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Two Types of Religion in the Last Essay of Nishida KitarO

..... 'Stylianos Papalexandropoulos

HIKAKU BUNKA ZASSHI

The A nnual of Comparatiue Culture

---------~--------------------------

Symposium , Literature '" Ficuon and Reality

Discussuru , : K A WASH I M A lruru , KD, 0 Kcnsuk e. TOM 10K ,01, Koichi ro Chairman IGUCHI Tokio

The Dovume of Cor rcluuon between Env ironrneru and Human 13eing '-'KUWAKO Toshio

Rcpresem.uion et narration

--- Traduction et adaptation dueu vrcs Lie Maura""lIt I'M Ie, ecrl\ain, du nuturulisme japonais (1)---

-----NAKA YAM,A, M~'~;lhik,) "Under the heaven, natural a,,~IS arc equally for .ill"

.. FUJIKAWA Yoshirni

Hirara A rsurane and Ori k uchi Shi nobu ,- -OK U DA Sakal!

The Structure or Dilemma und Two Kinds of Judgements

...... SUZUKI Misako

Dirfercunauon and Crossover or Cull ural System --- Cuhuru! Diversity on Information Oriented Grobal Society r-r+

.. · .. ·DEGUCHI Hiroshi

Two Types or Religion in the Last Essay of Nishida Kuaro

, .... -Styl i uno-, P"palcxandropolJ 10$

1 9 9 5

The Program in Ccmpar ative Culture Tokyo lnsurure of Technology

ISSN 0287-6671

Two Types of Religion

in the Last Essay of Nishida Kitar6

Styli anos Papalexandropoulos

Two Types of Religion in the Last Essay of Nishida Kitaro

Sty llanos Papalexandropoulos

Nishida's last complete essay, rt~ji)l'a~~ifH~ t *il&R~tltWIU (The Logic of Tapas and the Religious Worldview}'", while being one of his most important, as in it he has bequeathed us the last attempt at a synoptic synthesis of his thought, it is also one of the most difficult. The opulence of ideas

and suggestions is accornpaniedlby a great depth of thought but also by the \""1. ~"'{~ familiar, idiosyncratic way of Nishida's writing at its very acme. And this

to such an extent, as to earn it the description-at least with regard to many

of its points-of the "incomprehensible"!". This description could, of

course, apply to a good part of Nishida's inheritance and would concern all

those who come to deal with it in one way or another, in Japan or elsewhere.

The fact that, in spite of the painstaking efforts, which have presented themselves in the form of translations, introductions or full scale books, much of Nishida's thought still resists easy understanding, can be attributed to many reasons. These reasons can be roughly sorted out into the ones concerning the difficuJty of his ideas themselves and the ones concerning Nishida's way of expressing those ideas. Now, even a cursory survey of the existing bibliography can show that, whereas the first category has been given most of the attention. the second one is hardly dealt with,

That being so, it would be no exaggeration if we looked for an explanation of much of the above mentioned situation exactly in this, i.e. in the fact that the scholarly activityjwhich has as its object Nishida's work, has so far i, put aside the task of dealing with problems that come under the second category. Yet Nishida's special way of conveying his ideas, his unique way

of producing a text, is a sector of paramount importance for a penetration into his thought and should become the object of a special territory in

Nishida studies. .

Explaining Nishida's ideas is, without doubtjthe final objective of these I) studies. Yet, exactly as the building of a house on a rocky place must necessarily be preceded by the ground leveling work, in the same way Nishida's texts must first be seen as rocky places that need "leveling", Rocks are Nishida's idiosyncratic ways of expressing his thoughts; getting rid of them would be to define that idiosyncracy, to explain what makes it unique, to expose its structure. On a more concrete level, rocks are each passage, each sentence, each very word that presents its students with incomprehensibility. This means that what these texts first of all need is

33

exactly what all difficult texts, of all ages, have always been needing : commentaries. Extensive and as far as possible minute commentaries, which, by employing all possible tools provided by the modern interpretative scholarship, would elucidate Nishida's texts and render them easier to the attempts at their understanding.

This is; of course, just a personal proposition as to what direction, we feel, Nishida studies should take in the future. And, although this proposition

was inspired by the toils we had to pass through in order to come to terms

with Nishida'sthought as it presents itself in his last essay, it is not related directly to what we want to do here. In the narrow confines of this small contribution, we shall not only follow what we just described as the not commendable path, but we shall also do so in a very suggestive and fragmentary way. And this, in order to express some thoughts that may help

us understand better the concept of religion in the last essay of Nishida.

The interest that this concept itself offers is, of course, the main reason why

it deserves efforts aiming at a deeper understanding of it. One more substantial .re~son why that shou.l~ be ~one can\thougb\be also seen in the l , \, fact that Nishida's concept of religion lies always at the background of the Kyoto school and thanks to its activities' keeps living up to now. It is a well known fact that it is mainly on this concept that the Kyoto school thinkers

built their understanding of Buddhism, which they in turn used for the interpretation of that religion to the modern world'",

Defining religion in the context of his "logic of topos" is what, according to the title of the essay, Nishida proposes to do in it. He does it by presenting his own concept about religion in contradistinction to another such concept, which he opposes. As a result he establishes the former to the exclusion of the latter but, v..'e maintain, not to the last. Notwithstanding Nishida's intention, the type of religion he wants to oppose persists, creeps into the scheme which expresses the type of religion Nishida wants to defend, and leads there a parallel, although obscure existence.

We could say though that, inspire of Nishida's wish, it tends to abandon obscurity and Claim for itself a better position in the system. What we intend to do here is to present the proposition that this happens and to show

why we are made to think so. Owing to the smallness of the space available, dealing with questions as to whether this is something that happens not only in the last essay, but all through Nishida's' works-which

is rather the case-or even in all similar systems of thought as an endemic symptom-which is also rather' the case-hale to be postponed for another Ihc.cS occasion as alsojhas to be a fuller treatment of the subject.

This being our purpose, we are going to describe, first, the prominent type of religion, i.e. the one that Nishida proposes and defends as the "true" one and attempt, then, to articulate the form of the second. ,,"le shall do the

34

first following the way Nishida himself does in his works in presenting his

views on religion: he usually, after ~ presented and grounded the 1 ~d..V~l'\' understanding. of reality he endorses, after, in other words, ~ described 1

what he takes as true reality, he itrst restates the same understanding in 'I SIV\ll)Cy religious vocabulary. Philosophy and theology are for him not two differ-

ent things, but just two different languages about the same thing, which

may, therefore, very well alternate or substitute each other.

This presupposes, of course, the identification of world or reality with

God or the absolute. And this Nishida does either explicitly, or implicitly

(e.g by alternating the words "world" and "God", or "reality" and "abso-

lute" in the same passage, by describing both using the same terms, by presupposing the self lcreation of the world and excluding, thus, the exis- 1- tence of a God outside it). As a result, many of Nishida's works, large or small, present this pattern of philosoph}' alternating with religion. This creates a sort of circles, big or small, according to whether the alternation happens with regardlthe two halves of a book, an essay or even a passage. 1 +0 This pattern is useful, not only because we can, on the basis of it, divide Nishida's subject matter into parts and deal with it systematically, but also because philosophical language passages can be used for the elucidation of obscure religious ones and vice versa'",

Without attempting such a division here, i.e. without trying to fix the circles as to where they start and where they end in the "Logic of Tapas and the Religious Worldview," we shall follow the pattern, presenting first the view of the wo rId or of the true reality that Nishida articulates in iti and \) then its religious translation.

True reality

The term "true reality" (#'~;ff:) describes the object of Nishida's intellectual activity. We can say that it stands for two things: for the part of the world which is considered to be the absolute (i.e, what he calls variously as the one, or whole, or nothingness etc., over against the many, the parts, the beings etc.) and for the fundamental structure of the world. In the dialectical period of Nishida (which starts with the chapter r4f·jj[i:*~"J-~~ i::. L l O)i:!tWJ [The World as Dialectical Whole] of the rt5¥O)fH*r~'Mj [Fundamental Problems of Philosophy]?') to which the essay under discussion belongs .. the first does not coincide any longer with just one part, but with the whole of the world and the second with its "absolutely dialectical:' structure. The second of the two things, for which we argued before that the term "true reality" stands, i.e. the fundamental structure of the world, is always the outcome of an act by the first. This act is called by Nishida ft!:J:J'j1.O) § c.1!lt~J [self-determination of the world], in philosophical Ianguage, or r*@'M~O) § clat~J [self-determination of the absolute], in reli-

35

gious one'".

We may well maintain that this "self-determination" of the world is the starting point and the basis of N ishida 's thought. The way or the form into which the self-determining world determines itself necessarily follows this fundamental act. In this sense "self-determination" may be thought of as preceding "self-formation" (§ E.Jr,%.\t) of the world, since the latter stands only for the way in which the self-determination takes place.

It has been suggested that such a fundamental act, which may be also taken as the starting point of Nishida's thought, is the world's "reflecting itself within itself" (I~ 1::.(7) 91 (,:: IOj ~I~-t) or the act of selfjconsciousness \ ~ (~J.t) and that, accordingly, Nishida's philosophical-religious system can

be called a system of (the world's) self-consciousness (Et JZi**) _ But then, self-consciousness, the world's "reflecting itself within itself," is only

one of the ways in which Nishida describes the form in which the self -determination takes place or one of the phenomena in which it can be observed. He even declares this act to be a form of another of the phenom-

ena in which the same self-determination of the world can be observed, i.e,

the act of judgment'", But since the act of the self-determination precedes

all these ways or rather areas in which it can be seen as taking place, it should be given priority bing considered as the most basic in Nishida's system.

What basically happens in this self-determination, is that the completely formless gives itself form. This is described by Nishida variously, as the world's "self-expression" (~G~JJjD, "self-formation" (rol cJr~IJ.\t) etc. Through it the fundamental, basic form or structure of ~ reality is p--' established, The world forms itself as a bipolar reality, i.e, one consisting

of two parts, named by Nishida variously, as the formless and the formed,

the one and the many, the whole and the parts, nothingness and being, predicate and subject, noesis and noema, transcendence and immanence etc.

The names may change but the bipolarity, which stands for the basic structure of reality, with its two parts, remains the permanent basic feature

of Nishida's thought.

The relationship between these two parts, though, does not have always the same form for Nishida: in rWV')~}f~l [A Study of Good] the one or formless, which at the beginning of that work presents itself as "pure experience" *,1l~~&'!!h'l, and stands prior to all discriminations, in order to establish itself as the true one, develops into many and then contains them as an integral part of its unity ; In r ff~J < -t 0) iJ' I? ~ {. t 0) "'- J [From the Acting to the Seeing] the transcendental predicate or ~!l~O):r~fiJT [topos of nothingness] generates the beings as its "shadows", but stands transcendentally opposite to them; in the dialectical period, the one (or whole etc.) in order to become the true one, not only contains but becomes itself what

36

is absolutely opposite to it, i.e, the many, the multitude of the individual beings'", In this way it becomes dialectical, or absolutely dialecti~:ll, in, the I c. sense that this identity of the ab~utelY opposites (*@MJ'J8§ C'.Mi:-) never 10 synthesizes or reduces itself to a unity, but remains always such.

In this dialectical scheme, except ffflfl'l the two poles of the "identity of lie", the absolutely opposites," and as a result of their absolute opposition, also

another pair of poles is constituted : self-negation (~c:'..~:iE) and self -affirmation (§ C. Fl·~:). Self-negation of the formless universal predicate

are the individual beings themselves, especially the human beings, who represent the extreme of individual existence'?', The absolutely formless universal predicate transforms itself within itself into the concrete forms of individual existences and by becoming them it absolutely negates itself.

But through this self-negation, it establishes or "affirms itself" as what

stands for the truth itself in the thought of Nishida of this period, i.e. as the absolutely dialectical reality. It would be safe to say, though, that the dialectical reality, in its turn, is itself "true," because it represents tAitt, I'lli) h.l t ~ in a deeper and not immediately observable level. represents "truth"

for Nishida, i.e, the true whole.

A reconstruction of the hidden syllogism could be as follows: In order to be the true one, reality must be the whole; but in order to be the true whole it must be inclusive in the utmost sense of the word, i.e. it must not only contain, but also be the two completely opposite things at the same time. In this way true reality, i.e. the true (= the dialectical) whole establishes or affirms itself, through its own self-negation. This absolutely diaJectical reality, neither of its two poles or directions separately, hut their paradoxi-

cal coincidence is the true world. It is ltte true reality (lO). And this being I-"-'

so, any identification of it with either of the sides of the dialectical scheme, I +-\10\ \ IS ~..,€., either \""itID only I the direction of the subject, i.e. the world of the individuals, or only with the direction of the transcendental predicate, is but

a false reality.

The same holds true for the individuals, especially the human selves.

The true self is the opposite of the transcendental predicate, but at the same time it is still the "limit point" of that predicate\ it is its own transformation I:; and hence it is at the same time itself, but also the predicate itself'!", Therefore the true self is also an absolutely dialectical reality and as it happens with !the true reality as a whole, it cannot be "seen" or placed in ~ either of the two directions of the dialectical scheme, without becoming a false seW12J.

It is safe to say that what Nishida deals 'with in his essay, is to declare ~ ~

dialectical reality' and the dialectical self as the true reality and the true self (....!L-

and condemn as false all not-dialectical positions, i.e. all the one-sided positions. We shall see how this functions regarding the establishment of

37

is absolutely opposite to it, i.e, the many, the multitude of the individual beings'", In this way it becomes dialectical, or absolutely dialecti~:ll, in, the I c. sense that this identity of the ab~utelY opposites (*@MJ'J8§ C'.Mi:-) never 10 synthesizes or reduces itself to a unity, but remains always such.

In this dialectical scheme, except ffflfl'l the two poles of the "identity of lie", the absolutely opposites," and as a result of their absolute opposition, also

another pair of poles is constituted : self-negation (~c:'..~:iE) and self -affirmation (§ C. Fl·~:). Self-negation of the formless universal predicate

are the individual beings themselves, especially the human beings, who represent the extreme of individual existence'?', The absolutely formless universal predicate transforms itself within itself into the concrete forms of individual existences and by becoming them it absolutely negates itself.

But through this self-negation, it establishes or "affirms itself" as what

stands for the truth itself in the thought of Nishida of this period, i.e. as the absolutely dialectical reality. It would be safe to say, though, that the dialectical reality, in its turn, is itself "true," because it represents tAitt, I'lli) h.l t ~ in a deeper and not immediately observable level. represents "truth"

for Nishida, i.e, the true whole.

A reconstruction of the hidden syllogism could be as follows: In order to be the true one, reality must be the whole; but in order to be the true whole it must be inclusive in the utmost sense of the word, i.e. it must not only contain, but also be the two completely opposite things at the same time. In this way true reality, i.e. the true (= the dialectical) whole establishes or affirms itself, through its own self-negation. This absolutely diaJectical reality, neither of its two poles or directions separately, hut their paradoxi-

cal coincidence is the true world. It is ltte true reality (lO). And this being I-"-'

so, any identification of it with either of the sides of the dialectical scheme, I +-\10\ \ IS ~..,€., either \""itID only I the direction of the subject, i.e. the world of the individuals, or only with the direction of the transcendental predicate, is but

a false reality.

The same holds true for the individuals, especially the human selves.

The true self is the opposite of the transcendental predicate, but at the same time it is still the "limit point" of that predicate\ it is its own transformation I:; and hence it is at the same time itself, but also the predicate itself'!", Therefore the true self is also an absolutely dialectical reality and as it happens with !the true reality as a whole, it cannot be "seen" or placed in ~ either of the two directions of the dialectical scheme, without becoming a false seW12J.

It is safe to say that what Nishida deals 'with in his essay, is to declare ~ ~

dialectical reality' and the dialectical self as the true reality and the true self (....!L-

and condemn as false all not-dialectical positions, i.e. all the one-sided positions. We shall see how this functions regarding the establishment of

37

what he considers as true religion.

Through the use of the phrase "extreme of individual existence" it may have been understood that the t\VO sides of the dialectical scheme have, between both extremes of either side, more than one strata or "planes" of existence. These correspond to as many levels of the "self-expression" of the world":". These levels constitute for Nishida va rious "worlds" (tJt W), or "tapas" (t~jiJD. Different degrees, especially of what mainly constitutes individuality, i.e, self-determination or free will, distinguish the physical

world, the world of life and the world of the humans, on the one side, F- whIte 0\""< different degrees of formlesness distinguish between the worlds of abstrac- -Ii ,bons, ideas, values, universal laws etc., up to the "tapas of nothingness]" ~ \~p-;

~he ether! '"'I. Now, these "planes" or "worlds," except frem the two sides \ t<:>"

themselves, constitute, evidently, as many possibilities of wrong identifica-

tions of the true reality or of the true self with one of them. This theme

of the false identifications is a very important one for what we want to

discuss here, so we s11a11 come back to it later.

Two aspects in this scheme may be pointed out as the most important:

1) self-determination-the basic, fundamenta I act from which everything starts and 2) the form of this self determination, which is the absolutely dialectical scheme. This absolutely dialectical scheme constitutes true reality in opposition to the\false wossible1 ones.

Easily discernible is the fact that Nishida, through this scheme of true reality, established exactly what constitutes a religious scheme too: a pair of an absolute and a relative. But as we can also easily observe, the pair of the absolute nothingness and the absolute individuality is not the only pair of absolute and relative that appears in the scheme: the possible false "true realities," following as many false identifications with either side of the scheme or with some plane of either, may be regarded as the relative pole of an additional scheme, the absolute pole of which would then coincide with the absolutely dialectical one, or with the dialectical scheme itself. Evidently, though, one more pair of absolute and relative means one more religion: the existence of the pair has exactly the meaning of the existence of that religion.

This is exactly the pair that constitutes the second type of religion about which we spoke at the beginning. It distinguishes itself from the first one mainly through its own pair of absolute and relative, but its difference from the first one can be also seen in other points, which happen to be exactly what the type of religion ~ Nishida proposes as the true one in his essay, excludes or rejects. Yet, inspite of the rejection, this second type is there. 'What is more, since it constitutes the only way of returning from the false to I:fre true reality, it is also urged upon, making thus Nishida propose, even though not on equal terms as we shall see and, of course, without that being

38

his intention (on the contrary, to the degree to which he becomes conscious

of its existence, he tries to derninish it), a type of religion which he tries, from the beginning to the end of his essay, to invalidate and replace. Yet, without expanding for a while on the notion of ~ true reality and without 13- describing its characteristics, we shall not be able to define the points in which the second differs from the first. Hence we shall try now to trace

the contours of what Nishida considers as ~ true religion. ~

True religion

A special religion is always made so by the specific understanding of the

two poles of the absolute and the relative] ~ constitute it. Soteriology!y(+h",+ then is conceived as a process that leads from the relative to the absolute,

and its specificity is defined by the specification of the two poles. This

being so, Nishida has already established his specifications, by defining true

reality. True religion is not but exactly this true reality, spoken of in religious terms. According to it, the true absolute is the one which does not

oppose the relative-as this would make it relative too-but the one which transforms itself into the relative, which is its absolutely opposite, so that,

by being at the same time absolute and relative, may be the true whole,

which in its turn is exactly the absolutely dialectical whole").

If this is so, religion, as the relation between the absolute and the relative

is coincident with the essential and organic relationship that obtains between absolute and relative in the dialectical scheme. The two are bound intrinsically and essentialy, in the sence that the existence of the one depends on its being the other and vice versa. This relationship is called by Nishida :@fr;IJit; [inverse polarity] or :@lil~;L [inverse definition] findlsince in \..> it consists the relationship between the absolute and the relativelwe can say \ > that it coincides with the true religion!l5).

In this sense, religion is a reality (;ij,).~) i.e. an objectively given fact or datum. It is what the individual self owes its existence to, but also what the absolute owe its existence to, since it can be such, only under the condition of being so, as only this relationship provides'!". It is coincident with the structure or basic form of reality.

This being so, religion is then something which is also eternal and permanent. It is always there'!". It is the eternal and only way, through which the absolute establishes itself as suchl it therefore is an eternally \; given fact.

But since the whole affair starts, as we have seen, with the fundamental fact of the selfl.· determination of the absolute (the reason of which, let us repea t, is the s -If I esta blishment of the a bsol rrte as such), the doer or actor

of religion is God hirneself. This means exactly that religion is not an act \_.,..... of man, it is not an act which has as its subject man and as its object God,

39

I~

but the reverse of it(lBJ.

i t 'I"

iVe can then enumerate as ~~ char cteristics of the religion which ~

Nishida proposes as the true one, the fa! owing: religion is an objectively given reality ; religion is a fundamental reality, that coincides "lith the structure of ~reality in general. In this context it is also responsible for

the existence of the constituent parts of reality as what they are; religion

is something permanent and eternal; religion is established by God himeself, \_,,_..

\ .... ho is its subject and its actor.

These points, exactly, propose to reject as f false ~ type of religion, 1"'~ has the opposite characteristics e+it, namely: refigion is not a reality, \.tc+"h.e. not a structure or a fact, but an act-not something that one is, as in the l-vu..-t, o\[t-e previous case, but something that someone does; it is not something that

coincides or has to do at all with the structure of ~ reality, but it is an \_ll..... independent from that, relation between man and God; it is not something

eternal and permanent, but it depends on the will of the individual, whether

he will do it or not; man is its subject and actor; it consists in going from

the relative to the absolute.

If we say that all through his essay, all that Nishida does, is\trying to \el,.l..\ establish the first religion over against the second by exactly establishing

the points that characterize it and by chasing away their opposites, i.e. the

ones that characterize the other, we would have given in a nutshell the content of the whol4 essay.

Concerning religion as a given fact, which exists independently from man's will, Nishida, right from the first words of the essay, in an indicative way, and through a parallelism with the Universality of the ability of art appreciation, declares the universality of religion. Universality is not

\ though \ what Nishida wants in fact to show, that being the givennes of religion, its objectivity, which can be ShOW11 through universality. This is the meaning of the first phrase by which he starts the description of his true religion: "religion is a reality of the SOUI"ll~). Through a kind of escalation, then, in clarity and strength of meaning, he reveals later its content to the effect of what we already described?".

Regarding religion's coinciding with the dialectical scheme, Nishida does everything he can, in order to detect and reveal as such] all possible rdeviations from this position. And these are all the one sided positions, in other words all the identifications of the absolute or the self with ·one of the directions of the dialectical scheme or with one of the planes thereof. Such cases he sees in morality, which consists in the wish to identify with one plane of the transcendental predicate, that of the values, or that of the universal law or laws, after of course one has placed the absolute in the direction of the predicate. In this easel man sees the absolute in the \' abstract and! furthermore, in the direction of the formless. Nishida does

40

not seem to have anything else against placing God in this direction, i.e, anything with the direction itself, but the fact that by making God an abstract thing, one ceases to identify him with the dialectical scheme, in other words, with the true absolute. Not so much the side itself, but. the one-sidedness is what matters. The same ist~of the self, which, in this case, becomes an abstract, rational being, at the expense of the living, volitional individual'!",

In the same direction of identifications, i.e, in the direction of the predicate, Nishida condemns Judaism and Christianity, for having placed Godin the direction of the transcedence, dialectical theology for making a radio cally transcendent religious scheme and so on, so forth?".

In the same context, Nishida rejects religion as a going, as a process from the one side of the dialectical reality to the other, namely, from the relative to the absolute. This also is one sided, since it sees God only in the direction of the absolute and not in the direction of both, which is the true absolutev'".

On the other side of the scheme, in the same way and by the· same token, are condemned identifications with the biological or . life plane that turns man into an animal, with the plane of the desires, as well as with all "object logic", i.e, the logic which presupposes as true and truly existing only the direction of the forms'!".

The theme of God as the establisher and actor of religion, except frem the all powerful and decisive motif of the absolute's self\detemlination, which is its main expression, Nishida enriches by condemning, evidently for this reason, forms of religion potably m;'lOtffiism, that he considers as acted by man and not by Go~ Nishida levels against mysticism the criticism that it transforms religion from an objective fact into a subjective act and hence Fe not recognized as true religiod25).

\i'OV 1-

\JL/ ~u..c.~ 0 ""'15i-~ <:.i

The second type of religion

Since everything is established by the selfjdetermination of the absolute, lsince even the evil finds its place in the scheme as the negation of God based

on the volitional self' determination of the individual, where does this 1- activity of false identifications come from{~")? It does not seem to fit in the same category of evil as "Shinran's evil man" belongs. This evil either does not count at all in the scheme, since dialectics have not to do with whether ?ne. j~ "good". or "ba?" , or is considered a~ expression of the f~ct 111 that the individual existence IS somehow or other the negation of God<n), Somehow two sorts of evil exist in the scheme and Nishida, while he speaks

so much in favour of the first, with all his condemnations of the various one -sided positions, he shows his idea about the second.

To the question concerning the sou~ce of the false identificationsi answer \+he

11

1-

OvJ;",~

d .. _}{'€- the verbs that are used .in describing them: they ~ owing to a wrong \Dec-U . .',... "seeing" or "conceiving'{the absolute or the self in something else than in

what it really is, namely not in the dialectical scheme, but in one of its directions. This is called "illusion" (,*), the fundamental illness, of which Buddhism believes that man suffersv'".

Where does illusion come from? The answer "from the depths of the self" in a system where everything is related to the self-determination of the absolute and the structure to which it leads, which explains everything, sounds equal to lacking of an answer?". V,,'e may safely say that it remains inexplicable. But it is exactly the existence of these false identifications that gives rise to the second type of religion in the "Logic of Tapas and the Religious Worldview" and become its starting point. Since it is, then, a

\ rh!{t of religion which starts from a completely different point fromlthe first ~, i. \ *'W~ e. not from the self-determination of the world, but from a stray position on

the scheme,'vve can reconstruct it by seeking for it exactly at the points that describe this stray position : all sorts of one-sidedness and the coming back

from it, to the dialectical truth.

Being a process from falsity and from the false existence that it generates, to truth, and since truth coincides with the first type of religion, this second one takes the first as its absolute goal and consists, therefore, in a going from all onelsided positions to the absolute dialectic'?".

+u the fact that it is not a process from the relative to the absolute of the

type which Nishida condemned, not, in other words, from the one side of the scheme to the other, but, as it were, from both sides to the centre of it, by the first sight this type does not seem to fit the condemned case. To the extent, though, to which that condemnation was meant for any case of separating the absolute from the relative, which the above mentioned process presupposes, making it thus not-dialectical-and hence not true-this second type, is clearly such a case.

But this is not the only contrast point. Although it takes the structure of

reality, i.e. ~.fle true reality as its goal, thiS! type of religion, itself, does noq" e (._~.'c{ coincide with some such structure. This is basic because given that, it.also

differs in allother points that depend on this character of the firs~ namely, l t-y r·ot. it is not something eternal and permanent, and it does not happen ~omehow

or other. When e.g, Nishida speaks about how one can acquire the reli-

gious faith, this is obviously something lacking. The same question would

not be possible concerning the first type'"!',

The actor of this religion is not God, but man. God, of courselinvitesv". \' r- Yet) the image of the one whose hair caught fire and of what he does in

order to be saved, as the model to what one should do as soon as ~ gets \ he. b rid of the iliuSiO~ indicates an action done by man?". Unfortunately, it is imposible here to expand more. To establish better the case should mean

\-'<--

42

\-'-"

using the whole material which concerns it and, since it is not something

that Nishida does, but something that is produced out of the logic of tts- \\">, scheme, a minute analysis should precede the possibility- of a full descrip-

tion. Suffice, though, to show one of the contradictions into w-hich Nishida -unawares, it seems-falls, regarding the two: whereas at a point, in the

spirit of the first type declares religion to be something that has not to do

with "how our self should be as an active being, or in how it should act" but

with "what sort of existence it is, what just is," a few pages later an action,

and rather a fierce one, i.e. what one does if one's hair is \fl. fire\is presented \" '" \--, as the model of religious action?",

All in all, the "structural" quality that the first type has\ does not seem to ·I...IV be applicable here.

We say this, because, although Nishida does not say anything explicitly about the second type and the whole thing has to be surmised through indirect ways, as we do, here, he seems to ha ve realized, at least at certain points, the presence of this foreign element in his scheme and he tries to exorcise itl by attempting to derninish its distinctive features. Although the new pair of absolute-relative cannot be eliminated completely-he would then have to eliminate also the fact of the false identifications-the distance between the two, which contributes to their separate existence and hence to their presence, can be deminished to the utmost. Hence Nishida, wants to divert us from thinking that "salvation" (the way from the false to the true reality) takes place as even the shortest process. It is not a process but an "overleaping" (f!((iOOl of which Shim-an spoke, a distanceless "overturning" from the false to the true'!".

By deminishing the process aspect of the second religion Nishida seems to try to eliminate it. But, exactly by doing so, he appears to point, also himself and in an indirect way, to the presence of that religion. As to whether he succeeds in this effort of his, we would say thatlalthough he tries I) to translate the second religion into the first, he does not ddLconvincinglv..I"SQ.I Besides, the points that present its existence in the system, and which cannot be eliminated, clo not allow for an elimination of it either.

In conclusion, we would say that, although Nishida set off to replace the

second type of religion withlstructural and universal first type, betrayed by t th-e.. his own system, ends up without having succeeded completely not only in

the intended replacement, but ~ in building a theory of one religion ~ \n.e;o r ~ : bis theory is about two religions, each of which belongs to a different

type. Of course, since the first is the goal of the second too, we can say that

the purpose of Nishida is accomplished, if not in the sense that he himself

would wish, at least in \:ffls sensei of the first type of religion being the end l+'r-e ~ which is intended by the second. But as a general outcome, which con-

trasts itself with the original intention, the possibility to show the presence

43

of the-second type of religion, shows clearly that this intention was F kept I-"-",,-,mer- up\completely, nor to the last?".

l;;

References

NISHIDA Kitaro, Zenshu, Second Edition. Tokyo, Iwanami 1965, XI, hereafter NKZ Xl. It has been translated more than any other text of Nishida. See "Religious Consciousness and the Logic of. the Prainapararnita Surra." partial transl, by David E, DILWORTH, MOtlU""",la Nipprm£C(J XXV (1970/1-2), ]).203-216 ; "Was I iegt dem Selbstsein zugrunde?" partial transl, 'by YAGI Seiichi, in GOIl infapan, ed, Yagi Seiichi-Lllrich Luz, ChL Kaizer Verl., MUllchen. 1973, p,94-112 , "The Logic of Topes and the Religious Worldview," transl, by YUSA Miehiko, Eastern Buddhis! XIX (1936/2), p_1-29 and XX 09S7/il p.7l-l19; NISHIDA Kitaro, Last W,·£/-ings-N"thingIlIJ.\S and the Religious Wm"ldvie",_ translated with an introduction by David A. DTL i'VORTH, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1987, The translation of the title that we 'use belongs to YUSA Michiko.

2 The characterization belongs eo Prof. MUTO Kazuo : "There are, of course, 110t a few points wherein [ cannot follow his Ideas, The main reason thereof is its irnpenetrabill ty-Iet lIS say its loftiness and profoundness ... " ]\!IUTO Kazuo, "Immanent Transcendence' in Religion". Japanese Religions 12/] (1981), p.6, transl, by Jan Van Bragt,

3 N otably, presentations of the though t of K. N ish itani are preceded by an exposi tion of Nishida's idea.s. See Hans W;'\.LDENFELS, Absolutes Nichts, Freiburg, Herder, 1976; Thomas KASULfS, "Whetlce and Wither: Nishitani's View of History", in The Religions Philosophy of Nishitani l(eiji _. Encounter utilI! Emptines«, ed. Tuitetsu UNNO, Berkeley. California, Asian H umanities Press, 1990,

4 A somewhat fuller discussion on tile possibi lities of systematization that this pattern offers, we have attempted in our doctoral disser-tation (in Greek, unpublished) 'O'I"''''''~«r ,!,d.o<fo,!,ol" N ,rftV'I"« K, '!"I:iPO : flpQWWOi:<foL, y';;, "0 ~ "PO<f&opL'I"/.<6 ""if B OWo,<f'!">Ilr;<; 'l"Ov r«.,...o"" .. o<; (The 1 a pa nese Ph i I osopher N ish; cia l{ i ta ro ' Presu pp osi lions fo r a defi n i ti on of his Buddhist Identity), Athens, 1991, p.173-177.

5 NKZ 7

6 This term is used by Nishida in a narrow as well as rn a broad sense, depending 011 what it is used fOLE.g. "The self determination of the historical world as individuals" (NKZ Xl, p.430) concerns the self-determination o'l half of the world, that of the individuals, But "The true absolute is something which determines itself as the absolute negation qua affirmation", ibid., pA09, concerns the totality of the world. lNe mean here the second use, the self-deterrni nation of the world as a whole.

7 See SUEIO Takehiro, Nishida Kitar~-Sono tetsugaku taikei, Shunjusha, Tokyo, 1983, Il, p, 450-'151.

S III the above mentioned dissertation of ours (pl3·1-137) we consider these three stages, i.e, unity, transcendence and dialectic as the most basic forms of the relationship between the two poles of his cosmology.

9 ~Q<1):f;;~Ji! (the extreme individual), NKZ xi bA30

10 "The true reality, which exists by itself. which moves by itself, lit'S in neither of these

4'1

directions. It lies ill the contradictory identity- of both directions" NKZ XI, p.391

11 "The self is the sell-deterrnina tion of the historical world in the form M i ndividua Is ami so it sees in itself the limit point of the absolute" NKZ Xl. p.430

12 "Our true sclf...lies neither in the direction of the subject, nor in the direction of the predicate.

It lies in the place which determines itself as the contradictory identity both, of the direction of the subject. and of the direction of the predicate" NKZ XI, p . .JJ(i ; "Our self is not merely a universal existence, not merely a predicatlve existence, Our self is an absolutely individual existence.. To become identified with merely the direction of the universal, is to negate its freedom, it is to lose irself.; And yet, on the other hand, the self does not exist as the mere negation of the universal or of the rational. What is only irrational. is nothing more than an animal. The more we think about what our self is, the more we come LO understand that it is a contradictory identity." NKZ Xl. p.413

[3 NKZ XI. p.374 f.Sce also analysis of these "worlds" in David E.DlLWORTH, op.cit .. Introduction, p.l6 f. The term "plane" that we use here belongs to D.E. Dilworth,

14 "An absolute which stands over against the relative is nut the absolute. Because .. in that case, it would be itself a relativc., That being so, in what sense is the absolute the true absolute? It is truly absolute when it is opposed co nothing ... as long as there is something outside the absolute which negates it, something which opposes it, the absolute cannot be the absolute. The absolute must contain within itself its absolute self negation., The true a bsclute must be an i den ti ty of the a bRO III Lely contradicto r ies in such a sense., The absol tile exists by its OWI1 absolute self 11 egauon. II is the true absolute through returning to itself after

it has become absolutely the r lative. The lruly absolute One becom~ its OWI1 self through \5 becoming the true many ... " NKZ XI, p.397 :JQg

15 "The reI igious rela tion, as I sa i d before. consists in the contra d ictory identity of that which transcends the self absolutely and yel establishes (he self. In other words of something' which, although it is transcendental, il can be thought, of as til ground of the self and of the self which, opposite to this, is absolutely unique, individual and volitional" NKZ Xl, Jl.433.

16 The individual self ows its existence to the fact that the absolute transforms itself into individual selves. As individual, the se] f i~ the "self-negation" of the absolute, which, through this self-negation, establishes itself as such. Hence th existence of the self is owing to the self -determi nation of the absolute and tile existence of the absolute is owing tn including its sel r

-negation.i.e, the individual selves, in itself.

17 "Our self is always related with the absolute One, i.e, with God, in a paradoxical way, in the way of inverse polarity" NKZ Xl.p,42:1

18 "Religion does nOI. arise out of ourselves bul it is the call 0'1 God or of the Buddha. It is the working of God or of the Buddha. il arises out of the ground of the establishment of the self" NKZ Xl, pA09. It is not a subjective doing but something that is objectively given :" People often confuse religious faith with the subjective belief. What is worse, they think of it as something that is born through the power of the human will. Yet, religious faith must-be an objective reality, an absolute fact of our selves" NKZ XI. pA 1 .

19 NKZ xt. p371

20 The motifs of universality and objectivity of religion are escalating in clarity and strength

45

of meaning all through the essay: "soul" (·t,~~) becomes "self" (rot c',) or the basic structure of real ityitsel f. and reI igion, from sornethi ng that the self has becomes somethi ng tha t the self is : "The self is religious in its essence" (NKZ Xl, p_41!8) "Religious consciousness is the fundamental reality of our lif... Religion is not the exclusive possession of only some special people. it must be something that is found in the depth of the heart of everyone" NI<Z XT, p.418

21 Starting from the second part of the essay (p.392) and comi ng back to it at times all through it, Nishida seeks to disassociate religion and morality. This not because of morality itself but because morality, together with rationality, consciousness etc., are aspects of transcendence, which, in turn, is rejected not for itself but because of its onesidedness. See NKZ Xl.pJ92 f_

22 About Judaism, see NKZ Xl.p.455 f; about dialectic theology and its anti- historicity, ibid. p .458 ; about Christianity and trascendence, ibid. p. 460 f_

23 "Religion is not born in a relation of process from the finite LO the ill finite. from the relative to the absolute but something of which we become conscious. when the existence of our self itself becomes a question, when our self itself becomes a problem" NKZ Xl, p.393. Rejection of self-power (~l:h) religions comes under the catezorv that se S 111,111 as the actor of religion -but there is a "from" ami a "to" there, too. which is rejected: "To place God or Buddha in an idealized place which can never be objectively reached. and then for the self to make efforts. aiming at a negation of itself. that would bring about affirmation. is a typical self-power attitude. This cannot be called religion" NKZ Xl. p.412. The rejection of the "linear" "progressive process" from man to God can be also placed here. See ibid.,pA07.

24 NKZ Xl, p.4Hl f.for object logic, For identifications with plan s on the side of the subject,

see ibid. p.391 e.a.

25 See NKZ xi pASO e.a.

25 See ibid.p.391 f_ vari cus possible i den tifi ca lions.

27 "The absolute God must contain in himself his absolute negation. Hence he must be a God who descends even down to the most evil." NKZ Xl. pAO,l_

28 See ibid.p.392 Uor various "seei ng" and "concei vms" O;l. . .Q. ;IJ i.. b) of the self in some directions. For the illusion (it>. ibid.p.I l l.

29 Ibid._pAll,419_

:,0 See different identifications of the self in both directions. i.e. with the inside one (predicate) or with the outside one (subject) where we usually "see" ourselves, resulting in an idealistic self

or in a desirous self. Nishida identifies them with illusion and sees the object ot religion \ r

(salvation) in coming back from them to the true reality. hence to the true self. NKZ XI, p.419.

31 Ibid.p.s Hl.

~2 Ibid p.410. Faith as the inner working of God in [he human soul, or Augustin's desire for God as an invitation of God himself operating within him. would exhaust themselves in their givenness in the first type. Here, the invitation is not enough to establish religion in its wholeness. There must be the answer of man so that the circle completes itself.

33 NKZ, XI. pAOG. 412

?4 Ibid.,pA12. The translation of :nt;fIl as "overleaping" belongs to David E. Dilworth.

35 That tile first type of religion is the one to which Nishida remained faithful! all the way, has been proposed b)' UEDA Shizuteru : "(Nishida) thinks of religion as reality and keeps his

46

respect to its reality-character to the last." See fjl!jmill"f:I::f,;lt l>'ifif/:JJI'.Mq.:-n' 1:J in J~';f ~!'!i I:.1-.Jlj. 1~IIJ>t,f,{X{tWf'l'l:rofr~!, Shuniusha, Tokyo 1986 (J981), 1'.62.

47