Nothingness in the Heart of Empire : The Moral and Political Philosophy of the Kyoto School in Imperial Japan

In the field of philosophy, the common view of philosophy as an essentially Western discipline persists even today, while non-Western philosophy tends to be undervalued and not investigated seriously. In the field of Japanese studies, in turn, research on Japanese philosophy tends to be reduced to a matter of projecting existing stereotypes of alleged Japanese cultural uniqueness through the reading of texts. In__Nothingness in the Heart of Empire__, Harumi Osaki resists both these tendencies. She closely interprets the wartime discourses of the Kyoto School, a group of modern Japanese philosophers who drew upon East Asian traditions as well as Western philosophy. Her book lucidly delves into the non-Western forms of rationality articulated in such discourses, and reveals the problems inherent in them as the result of these philosophers' engagements in Japan's wartime situation, without cloaking these problems under the pretense of "Japanese cultural uniqueness." In addition, in a manner reminiscent of the controversy surrounding Martin Heidegger's involvement with Nazi Germany, the book elucidates the political implications of the morality upheld by the Kyoto School and its underlying metaphysics. As such, this book urges dialogue beyond the divide between Western and non-Western philosophies, and beyond the separation between "lofty" philosophy and "common" politics. Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Abbreviations 10 Preface 12 Introduction 14 Part 1: “Overcoming Modernity” and “The Philosophy of World History” 34 Chapter 1 Nishitani Keiji and the Bungakukai Symposium “Overcoming Modernity” 36 Section 1: The Putative Division between the Kyoto School and Nationalists 38 Section 2: Nishitani on Japanese “Tradition” and “Sensibility” 42 Section 3: Colonial Rule and Aggression Based on “Morality” 46 Chapter 2 The Chūōkōron Symposia Concerning the Philosophy of World History 54 Section 1: Japan in the World-Historical Position 55 Section 2: The Necessity of Creating Japanese National Subjectivity 58 Chapter 3 The Unity between the Subject and the Substratum of the State: The First Characteristic of Japanese National Subjectivity 64 Section 1: The Norm and Ethics for Japanese National Subjectivity 66 Section 2: The Vision of the State in View of Overcoming Western Modernity 70 Section 3: The Illusion of Greater Autonomy and Freedom 75 Chapter 4 The Interpenetration between the National and the International: The Second Characteristic of Japanese National Subjectivity 80 Section 1: Internationality Involved in a National Spirit 81 Section 2: A Center that Yields Many Centers 84 Section 3: National Desire for Global Hegemony in the Guise of Internationality 86 Chapter 5 The Reciprocal Determination between the Virtual and the Actual: The Third Characteristic of Japanese National Subjectivity 98 Section 1: Entering the Circle, Resolving the Contradiction 99 Section 2: Ancient Spirituality and Eternal Subjectivity 102 Section 3: The State that Is Always Right and Does the Right Thing 108 Chapter 6 The Outcomes of the Two Projects at Stake in Japanese National Subjectivity 114 Section 1: The Impossibility of Ethical Transformation from Within 115 Section 2: The Question on Overcoming Modernity 121 Part 2: A Political Dimension of Nishida Kitarō’s Philosophy of Nothingness 128 Chapter 7 Questions Concerning Nishida and Japanese Subjectivity 130 Section 1: The Ambiguity in Nishida’s Position toward Subjectivity 131 Section 2: The Controversy about Nishida’s Political Stance 135 Chapter 8 Nishida’s Political Thoughts Concerning Japanese National Subjectivity 140 Section 1: The State as Embodying the Morality of Absolute Nothingness 141 Section 2: State as Tradition, Tradition as State 147 Section 3: The Structure of the State Encircling a Being of Nothingness 155 Section 4: The Subject Becoming the World and Enveloping Others 164 Chapter 9 The Significance and Problems of Nishida’s Arguments about Kokutai 176 Section 1: The Stakes of Nishida’s Theory Concerning the Imperial Family 177 Section 2: The Thin Line between the Protest against and Advocacy of the Japanese Kokutai 181 Section 3: The Perplexities Caused by the “Being of Nothingness” 186 Chapter 10 Nishida’s Criticism of Hegel with an Eye to Overcoming Western Modernity 192 Section 1: Modernity According to Habermas and Its Detrimental Effects 193 Section 2: Nishida’s Criticism of the Hegelian Dialectic 197 Section 3: Nishida’s Criticism of Hegel’s Views of the World and Its History 204 Section 4: Nishida’s Criticism of Hegel’s Concepts of the Universal and the State 209 Section 5: Reformulating the Universal, Creating New Views of the World and the State 219 Chapter 11 Examining Nishida’s Philosophical Project of Overcoming Western Modernity 230 Section 1: The Criterion for the Assessment of Nishida’s Project 231 Section 2: Absolute Nothingness Turned into Latent Being 235 Section 3: The Individual Pressed under Totality 241 Section 4: Ethnocentric Universalization of the Particular 249 Chapter 12 Reconsidering the Issues of Kokutai and Overcoming Modernity 256 Section 1: Kokutai as the Epitome of the Universalized Particular 256 Section 2: The Problematic of “Overcoming Modernity” and National Identity in the Present Context 261 Conclusion 270 Notes 272 Bibliography 288 Index 296 "In the field of philosophy, the common view of philosophy as an essentially Western discipline persists even today, while non-Western philosophy tends to be undervalued and not investigated seriously. In the field of Japanese studies, in turn, research on Japanese philosophy tends to be reduced to a matter of projecting existing stereotypes of alleged Japanese cultural uniqueness through the reading of texts. In Nothingness in the Heart of Empire: The Moral and Political Philosophy of the Kyoto School in Imperial Japan, Harumi Osaki resists both these tendencies. She closely interprets the wartime discourses of the Kyoto School, a group of modern Japanese philosophers who drew upon East Asian traditions as well as Western philosophy. Her book lucidly delves into the non-Western forms of rationality articulated in such discourses, and reveals the problems inherent in them as the result of these philosophers' engagements in Japan's wartime situation, without cloaking these problems under the pretense of "Japanese cultural uniqueness." In addition, in a manner reminiscent of the controversy surrounding Martin Heidegger's involvement with Nazi Germany, the book elucidates the political implications of the morality upheld by the Kyoto School and its underlying metaphysics. As such, this book urges dialogue beyond the divide between Western and non-Western philosophies, and beyond the separation between "lofty" philosophy and "common" politics"-- Provided by publisher Harumi Osaki is an independent scholar who received her PhD in contemporary French thought from Hitotsubashi University in 2003 and went on to complete a second doctorate in Japanese philosophy from McGill University in 2016.