Original scientific paper

Questions Posed by Nishida’s Philosophy

Masakatsu Fujita

Abstract

In this article I would like to clarify the philosophical problems addressed by Kitaro Nishida, taking into consideration the historical context within which these problems arose. In doing so, I hope to identify what Nishida saw as the limitations of Western thought, and show how he attempted to overcome these limitations. However, I do not intend to proceed merely from out of a historical concern, but wish also to ask what questions Nishida’s criticisms pose to us in our present historical context, and what direction his thought points us in. With this dual concern in mind, I take up and discuss Nishida’s critique of subject-object dualism. I interpret Nishida to be developing, in place of a rigid logic of dualism, a "logic of fluidity". Nishida States that what he calls "pure experience" is constituted out of feeling and volition. I interpret this to mean that, in pure experience, »thatness« coexists with »whatness«.

Keywords

Kitaro Nishida; subject-object dualism; logic of fluidity; pure experience; thatness; whatness

Hrčak ID:

202253

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/202253

Publication date:

16.3.2005.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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