L’ambiguità del mondo: La dialettica dell’interazione di Nishida Kitarō

• Main Author: Matteo Cestari
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Università degli Studi di Torino 2018-11-01
• Series: Kervan. International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies
• Subjects: Nishida Kitaro; modern Japanese philosophy; dialectics; Buddhist philosophy
• Online Access: https://www.ojs.unito.it/index.php/kervan/article/view/3115

The issue of dialectics has been very important in Modern Japan. In the later philosophy of Nishida Kitarō, dialectics is crucial for both the structure of his philosophy and its relationship with Buddhism, since according to him it would help define important and desirable features of Buddhist thought. Therefore, a discussion on this aspect may prove to be decisive in order to understand the overall meaning of Nishida’s thought. This essay aims at discussing the meaning and the implications of dialectics in Nishida Kitarō from the perspective of the philosophical theme of the world’s fundamental ambiguity and its linguistic consequences. Contrary to the political nature of Aristotle’s idea of the principle of non-contradiction, Nishida Kitarō aims at a contemplative approach to the ambiguous world, but falls short of facing the problem of modernity, and is therefore unable to connect the world’s ambiguity with its destructive sides. From such a perspective, his philosophy appears to be inclined to metaphysics rather than to a practical and transformative attitude.