https://www.scribd.com/document/584796701/An-Inquiry-into-the-Good-Kitar%C5%8D-Nishida
An Inquiry into the Good Paperback – 29 January 1992
by Kitaro Nishida (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 36 ratings
An Inquiry into the Good represented the foundation of Nishida's philosophy-reflecting both his deep study of Zen Buddhism and his thorough analysis of Western philosophy-and established its author as the foremost Japanese philosopher of this century. In this important new translation, two scholars-one Japanese and one American-have worked together to present a lucid and accurate rendition of Nishida's ideas. "The translators do an admirable job of adhering to the cadence of the original while avoiding unidiomatic, verbatim constructions."-John C. Maraldo, Philosophy East and West
"More accurate and critical than the first translation into English of Nishida's earliest book. . . . An important addition to library collections of twentieth-century philosophy, Japanese intellectual history, and contemporary Buddhist thought."-Choice
"A welcome new translation of a work by probably the most original and influential of modern Japanese philosophers."-Hidé Ishiguro, Times Literary Supplement
"Undoubtedly the most important work for anyone in the West interested in understanding modern Japanese thought. This work premiered Japanese philosophy as modern but has also shown unusual staying power. In the late twentieth century Japanese thinkers, both religious and secular, insist on its importance and relevance."-William R. La Fleur, University of Pennsylvania
Paperback : 218 pages
4.4 out of 5 stars 36 ratings
Nishida Kitaro
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Ted Hamill
5.0 out of 5 stars All we really perceive is our perceptions and we need to be conscious of our own consciousness.Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 29 September 2017
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A thought provoking book, a very different way of looking at perception and a view of religion that posits it's all about perception of reality and not just about right belief and right action. Those things will follow if perception is real. I'm going to have to read it a few times but it's a discovery.
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Oscar B.
5.0 out of 5 stars Buen libroReviewed in Mexico 🇲🇽 on 29 September 2020
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Bien. Muy interesante.
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Jon Henry Avery
5.0 out of 5 stars A Refreshing PhilosophyReviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 27 August 2020
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A lot of philosophy is dry and difficult to grasp, but the philosophy in this book is refreshing and intuitively understandable. In fact, the author begins by using intuition to clarify how the individual awareness of our own ideas, emotions, and will is a unity in difference (self-knowledge). Then he shows how the perception of our surroundings is directly experienced as a unity of subject and object before separating the two for theoretical and practical purposes (external reality). Next he links this inner experience and perception of outer reality to the goal of self-development and growth (ethics), which naturally leads to the principle of the infinitely unifying power in all things (God) of which every individual thing is a manifestation. I highly recommend this short book for a refreshing approach to philosophy.
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Fred Evans
4.0 out of 5 stars Good dealReviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 16 January 2014
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just got another copy of Nishida's first work. Every time somebody sees me reading this book, for years now, they borrow it and I never see the book again. Got this one used, good shape, good shipping, not too much writing in it, I am happy. Gonna stay home with this copy until I finish it again! This book is NOT about Zen at all. If you are new to Buddhism get this for later use. You will use it! Its mostly a compilation of the thoughts of Satoru.
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Bjørn
1.0 out of 5 stars SukkkReviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 27 December 2019
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Michael
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August 24, 2019
I don’t think I expected to like this book as much as I did. It was definitely a change of pace from the more polemical style of philosophy you get out of the western thinkers Nishida often name drops. Whereas they tend to present their arguments in reaction to competing schools of thought, An Inquiry Into The Good is presented more like a broad survey of philosophical trends that he draws from wherever he can find insight to support his unifying project: to ground a conception of ethics in the metaphysics of “Pure Experience”.
The book’s structure unfolds in a similar way to Spinoza’s Ethics, starting with a metaphysical discussion of reality as rooted in “Pure Experience” where subject and object are one, then moving on to a kind of psychology of consciousness, before exploring the question of “The Good”, and ending on the topic of religion and God. But Spinoza isn’t the only western thinker Nishida engages with in this highly syncretic text. Hume, Hegel, Leibniz, Augustine, Christ, and even Goethe and Wilde among others figure throughout; though I get the sense he was most influenced by Spinoza and Hegel and possibly most in tension with Kant. However, Nishida doesn’t just draw on the West for material; Eastern thought, especially Zen Buddhism, is ever operating in the background. Though, I’m not as read up on that aspect so I can’t comment much. Nishida writes clearly and in a straightforward manner that never assumes of the reader too much familiarity with the philosophers he mentions, making it an accessible read.
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