly (1990) pp. 88–89:

    I have formerly stated that the ‘logic of inverse correspondence’ of Professor Nishida’s later years can be seen as Nishida’s response to Professor Takizawa’s critique of Nishida’s monism.

    Akizuki, 1990, pp. 88–89

    *(1990). When the Dharma Appears Clearly: The Religio-Philosophical Dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity [ダンマが露になるとき:仏教とキリスト教の宗教哲学的対話]. Tokyo: Seidosha [青土社].

    → Absolute Nothingness and Topos: Suzuki Zen and Nishida Philosophy, 1996, p. 360:

    Due to Mutai’s essay [about inverse-response]…, I arrived at the core of the logic of Nishida Philosophy, [which is the notion of inverse-response]. I believe this [core] was the response of Nishida himself to the simple and frank query of Takizawa as Nishida’s disciple. Takizawa’s query, which I touched upon beforehand, was ‘whether it is accurate to express this kind of movement of dialectical reality monistically, [as the self-determination of the dialectical universal]. (Akizuki is quoting from page 46–47 of Takizawa’s Basic Problems of Nishida Philosophy.)

    *(1996) Absolute Nothingness and Topos: Suzuki Zen and Nishida Philosophy [絶対無と場所:鈴木禅学と西田哲学]. Tokyo: Seidosha [青土社].

    ~Tōru Suzuki writes in his commentary on Takizawa TKC 5 in the appendix, p. 7:

    [T]he later Nishida Philosophy may be said to have provided an answer to Takizawa’s criticism. Therefore, Takizawa’s elucidation and inquiry in Basic Problems of Nishida Philosophy…refers to the early and middle Nishida and not the later.

    ~Tamotsu Maeda writes on the Takizawa Association Webpage (www.takizawakatsumi.com):

    …it can be said that Nishida responded to the criticisms of Takizawa through his religious work Topological Logic and the Religious Worldview.

  194. NKZ 19:46, letter #1281, September 21, 1938, to Katsumi Takizawa. Cf also NKZ 11:372, from Topological Logic and the Religious Worldview (1945).

  195. Inwood, pp. 72–73.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy Department of Saint Lawrence University, Canton, NY, USA

    Curtis A. Rigsby

  2. Japan Committee of the Society of Christian Philosophers (International) http://www.societyofchristianphilosophers.com/

    Curtis A. Rigsby

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* Note the superscript system I have devised to aid in translation. The precision of Japanese philosophical vocabulary does not always translate easily into English. One English term with multiple meanings, is often expressible by two or more Japanese terms with exactly one meaning each. I have added superscripts to clarify the original Japanese term where appropriate, as follows: [EXPERIENCE] experience (generic) [経験]; experiencet (intensified with possible bodily manifestation) [体験]. [HISTORY] historyg (as in the theological history of faith, cf Bultmannian theology) (Geschichte); historyh (as in the factual history discernible by science) (Historie). [IDEALISM] idealismr (versus realism) [観念主義]; idealismb (versus materialism/realism) [観念論]; idealismm (versus materialism) [唯心論]; idealismp or optimism (versus pessimism) [理想主義]. [MATTER] materialismm [唯物論]; matterh (as opposed to form) [質料]. [OBJECT] objecte (epistemological) [客観]; objectx (existential) [客体]; object (determinate, standing against) [対象]. [REAL] real (generic) [現実]; realj (especially, philosophically, as a substance) [実体]. [SPIRIT] spiritg (as in German Geist) [精神]; spiritr (as animating force) [霊]. [SUBJECT] subjecte (epistemological) [主観]; subjectx (existential, active) [主体]; subjectg (grammatical-logical) [主語]; subject matter [主題]; all translations, unless otherwise indicated, are the author’s.

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Rigsby, C.A. Nishida on Heidegger. Cont Philos Rev 42, 511–553 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-009-9119-8

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