Japanese Philosophers on Society and Culture: Nishida Kitaro, Watsuji Tetsuro, and Kuki Shuzo

Cover
Japanese Philosophers on Society and Culture
Japanese Philosophers on Society and Culture: Nishida Kitarō, Watsuji Tetsurō, and Kuki Shūzō
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents
Chapter 1
Japanese Cultural and Social Philosophy in Context
	New Texts and Novel Perspectives: The Focus of This Book
	Watsuji, Kuki, and Nishida on Culture and Society
	The Philosophy of Culture in Europe in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
	Japanese Culture and Japanese Nationalism
	Why Study Japanese Cultural and Social Philosophy?
	Notes
Chapter 2
Watsuji Tetsurō’s Early Views on Culture
	THE THREE FACETS OF CULTURE: CONSTRUCTED, DYNAMIC, AND PHILOSOPHICAL
	Background: Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples in Nara—Publication, Themes, and Structure
	The Three Facets of Culture as Construct
	Toward a Philosophical Analysis of Culture: Pilgrimages as a Prelude to Watsuji’s Later Works
	Conclusion: Traces of Watsuji’s Philosophical Analysis of Culture
	Notes
Chapter 3
The Development of Watsuji’s Theory of Culture and Climate
	FROM PILGRIMAGES TO THE ANCIENT TEMPLES IN NARA TO CLIMATE AND CULTURE
	Situating Climate and Culture in Relation to European Philosophy
	The Purpose of Climate and Culture: Identifying the Phenomenological Structures of Intersubjectivity
	Space and Time: Fundamental Structures of Human Experience Disclosed through Culture and Climate
	From Method to Cultural Milieu
	Notes
Chapter 4
Watsuji’s Three Climatic and Cultural Zones
	CLIMATE AND CULTURE: SEPARATING ESSENTIALIST AND NON-ESSENTIALIST STRANDS IN WATSUJI’S THOUGHT
	The Three Cultural Types
	Spatial Aspects of Climate and Culture
	Temporal Aspects of Climate and Culture
	Nondeterministic Elements of Watsuji’s Theory of Climate and Culture
	Similarities between Pilgrimages to the Ancient Temples in Nara and Climate and Culture
	Deterministic and Essentialist Aspects of Watsuji’s Theory of Culture
	The Roots of Geographic Determinism in Watsuji’s Interpretation of Heidegger
	The Transition from Cultural Phenomenology to Ethics
	Conclusion
	Notes
Chapter 5
Kuki’s Hermeneutic Approach to the Floating World
	An Introduction to Kuki’s The Structure of Iki
	Kuki’s Hermeneutic Method: Adaptation and Innovation
	The Influence of Bergson on Kuki’s Interpretation of Hermeneutics
	Influence and Originality: Kuki’s Hermeneutic Method
	Notes
Chapter 6
Kuki and Heidegger
	The Origins of Hermeneutics in Husserl—“To the Things Themselves!”2
	Heidegger’s Phenomenological Method—The Hermeneutics of Facticity as Fundamental Ontology
	Kuki’s Hermeneutic Interpretation of Japanese Culture
	Kuki’s Concept of Culture: Iki as the Meaning of a Japanese Worldview
	Conclusion: Culture as the Rediscovery of Iki
	Notes
Chapter 7
Kuki Shūzō’s Concepts of Culture and Society
	KUKI’S CONCEPTS OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY
	Chance and the Ethical Intuition of Freedom
	The Influence of French Philosophy and Heideggerian Existential Phenomenology on Kuki
	Evaluating the Success of Kuki’s Solution to the Puzzle of the Individual and Intersubjective Nature of Ethical Experience
	Notes
Chapter 8
Nishida
	Who We Are as Individuals
	Who Are the Others?
	Overcoming Our Everyday Notion of Self: Recognizing Our Fundamental Co-Origination with Others as the Activity of Cultural Production
	Notes
Chapter 9
Nishida’s Views on Morality and Culture
	The Historical Body and the Historical World as the Contextual Unfolding of Absolute Reality
	How Should We Live as Social Beings? Nishida’s View of Ethical and Moral Life
	Expressing Our True Self in Science, Art, and Morality
	Expressing Our Moral and Ethical Obligations in Society
	What Can We Learn from Nishida for Our Globalized World?
	Notes
Conclusion
	The Background to a Study of Japanese Cultural Thought in the Twentieth Century
	Inspired by Watsuji: Culture as an Ongoing Process of Responding to the Physical and Social Environment
	Inspired by Kuki: Cultural Ideals as Ethical Ideals—A Japanese Ethics of Difference
	Inspired by Nishida: Culture as World Religious Culture
	Concluding Words
	Notes
Works Cited
	Abbreviations
	Works Cited
Index
About the Author