Original scientific paper

The Step Back Through Nihilism. The Radical Orientation of Nishitani Keiji’s Philosophy of Zen

Bret W. Davis

Abstract

Nishitani Keiji's philosophy brings the insights of Zen Buddhism to bear on the modern problem of nihilism, a problem that continues to deepen and spread in eerie correlation with the modern march of progress. In this essay, I introduce and interpret the basic contours of Nishitani’s thought by focusing on its radical orientation or »directionality«. He suggests that the way out of nihilism is not that of willful human »pro-gress«, nor that of transcending this world to a »yonder shore«, nor that of a historical regression to a bygone age. He urges, rather, that we reorient ourselves in the direction of a »radical re-gress«. We must step ali the way back through nihilism. Nihilism can only be overcome by way of a »trans-descendence« to a more authentic mode of everyday existence, that is, to a released engagement in the world of »radical everydayness«. Nishitani's phenomenological topology of Zen traces, then, a path of stepping back from »the field of (representational) consciousness and (possession of) being«, through »the field of nihility, « and ultimately to »the field of sunyata (emptiness)« as »the absolute near-side«.

Keywords

nihilism; zen; Nishitani Keiji; directionality; trans-descendence

Hrčak ID:

202542

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/202542

Publication date:

16.3.2005.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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