Tag: kyoto school

Can intellectuals avoid totalitarian instrumentalisation? Nishida’s thought and Japanese imperialism

Can an intellectual avoid instrumentalisation of their thought under totalitarianism? That is the problem faced by intellectuals in an environment of totalitarianism, whose options are few and trying: to join or be co-opted by the totalitarian project, to retreat in the face of power, or resist and risk persecution. For Nishida Kitarō, and for the philosophers associated with the Kyoto School, this was the prospect faced under Imperial Japan. As an examination of the activities of the philosophers and their period writings show, many were co-opted into providing an intellectual basis for Japanese imperialism, and for Nishida, who intellectually resisted the procession of totalitarianism and ultranationalism of the period, still found his resistance to be ineffectual, and his thoughts ignored or co-opted in service of justifying Japan’s imperial project.

In the context of Japan from the 1920s onwards, this totalitarianism appeared in the form of rising ultranationalism that policed the boundaries of acceptable public discourse, and thus the limits and language within which academic philosophy, as practised by Kyoto School philosophers, must reside. A number of events marked the rise of nationalism and its intrusion into the academic space. The 1925 Peace Preservation Law, the establishment of the Superior Special Police Force and the Research Centre for National Spiritual Culture, as well as the Takikawa Incident and Minobe Incident, saw the gradual tightening of the bounds of acceptable discourse in academia.1 This was the effective prohibition of support for liberalism and questioning of the Emperor’s divine authority. The publishing of the Fundamentals of the National Polity set most explicitly the lines and language of political orthodoxy, effectively within which academia must preside.2 It is within this context which Nishida and other Kyoto School intellectuals operated, and in which their response to totalitarianism should be understood.

One consideration may be whether the weaponization of the Kyoto School’s thoughts was deliberate, either by Nishida himself or by other intellectuals associated with his philosophical thoughts. For Nishida, who had fundamental disagreements with the political orthodoxy, participation in politics implied much resistance and persuasion within the acceptable discursive language, though resistance was ineffectual and co-option still pervasive. The case of the Principles of the New World Order is a pertinent case. Written in 1943 with the prospect of influencing the Tōjō government, Nishida’s initial essay was rejected on grounds of being too difficult to understand, and on revision by Tanabe Juri, an associate, was submitted to the government’s audience. Nishida would be disappointed by Tōjō’s understanding of his writing.3 Accounting for Nishida’s indifference towards Tanabe’s draft, Principles stand as a case of the inability of intellectuals to resist and effect change in a totalitarian environment. Both because of its rewriting and the need to follow the language of political orthodoxy, such as Nishida’s use of hakkō ichiu, in its subversion leaves open the space for misinterpretation in support for Japanese imperialism.

For other philosophers of the Kyoto School, their divergent treatment of Nishida’s thoughts is emblematic of the different approaches to working in a totalitarian context. Miki Kiyoshi, a student of Nishida, argued for a theory of cosmopolitanism based on Nishida’s thoughts that privileged Japan’s position as a leader of Asian countries as a product of its unique good qualities.4 For Tanabe Hajime, who drew on Nishida’s concepts of negation, the dialectic between state and individual, particularly one’s absolute rejection in death, could be construed to advocate for the sacrifice of individuals in service of the state.5 In both such cases the co-opting of philosophy in service of totalitarianism was deliberate, as Nishida’s thoughts are taken beyond the control of its originator. Thus is the limit of an intellectual’s ability to avoid instrumentalisation in totalitarianism.

  1. Christopher S. Goto-Jones, Political philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and co-prosperity (New York, 2005), pp. 73-75. [↩]
  2. Ibid., p. 77. [↩]
  3. Ibid., pp. 79-81. [↩]
  4. John Namjun Kim, ‘The Temporality of Empire: The Imperial Cosmopolitanism of Miki Kiyoshi and Tanabe Hajime’, in Sven Saaler, J. Victor Koschmann (eds), Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History: Colonialism, regionalism and borders (London, 2007), pp. 156-160. [↩]
  5. Ibid., pp. 163-166. [↩]

American Films in Japan: A Dilemma for ‘Overcoming Modernity’

Shortly after the Pearl Harbor attacks in 1941, leading Japanese academics and writers assembled at a round table to discuss “Overcoming Modernity”. This symposium demonstrates the daunting, impossible, and often paradoxical attempts to counter and move beyond Westernization to retrieve the lost Japanese cultural identity. However, these discussions occurred when Western culture was firmly entrenched in Japanese society, long after the Meiji era’s Bunmei Kaika (Civilization and Enlightenment) policy ‘modernized’ the nation.1

On day 2 of the discussions, the scholars criticize the Americanization of Japan through film. The global cultural power of the United States’ cinema industry reveals the complex and paradoxical nature of overcoming modernity: They reject film as a Western technology that has corrupted their culture, while also advocating for film in Japan to foster a return to tradition or ‘True Japanese Identity’.

The roundtable suggests that Western technology, like the camera and film, has corrupted Japanese culture and identity. Nishitani, a prominent Kyoto school member, opens the discussion by calling on Tsemura, a well-known film critic. Tsemura views Japan as a superior culture, lamenting the popularity of ignorant, low-brow American media. He detests the Western “machine society” that values quantity over quality and suggests the lack of historical tradition and multiracial makeup in the US as a reason for its films’ “global universality.”2 Tsemura views Americanization and Western technology as a poison to their traditional culture.

There is likewise a conservative desire to return to an idyllic, pure Japanese origin. The panelists suggest this can be accomplished through the spread of traditional representations, like the Japanese classics. However, the symposia acknowledges that the classics are unappealing to Japan’s young generation – the same “modern boys” and “modern girls” shaped by their appeal to the “optimism, speed, and eroticism” of American cinema.3 American film’s widespread appeal and the public’s general disinterest in the classics represent a core dilemma for the roundtable.

Recognizing the need to overcome the spread of Americanization through the medium of film, Tsumura surprisingly suggests that film could be adapted to instill the Japanese Spirit.  Tsumura cites the Newsreels on the Greater East Asian War and its use in medical schools as evidence of the educational importance of film for Japanese society.4 He argues that film cannot be rejected because it emerged from the US; Like many technologies, it is ubiquitous and embedded into everyday life – “undeniable”.5 Instead, film must be adapted to promote a “higher culture” in Japan.6 Thus, to return culture to its idyllic past, away from the poisonous influence of the West, Japan must use popular Western technology (film) to instill a traditional, ‘True Japanese Identity’ in modern boys and girls.

This, of course, is paradoxical. However, it does reveal the complexity of the roundtable’s dilemma. For the Kyoto School, ‘Overcoming Modernity’ was accomplished through “passing through modernity” – neither turning back to an idyllic past nor embracing Westernization, but moving forward by embracing both.7 Cinema represents one Western medium that the panel rejects and embraces to overcome modernity. However, living through a time of ‘world-historical importance,’ the symposium offers no clear solution to Japan’s predicament.

 

  1. Calichman, Richard. Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan. (New York: Columbia Press, 2008), p.8 [↩]
  2. Calichman, Richard. Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan. (New York: Columbia Press, 2008), p.201 [↩]
  3. Calichman, Richard. Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan. (New York: Columbia Press, 2008), p.200  [↩]
  4. Calichman, Richard. Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan. (New York: Columbia Press, 2008), p.202 [↩]
  5. Calichman, Richard. Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan. (New York: Columbia Press, 2008), p.203 [↩]
  6. Calichman, Richard. Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan. (New York: Columbia Press, 2008), p.203 [↩]
  7. Davis, Bret W. “The Kyoto School.” Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2019), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kyoto-school/. [↩]

Epistemology, Ontology and Nothingness: The Kyoto’s School’s Ideas on 無

The Kyoto School (京都学派) of Japanese philosophers provides a fascinating insight into the combination of 20th Century German and Buddhist philosophy. The combination of Western philosophical analytical frameworks and unique East Asian perspectives, gave rise to ideas on the self, existence, and experience (phenomenology), that had never before been seen.

The Kyoto School’s efforts to understand the Buddhist concept of “Nothingness” (無) contrasted with Heideggerian understandings of ‘being’ is a good example of how fundamental assumptions in Western Philosophy are difficult to apply to certain concepts. [1] Nishida’s efforts to “topologise nothingness” portrays how his understanding of both Buddhism and Western thought on “self” produced a unique philosophical position. The Buddhist idea of Nothingness, in Nishida’s view, is a ‘place’ where subjectivity and objectivity are part of a whole, and where knowing and experiencing exists together. Hence, Nishida contextualised Nothingness in Western Philosophical terms as a “meontology” or “mu-ontology”, a category of analysis that does not quite fall into traditional categories in philosophy. Although the term “mu-ontology” has been used to describe Nishida’s thought, I believe that the way he describes the phenomena of self and the world around self suggests a breakdown of the traditional barriers between epistemology and ontology. [2] 

Brett W. Davis discusses this idea in terms of the separation of epistemology and ontology. However, it seems almost counterproductive to do so when understanding Nothingness. Nishida’s referral to Nothingness as a “place” bashō (場所), despite explicitly denying this separation, suggests that the idea falls into the realm of Ontology more so than Epistemology. [3] Despite this, by examining the practice of meditation as a path to enlightenment, we can better understand what Nishida is attempting to do in his philosophy.

Zen practices of meditation as a means of achieving enlightenment, discuss Nothingness as both an experiential and phenomenological process, guided by an internalised understanding of the Dharma. This suggests that in Buddhist thought, epistemology and ontology are not separated. To reach a state of Nothingness, a practitioner must simultaneously understand the Dharma (epistemological) and change their view of the world around them (ontological). That is to say, that, to know something, also changes one’s perception of the world and vice versa. The continual process of combining the two allows one to reach such a stage in their path to Enlightenment. [4] Thus, Nishida’s attempt to form an understanding of Nothingness by finding an alternate philosophical perspective that integrates a fundamental split in Western Philosophy is enormously impressive. This is because Nishida’s concept of combining epistemology and ontology are rare in philosophical discussions now.

Returning to original Buddhist texts, the classical description of Nothingness taken from the Heart Sutra describes it as a state where the dualities of existence and non-existence become one, and the “self” exists without attachments (5 Aggregates, or Skhanda). [5] In this case, the Heart Sutra describes Nothingness not necessarily as a “place” as Nishida describes it, but rather as a state of being. Perhaps Nishida’s attempts to reconcile the subjective and objective, are an effort to rationalise Nothingness both as a state of being and also a “place”. By saying that there is no distinction between what exists in the mind and what exists in reality, one can rationalise Nothingness as a “place”. This perplexing idea that appears to be diametrically opposed, is later re-examined by Hajime Tanabe in Hegelian terms; by treating existence and non-existence through a dialectical thought process. [6]

Tanabe criticised Nishida’s understanding of Nothingness as an unmoving “place” that merely exists at a point in time and space. His application of the Hegelian dialectic created a more dynamic understanding of nothingness as a “moment of absolute negation”. This understanding of Nothingness seems more similar to the experiential descriptions that exist in the Heart Sutra. [7] Rather than seeing Nothingness as a state that is reached and maintained, Tanabe’s conceptualisation of it as consistent existence and non-existence resonates more accurately with the Heart Sutra. Indeed, Tanabe’s criticisms did go on to influence the way Nishida considered his original ideas. Towards the later stages of Nishida’s thought, he began to see Nothingness less as a “place” and more as a continual dialectic process.

With all of this considered, there is a distinct possibility that I may have misunderstood Nishida and Tanabe’s ideas on Nothingness. The ideas discussed by the Kyoto school are very difficult to grasp and are questions that perplex even experienced practitioners of Zen. That being said, I believe that it is beneficial to genuinely reflect on the efforts that the scholars of the Kyoto School have made to apply different philosophical perspectives to existing thought. Figures such as Nishida and Tanabe amongst the other Kyoto School philosophers have made a serious effort to apply what they have learnt from Western philosophy to a central idea in Zen Buddhism. I would hope that their work receives more attention and generates greater dialogue in the years to come.

[1] Davis, Brett W., The Kyoto School, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kyoto-school/, 2019, Introduction

[2] Ibid, Section 3

[3] Ibid, Section 3.3

[4] Gethin, Rupert, The Foundations of Buddhism, 1998, pp 175-176

[5] The Heart Sutra

[6] Davis, Brett W., The Kyoto School, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kyoto-school/, 2019, Section 3.4

[7] Ibid, Section 3.3

Music and the 1942 symposium: a Kyoto School microcosm

In July 1942, about half a year since the attack on Pearl Harbor and the advent of total war, there was arranged a symposium titled ‘Overcoming Modernity’ where members of the Kyoto School and other Japanese thinkers of various kinds wrote essays on, and discussed, how Japan was to overcome modernity. The symposium largely failed to come up with many concrete answers to the problem since the discussions largely ended up focusing on the semantics of the problem posed and other details. Indeed, the leader of the two-day roundtable discussions, Kawakami Tetsutaro, began the conference by admitting to the ambiguity of the theme of the symposium.1 One sub-theme discussed in the first day of the conference was the role of Japanese music in overcoming modernity. This sub-theme is perhaps the most unique one discussed at the symposium, but it also encapsulates many of the larger themes of the conference and of the Kyoto School in general.

The symposium at large was in agreement that Japan had a particular ‘spirit’ or ‘nature’ which made it stand out from the rest of the world, and that this spirit had been contaminated by outside cultures over many centuries. The way of overcoming what they saw as a Western-dominated modernity was to restore this Japanese spirit, not by going backwards but by going forwards.2 This somewhat paradoxical way of seeing the historical progression of Japan is furthermore mirrored in a fundamental paradox of the Kyoto School thinking as illustrated by the founder, Nishida’s combination of Eastern philosophical traditions and more modern Western methodological philosophy,3 which ended up creating a school which was both fundamentally critical of Japanese and Western philosophy, ideology and culture.

This is where the discussion on the role of music in the overall Japanese spirit comes in. The most prominent talker on this topic was Moroi Saburo, a ‘composer and music theorist’.4 Like most other participants of the symposium Moroi argued that the impure modernity was a thing that had to be overcome by finding the true Japanese spirit, which was to be done by creating something new for the future, inspired by both the traditional Japanese and by the Western. In terms of music, Moroi sought to create a new style of music which maintained the Japanese spirit and at the same time incorporated certain elements from Western music.5 This was because Moroi saw modern Japanese music as corrupted by Western influences, but he thought that certain elements of Western music would be useful if combined in the right way. What he specifically admired about Western music was the spirituality of it.6 Thus, in order to find the true Japanese music to compliment the true Japanese culture and spirit there had to be created a new kind of music, combining traditional Japanese music (which focus on narrative) and Western music (which mas more focused on feeling), which would then assist Japanese society in general to overcome modernity.

Interestingly, this overall criticism, both in the discussion about music and in the discussions in general, came to support a teleological view of history where Japan was seen as destined to be the next great power. Moroi argues that different European countries have, after the Middle Ages, been the leading countries in terms of music, and also art in general, in different decades. Therefore, based upon a nationalist belief in Japanese superiority, it is now Japan’s turn to be a leading country within music and the arts. This belief is also based on a belief in the degradation of Western culture.7 This sentiment of Western deterioration and Japanese progress was matched by other symposium participants. Such a teleological and nationalistic view was exactly what made the Kyoto School, and the 1942 symposium in particular, come under much criticism for being too supportive of the Japanese wartime ideology after the war.8 Then again, the Kyoto School and also the symposium were criticised at the time for not being nationalistic enough.9

Thus, from a symposium which did not deliver many clear answers about how to overcome modernity and the development of the Japanese spirit, the perhaps most niche point of discussion acted as a microcosm for the entire 1942 symposium itself. Japanese music, much like Japan itself, was, in the eyes of the symposium participants, in need of a revival as both had been corrupted by outside – mainly Western – influences. The way of reviving them was, however, not by going back to the originals, but to incorporate specific Western elements. Where the symposium goes beyond the thinking of Nishida, and flirting with a more nationalistic ideology was the teleological conviction held that both Japanese music, culture and empire was due a place in the sun.

  1. Calichman, Richard F., Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan (New York, 2008), p. 151 [↩]
  2. Ibid., pp. 12-13 [↩]
  3. Davis, Bret W., The Kyoto School, 9 April, 2019, <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kyoto-school/> [13 November 2020] [↩]
  4. Calichman, p. 212 [↩]
  5. Ibid., pp. 173-175 [↩]
  6. Ibid., p. 172 [↩]
  7. Ibid., p. 173 [↩]
  8. Davis, 2015 [↩]
  9. Goto-Jones, Christopher, Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity (New York, 2005), p. 117 [↩]