Tetsugaku Companion to Ueda Shizuteru: Language, Experience, and Zen (Tetsugaku Companions to Japanese Philosophy, 5)

This book presents the first collection of essays on the philosophy of Ueda Shizuteru in a Western language. Ueda, the last living member of the Kyoto school, has fostered the East-West dialogue in all his works and has helped to open up the Western image of philosophy by engaging the Zen tradition. The book reflects this particular trait of Ueda’s philosophy, but it also covers all thematic fields of his writings. Contributions from both young and established scholars and experts from Japan, Europe and the U.S. make this a unique introduction to and reception of Ueda’s philosophy. Readers will discover discussions of mysticism in the East and West, and consideration of modern philosophy topics including self-awareness, nature and poetic language. The book also presents a focussed look at language and nothingness, considering silence and nihilism. Chapters allow the reader to understand the timeliness of a thinking that mediates and transcends the dichotomy of East and West. This volume will appeal not only to scholars of Nishida, Japanese philosophy, mysticism and religious experience in Japan, but also to scholars of Western philosophy, especially those interested in Meister Eckhart, Martin Heidegger and Martin Buber. It makes an ideal introduction to Zen philosophy and presents important contributions to scholarship on language and experience. Prefatory Notes Introduction Contents List of Contributors Part I: Ueda’s Thought and Works Introduction Chapter 1: My Philosophy Chapter 2: The Contours of Ueda Shizuteru’s Philosophy of Zen 1 Introduction 2 Zen as a Path of Non-mysticism 3 Walking the Zen Path of the Oxherding Pictures 4 I, in Not Being I, Am I 5 Between I and Thou, the Bow 6 Exiting Language and Exiting Into Language 7 Being-in-the-Twofold-World 8 Gelassenheit in the Empty Expanse Bibliography Chapter 3: Introduction to Ueda’s Works 1 The Organization of the Collection 2 Major Influences in the Collection 3 The Conceptual Matrix 4 The Wartime Question References Part II: Marburg Dissertation Introduction Chapter 4: Heinrich Dumoulin’s Review Chapter 5: Josef Sudbrack’s Review Bibliography Chapter 6: Tsujimura Kōichi’s Review Part III: Disputation Introduction Chapter 7: Healing and Religion 1 Disaster and the Ritual of Healing 2 How Japanese People Bond Together 3 What Is the Self? 4 From “Middle Void” to “Emptiness” 5 The Soul Resides Within the Gap Between Existence and Existence 6 An Image of Death Acceptance 7 The Child within the Adult 8 The Healing Effects of a “Previous Life” 9 The Image as Waypoint 10 The Other World Peeks Out from the Sandbox 11 Restoring our Cycle with this World Chapter 8: The Depth of the Mind 1 The Depth of the Mind Chapter 9: The Secret of the Brain and the Mind: Responding to My Colleague Ueda Shizuteru 1 The Secret of the Brain and the Mind Part IV: Interview Introduction Chapter 10: Shouldering the Tradition of the Kyōto School 1 Nishitani Keiji and Nishida Kitarō 2 Reflections on Post-war Japan 3 What Does It Mean to Engage in Scholarship? 4 The Nishida – Tanabe Memorial Symposium and Suzuki Daisetsu 5 Learning at Kyoto University 6 Kyōto University Directly After the Defeat 7 Progress in Religious Studies 8 The Connection of Ideas Across all Times and Places 9 What Cannot Be Put into Words 10 Buddhist Teaching and Contemporary Japan 11 Evil, Emptiness and Nihilism 12 Meeting One’s Mentor in Scholarship Part V: The Methodological Approach – Radicalizing Transcendentalism Introduction Chapter 11: Nishida and Ueda on Philosophical Reflection 1 Introduction 2 Two Models of Reflection 3 Philosophical jikaku 4 Philosophical jikaku as a Radicalized Form of Transcendental Reflection 5 Conclusion Bibliography Part VI: The Philosophical Position of the Twofold World Introduction Chapter 12: Twofold Being-in-the-World in Ueda’s Philosophy: On His Interpretation of Heidegger and Nishida 1 Introduction 2 Invisible Twofoldness of World: World and Nothingness in Heidegger 3 Visible Twofoldness of World: “A World” and “B World” 4 Primordial Experience and the Selfless Self: The Interpretation of Nishida 5 Twofold Being-in-the-World and Philosophy of Life as Inochi Bibliography Chapter 13: Ueda on Being-in-the-Twofold-World or World Amidst the Open Expanse: Reading Nishida Through Heidegger and Reading Heidegger Through Nishida 1 Introduction 2 Reading Nishida Through Heidegger 3 Reading Heidegger Through Nishida 4 Being-in-the-Twofold-World or World/Open Expanse Bibliography Part VII: Questioning the Philosophical Medium – On Language Introduction Chapter 14: Being With and In Language 1 Introduction 2 Experience in the Presence (Anwesenheit) of Language 3 Urwort (kongengo 根源語) 4 Language as Verbal Act: Urwort as Spontaneous Emergence of Expression 5 The Undefinable (das Unbestimmbare) 6 Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 15: The Articulation of Silence in Language 1 Introduction 2 How Does Silence Relate to Language? 3 The “Primordial Silence” Beneath Speech 3.1 Silence as a Way of Speaking 3.2 The Determination of Non-speaking Silence 3.3 The Silence in Relation to Gesture 4 Voicing as the Origin of Articulation 4.1 The Double Structure of the Concept of Articulation 4.2 From Language to Speaking 4.3 From the Sound to Vocalization 4.4 From the “oh” to Silence and Back 4.5 From the Urwort to the Philosophical System 5 Silence as the Negation of Language? 5.1 Forms and Modes of Articulation 5.2 The Location of Silence in the Space of Articulation 5.3 The Negation of Language in Silence? 6 The Mediation of Silence Through Language Annex: Translation Bibliography Part VIII: Reflecting Philosophy: In Poetry Introduction Chapter 16: Nothingness and Poetic Experience: Ueda and Valente 1 Introduction. Ueda and Valente: A Rizomatic Connection 2 José Ángel Valente: Poetics and Evolution Into Nothingness 2.1 From His First Books of Poetry to His Encounter with Mysticism 2.2 The Essays: The Vision of the East, Hermeneutic Schools of Thought, and the Search for Syncretism 2.3 The Primal Word: Artistic Creation, Formless Matter, and Nothingness 2.4 Poetic Experience as Wisdom 3 Nothingness and Poetic Experience in Ueda’s Thought 3.1 Ueda’s Philosophy of Religion 3.2 Experience and Expression 3.3 Understanding and the Horizon of Meaning 3.4 Aesthetic Experience and Religious Experience 4 Conclusions: Encounters in the Nothingness References Chapter 17: Ueda and Heidegger: Playing in Hollowness, Abiding in Actuality and the Risk of Poetic Language 1 The Danger of Representation: “Open” and “Abyss” 2 Ueda: “Hollowness” Between Visibility and Invisibility 3 Heidegger: Invisibility of the “Heart’s Inner Space” 4 Negation and the Threat of “Toying with Actuality” 5 Conclusion: Poetic Language “Without Why” Bibliography Part IX: Opening Up Philosophy: On Mysticism Introduction Chapter 18: Ueda as Reader of Eckhart Bibliography Chapter 19: On Mysticism and Non-mysticism, Religion and Non-religion 1 “Mysticism”, “East” and “West”. Some Historical and Critical Perspectives 2 From Mysticism to Non-mysticism: Ueda’s Sources and His Own Development 3 Meister Eckhart and Zen 4 Religion and Non-religion 5 Final Considerations Bibliography Part X: The Space Between East and West: On Zen Buddhism Introduction Chapter 20: In-Between: Religious Quest and Philosophy of Life in Ueda and Buber 1 Introduction: Tradition and Renewal 2 Buber’s Hasidism 2.1 An Image of Man, a Way of Life 2.2 The Redemption of the Everyday (Die Erlösung des Alltags) 2.3 Hasidism as a Kulturkritik 3 Ueda’s Zen 3.1 Re-creating the Text 3.2 Everydayness in Zen 3.3 Zen in the Contemporary World 4 Conclusions Bibliography Chapter 21: “The Self That Is Not a Self”: Ueda and Kuoan’s Ten Ox Pictures 1 Introduction 2 Kuoan’s Ten Ox Pictures 3 Ueda’s Interpretation of the Ten Ox Pictures 4 Towards a New Conception of the Self Bibliography Part XI: Existential Practice: Ethical Engagement Introduction Chapter 22: Ueda’s Metaethics 1 Introduction 2 Metaethics 3 Davis on Ueda 4 Moral Dialethism Bibliography Chapter 23: An Ontology of Non-Discriminatory Love: The Resurrection of the Triune Self in Ueda Shizuteru’s Appropriation and Critique of Meister Eckhart 1 Introduction: Towards an Ontology of Love 2 Love in Meister Eckhart’s Speculative Mysticism 2.1 The Ontological Ground of Agape: Nothingness of the Godhead 2.2 Eckhart on Undifferentiated Love 3 The Critique of Subjectivity: Incarnation, Resurrection, and Trinity in Ueda’s Conception of Selfhood 4 From Agape to the Great Compassion: Ueda’s Critique of Meister Eckhart Bibliography Correction to: Tetsugaku Companion to Ueda Shizuteru Appendix Biography Bibliography Works by Ueda Shizuteru