Wakamatsu on Izutsu CH 10
CHAPTER TEN
Maruyama was perhaps the first to perceive that WORD was Thshihiko Izutsu's most important tecI'nica1 term. He, too, used WORD as part of his own core vocabulary. In an essay introducing. Izutsu, Manivama writes, "The living thought of this profound international scholar does not know how to stand still and is even now in flux," calling attention to the fact that his predecessor's ideas know no bounds and continue to evolve." Maruyama's contributions to the study of Saussure in Japan arc huge. His existence as a trailblazer has been indispensable for the emergence of such outstanding scholars as Hideki Maeda (1951— ) and Mono Tagai (1972— ) who came after him. Although Maruyama's views on Saussure may have been superseded by the deepening of research and the discovery of new material, the study of KcizahurO Maruyama the thinker has only just begun.
Keizaburo Maruyamas major work is Seiniei to kajo (Life and excess), a central topic of which is the thought of Toshihiko Izutsu. Seirnei to kajö was intended as a trilogy, but when he completed Part Two, Horno mortalis, he became ill and died suddenly at the age of sixty. When reading this work, one realizes that, although Maruyama's experience of Izutsu occurred in his later years, it was the most important intellectual event in his life.
If! were to summarize the theory of linguistics as ontology common to Toshihiko Izutsu, to the late Saussure of the anagrams, and to me myself, it is the idea that "the semantic articulation process of WORD, which simultaneously affects the superficial and deep strata of consciousness, is essentially incorporated into the end fine-tion of perception—object recognition; the entire world of being that spreads out before us externally and internally is itself nothing less than the product of WORD's power to cause being to anise."4
Hereafter, similar passages frequently appear in Maruyama's writings. Maruyama speaks of Izutsu's theory of WORD in enthusiastic language as though he has made a discovery. But in "Nijisseiki no 'chi' iii mukete" (Towards a 'wisdom' for the twenty-first century), which concludes Sei no enkan undo (The cyclical movement of life), the work he wrote in the year before he died,5 the tone is slightly different from his other writings. Rather than the study of WORD, what Maruyama
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
powerfully deals with this time is the significance of Eranos. And, as if going back in time, he discusses ekstcisis and enthousias',nos and calls attention to the need for a reevaluation of Shin p1 tetsugaku. This work is a profoundly interesting, as well as accurate, study of Izutsu, but it perhaps should be read as Maruyama's intellectual last will and testa-inent. Just as the writer of a will expects it to be read and put into effect, one cannot help thinking that Maruyama, too, expected this work to be read in a similar way. Indeed, already suffering from cancer. Maruyama sensed that death was near.
Although the acquaintance between Izutsu and Maruyama arose out of the scholarly field of linguistic philosophy, the inevitability of their encounter predates scholarship. From the time lie was a boy. and even more so as a young man. Maruyama felt a "distrust of reality, a sense of its insubstantiality, its utter inability to answer the question 'wh,"4 lie was unable, he said, to have a firm sense of being alive. The mere telling Of his own experiences. he probably thought, would make it difficult for them to acquire universality. And so Maruyama let Julien Green ay what was in his own heart. "C'est tin bizarrerie de mon esprit dc ne croire a title chose que si je l'ai révéc." (It is one of my peculiarities not to believe in anything unless I have dreamt about)7 or "Peut-ètrc tout cette vie qui s'agitait autour de nous n'était-elle qu'un songe, tin autre omnieil qui ne nons fermait pas Ics paupieries. inais nous faisait réves es yeux ouverts. . . . [Djans cc monde d'illusions. . . . ni les paroles des hommes, ni leurs livres . . . n'avait dc róalite." (Perhaps the whole Of this life which went on about us was nothing but a dream, another sort of sleep, which did not cause our eyelids to close, but induced LIS to dream with our eyes open. . . . [1]n this world of illusions . . . [njeither the words that men uttered nor their books. . . had any reality.)"
When discussing Maruyama, it is necessary to consider Julien Green's influence as having the same importance for him as Sau-sure's. Indeed, the fact that he started out from a study of Julien Green would determine Maruyama's intellectual and literary views. "The seer of souls"—this term that Izutsu used of Dostoevsky could he applied directly to Julien Green. Green did not conceal the fact that he had such a nature. When one reads his diaries and other writings, one realizes that this quality belonged not only to him but to his
