Abstract

Two major hermeneutical practices in the history of interpretation in premodern Japan are located. The first--a deconstructive practice followed by medieval thinkers (Dōgen) and poets (Fujiwara Shunzei and Fujiwara Teika)--interprets reality by deferring and dispersing it in its representations. The analogies of this methodology are highlighted with what the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo has called "pensiero debole" (weak thought). The latter recuperates the centrality of the concept of presence whose disclosure becomes the major task of the interpreter. Examples of this solidification of meaning are taken from works of the Nativist scholars Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) and Fujitani Mitsue (1768-1822)