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(★)(What came to be known as ´Nishida philosophy´ had its beginning in 1927, in Nishida´s ´From the Acting to the Seeing´. The work translated in full here, ´Fundamental Problems of Philosophy (1933-4)´, represented the fruit of a long process of refinement of fundamental ideas and philosophical vocabulary concerning ´immediacy of experience´ ; in it Nishida´s basic ´system´ was elaborated, and in it he also attempted a formulation of a ´logic of the East´ from the point of view of comparative philosophy. Interest in Nishida´s philosophy is rapidly increasing among Western scholars. By making available in English translation one of the key works of Japan´s foremost modern philosopher, the translator and the staff of ´Monumenta Nipponica´ hope to further such interest. ／Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) emerged to prominence as Japan´s foremost modern philosopher through a long and energetic process of articulation of certain fundamental insights concerning the ´immediacy of experience´. His maiden work,´A Study of Good (1911)´, which won him immediate acclaim, began from the notion of a ´pure experience´ constitutive of that immediacy of experience, a notion which was then continuously reformulated and deepened through a career that was productive of a series of works during his official academic years at Kyoto University and beyond. His major works during his tenure as Professor of Philosophy at Kyoto University from 1912 through 1927, namely ´Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness (1917)´,´Problems of Consciousness (1920)´,´Art and Morality (1923)´, and ´From the Acting to the Seeing (1927)´, already constituted a full philosophical career which culminated in a generalized Buddhistic notion of ´pure experience [junsui keiken, 純粋経験]´ now reinterpreted in terms of the key concept of ´absolute nothingness [zettai mu, 絶対無]´ as the topos or ´place [basho, 場所]´ of the immediacy of experience. But Nishida, then 57 years of age, broke through in that last work to a new level of discourse that virtually became a second point of departure for his ideas. ´From the Acting to the Seeing´ became the first of another long series of writing which came to be known as ´Nishida philosophy [Nishida tetsugaku]´ and exhibited his own original and distinctive philosophical vocabulary and areas of concern. This period of his career lasted for almost twenty more years until his death in a Zen monastery in Kamakura in 1945. Three major works issued directly out of the new turn of thought achieved in 1927, namely ´The Self-Conscious System of the Universal (1930)´,´The Self-Conscious Determination of Nothingness (1932)´, and ´Fundamental Problems of Philosophy (2 volumes, 1933-4)´. This final work, which is translated here in full, represented the fruit of this long process of refinement of Nishida´s fundamental ideas and philosophical vocabulary concerning the ´immediacy of experience´. [from ´Translator´s Preface´] ◆David A. Dilworth is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York, and teaches the course in Modern Japanese Thought in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University, New York. ▼TABLE OF CONTENTS／ ●I.FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY : THE WORLD OF ACTION／Chapter One : A Preface to Metaphysics／Chapter Two : The Self and the World／Chapter Three : Summary and Conclusion／ ●II.FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY : THE DIALECTICAL WORLD／Preface／Chapter One : The Dialectical Structure of the Actual World／Chapter Two : The World as Dialectical Universal／Chapter Three : The Forms of Culture of the Classical Periods of East and West Seen from a Metaphysical Perspective／) |
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