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Kyoto School, The: An Introduction Paperback – 21 January 2013
by Robert E. Carter (Author), Thomas P. Kasulis (Foreword)
4.0 out of 5 stars 9 ratings
This book provides a much-needed introduction to the Kyoto School of Japanese philosophy. Robert E. Carter focuses on four influential Japanese philosophers: the three most important members of the Kyoto School (Nishida Kitarō, Tanabe Hajime, and Nishitani Keiji), and a fourth (Watsuji Tetsurō), who was, at most, an associate member of the school. Each of these thinkers wrestled systematically with the Eastern idea of "nothingness," albeit from very different perspectives.
Many Western scholars, students, and serious general readers are intrigued by this school of thought, which reflects Japan's engagement with the West. A number of works by various thinkers associated with the Kyoto School are now available in English, but these works are often difficult to grasp for those not already well-versed in the philosophical and historical context. Carter's book provides an accessible yet substantive introduction to the school and offers an East-West dialogue that enriches our understanding of Japanese thought while also shedding light on our own assumptions, habits of thought, and prejudices.
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Review
...an excellent introduction to the work of some of the major figures of the Kyoto School of Philosophy ... the book provides the foundation for a first-rate syllabus for an entire course on the Kyoto School. -- Religious Studies Review
...Carter skillfully introduces the reader to the complexity of the thought of the Kyoto School thinkers while challenging the reader to continue his or her search by taking advantage of the multiple sources included in the Selected Bibliography. One leaves this book with a sense of a deeper appreciation of the distinctiveness of the Kyoto School thinkers and their struggle to elucidate what Nishida terms as 'unspeakable.' -- Journal of Buddhist Ethics
Robert Carter's skill at making complex philosophical concepts comprehensible is once again in evidence in this excellent book ... With its lucid explanations, emphasis on the relevance of Kyoto school thought to everyday life, and concrete examples, The Kyoto School is an excellent text for a course on Japanese philosophy--all the more so because of its ample references to recent literature, glossary of terms, and helpful bibliography. -- Monumenta Nipponica
About the Author
Robert E. Carter is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Trent University in Canada. His many books include The Japanese Arts and Self-Cultivation and Encounter with Enlightenment: A Study of Japanese Ethics, both also published by SUNY Press.
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toronto
4.0 out of 5 stars Not absoluteReviewed in the United States on 31 July 2013
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This is a reasonable general introduction to the Kyoto School, but doesn't really go very deep. For that, Heisig is better and the old collection of essays by Taitetsu Unno. Or go straight to Religion and Nothingness -- it isn't that hard to read if you have any background in Western philosophy and a reasonable knowledge of Mahayana Buddhism. The issue with reading the Kyoto School is that their deep insights are surrounded by lots and lots of generalities on Western philosophy that are not that sophisticated (I leave aside the social and political material, which has problems of its own). You have to get on their "wavelength" and then it becomes a fascinating bridge (abyss) between thought realms.
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francis s. harvey
5.0 out of 5 stars Clarifies Buddhism ClearlyReviewed in the United States on 24 September 2016
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Carter does a great job on a difficult topic. He explains some of the difficult concepts in Buddhism. In fact, of the authors I have read, he explains it the best. It is also written in an interesting style, not dry.
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PVreader
5.0 out of 5 stars Great intro to Modern Japanese PhilosophyReviewed in the United States on 19 February 2014
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There are very few entry level texts in this field. This is a scholarly and informed exception. Dr. Carter has also produced several other exemplary studies regarding contemporary Japanese Arts and Culture. Thank you, Dr. Carter.
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Sergej
5.0 out of 5 stars Watsuji TetsuroReviewed in the United States on 1 July 2013
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The book is divided into four chapters, each considers one japanese philosopher from the Kyoto School. These are Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime, Keiji Nishitani and Watsuji Tetsuro. This is great since their thought is so diverse, that one usually finds himself interested in a particular thinkers thoughts
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Michael rated it it was amazing
Shelves: aa-asialit, aa-japanlit, buddhism-etc, philosophy, philosophy-japan-zen, translation, zz2013, nonfiction, kyoto-school, all-five-star
090118: clear, concise, introduction to the work of philosophers known as 'Kyoto school', all Japanese thinkers who learned much 'western' philosophy in order to integrate, express, engage, with particular Japanese thought on 'the way', mostly zen, in which the purpose of thought is directed to individual transformation, enlightenment, in this world, in a way close to, influenced/ing religious practices...
central contention is that in western thought the central, motivating, value, is 'being' in all its forms (apparent, absolute, relative) and in eastern thought it is 'nothingness' in all its forms (relative, nihilist, absolute), and how zen and Buddhist thought quotes, works with, the evaluation of reality as 'empty' or 'emptiness' (interdependence of nature rather than essence) famous quote of 'form is emptiness and emptiness is form'... and this 'foundation' (abyss) is source of all that ‘is’...
Nishida, Tanabe, Nishitani, are the three main members of the ‘school’, with Wasuji added, influenced by Buddhist thought, either following it, translating, expanding and making philosophical interpretation of essential insights, in nsd or rejecting in tana, critiquing in nst moving from self-power to other-power, asserting absolute emptiness is awareness of human mind, skepticism that this is possible without power of 'faith', from mind and existential concepts to social/space in response to heidegger's focus on time, while this is introducing thoughts it is indicated there are many volumes yet to be translated to English...
i come to this intro with a lot of reading of phenomenonology and see a lot of merleau-ponty in the idea that it is not the varying intellect that need be engaged, empowered, enlightened, but the body, by some practices, intuition, acts- this notes also that if a philosophy does not lead to new and lasting existential change it is no more than 'intellectual gymnastics'... i come to this also having read on Buddhism and Zen, so it is very easy to follow these thoughts as philosophy rather than limited to 'western' concepts of religion, the only problem will be finding more translations of authors here noted, and as always any book that inspires reading another book is a five to me...
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Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Ethics Embodied: Rethinking Selfhood Through Continental, Japanese, and Feminist Philosophies
Self, No Self?: Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions
Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School
Nishida And Western Philosophy (less)
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Karl Hallbjörnsson
Aug 27, 2017Karl Hallbjörnsson rated it liked it
A nice primer and introduction to the Kyoto School. I have some trifling problems with the text pertaining to how the author often erringly uses pseudo-hegelian terms such as synthesis to negatively contrast some of the Japanese thinkers covered in the book to Hegel. With a better grasp of hegelian immanent critique he wouldn't have fallen into the lazy trap of characterizing a hegelian mediation as a synthesis that negates its constituent moments without preserving them in its own process (see discussion of the term Ningen, Loc 2565-2572 in Kindle edition). Otherwise this is a fine work and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the eastern philosophical tradition of (relative) modernity. (less)
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Josh
Jun 30, 2017Josh rated it really liked it
Shelves: biography, buddhism, cogsci, eastern, japanese, sci-phil-rel-knowledge-life-etc, other-owns
Nishida Kitarō
-- p. 25: Principle of unity. "Since both material and spiritual phenomena are identical from the point of view of pure experience, these two kinds of unifying functions must ultimately be of the same sort. [...] For example, our laws of logic and mathematics are at once the basic principles by which the phenomena of the universe come into being." It seems to me a strange sort of appeal: surely each of those three statements is (at the very least) contestable. Even taking pure experience to be foundational, the principle seems to me too dogmatic to escape the criticisms that the Kyoto school itself makes of Western philosophy.
-- p. 26: Hierarchical structuring of reality. "It is not that experience exists because there is an individual, but that an individual exists because there is experience [pure experience is prior to the distinctions of things and self, so the experience had by a self is carved out of the unity which is pure experience]. [..] The individual's experience is simply a small, distinctive sphere of limited experience within true experience." This question applies equally to Plotinus (and is one of clarification/confusion): are mice closer to God than I am? How does complexification interact with the normative structuring of reality?
-- p. 36: The qualities of God. "Pure experience, before it is carved up by the intellect, has no distinctions. But God has qualities, and is therefore more than just pure experience. Nothing, as a mere pointer or placeholder, is precisely without qualities because it is prior to all qualities and distinctions." What are God's qualities? Leah's point is valid: that some conceptualizations would swap God and nothingness in that statement, such that God is prior to nothingness and lacks any and all characterization. Further contrast with Kołakowski's Metaphysical Horror.
-- p. 45: The Self-identity of contradiction. "This is Nishida's dialectical logic of soku hi: the simultaneous acceptance of both is and is not as pertaining to the same thing. In symbolic representation, A is A; A is not A; therefore A is A. I see the mountains; I see that they are not mountains; therefore, I see the mountains anew. [...] The enlightened seer sees both aspects at once, a kind of stereoscopic vision." This is nice: I like this. And it provides a tangible framing of the ten ox-herding pictures.
-- p. 49: The nature of good and evil. "So movements toward the deeper layers of self, culminating in the realization of a bottomless self-contradictory identity as the place where absolute nothingness arises and becomes uniquely conscious of itself, is contrasted with movement away from our essential nature, which is increasingly evil (estranged) as its deeper nature becomes hidden. Delusion, the traditional cause of evil in Buddhist thought, occurs when we mistake the separate objective self for the real or deeper self." Why is differentiation--and ultimately reflection--evil? As with the principle of self-contradiction, it is (presented as) formal and too dogmatic for my taste. Obvious contrasts are with Plotinus and Nietzsche.
Tanabe Hajime
-- p. 71: Other-power. "Other-power bridges, or mediates, the opposition between self and other. The transformed self is able to express Other-power because of the mediation/intervention/facilitation of Other-power, rendering him/her a 'self that loses itself.'" Is this an instance of internalization of some `absolute reality`? But what exactly is other-power? And what of dependent origination? See also p. 74 for a partial unpacking. Speaking generally, it seems like Tanabe plays fast loose with his terminology.
-- p. 73: Metanoetics. "Proof of the existence of such power is the transformation of the self which must be given to us from outside of ourselves, since the transformation of self is not the work of self-power but of Other-power." Whence does that transformation arise? How did Buddha become Buddha? Is it a bootstrapping (realization of fundamental Oneness within ourselves) or is it really faith, as Tanabe would have it?
-- p. 82: Action and faith. "Instead, the absolute it to be known only through actions based on the faith that, through Other-power, one's actions will be mediated such that love results in the witnessing (that is, demonstrating one's transformation through one's loving actions) embodying one's faith. Such a transformation in and through one's actions is the only way that absolute nothingness is known. Only the absolute disruption of self allows proper action and guided reason to emerge, the result of allowing Other-power to be one's guide." Deserves a re-read or two. "What results from the activity of nothingness working through us is the 'action of no-action.' It is action 'performed by a subject [a self] that has been annihilated.' Through 'the conversion of death-and-resurrection, we come to realize that our true self is the self of nothingness whose being consists in acting as the mediator of nothingness.' Nothingness becomes actual only through a death-and-resurrection repeatedly realized as the 'core' of relative beings 'by means of a circular movement between the absolute and the relative.'" Stated very well, if not eloquently.
For all Tanabe's efforts (and talk) of making his philosophy applicable to the everyday world, I do not understand what to make of self-power and Other-power in a tangible sense.
Nishitani Keiji
-- p. 106: Oscillation. "Ueda Shizuteru suggests that figures eight and nine [of the ox-herding pictures] should not be taken in succession, but rather as co-related. They should be viewed as 'oscillating back and forth.' The two should be taken together, 'like two sides of a single sheet of paper, a paper without thickness.' Each stage infilitrates the other so that eight implies nine, and nine implies eight. The enlightened man or woman sees both at once, stereoscopically. Everything perceived exists in its suchness on the field of Śūnyatā, as Nishitani understands this." Yes, I like this! Obvious parallels with contemplation+meditation; compression+particularization; digital+analog(?); etc. Also transparency/opacity shifting.
-- p. 111-2: Meaninglessness. Nishitani sees Śūnyatā as the 'ground' for resolving the meaning crisis, methinks. "Nishitani offered a way out of this nihilism of the field of consciousness, which leaves us forever trapped within our own subjective consciousness. He does this by substituting 'the field of Śūnyatā' for the field of consciousness." Huh? "The Great Doubt brings us to our emotional and intellectual knees, for nothing that we know will dispel our awareness of meaninglessness." I am not sure whether I agree with this. "Śūnyatā is an emptiness that even empties itself, a nihilism which empties nihilism. In doing so, nihilism itself is transcended, and self and the world reappear in their suchness, in their true depths." Yes--but are metanoetic transformations necessarily emotionally-crushing? What exactly does it mean to 'bring us to our emotional knees'?
Watsuji Tetsuro
Quite unimpressed with Watsuji -- but that's likely a product of my own interests. Academics interested in understanding society in its multifaceted and dynamical nature should read this! In particular, I feel strong connections with the relational political ecology approach applied to power dynamics, vulnerability, state positionality and loyalty, financialization, etc. (less)
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John
Nov 27, 2015John rated it it was amazing
This is a clear, simple and well written introduction to the Kyoto School of philosophy.
The author, Robert E. Carter, focuses his attention on four key figures: Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keji, and Watsuji Tetsuro. The common element linking these thinkers together, he argues, is their concern with the Buddhist idea of "nothingness" and its relation to insights from Western existentialist philosophy.
In the Kyoto School we find a fascinating and exciting hybrid of Eastern and Western themes, all converging on the claim that human existence, morality, knowledge and interaction find their ultimate source in an "absolute nothingness" preceding all distinctions. (less)
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