When we hear the term "Japanese philosophy" we think of Zen Buddhism or the Shinto scriptures. Yet one of the great 20th century interpreters of Western philosophy, Nishida Kitaro, lived and wrote in the Japanese islands all his life, laboring at an ultimate synthesis of oriental thought and Western hermeneutics. To be sure, Nishida's aim was to understand his own cultural influences in relation to the Western world. What distinguished him, however, was his passion for rendering oriental metaphysics understandable in (...) the language of Western philosophy, and his attempts to contrast the paradoxicality of Buddhist logic with the logical strategies of Aristotle, Kant, or Hegel. Featured in this book is an interpretation of Nishida's writings. Professor Carter focuses on the Japanese thinker's notion of "basho," a concept of nothingness as field, place or topos as borrowed from Plato's Tim'us. Expounding on the logical foundations and archaic elements in Nishida's work, and carefully explaining Nishida's critical approach to the questions of God, religion and morality, and pure existence, this discerning book offers students of Western philosophy and oriental thought alike a highly readable introduction to the teachings of a true world philosopher. (shrink)

The many problems we face in today's world -- among them war, environmental destruction, religious and racial intolerance, and inappropriate technologies -- demand that we carefully re-evaluate such issues as our relation to the environment, the nature of progress, ultimate purposes, and human values. These are all issues, Robert Carter explains, that are intimately linked to our perception of life's meaning. While many books discuss life's meaning either analytically or prescriptively, Carter addresses values and ways of meaningful (...) living from a broader perspective, using Japanese philosophy to augment his investigation. He examines Martin Heidegger's distinction between "dwelling" and existing in the world, Lawrence Kohlberg's "stage seven" of human moral development, and the works of Viktor Frankl, Carol Gilligan, and Nel Noddings. He applies hermeneutic and deconstructionist theory to the question of meaning, and explores the feminist contribution to ethics and its relation to the interconnectedness of things celebrated in Zen and Shinto thought. Bridging various dichotomies such as East/West, reason/emotion, male/female, and caring/justice, Carter shows that ethics, environmental concern, caring, and joy in living are dependent on the growth and transformation of the self. Only by becoming aware of the interrelatedness of things, Carter reveals, can we become as supple and as strong as the bamboo tree, long the symbol of longevity and constancy. (shrink)

There is no general agreement as to whether Plato was a mystic. With the texts available, one wonders why a definitive conclusion is so hard to establish. The problem lies not only with the interpretation of Plato, but also with the equivocation and vagueness of the term “mysticism.” Using Plato’s simple classification of definitional meaning for our purposes, mysticism is not a word like “iron,” but like “just” or “good.” Men dispute what is meant by words of the latter class, (...) the disputes yielding as many seemingly “clear” definitions as there are individuals. Hence, unless a definition is agreed upon at the outset, we will continue to disagree as to whether Plato is a mystic, each of us meaning by mysticism something quite different. What follows is an attempt to place several reputable definitions of mysticism beside Plato’s writings, in order to give some small indication of the complexity of his position. Simple categorizations appear as coarse nets through which the subtleties of his position pass unaffected. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto SchoolRobert E. Carter (bio)Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School. By James W. Heisig. Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001. Pp. xi + 380. $21.95.Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School, by James W. Heisig, is indeed a very good book. It provides a systematic interpretation and appraisal (...) of the three key figures of the Kyoto school—Nishida Kitarō, Tanabe Hajime, and Nishitani Keiji—together with an in-depth account of the sociopolitical context in which they worked. Heisig succeeds in indicating the importance of each of these philosophers both within the Japanese context and beyond. He deftly summarizes the philosophical positions of each of the three and details the interactions between them, as well as with other philosophers of their era. The book's style is accessible, although the ideas are often dense and the analysis subtle. There are no footnotes per se, but instead a bibliographical essay is provided for each of the sixty-six sections of the book. [End Page 273]Heisig claims that the Kyoto school philosophers give the West a way into the East like none other (p. 272). They thrust Japanese philosophical and religious thought onto the world stage, revealing an East Asian perspective to the outside world, as well as to the Japanese themselves. They self-consciously attempted to articulate the distinctiveness of the Japanese mind-set in particular, and the Eastern way of thinking generally. Heisig artfully weaves the thought and times of these three thinkers together into a tapestry of understanding and insight of the highest quality.As is always the case, however, there are issues that remain which might have been dealt with, and interpretive differences to be noted. Nishida began his philosophical journey with his groundbreaking Inquiry into the Good, published in 1911.1 His goal in that work, as Heisig describes it, was to introduce the important but radically nonphilosophical language of Zen to the closed world of philosophy, and conversely to use philosophy to find a language to talk about those things that Zen had always insisted were not susceptible to rationalization. The Inquiry created a significant stir in Japan upon its publication, and Nishida's appropriation of William James' notion of pure experience appeared to span the philosophical differences East and West without smoothing over those differences.Yet Heisig's critical honesty forces him to underplay the actual lasting importance of the Inquiry. Nishida, too, later criticized the heavy psychological emphasis of the book.2 However, it seems too strong to argue, as Heisig does, that the work is a classic only because of its influence and its place in Nishida's own philosophical development (p. 41). Heisig is frank in anticipating that some will find his diminishing of the Inquiry as "irreverent." I admire his irreverence as a cautionary attempt to save us all from a bandwagon elevation of Nishida and the Kyoto school, but I think he underestimates the subtle brilliance of the book and its profound originality. To be sure, the Inquiry is a notebook of insights and ideas to be developed. Not only is experiential nonduality a focus (and with it a critique of the dogma of intentionality), but there is also the reinstatement of religion as foundational to all systematic thinking, an account of God as both immanent and transcendent (including nothingness) together with God's role in Eastern thought, and a theory of ethics based on the innate tendencies within each of us as located at the deeper, unconscious levels of our nature. Heisig concludes that the Inquiry is "less an achievement than an agenda to direct his work in the years ahead" (p. 42). It seems evident to me that this pioneering work is both an immense achievement and an agenda for a lifetime of future investigation. The richness and suggestiveness of Nishida's explorations in the Inquiry seem to me to ensure that the work is genuinely worthy of being judged a classic on its own philosophical merits.Heisig recognizes over and over again the importance of the mystical element in all three... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Living Zen, Loving GodRobert E. CarterLiving Zen, Loving God. By Ruben L. F. Habito. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2004. Pp. xxi + 129.At a time when one hears all too often of the irreconcilable differences between religions, it is a relief and a delight to read the words of someone who has gleaned much from Christianity (as a Jesuit priest) and from Zen Buddhism (as a practitioner whose (...) enlightenment has been duly authenticated). Father Ruben L. F. Habito's challenge has been to harmonize the beliefs of these two distinct traditions, both of which have provided him with quite distinctive transformative experiences. It is a mutual influencing that he presents in very accessible prose in Living Zen, Loving God.While the lectures in this volume are not attempts to reconcile competing doctrines and approaches in detail, they do strive to move the reader back to those originary experiences of spiritual insight that both traditions share. Father Habito seeks to uncover the spiritual springs of Zen and Christianity, letting each speak in its own way, for religion is not about doctrines and dogma; rather, as the Zen philosopher Nishida Kitarō maintained, "religion is an event of the soul."1 Habito seems to be in agreement with such a position. In explicating this experiential territory, he includes chapters on emptiness and fullness, the Heart Sūtra, the four vows of the Bodhisattva, Kuan-yin with a thousand hands, and Zen and Christian spirituality. There are many apt conclusions and comparisons in these pages, such as a Christian adaptation of the Buddhist admonition to slay the Buddha if you meet him-for to meet him is to lose him by fixing his significance and intent as rigid doctrine and by rendering the absolute a "thing" in the first place. Habito writes that "if you meet the Christ, crucify him!" (p. 36). Or again, there is an excellent and simple account of compassion: "an out-stretched hand adjusting a pillow in the middle of the night... the night of emptiness, of unknowing.... And in the middle of this, as my pillow slips off, and my head feels displaced, spontaneously, my hand reaches out to adjust the pillow, and I go back to sleep. That's all. This koan is saying, that's compassion" (p. 76). The self has dropped off, and one now acts spontaneously and effortlessly from the purity and depth of radical interconnectedness.What is impressive about this book is the accuracy and ease with which difficult Zen and Buddhist ideas are expressed. For example, kensho is seeing clearly "the reality of everything as not separate from oneself, of everything as it really is" (p. xiii). This realization of interconnectedness results in social engagement, "the discovery of the real and deep bond that makes that person one with society, with the marketplace, with the whole universe" (p. 22). More precisely, "one sees one's True Self in the 'other,' the 'other' in one's True Self" (p. 22). While the goal of meditation is personal enlightenment, the fruit of enlightenment is the emptying of the ego-self, [End Page 343] and a reconnection with the everyday world, with a concern and passion heretofore unknown.Yet, as a devout Roman Catholic, Habito filters Zen through Christian lenses as often as he filters Christianity through Zen lenses. Creation ex nihilo, he urges, can be understood "as an invitation to that experience of the nothingness that is at the heart of our being, which becomes the fulcrum for experiencing the infinite life of God pulsing through this being, through the universe, from moment to moment" (p. 23). Each and every thing is now to be understood as "a complete and perfect manifestation of the Infinite" (p. 23). But what is less than clear here is the meaning of "manifestation." Exactly what is every thing a manifestation of? The Zen answer must be that the awareness of everything as a manifestation of the "absolute" must be understood nondualistically. Habito provides a powerful chapter on the Heart Sūtra, which instructs us that emptiness is precisely form, and form precisely emptiness. Everything is a manifestation of the creative universal energy that is the... (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that developments in transhumanist technologies may have upon human cultures (and thus upon the lifeworld), and to do so by exploring a potential debate between Habermas and the transhumanists. Transhumanists, such as Nick Bostrom, typically see the potential in genetic and other technologies for positively expanding and transcending human nature. In contrast, Habermas is a representative of those who are fearful of this technology, suggesting that it will compound the deleterious (...) effects of the colonisation of the lifeworld, further constraining human autonomy and undermining the meaningfulness of the lifeworld by expanding the technological control and manipulation of humanity. It will be argued that these opposed positions are grounded in fundamentally different understandings of the consequences of scientific and technological advance. On one level, the transhumanists remain confident that the lifeworld has within it the resources necessary to find meaning and purpose in a society deeply infused by genetic technology. Habermas disagrees. On another level, the difference is articulated by Horkheimer and Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment, primarily by challenging what may be understood as a Baconian faith in science as a project for the domination of nature (where nature is an infinitely malleable material, to be dominated and shaped, without adverse consequences, purely for the purposes of human survival). While the transhumanists broadly embrace this faith, Habermas returns to something akin to Horkheimer and Adorno’s pessimistic scepticism. (shrink)

A common objection to Sosa’s epistemology is that it countenances, in an objectionable way, unsafe knowledge. This objection, under closer inspection, turns out to be in far worse shape than Sosa’s critics have realised. Sosa and his defenders have offered two central response types to the idea that allowing unsafe knowledge is problematic: one response type adverts to the animal/reflective knowledge distinction that is characteristic of bi-level virtue epistemology. The other less-discussed response type appeals to the threat of dream scepticism, (...) and in particular, to the idea that many of our everyday perceptual beliefs are unsafe through the nearness of the dream possibility. The latter dreaming response to the safety objection to Sosa’s virtue epistemology has largely flown under the radar in contemporary discussions of safety and knowledge. We think that, suitably articulated in view of research in the philosophy and science of dreaming, it has much more going for it than has been appreciated. This paper further develops, beyond what Sosa does himself, the dreaming argument in response to those who think safety (as traditionally understood) is a condition on knowledge and who object to Sosa’s account on the grounds that it fails this condition. The payoffs of further developing this argument will be not only a better understanding of the importance of insights about dreaming against safety as a condition on knowledge, but also some reason to think a weaker safety condition, one that is relativised to SSS (i.e., skill/shape/situation) conditions for competence exercise, gets better results all things considered as an anti-luck codicil on knowledge. (shrink)

Encounter With Enlightenment: A Study of Japanese Ethics -/- This study attempts to lay out some of the main influences in the development of ethical sensitivities in Japan. Daoism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Zen Buddhism all play a role. There are also individual thinkers who have made significant contributions to the way the Japanese think about ethics: Dogen, Shinran, Rikyu, Nishida Kitaro, Nishitani Keiji, Watsuji Tetsuro and many others. But ethics in Japan is, more often than not, taught through practice: (...) the Way of Tea, the Way of Flower Arranging, the Way of Landscape Gardening all have a central ethical component: they are all pathways to enlightenment and one who is enlightened is likely to view oneself as part of the greater whole. To do unnecessary harm to any part of it is to do harm to oneself. Of course, the background to all of this is the Japanese idea of Nothingness. All things arise out of this indefinite One and thus we all have a common kinship: we are all the product of Nothingness, as are all of the ten-thousand things of existence. We are all one family. Thus, the expanded self, as transformed by enlightenment, identifies with the greater whole, seeks to preserve it, cherishes it, is emotionally enraptured by it and cares about its well-being. One can see here the roots of an environmental ethic. (shrink)

A vexing problem in contemporary epistemology—one with origins in Plato’s Meno—concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere true opinion. The recent literature is deeply divided on the matter of how best to address the problem. One point, however, remains unquestioned: that if a solution is to be found, it will be at the personal level, the level at which states of subjects or agents, as such, appear. We (...) take exception to this orthodoxy, or at least to its unquestioned status. We argue that subpersonal states play a significant—arguably, primary—role in much epistemically relevant cognition and thus constitute a domain in which we might reasonably expect to locate the “missing source” of epistemic value, beyond the value attached to mere true belief. (shrink)

_An accessible discussion of the thought of key figures of the Kyoto School of Japanese philosophy._.

This paper uses the social theory of Erving Goffman in order to argue that confidentiality should be understood in relation to the mundane social skills by which individuals present and respect specific self-images of themselves and others during social interaction. The breaching of confidentiality is analysed in terms of one person's capacity to embarrass another, and so to expose that person as incompetent. Respecting confidentiality may at once serve to protect the vulnerable from an unjust society, and yet also protect (...) the guilty from just accusation. Ethical reasoning about confidentiality must therefore recognize the dangers of prejudice and violence inherent in decisions to breach or to respect confidentiality. Case studies are used to illustrate the efficacy of this account, culminating with analyses of three examples from the UKCC document Confidentiality. (shrink)

Ancient pathways promoting unicellularity and multicellularity are associated with cancer, the former being pro‐oncogenic and the latter acting to suppress oncogenesis. However, there are only a limited number of non‐vertebrate models for studying these pathways. Here, we review Dictyostelium discoideum and describe how it can be used to understand these gene networks. D. discoideum has a unicellular and multicellular life cycle, making it possible to study orthologs of cancer‐associated genes in both phases. During development, differentiated amoebae form a fruiting body (...) composed of a mass of spores that are supported atop a stalk. A portion of the cells sacrifice themselves to become non‐reproductive stalk cells. Cheating disrupts the principles of multicellularity, as cheater cells alter their cell fate to preferentially become spores. Importantly, D. discoideum has gene networks and several strategies for maintaining multicellularity. Therefore, D. discoideum can help us better understand how conserved genes and pathways involved in multicellularity also influence cancer development, potentially identifying new therapeutic avenues. (shrink)

The many problems we face in today's world -- among them war, environmental destruction, religious and racial intolerance, and inappropriate technologies -- demand that we carefully re-evaluate such issues as our relation to the environment, the nature of progress, ultimate purposes, and human values. These are all issues, Robert Carter explains, that are intimately linked to our perception of life's meaning. While many books discuss life's meaning either analytically or prescriptively, Carter addresses values and ways of meaningful (...) living from a broader perspective, using Japanese philosophy to augment his investigation. He examines Martin Heidegger's distinction between "dwelling" and existing in the world, Lawrence Kohlberg's "stage seven" of human moral development, and the works of Viktor Frankl, Carol Gilligan, and Nel Noddings. He applies hermeneutic and deconstructionist theory to the question of meaning, and explores the feminist contribution to ethics and its relation to the interconnectedness of things celebrated in Zen and Shinto thought. Bridging various dichotomies such as East/West, reason/emotion, male/female, and caring/justice, Carter shows that ethics, environmental concern, caring, and joy in living are dependent on the growth and transformation of the self. Only by becoming aware of the interrelatedness of things, Carter reveals, can we become as supple and as strong as the bamboo tree, long the symbol of longevity and constancy. (shrink)

The work of Lawrence Kohlberg has become the central focus in both the research and applied dimensions of moral education. While teachers and academics are generally familiar with Kohlberg's account of his six stages of moral development, his hints about a highest and culminating seventh stage have had no sustained critique. This essay attempts to provide a detailed account and critique of all of Kohlberg's writings dealing with stage seven, from a philosophical standpoint. This essay critiques Kohlberg's analysis of Moore's (...) naturalistic fallacy, and rejects his attempt to disarm the fallacy by adopting a strategy of ?parallelism?, or ?complementarity?. I argue that it might be better to accept the fact that one cannot derive an ought from an is, and then to view ought-claims as selected or preferred is-claims. This allows morality to remain sui generis, and the support for a moral choice must arise from the complete ?story? or world-view in which it is embedded. Stage seven is not just any ?whole story?, however, but the best or ideal whole story. As well, it serves as the answer to the fundamental ethical question, ?but why should I be moral in the first place?? Stage seven gains its justificatory power from its stance of empathetic identification of the moral agent with others, and with the cosmos as a whole, as thinkers as varied as Marcus Aurelius and Teilhard de Chardin have suggested. If stage seven is, as Kohlberg argues, an ethics of love, and if the first six stages are to be thought of as comprising an ethics of justice, then what is to be done if they conflict? Kohlberg deals with this question, and eventually decides in favour of justice, even given the seventh stage as somehow the ground of all normativity in his system. I argue that he cannot consistently adopt a parallelist thesis here, but needs to recognize the normatively fundamental character of his own seventh stage. It serves as his ?whole story?, on which the previous six stages all rest. Kohlberg's own thesis forces him to retain an ethics of justice only until one reaches the level of agape. Then, as with all higher stages, the lower stages are not abandoned, but are taken up and enriched by the thinking and acting which emerge from the higher stage perspective. Neither justice nor agape can stand alone as sufficient basis for an adequate ethics. But it is agape that is the more fundamental, and which enriches justice without rejecting its generally overwhelming claims. Stage seven consciousness simply reminds one that justice is not enough, even though it does constitute the largest part of ethics. (shrink)

Becoming Bamboo: Western and Eastern Explorations of the Meaning of Life -/- This book explores the bridging of such dichotomies as East/West, reason/emotion, male/female and caring/justice. Ethics, environmental concern, caring and joy are dependent on the growth of the self. Through becoming aware of the interrelatedness of things we can become as supple and yet as strong as the bamboo tree, long a symbol of flexibility and strength. -/- The book begins with a Foreword by Ninian Smart, then explores the (...) importance of value and valuation, Lawrence Kohlberg's Stage Seven of moral Development, Viktor Frankl's Logotherapy and the deconstruction of meaning, as well as our inescapable connection with the environment. -/- Published by McGill Queen's University Press, 1992 . (shrink)

Immediate experiences may be found good or bad at the time of occurrence, and this value contributes to the goodness or badness of life in general. In addition, they may continue to affect later experiences to the very end of a lifetime. The final assessment of an experience, therefore, cannot be made until a lifetime has come to an end, at which point one would no longer be in a position to assess. It remains instructive, nevertheless, to apply the standard (...) of an entire lifetime in qualifying the value assessed to any part of that lifetime. Presumably, then, the phrase “a life found good in the living of it,” refers not to a life as it is found in the moments of living it, but to a life as it appears from the vantage point of any moment while looking back over the whole. The finding seems more like finding through reflection or in imagination, than finding yellowness; and the word “living”, therefore, must be used in an unusual and uncommon sense. A life found good in the living of it, is a life which may later have value-qualities attached to it which are different from those which it was originally found to have. A life is lived and re-lived. (shrink)

The idea of nothingness has been viewed as neither a vital nor a positive element in Western philosophy or theology. With the exception of a handful of mystics, nothingness has been taken to refer to the negation of being, or to some theoretical void. By contrast, the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō gave nothingness a central role in philosophy. The strategy of this essay is to use the German mystic Meister Eckhart as a more familiar thinker who did take nothingness seriously, (...) and then to look closely at Nishida’s philosophy, and at the work of his contemporary Ueda Shizuteru, in exploring the central importance of nothingness in Zen Buddhist thought. Eckhart writes of the nothingness of the godhead, whereas Nishida and Ueda speak of nothingness “pure and simple.” Eckhart remains within the being of the godhead and theology. Nishida moves directly to nothingness. Some have claimed that Nishida is not a mystic, and Nishida himself concurred, yet it is Ueda who explains why Nishida can rightly be read as a mystic and as not a mystic. He argues that Zen includes mysticism, but then goes beyond it to a “non-mysticism.” Mystic or non-mystic, the guidance that Nishida and Ueda offer leads to a compelling outlook on life. (shrink)