Japanese Philosophy: Aesthetics

What is the philosophical significance of Heidegger’s interpretation of the Japanese notion of kotoba (言葉) for Japanese philosophy? Was his conversation with Tezuka Tomio a real dialogue or not? To answer to these correlated questions, I elucidate Heidegger’s 1954 essay “A Dialogue on Language” by following a topological mode of thinking, and I inquire into the way-making of a “thinking conversation”. First, I problematize whether Heidegger engaged in a genuine dialogue with Tezuka. To that end, I distinguish the hermeneutic horizon (...) of the actual encounter between Tezuka and Heidegger from Heidegger’s essay which places Tezuka (the Japanese) and Heidegger (the Inquirer) in a fictional philosophical conversation. Second, I argue that Heidegger’s topological method of interpretating kotoba can be read as a poetic means of thematizing East-West dialogue. Third and finally, exploring the topological sense of kotoba, I engage with third generation Kyoto School thinker Ueda Shizuteru’sideaof“hollow words” of language, situated in a twofold view of the world. I conclude that the true character of Heidegger’s conversation with Tezuka can be identified neither in Heidegger’s “actual” encounter with Tezuka, nor merely in Heidegger’s “hollow” essay. Departing from Ueda’s account of kotoba, it appears that a genuine conversation with language can be located in the dialogue of actuality and hollowness, which finds it expression in poetic language. (shrink)

A palavra japonesa geidō 芸道 é formada por dois caracteres: o primeiro remete à “habilidade” ou “capacidade” de executar algo e o segundo a uma “via” ou “caminho”, de maneira que poderia ser traduzida por “via da arte”. Como observou Hisamatsu Shin’ichi em um diálogo com Martin Heidegger, “via”, aqui, não significa simplesmente “método”, mas mantém uma profunda relação com a vida. No entanto, para nomear a “arte” no sentido moderno “ocidental estético”,emprega-se, em japonês, o neologismo geijutsu 芸術. O segundo (...) caráter, neste caso, contém mais claramente o significado de “método” ou “técnica”, além de “êxito/realização” e “destreza”. Partindo das distintas conotações que os dois termos evocam, propomo-nos a examinar a concepção tradicional e moderna da arte, no Japão, à luz das reflexões dos filósofos da Escola de Kioto sobre o “lugar do nada” (mu no basho 無の場所) como “campo expressivo”(hyōgenteki sekai表現的世界). Com isso, tentaremos mostrar a correspondência existente entre a concepção de arte como poiesis, ou autoexpressão criativa, de alguns desses filósofos e a compreensão tradicional japonesa da arte como via. (shrink)

Nishida Kitarō's account of authorship and artistic production constitutes the focus of this essay.1 Its general thesis is that Nishida's keen attention to the subjective qua objective, active qua intuitive intersection can be used to articulate a new, bidirectional account of artistic production. This essay uses this bidirectional account to engage critically with those unidirectional interpretive procedures grounded in the life or death of the Author.2 It takes up the former as it privileges the subjective conditions of production, reducing text (...) and historical moment to a derivative of the "Author" and its life, and the latter as it privileges the objective conditions of production, subsuming text and author into... (shrink)

The following article aims to answer the question: “How do we experience weather and qi?” Answering this question addresses two problems: Both the phenomena of weather and qi elude classic phenomenological paradigms such as thing-perception and Dasein, brought forth by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, respectively. If phenomenology is concerned with giving an account of experience starting with the “things themselves,” weather and qi necessitate a different phenomenological paradigm, which comprehensively accounts for the experience of both. This article demonstrates that (...) inconspicuousness, as it has been recently phenomenologically accounted for by Günter Figal, is such a new paradigm. Philosophy done across different languages and cultures is often faced with the problem of untranslatability. This article further demonstrates, following Hisayama Yuho’s work, how phenomenology can present a ground for such philosophy: Instead of discussing qi through its mistranslations into English, I approach the phenomenon by discussing the similarity of phenomenological accounts of qi from Japanese philosophy with my own account of the phenomenology of weather. Both phenomenological accounts mutually elucidate each other. A phenomenological analysis of weather and qi thus both illustrates a largely unthematized facet of human experience in phenomenology, namely, the immersion in media of perception and experience, and demonstrates the philosophical productivity of intercultural philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to show how Japanese practices of self-cultivation found in the so-called “ways” can be interpreted as embodied forms of “caring for oneself ” and, therefore, as part of a philosophical Lebenskunst or art of living. To this end, I refer to phenomenological accounts of the body as well as to a unique notion of practice found in the writings of Dōgen Kigen, a thirteenth-century Japanese Zen master. Central to this essay is a concern with embodying (...) kata or pre-defined patterns of movement and posture used in nearly all practices of self-cultivation in Japan. To approach this question, I look at the etymological roots of the term kata and its use in the writings of Zeami, the foremost representative of classical Noh theater, both as author and as actor. This is followed by an analysis of certain aspects of the embodiment of kata and the way it is described in Japanese literature. (shrink)

Both Nishida Kitarō and Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote extensively about artistic expression in their early works, yet in the last period of their careers that consideration is put mostly aside as they engage more directly with abstract ontological concerns. As this happens, a curiously overlooked concept becomes prominent in their writings, namely “faith.” While Merleau-Ponty’s is a “perceptual faith”, and Nishida’s is, broadly speaking, a religious faith, neither is strictly secular nor spiritual, yet both entail a remarkably similar ontology of the (...) motor-perceptual body. Unfortunately, their lives ended before they could fully develop these philosophically problematic concepts.... (shrink)

This collection begins with an engaging historical overview of Japanese aesthetics and offers contemporary multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on the artistic and aesthetic traditions of Japan and the central themes in Japanese art and aesthetics.

Der Berg, a poem written between 1906 and 1907, is perhaps one of the most emblematic places to approach the relationship between Rainer Maria Rilke and the East. The mountain we are speaking of is Fujiyama, to which the celebrated Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai dedicated two woodcut cycles. Presumably, Rilke came into contact with Japanese art through Edmond Goncourt, who had devoted precisely to Hokusai a major critical study in 1908. Another version of the story sees Rilke as having read (...) the monograph on Hokusai by Friedrich Perzynski, published in 1904 in the same series where Rilke’s Worpswede was issued. But let us read the text first:On several occasions, the artist tried to capture the.. (shrink)

For any reader with knowledge of the works of Ernst Cassirer, the question that will come to mind on approaching Raji C. Steineck’s Kritik der symbolischen Formen I: Symbolische Form und Funktion is: Why Japan? Cassirer’s great range of writings on the history of thought, culture, and symbol involves no sustained attention to Japanese culture. Cassirer also never addresses problems of East-West philosophy, nor did he, unlike some other German thinkers in the twentieth century, engage in correspondence with Japanese thinkers. (...) In the first volume of Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Cassirer does make reference in several places to the Japanese language based on Johann Joseph Hoffmann’s Japanische Sprachlehre... (shrink)

How was creativity understood in the distinctive artistic practices of eighteenth-century Japan? How were its artists able to maintain consistently inventive creative pathways over extended periods? Artistic creativity is sometimes assumed to derive from chance, opportune, or accidental events. For early Western creativity theorists like Graham Wallas,1 Alex Osborn,2 or Robert Fritz 3 such fortunate moments of illumination engendered creative innovation. The invention of synthetic dyes,4 Japanese haboku “splashed ink painting,” or Jackson Pollock’s spatters of paint all involved elements of (...) chance. Given favorable conditions and alert minds, serendipity can contribute to... (shrink)

This paper sets Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Nishida Kitarō in dialogue and explore the interpretations of artistic expression, which inform their similar phenomenological accounts of perception. I discuss how both philosophers look to artistic practice to reveal multi-perspectival aspects of vision. They do so, I argue, by going beyond a “positivist” representational under-standing of perception and by including negative aspects of visual experience as constitutive of vision. Following this account, I interpret artworks by Cézanne, Guo Xi, Rodin, and Hasegawa according to (...) the versions of multi-perspectival vision articulated by Nishida and Merleau-Ponty. I conclude by highlighting a difference between Merleau-Ponty’s “depth” and Nishida’s “seeing without a seer” regarding the extent to which each of their philosophies de-substantialize and de-localize human vision. (shrink)

The present volume is the latest example of what scholars of Japanese philosophy have been up to in recent years. The papers collected here, most of them presented at conferences held in Barcelona and Nagoya during 2016, have been arranged in four thematic parts. The first two parts cover the history of Japanese philosophy, as their topics extend from premodern thinkers to twentieth century philosophers; the last two parts focus on Nishida and Watsuji respectively.

This book examines Whitehead’s process aesthetics focusing on two categories, the penumbral beauty of darkness and the tragic beauty of perishability, while establishing parallels with the Japanese sense of evanescent beauty. It clarifies how both traditions develop a religio-aesthetic vision of tragic beauty and its reconciliation in the supreme ecstasy of peace.

Diogenes, Ahead of Print. This essay briefly explores the phenomenon of nepantla in three representative cross-cultural encounters, in both initial and later phases: Spain-Latin America, England-India, and the West-Japan. Nepantla is a mode of in-betweenness rooted in the historical encounter between cultures and leading to mediation of various kinds. For Latin America, the essay focuses on Columbus, the Cortés-Moctezuma encounter, the Aztec-Franciscan dialogues of 1524, Gabriel García Márquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa. For India, the essay comments on the East India (...) Company, English education in India, Lord Macaulay, Dean Mahomet, Rabindranath Tagore, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, and a number of other writers from the early, mid and late twentieth century. For Japan, the essay considers, first, Japanese reactions to missionary activities in the sixteenth century, then the opening up of Japan in the nineteenth century, the Meiji Restoration and its literature, and in particular authors like Fukuzawa, Sōseki, Endō, Kawabata, and Ōe. The essay argues, finally, that nepantla is a useful and dynamic approach to intercultural encounters that complements approaches indicated by terms like colonialism, imperialism, contact zones, hybridity or métissage, liminality, de-colonization, or post-coloniality. (shrink)

This paper aims to develop Nishida Kitarō’s “logic of place” into an “aesthetics of place.” While brilliantly fusing the Buddhist traditions of Japan with Western philosophy, in his later years, Nishida came up with his own unique philosophy, a “monadology with the concept of substance.” This is a concept anchored in mu or “emptiness.” From this standpoint, how is the individual understood and how does society take shape? The answers to these questions are fundamental keys to understanding Japanese philosophy. In (...) Japan, the individual in Japan is not locked up in itself, but it is possible for the “substantial ego” to vanish and be replaced by the ““I as an event.” Through a discussion of the “place” where the activities of the traditional poetic forms of renku and renga are performed, an attempt is made to develop an aesthetic approach to those questions. (shrink)

Slightly modified PowerPoint slides in the PDF format presented at the first conference of the European Network of Japanese Philosophy, Barcelona, Spain. (December 4th, 2015).

The traditional arts may possibly constitute that aspect of Japanese culture that has the most literature dedicated to it, and the new book by the Italian scholar Marcello Ghilardi, Arte e pensiero in Giappone: Corpo, immagine, gesto, should have a deservedly high place among the works in this genre.

Far Eastern calligraphy has always been regarded by the Occident as an “esoteric” issue, laden with a peculiar “mysticism,” which presents spiritual and philosophical aspects too outlandish to truly comprehend. That is probably the reason why calligraphy was amongst the last artistic “disciplines” to gain access to the international world of the arts. This study focuses on Japanese calligraphy as a visual and verbal image, conducting a hermeneutic investigation into the nature and function of this type of image, into the (...) value and significance of this way of representing the sacred in accordance with Japanese spirituality. Undertaking an unusual exploration, this research draws together the symbolism of calligraphic art and that of Byzantine icons, looking for similarities and differences between them, seeing them as intuitive gateways to the mysteries of the universe, to revelations of an ontologically superior nature. (shrink)

In both occidental and oriental traditions, philosophers have long treated the martial arts as pursuits worthy of philosophical reflection. This is the first substantial academic book to lay out the philosophical terrain within the study and understanding of the martial arts and to explore the significance of this fascinating subject for contemporary philosophy. The book is divided into three sections. The first section concerns what philosophical reflection can teach us about the martial arts, and especially the nature and value of (...) its practice. The second section deals with the other direction of the dialectical interplay between philosophy and the martial arts: how the martial arts can inform philosophical issues important in their own right. Finally, because many of the notable martial arts are of Asian origin, there are particularly close links between the arts and Asian philosophies - and Buddhism in particular - and therefore the last section is devoted to this topic. The essays in this collection deal with a wide range of philosophical issues: normative ethics, meta-ethics, aesthetics, phenomenology, the philosophy of mind, Ancient Greek and Buddhist thought. By demonstrating the very real nature of the engagement between the martial arts and philosophy, this book is essential reading for any serious student or scholar with an interest in the martial arts, Eastern philosophy, the philosophy of sport, or the study of physical culture. (shrink)

Japanese architecture emphasizes transitional spaces between rooms rather than the rooms themselves. If these transitional spaces can be successfully realized, then everything in the room will naturally fall into place with anything else. This also applies to the relation between a building and other buildings stretching out through the whole city, and ultimately to the relation of the city to the natural environment. “En” is the Japanese word for such transitional spaces. It means both “edge” and “connection.” It also means (...) destiny. When two people fall in love at fi rst sight or understand each other without having to speak, they are said to have “en.” This article provides a phenomenological description and constitutional analysis of two Japanese bridging structures: the engawa at the side or back of a house or temple which functions as a veranda for viewing the garden and a hallway to connect the rooms, and the hashigakari bridgeway of the Noh theater by which the principal actor gets from the green room to the stage. (shrink)

Culture is a demanding word, particularly when it is used in the context of the contemporary academic discipline of international relations . It is often employed in order to distinguish one identity from another, allegedly illuminating idiosyncrasies embedded in a particular society or group of people. The essentialized understanding of culture is also detectable in the case of the current debate on the non-Western international relations theories . Non-Western politicians and scholars often employ the term culture in order to distinguish (...) their values from alleged Western values. However, culture has another important function mainly advanced by a left-wing Kyoto School philosopher Tosaka Jun, that is, culture as a mirror for critical reflection for morality . This article is based on Tosaka's argument that culture has an important function for moral reflection beyond that of a mere means to identify one's distinctiveness from the West, and it criticizes Japan's soft power diplomacy or the total absence of it from that point of view. It also argues that this absence is the result of the soft power discourse's over-simplified interpretation of culture that results in confrontation between the West and the rest, particularly when it is employed in non-Western IRT discourses. Towards the end, I examine Miyazaki Hayao's films, Princes Mononoke in particular, as examples of cultural works facilitating a moment of critical reflection, and I extract embedded messages of relevance to critical reflection on contemporary IR literature, particularly non-Western literature. (shrink)

Studies of mythology and the philosophy of religions ascribe violence an important role in understanding traditional societies. Whether perceived as sacred and capable of renewing the world, or as oppressive and destructive, violence acquires a twofold valence, whose constituents are interpreted in a complementary relation of interdependence and entail a world outlook with profound implications. Retrieving this ambiguous dimension of religious violence, Kenzaburō Ōe’s novel imagines, against the historical background of post-war Japanese society, a game that enacts the eternal rivalry (...) between two brothers. Lest the history of this seemingly lost present should fall prey to political abuse, the Japanese writer proposes a return to myth, without, however, idealising it; instead, myth is revalorised and tradition is re-conceived from the vantage point of rationalism, with full and alert awareness of the dangers inherent in an ideology that is imposed by force and aggression. Kenzaburō Ōe’s novel is a lucid meditation on Japan’s modern and contemporary history. (shrink)

This special issue explores the significance of collectivism in modern and contemporary Japanese art. Japanese artists banded together throughout the twentieth century to work in collectives, reflecting and influencing each evolution of their culture. Illuminating the interplay between individual and community throughout Japan’s tumultuous century, the contributors to this issue examine both the practical internal operations of the collectives and the art that they produced. One contributor studies the art societies of prewar imperial Japan, whose juried art salons defined a (...) new _nihonga_ painting tradition. While recent scholarly work on art produced during World War II has tended to neglect the collectivist tradition, this issue covers wartime groups like the Art Unit for Promoting the Munitions Industry and the important questions they pose about the relationship between artists and the state. Art collectives in post-occupation Japan gained prominence working in the experimental vanguard of the global art scene in painting, sculpture, design, and intermedia projects. Adding a crucial dimension to the study of Japanese art and modernism, this issue explores how these groups attempted to accommodate the creative paradox of individualism within collectivism. _Contributors: Maki Kaneko, Kuroda Raiji, John Szostak, Miwako Tezuka, Ming Tiampo, Reiko Tomii, Alicia Volk, Midori Yoshimoto Reiko Tomii_ is an independent art historian and curator in New York. She is coauthor of _Xu Bing_. _Midori Yoshimoto_ is Associate Professor of Art History and curator of two galleries at New Jersey City University. She is the author of _Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York_. (shrink)