Nishida's Nothingness and Nagarjuna's Emptiness
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
公募論文 VIII Nishida’s Nothingness and Nagarjuna’s Emptiness: Descriptions and Comparisons MEGILL Ian Christopher イーエン・メギール (新潟青陵大学准教授) Section 1: Nishida’s Nothingness Nishida’s“Basho” essay, first published in 1926 in the journal Tetsugaku (1) Kenkyu, has often been described as a clear turning point in the maturation and independent exposition of Nishida’s philosophy. Although he had already acquired philosophical status and popularity with his first book Zen (2) no Kenkyu, the essay “Basho” is often considered to be the place where he finally, at the age of 57, commenced in earnest to present and develop his ideas in a truly original fashion. In this essay, he integrates and refines European philosophical ideas(especially of the Neo-Kantian school)and introduces in a fundamental way the concept of Absolute Nothingness, or zettai mu. Although Nishida had sometimes entertained the idea of (3) Nothingness before, it is in the “Basho” essay that this Nothingness assumes its full role as the Ground of Existence, the final “place” or topos (basho) where Being itself arises. (4) After the “Basho” essay was published, the title of a review of it by Kiichiro Soda(1881-1927), although not uncritical of Nishida’s ideas, referred to “Nishida Philosophy.” This was the first instance, in the history of Japanese philosophy, of a Japanese thinker having presented a philosophical paradigm so fundamentally original that it warranted public recognition by being connected with his name. As the English-speaking world has not yet had access to the original (5) article, a variety of presentations have been given of the Basho concept in books attempting to explain Nishida’s ideas in English. Some of these presentations focus on building bridges to analogous concepts already in the (6) Western philosophical tradition, while others principally offer elucidations (7) of Nishida’s own ideas, grounded in his original texts. The present article follows the latter approach, and proposes a visual paradigm to assist in the comprehension of Nishida’s concept of Zettai Mu no Basho, as set out in his seminal essay. ― 203 ― IX Logical Foundations of Nothingness: a Concentric Circle Paradigm Nishida starts from the proposition of subsumption,(housetsu-teki handan, e.g. “This book is red”)with a grammatical subject(“book”)and a grammatical predicate(“red”). The copula(“is”)indicates the inclusion of the subject(“this book”)within the predicate(“red”). We can therefore visualize two concentric circles, the outer one of the grammatical predicate (“red”)containing the inner one of the grammatical subject(“book”). However, it is not impossible for this outer circle(“red”)to itself become the subject of another logical proposition of inclusion(e.g. “Red is a colour”), and thereby to itself be surrounded by an even larger circle (“colour”). On the other hand, the inner circle(“book”)could also become the predicate of another proposition(e.g. “This novel is a book”), and thereby include a yet smaller circle inside itself as well(“this novel”). We can therefore see in our mind’s eye a whole series of concentric circles, going from the most specific subject at the center, outward to the most general predicate. We will see that this most general predicate will even contain all of Consciousness itself. On the other hand, the most specific subject will correspond to the Aristotelian hypokeimenon, the underlying substrate that gives an object its constant identity, even though its accidental characteristics may undergo (8) significant changes. Aristotle also points out that this substrate may only function as the grammatical subject of any proposition about it. Illustrating this idea with the circle imagery above, we can easily see how no smaller circles can be drawn inside it, because it has been reduced to a simple point. The hypokeimenon therefore cannot be the predicate of a further subsumption: we cannot say that anything else is “this,” only this is what it is. The Outermost Circle Going outward in the opposite direction, when we reach the outer circle, no further circles may be drawn around it; i.e. nothing else may be predicated of this outermost circle. Strictly speaking, similar to the way the innermost circle was reduced to a dimensionless point, this outermost circle cannot actually be considered a circle, because it could have no outer surface(as there could be no area surrounding it), and so it must actually be conceived as an unreachable(in practice, indescribable and even ― 202 ― 公募論文 X unthinkable)mathematical limit-circle. Why should we be unable to conceive of any qualities for this outermost circle? Because, as Nishida stipulates, “everything that exists, does so (9) with respect to something else”(with respect to a background field or basho). Using the circle paradigm, we can “say what something is” when we know “what circle to put it in”(logically speaking, when we can predicate something of it). However, this outermost limit-circle has no further outer circle, and we therefore cannot say “where”(i.e. what)it is. Furthermore, unlike the dimensionless-point hypokeimenon at the center, we also cannot even maintain that this outermost limit-circle even exists, as Nishida has defined the conditions for existence above. The innermost point exists with respect to at least one predicated background basho(at least one circle surrounding it): this is the necessary condition for its existence, as defined above. However, if there can be no further basho for the outermost limit-circle, how can we say that it “exists” in the same way as the other circles in the paradigm? Nishida has therefore found a logical basis for the creation of the world ex nihilo: the outermost circle, the basho of all that exists, itself cannot be said to exist in the same sense as everything it contains. We therefore here have a description, founded on simple logical principles, of(as Nishida (10) maintains, “Eastern”)Absolute Nothingness, that allows for the appearance within itself of both relative nothingness and relative being. Comparisons of Inner and Outer Circles In order to gain a better idea of the implications of this logical vision of Absolute Nothingness, we can investigate the modes of existence of the innermost “circle”(actually a point)and the outermost “circle”(actually a limit), implied by this hierarchy of subsumptions. First, carefully considering this paradigm of concentric circles as given above, for any two given circles in the series, the inner circle is ― the grammatical subject of the subsumption which contains both it and its surrounding circle, as described above, ― the object of attention, i.e. the outer circles “look at it” and define it by predicating things about it(in this way, all the circles look inward as it were, which illustrates once again why the outermost circle cannot be “seen,” because there can be no larger circle outside it), and ― 201 ― XI ― usually considered to be more “objective”: we associate to it what are commonly thought to be more “subjective” predicates(“colour,” “perceptibility,” etc.). The outer circle, on the other hand, is ― the grammatical predicate of the subsumption involving it, ― the place(basho)from where the inner circle is seen, as its object of attention. In this sense, the outer circle is the perceiving subject, and therefore a kind of nothingness, which is the standpoint of Consciousness: Consciousness becomes “nothing” so it can perceive “something,” i.e. the (11) object of its attention. Furthermore, in this way, the outer circle is usually also considered to be ― more “subjective” than the “objective” inner circle. In the common- sense view, we all see the “same object,” but we each see it in our own different ways(i.e. we attach various predicates to it), which makes these predications more “subjective” than the object they are predicated of: although we may disagree about our predications, we all agree that there clearly is an object under discussion. However, it is important to realize that although Nishida recognizes the use of the words “subjectivity” and “objectivity” in this way in common practice, this concentric circle paradigm does not allow for such a clear-cut distinction between these two. As a moment’s thought will reveal, any circle in the paradigm(except the outermost one)can be the object of attention of the circle outside it, and hence be “objective”; equally, any circle(except the innermost one)could also be the perceiver of a circle inside it, and hence “subjective.” Finally, as both the outermost and innermost circles are actually mathematical limits and not really circles as such, we could consider them as either relatively existent or relatively non-existent, i.e. as either objective or subjective. For the above reasons, we could call the whole system of circles either objective(“It’s all Concrete Reality”)or subjective(“It’s all Consciousness”) or both. In this way, Nishida stands firmly in the Hegelian tradition of the identity of the Ideal and the Real, i.e. of subjectivity and objectivity. This non-dualism between Consciousness and Reality allows Nishida to use such surprising terms as Concrete(i.e. objectively existing)Universals(gutai-teki ippansha). Ordinarily, we might consider concrete objects(e.g. books)and ― 200 ― 公募論文 XII universals predicated by a perceiving consciousness(e.g. colour)to exist in two unconnected realms, but for Nishida, as we see above, there can be no such clear-cut division between them. Reality as the Activity of Concrete Universals And so it is that such Concrete Universals give rise to the phenomenal world of our ordinary experience, through a process of “self-limiting”(jiko gentei). The above concentric-circle paradigm shows that any one circle (which is both conscious, and possesses concrete, objective Reality)can give rise within itself to smaller circles.