Abstract

Whereas at the roots of the Western way of thinking, in particular, at the roots of philosophy and epistemology lies a notion of the one/over/many, in Asiatic cultures, it is an idea of one/and/many, represented by Japanese (Chinese) Ma. In the paper it is argued that Japanese Ma is not only broader than epistemological reality (the world) but also more basic. To overcome Wittgenstein’s skepticism we have to return to a noncognitive idea of the ontic presence. Our thinking and cognition is deeply rooted in the imperceptible and indiscernible ontic flexibility and generality which is not conceptual or linguistic. This essay presents another interesting aspect of my metaphysical project showing that we cannot infer cognition either from the object level or from a meta-level.