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Hajime Tanabe

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(Redirected from Tanabe Hajime) Japanese philosopher (1885–1962)
Hajime Tanabe
田辺 元
Born(1885-02-03)February 3, 1885
Tokyo, Japan
DiedApril 29, 1962(1962-04-29) (aged 77)
Karuizawa, Japan
Nationality Japanese
Alma materTokyo Imperial University
Notable work‘The Logic of Species and the World Schema’, Philosophy as a Way to Repentance (Metanoetics)
AwardsOrder of Culture
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionJapanese philosophy
School
Institutions
Main interestsPhilosophy of Science, Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Physics, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion
Notable ideas
The Kyoto School of Philosophy
at Kyoto University
Topics
Individuals
Historical background

Hajime Tanabe (田辺 元, Tanabe Hajime, February 3, 1885 – April 29, 1962) was a Japanese philosopher of science, particularly of mathematics and physics. His work brought together elements of Buddhism, scientific thought, Western philosophy, Christianity, and Marxism. In the postwar years, Tanabe coined the concept of metanoetics, proposing that the limits of speculative philosophy and reason must be surpassed by metanoia.

Tanabe was a key member of what has become known in the West as the Kyoto School, alongside philosophers Kitaro Nishida (also Tanabe's teacher) and Keiji Nishitani. He taught at Tōhoku Imperial University beginning in 1913 and later at Kyōto Imperial University, and studied at the universities of Berlin, Leipzig, and Freiburg in the 1920s under figures such as Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. In 1947 he became a member of the Japan Academy, and in 1950 he received the Order of Cultural Merit.

Biography

Tanabe was born on February 3, 1885, in Tokyo to a household devoted to education. His father, the principal of Kaisei Academy, was a scholar of Confucius, whose teachings may have influenced Tanabe's philosophical and religious thought. Tanabe enrolled at Tokyo Imperial University, first as a mathematics student before moving to literature and philosophy. After graduation, he worked as a lecturer at Tohoku University and taught English at Kaisei Academy.

In 1916, Tanabe translated Henri Poincaré’s La Valeur de la science. In 1918, he received his doctorate from Kyoto Imperial University with a dissertation entitled ‘Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics’ (predecessor to the 1925 book with the same title).

In 1919, at Nishida’s invitation, Tanabe accepted the position of associate professor at Kyoto Imperial University. From 1922 to 23, he studied in Germany — first, under Alois Riehl at the University of Berlin and then under Edmund Husserl at the University of Freiburg. At Freiburg, he befriended the young Martin Heidegger and Oskar Becker. One can recognise the influence of these philosophers in Tanabe.

In September 1923, soon after the Great Kantō Earthquake, the Home Ministry ordered his return, so Tanabe used the little time he had left — about a couple of months — to visit London and Paris, before boarding his return ship at Marseille. He arrived back in Japan in 1924.

In 1928, Tanabe translated Max Planck’s 1908 lecture, ‘Die Einheit des physikalischen Weltbildes’ for the Philosophical Essays translation series, which he co-edited, for his publisher Iwanami Shoten. The same series published translations of essays by Bruno Bauch, Adolf Reinach, Wilhelm Windelband, Siegfried Marck, Max Planck, Franz Brentano, Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Kazimierz Twardowski, Ernst Cassirer, Hermann Cohen, Emil Lask, Victor Brochard, Ernst Troeltsch, Theodor Lipps, Konrad Fiedler, Wincenty Lutosławski, Sergei Rubinstein, Hermann Bonitz, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Martin Grabmann, Heinrich Rickert, Alexius Meinong, Karl von Prantl and Wilhelm Dilthey (the series ended before the planned translations of Christoph von Sigwart, Carl Stumpf, Edmund Husserl, Clemens Baeumker, Josiah Royce and Hermann Ebbinghaus were published).

After Nishida's retirement from teaching in 1928, Tanabe succeeded him. Though they began as friends, and shared several philosophical concepts such as the absolute nothing , Tanabe became increasingly critical of Nishida's philosophy. Many of Tanabe's writings after Nishida left the university obliquely attacked the latter's philosophy.

In 1935, Tanabe published his essay ‘The Logic of Species and the World Schema’ wherein he formulated his own ‘logic of species’ for which he became known.

During the Japanese expansion and war effort, Tanabe worked with Nishida and others to maintain the right for free academic expression. Though he criticized the Nazi-inspired letter of Heidegger, Tanabe himself was caught up in the Japanese war effort, and his letters to students going off to war exhibit many of the same terms and ideology used by the reigning military powers. Even more damning are his essays written in defense of Japanese racial and state superiority, exploiting his theory of the Logic of Species to herald and abet the militaristic ideology. This proposed dialectic argued that every contradictory opposition is to be mediated by a third term in the same manner a species mediates a genus and an individual.

During the war years, however, Tanabe wrote and published little, perhaps reflecting the moral turmoil that he attests to in his monumental post-war work, Philosophy as Metanoetics. The work is framed as a confession of repentance (metanoia) for his support of the war effort. It purports to show a philosophical way to overcome philosophy itself, which suggests that traditional Western thought contained seeds of the ideological framework that led to World War II.

His activities, and the actions of Japan as a whole, haunted Tanabe for the rest of his life. In 1951, he writes:

But as the tensions of World War II grew ever more fierce and with it the regulation of thinking, weak-willed as I was, I found myself unable to resist and could not but yield to some degree to the prevalent mood, which is a shame deeper than I can bear. The already blind militarism had led so many of our graduates precipitously to the battlefields; among the fallen were more than ten from philosophy, for which I feel the height of responsibility and remorse. I can only lower my head and earnestly lament my sin.

He lived for another eleven years after writing these words, dying in 1962 in Kita-Karuizawa, Japan.

Thought

As James Heisig and others note, Tanabe and other members of the Kyoto School accepted the Western philosophical tradition stemming from the Greeks. This tradition attempts to explain the meaning of human experience in rational terms. This sets them apart from other Eastern writers who, though thinking about what life means and how best to live a good life, spoke in religious terms.

Although the Kyoto School used Western philosophical terminology and rational exploration, they made these items serve the purpose of presenting a unique vision of reality from within their cultural heritage. Specifically, they could enrich a discussion of the ultimate nature of reality using the experience and thought of various forms of Buddhism like Zen and Pure Land, but embedded in an analysis that calls upon conceptual tools forged and honed in western philosophy by thinkers ranging from Plato to Descartes to Heidegger.

Tanabe's own contribution to this dialog between Eastern and Western philosophy ultimately sets him apart from the other members of the Kyoto School. His radical critique of philosophical reason and method, while stemming from Immanuel Kant and Søren Kierkegaard, which emerges in his work Philosophy as Metanoetics, easily sets him as a major thinker with a unique position on perennial philosophical questions. Some commentators, for example, suggest that Tanabe's work in metanoetics is a forerunner of deconstruction.

Tanabe engaged with philosophers of Continental philosophy, especially Existentialism. His work is often a dialogue with philosophers like Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Because of his engaging these thinkers, especially the first two, Tanabe's thought has been characterized as Existentialist, though Makoto Ozaki writes that Tanabe preferred the terms "existentialist philosophy of history", "historical existentialism", or "existential metaphysics of history". In his masterpiece, Philosophy as Metanoetics, Tanabe characterized his work as "philosophy that is not a philosophy", foreshadowing various approaches to thinking by deconstructionists.

Like other Existentialists, Tanabe emphasizes the importance of philosophy as being meaning; that is, what humans think about and desire is finding a meaning to life and death. In company with the other members of the Kyoto School, Tanabe believed that the foremost problem facing humans in the modern world is the lack of meaning and its consequent Nihilism. Jean-Paul Sartre, following Kierkegaard in his Concept of Anxiety, was keen to characterize this as Nothingness. Heidegger, as well, appropriated the notion of Nothingness in his later writings.

The Kyoto School philosophers believed that their contribution to this discussion of Nihilism centered on the Buddhist-inspired concept of nothingness, aligned with its correlate Sunyata. Tanabe and Nishida attempted to distinguish their philosophical use of this concept, however, by calling it Absolute Nothingness. This term differentiates it from the Buddhist religious concept of nothingness, as well as underlines the historical aspects of human existence that they believed Buddhism does not capture.

Tanabe disagreed with Nishida and Nishitani on the meaning of Absolute Nothingness, emphasizing the practical, historical aspect over what he termed the latter's intuitionism. By this, Tanabe hoped to emphasize the working of Nothingness in time, as opposed to an eternal Now. He also wished to center the human experience in action rather than contemplation, since he thought that action embodies a concern for ethics whereas contemplation ultimately disregards this, resulting in a form of Monism, after the mold of Plotinus and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. That is, echoing Kierkegaard's undermining in Philosophical Fragments of systematic philosophy from Plato to Baruch Spinoza to Hegel, Tanabe questions whether there is an aboriginal condition of preexisting awareness that can or must be regained to attain enlightenment.

Tanabe's insistence on this point is not simply philosophical and instead points again to his insistence that the proper mode of human being is action, especially ethics. However, he is critical of the notion of a pre-existing condition of enlightenment because he accepts the Kantian notion of radical evil, wherein humans exhibit an ineluctable propensity to act against their own desires for the good and instead perpetrate evil.

Tanabe's "Demonstration of Christianity" presents religion as a cultural entity in tension with the existential meaning that religion plays in individual lives. Tanabe uses the terms genus to represent the universality of form that all entities strive for, contrasting them with the stable, though ossified form they can become as species as social systems.

Tanabe contraposes Christianity and Christ, represented here as the opposition between Paul and Jesus. Jesus, in Tanabe's terms, is a historical being who manifests the action of Absolute Nothingness, or God understood in non-theistic terms. God is beyond all conceptuality and human thinking, which can only occur in terms of self-identity, or Being. God becomes, as manifested in human actions, though God can never be reduced to being, or self-identity.

For Tanabe, humans have the potential to realize compassionate divinity, Nothingness, through continual death and resurrection, by way of seeing their nothingness. Tanabe believes that the Christian Incarnation narrative is important for explaining the nature of reality, since he believed Absolute Nothingness becoming human exemplifies the true nature of the divine, as well as exemplar to realization of human being in relationship to divinity. Jesus signifies this process in a most pure form, thereby setting an example for others to follow.

Ultimately, Tanabe chooses philosophy over religion, since the latter tends toward socialization and domestication of the original impulse of the religious action. Philosophy, understood as metanoetics, always remains open to questions and the possibility self-delusion in the form of radical evil. Therefore, Tanabe's statement is a philosophy of religion.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Collected Works , 15 vols. (Chikuma Shobō , 1963–64) .
  • Selected Philosophical Works , 4 vols. (Iwanami Bunko , 2010) .

Monographs

  • Modern Natural Science (Iwanami Shoten , November 1915), reprinted in CW2:1-153.
  • Philosophy of Science (Iwanami Shoten , September 1918), reprinted in CW2:155-360.
  • Kant’s Teleology (Iwanami Shoten , October 1924), reprinted in CW3:1-72.
  • Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics (Iwanami Shoten , May 1925), reprinted in CW2:361-661.
  • Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic (Iwanami Shoten , January 1932), reprinted in CW3:73-369.
  • General Philosophy (Iwanami Shoten , December 1933), reprinted in CW3:371-522.
  • The Two Sides to Natural Science Education (Monbushō , March 1937), reprinted in CW5:141-191.
  • The Meaning of Historical Study (Nippon Bunka Kyōkai Shuppanbu , August 1937), reprinted in CW8:33-91.
  • Science as Morality (Tokyo: Sūgakukyoku , August 1938), reprinted in CW5:329-83.
  • My View of the Philosophy of Shōbōgenzō (Iwanami Shoten , May 1939), reprinted in CW5:443-494.
  • Between Philosophy and Science (Iwanami Shoten , November 1939), reprinted in CW5:193-327.
  • Historical Reality (Iwanami Shoten , June 1940), reprinted in CW8:117-169.
  • The Direction of Philosophy (Meguro Shoten , April 1941), reprinted in CW8:171-199.
  • Philosophy as a Way to Repentance: Metanoetics (Iwanami Shoten , April 1946), reprinted in CW9:1-269 and SPW2:33-439.
  • Urgent Matters for Political Philosophy (Chikuma Shobō , June 1946), reprinted in CW8:323-395.
  • Dialectic of the Logic of Species (Akitaya , November 1947), reprinted in CW7:251-372.
  • Existence, Love and Practice (Chikuma Shobō , December 1947), reprinted in CW9:271-492.
  • Dialectic of Christianity (Chikuma Shobō , June 1948), reprinted in CW10:1-269.
  • Introduction to Philosophy: The Fundamental Problems of Philosophy (Chikuma Shobō , March 1949), reprinted in CW11:1-132 and SPW3:11-216.
  • The Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Appendix 1: Philosophy of History and Political Philosophy (Chikuma Shobō , September 1949), reprinted in CW11:133-282.
  • The Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Appendix 2: Philosophy of Science and Epistemology (Chikuma Shobō, April 1950), reprinted in CW11:283-425.
  • Valéry’s Aesthetics (Chikuma Shobō , March 1951), reprinted in CW13:1-162.
  • Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Appendix 3: Philosophy of Religion and Ethics (Chikuma Shobō , April 1952), reprinted in CW11:427-632.
  • Historicist Development of Mathematics: A Memorandum on the Foundations of Mathematics (Chikuma Shobō , November 1954), reprinted in CW12:209-334 and SPW3:217-399.
Tanabe’s magnum opus, in his own words the “final accounting” of his philosophy.
  • Proposition of a New Methodology for Theoretical Physics: The Necessity of Theory of Functions of Complex Variables qua Method of Theoretical Physics and Its Topological Character (Chikuma Shobō , May 1955), reprinted in CW12:335-368.
  • Dialectic of the Theory of Relativity (Chikuma Shobō , October 1955), reprinted in CW12:369-402.
  • A Memorandum on Mallarmé (Chikuma Shobō , August 1961), reprinted in CW13:199-304 and SPW4:63-218.

Chronological list of works

1910

  • ‘On Thetic Judgement’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 283, September 1910), reprinted in CW1:1-10.
Tanabe develops Alois Riehl’s idea of »setzendes (thetisches) Urteil« from the latter’s Der philosophische Kriticismus und seine Bedeutung.

1911

1912

  • ‘The Problem of Relativity’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 302, April 1912), reprinted in CW14:33-48.
  • ‘Kant and Natural Science’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 306, August 1912), reprinted in CW14:49-60.
  • ‘Critical Notice of Émile Boutroux’s De l’idée de loi naturelle dans la science et la philosophie contemporaines’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 307, No. 308 and No. 309, September–November 1912), reprinted in CW14:61-104.
  • ‘Critical Notice of Kuwaki Ayao’s ‘The Problem of Knowledge in Physics’’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 310, December 1912), reprinted in CW14:105-113.

1913

On the descriptivism of Kirchhoff and Mach.

1914

  • ‘The Limits of Logicism in Epistemology: A Critique of the Marburg and Freiburg Schools’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 324 and No. 325, February-March 1914), reprinted in CW1:27-61.
  • ‘On Kuwaki’s Essay on the Method of Physics’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 325, March 1914), reprinted in CW14:165-168.
  • ‘On the Existence of Mathematical Objects: Reading Medicus’ Essay’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 331, September 1914), reprinted in CW14:169-192.
The essay in question is Fritz Medicus, ‘Bemerkungen zum Problem der Existenz mathematischer Gegenstände’, Kant-Studien, 19:1-19.

1915

  • ‘The Natural Sciences versus the Social and Cultural Sciences’ (Shinri Kenkyū , No. 38, No. 39 and No. 40, February–April 1915), reprinted in CW1:63-93.
  • ‘A Theory of Natural Numbers’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 337 and No. 338, March-April 1915), revised and reprinted in Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics.
  • Modern Natural Science (Iwanami Shoten , November 1915), reprinted in CW2:1-153.
  • ‘Preface to the Third Printing of Modern Natural Science’ (Iwanami Shoten , December 1915), reprinted in CW14:193.

1916

  • ‘Continuity, Derivative, Infinity’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 348, No. 349 and No. 351, February-May 1916), revised and reprinted in Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics.
  • ‘On Universals’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 5, May 1916), reprinted in CW1:95-117.
  • ‘Translator’s Preface to Poincaré, La valeur de la science’ (Iwanami Shoten , May 1916), reprinted in CW14:194-195.
  • ‘Negative Numbers and Imaginary Numbers’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 358 and No. 359, December 1916-January 1917), revised and reprinted in Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics.

1917

  • ‘The Epistemology of Mathematics’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 13, April 1917), revised and reprinted in Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics.
  • ‘Variables and Functions’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 363 and No. 364, May-June 1917), revised and reprinted in Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics.
  • ‘Moral Freedom’ (Shichō , Vol. 1, No. 3 and No. 4, July–August 1917), reprinted in CW1:119-139.
  • ‘The Theory of Time’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 17, August 1917), reprinted in CW1:141-171.

1918

  • ‘The Logical Foundations of Geometry’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 371, No. 372 and No. 373, January-March 1918), revised and reprinted in Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics.
  • ‘The Problem of Philosophical Knowledge in German Idealism’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 23 and No. 24, February–March 1918), reprinted in CW1:173-226.
  • ‘Reading Dr. Sōda’s Problems in the Philosophy of Economics’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 26, May 1918), reprinted in CW14:196-202.
  • ‘The World of Infinity’ (Shichō , Vol. 2, No. 5, August 1918), reprinted in CW1:227-234.
  • ‘A Request to Dr. Sōda’s for Clarification regarding the Logic of Individual Causality’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 30, September 1918), reprinted in CW1:235-244.
Sōda replied with his ‘Awaiting Further Clarification from Dr. Tanabe regarding the Logic of Individual Causality’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 32, November 1918).
  • Philosophy of Science (Iwanami Shoten , September 1918), reprinted in CW2:155-360.
  • ‘On Kant’s Theory of Freedom’ (Shichō , Vol. 2, No. 9, October 1918), reprinted in CW1:245-253.
  • ‘The Significance of Leibniz’s Philosophy (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 32, November 1918), reprinted in CW1:255-284.
  • ‘Lecture on Idealism’ (1918), reprinted in CW15:3-34.

1919

  • ‘The Meaning of the Word ‘Truth’’ (Shichō , Vol. 3, January 1919), reprinted in CW1:285-295.
  • ‘Araragi's Tradition’ (Araragi , January 1919), reprinted in CW14:317-320.
  • ‘On Consciousness as Such’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 387, May 1919), reprinted in CW1:297-323.
On Kant’s notion of »Bewußtsein überhaupt«.

1920

  • ‘The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences’ (Shinano Kyōiku , February-March 1920), reprinted in CW14:253-83.
  • ‘An Amateur's Opinion’ (Araragi , May 1920), reprinted in CW14:321-325.

1921

  • ‘Tanka’ (Araragi , January-March, June-July, September 1921), reprinted in CW14:326-332.
  • ‘Reading Shimaki Akahiko’s Hio’ (Araragi , March 1921), reprinted in CW14:333-342.

1922

  • ‘On Historical Knowledge’ (Shirin , Vol. 7, No. 1, January 1922), reprinted in CW1:413-422.
  • ‘The Concept of Culture’ (Kaizō , March 1922), reprinted in CW1:423-447.
  • ‘The Infinite Continuity of Existence’ (Shisō , No. 6, March 1922), reprinted in CW1:449-472.
  • Entries in The Iwanami Dictionary of Philosophy (Iwanami Shoten , October 1922), reprinted in CW15:419-67.
Archimedes’ axiom ; Körper α ; Analysis situs ; Ether ; Energetic view of nature ; Principle of conservation of energy ; Action at a distance ; Entropy ; Extensive quality ; Analysis ; Analytical geometry ; Critique of science ; Reversible phenomenon ; Function ; Mechanical view of nature ; Geometry ; Pseudo-spherical space ; Description ; Descriptive school ; Cardinal number ; Series ; Spherical space ; Limit ; Grenzpunkt ; Method of limit ; Grenzelement ; Ortzeit ; Imaginary number ; Modern geometry ; Space curvature ; Contingency ; Group ; Principle of permanence of formal laws ; Metrical geometry ; Atomic theory ; Ausdehnungslehre ; Theory of probability ; Postulate ; Axiom ; Axiomatic ; Coordinates ; Theory of economy of thought ; Dimension ; Quaternions ; Self-representation system ; Natural science ; Naturwissenschaftlich ; Natural number ; Gedankenexperiment ; Real number ; Mass ; Projection ; Projective geometry ; Ordinal number ; Number ; Mathematics ; Mathematical ; Mathematical induction ; Mathematical formalism ; Mathematical realism ; Mathematical nominalism ; Realm/Corpus of numbers ; Number continuum ; Arithmetisation ; Welt ; Integral ; Integer ; Absolute space ; Absolute time ; Schnitt ; Explanation ; Exact sciences ; Prime number ; Theory of quanta ; Algebraic number ; Field of force ; Transcendental number ; Transfinite aggregate ; Transfinite number ; Electromagnetic view of nature ; Set of points ; Electron theory ; Punktmannigfaltigkeit ; Point transformation ; Statistical mechanics ; Homogeneity ; Isotropy ; Intensive quantity ; First law of thermodynamics ; Second law of thermodynamics ; Physical theory of light ; Differential ; Differential coefficient ; Infinitesimal method ; Differential equation ; Non-Euclidean geometry ; To represent ; Irreversible phenomenon ; Complex number ; Negative number ; Principle of conservation of matter ; Fourth state of matter ; Disintegration of matter ; Physics ; Physical ; Invariant ; Mathesis universalis ; Fraction ; Transformation ; Variable ; Parabolic space ; Elements at infinity ; Infinity ; Irrational number ; Euclidean geometry ; Rational number ; Dynamics/Mechanics ; Riemann-Helmholtz geometry ; Fluxion ; Quantity ; Continuity ; Lobachevsky-Bolyai geometry ; Logistic/Algebra of logic ; Vector analysis

1924

  • ‘Letter from Paris’ (Araragi , January 1924), reprinted in CW14:343.
  • ‘The Relationship Between Intuition and Thought in the Transcendental Deduction’ (Shisō , No. 30, April 1924), reprinted in CW4:1-16.
  • ‘Kant’s Teleology’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 99, No. 100 and No. 101, June-August 1924), revised and reprinted in Kant’s Teleology, CW3:1-72.
  • ‘A New Turn in Phenomenology: Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Life’ (Shisō , No. 36, October 1924), reprinted in CW4:17-34.
  • Kant’s Teleology (Iwanami Shoten , October 1924), reprinted in CW3:1-72.
  • ‘Reading Shimaki Akahiko’s Kadō Shōken’ (Araragi , October 1924), reprinted in CW14:344-350.
  • ‘Lecture on the Development of Phenomenology’ (1924-25), reprinted in CW15:35-153.

1925

Intuitive knowledge as in Spinoza’s scientia intuitiva.
  • Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics (Iwanami Shoten , May 1925), reprinted in CW2:361-661.
  • ‘On Shimaki Akahiko’s Taikyoshū’ (Araragi , August 1925), reprinted in CW14:351-353.
  • Lask’s Logic’ (Shisō , No. 48, October 1925), reprinted in CW4:141-160.

1926

  • ‘Reminiscences of Shimaki Akahiko’ ((Araragi , October 1926), reprinted in CW14:354-356.

1927

  • ‘On Circular Reasoning in the Critical Method’ (Shisō , No. 64, February 1927), reprinted in CW4:207-229.
  • ‘The Logic of the Dialectic’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 132, No. 134, No. 136, No. 146, No. 152 and No. 162, March 1927-September 1929), revised and reprinted in Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic, CW3:234-369.
  • ‘Reflection’ (in Festschrift for Tokunō Bun , Iwanami Shoten , April 1927), reprinted in CW4:161-205.
  • ‘On the Concept of Sensation’ (Shinrigaku Kenkyū , Vol. 2, No. 3, June 1927) reprinted in CW4:231-239.
  • ‘Translator’s Preface to Planck, ‘Die Einheit des physkalischen Weltbildes’’ (Iwanami Shoten , July 1927), reprinted in CW14:205-206.
  • ‘Blurb for Tsuchida Kyōson’s Studies on Contemporary Japanese and Chinese Thought’ (in Studies on Contemporary Japanese and Chinese Thought , revised edition, Dai Ichi Shobō , October 1927), reprinted in CW14:357-358.
  • ‘Reminiscences of Sōda Ki’ichirō’ (Shisō , October 1927), reprinted in CW14:359-374.

1928

  • ‘Knowledge of the Past in the Study of History’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 142, January 1928), reprinted in CW4:241-256.
  • ‘The Role of Concepts in the Historical Knowledge’ (Shirin , Vol. 13, No. 2, April 1928), reprinted in CW4:257-269.
  • ‘The Location of Evidence’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 500, October 1928), reprinted in CW4:271-286.
  • ‘On Confucian Ontology’ (in Festschrift for Takase Takejirō , Iwanami Shoten , December 1928), reprinted in CW4:287-301.

1929

  • ‘Action and History and Their Relation to the Dialectic’ (Shisō , No. 89, October 1929), revised and reprinted in Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic, CW3:211-233.
  • ‘On Shimaki Akahiko’s Art’ (in a catalogue for The Collected Works of Shimaki Akahiko , Iwanami Shoten, 1929), reprinted in CW14:375.

1930

  • ‘On the So-Called Class Aspect of Science’ (Kaizō , Vol. 12, No. 1, January 1930), reprinted in CW14:207-221.
  • ‘A Request to Professor Nishida for Clarification’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 170, May 1930), reprinted in CW4:303-328.
Tanabe’s famous critique of Nishida’s philosophy.
  • ‘The Subject of Morality and Dialectical Freedom’ (Shisō , No. 100, September 1930), revised and reprinted in Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic, CW3:195-210.
  • ‘The Significance of the New Physics’ World Picture’ (Iwanami Kōza: Butsurigaku Oyobi Kagaku , October 1930), reprinted in CW14:222-238.

1931

  • ‘The Identity of the Rational and the Real in Hegel’ in Hegel and Hegelianism , Iwanami Shoten , February 1931, revised and reprinted in Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic, CW3:173-194.
  • ‘Synthesis and Transcendence’ (in Festschrift for Tomonaga Sanjūrō , Iwanami Shoten , April 1931), reprinted in CW4:329-353.
  • ‘The Standpoint of Anthropology’ (Risō , No. 27, October 1931), reprinted in CW4:355-382.
  • ‘Hegel’s Philosophy and the Absolute Dialectic’ (Shisō , No. 113, November 1931), revised and reprinted in Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic, CW3:152-172.
  • ‘Hegel’s Absolute Idealism’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 189, December 1931), revised and reprinted in Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic, CW3:85-135.
  • ‘Understanding Hegel’s Theory of Judgement’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 538, December 1931), revised and reprinted in Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic, CW3:136-151.

1932

  • Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic (Iwanami Shoten , January 1932), reprinted in CW3:73-369.
  • ‘Dialectic of Individual Essence’ (in Spinoza and Hegel , Iwanami Shoten , July 1932), reprinted in CW4:383-415.
  • ‘From the Time Schema to the World Schema’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 200, November 1932), reprinted in CW6:1-49.
  • ‘Lecture on the Meaning of Dialectic’ (1932-7), reprinted in CW15:155-234.

1933

  • ‘The Way to Philosophy’ (Shisō , No. 133, June 1933), reprinted in CW5:1-19.
  • ‘Philosophy of Crisis or Crisis of Philosophy?’ (September 1933, unpublished), reprinted in CW8:1-9.
  • General Philosophy (Iwanami Shoten , December 1933), reprinted in CW3:371-522.

1934

  • ‘The Relationship Between Mathematics and Philosophy’ (Iwanami Kōza: Sūgaku , May 1934), reprinted in CW5:21-57.
  • ‘Re-Examining the Foundations of Mathematics: On Konno’s Essay’ (Kagaku , Vol. 4, No. 8, August 1934), reprinted in CW14:239-245.
  • ‘The Relationship Between Religion and Culture: On the Debate Between Barth and Brunner’ (Shisō , No. 149 October 1934), reprinted in CW5:59-80.
  • ‘On Intellectual Thought Today’ (Kyōdai Shimbun , November 1934), reprinted in CW14:376-379.
  • ‘Remembering Nakamura Kenkichi’ (Araragi , November 1934), reprinted in CW14:380-382.
  • ‘The Logic of Social Existence’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 224, No. 225 and No. 226, November 1934-January 1935), reprinted in CW6:51-167 and SPW1:9-186.

1935

  • ‘Quo Vadis’ (Bungei Shunjū , April 1935), reprinted in CW14:383-385.
  • ‘Letter to Saitō Mokichi’ (in an essay collection on Saitō’s Kakinomoto no Hitomaro ), Iwanami Shoten, May 1935), reprinted in CW14:386-387.
  • ‘The Uniqueness of Iwanami Shoten’s Kokugo’ (Kokugo Tokuhō 2 , October 1935), reprinted in CW14:388-390.
  • ‘The Logic of Species and the World Schema’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 235, No. 236 and No. 237, October-December 1935), reprinted in CW6:169-264 and SPW1:187-333.
  • ‘The Third Stage of Ontology’ (Risō , No. 76, November 1935), reprinted in CW6:265-298.

1936

  • Entries in the Dictionary of Pedagogy (Iwanami Shoten , May 1936), reprinted in CW15:468-473.
Philosophy of mathematics ; Methodology
  • ‘Answer to the Questionnaire ‘What Do You Want the University’s Students to Read?’’ (Kyōdai Shimbun , 20th September 1936), reprinted in CW14:391.
  • ‘On Humanism’ (Shisō , No. 173, October 1936), reprinted in CW5:81-92.
  • ‘The Social Ontological Structure of Logic’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 247, No. 248 and No. 249, October-December 1936), reprinted in CW6:299-396.
  • ‘The Development of Mathematics in the History of Thought’ (in Mathematics as General Education , Iwanami Shoten , November 1936), reprinted in CW5:93-140.

1937

  • The Two Sides to Natural Science Education (Monbushō , March 1937), reprinted in CW5:141-191.
  • ‘Response to Minoda’s and Matsuda’s Criticisms’ (Genri Nippon , May 1937), reprinted in CW8:11-31.
  • The Meaning of Historical Study (Nippon Bunka Kyōkai Shuppanbu , August 1937), reprinted in CW8:33-91.
  • ‘Response to Criticisms of the Logic of Species’ (Shisō , No. 185, October 1937), reprinted in CW6:397-445.
  • ‘Clarification of the Meaning of the Logic of Species’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 259, No. 260 and No. 261, October-December 1937), reprinted in CW6:447-521 and SPW1:335-448.

1938

  • Science as Morality (Tokyo: Sūgakukyoku , August 1938), reprinted in CW5:329-83.
  • ‘Logic from Kant to Hegel’ (in Festschrift for Hatano Sei’ichi , Iwanami Shoten , September 1938), reprinted in CW5:385-404.
  • ‘The Expansion of Scientism’ (September 1938, unpublished), reprinted in CW8:93-103.
  • ‘The Limits of Existentialist Philosophy’ (Tetsugaku Zasshi , No. 620, October 1938), reprinted in CW7:1-24.
  • ‘My View on the Principle Underlying the Direction of Japan’s Cultural Policy Towards China’ (November-December 1938, unpublished), reprinted in CW8:105-116.

1939

  • ‘On Scientific Thinking’ (in Keisatsu Kanbu Yokuonkan Kōwaroku , May 1939), reprinted in CW14:284-314.
  • My View of the Philosophy of Shōbōgenzō (Iwanami Shoten , May 1939), reprinted in CW5:443-494.
  • ‘Physics and Philosophy’ (Iwanami Kōza: Butsurigaku , October 1939), reprinted in CW5:405-441.
  • ‘The Logic of National Existence’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 283, No. 284 and No. 285, October-December 1939), reprinted in CW7:25-99.
  • Between Philosophy and Science (Iwanami Shoten , November 1939), reprinted in CW5:193-327.

1940

1941

  • The Direction of Philosophy (Meguro Shoten , April 1941), reprinted in CW8:171-199.
  • ‘The Morality of the State’ (Chūō Kōron , October 1941), reprinted in CW8:201-219.
  • ‘The Way of Patriotic Thinking’ (Kaizō , October 1941), reprinted in CW8:221-241.
  • ‘The Development of the Concept of Existence’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 307 and No. 309, October and December 1941), reprinted in CW7:211-251.
  • Dialectic of the Logic of Species (Akitaya , November 1947), reprinted in CW7:251-372.

1942

1943

  • ‘Life and Death’ (May 1943, speech), reprinted in CW8:243-262.

1944

  • ‘The Limits of Culture’ (February 1944, speech), reprinted in CW8:263-305.
  • ‘A Way to Repentance: Metanoetics’ (October 1944, first published in Kyūshin , No. 15, 2008) and SPW2:11-31.

1945

  • ‘Inayaga Shōkichi, The Foundational Concepts of Modern Mathematics, Vol. 1’ (Kagaku , Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1945), reprinted in CW14:246-249

1946

  • ‘The Establishment of Democracy in Japan’ (Chōryū , January 1946), reprinted in CW8:307-322.
  • Philosophy as a Way to Repentance: Metanoetics (Iwanami Shoten , April 1946), reprinted in CW9:1-269 and SPW2:33-439.
  • Urgent Matters for Political Philosophy (Chikuma Shobō , June 1946), reprinted in CW8:323-395.
  • ‘The Standpoint of the Absolute Nothing and the Materialist Dialectic’ (Shinzenbi , August 1946), reprinted in CW8:397-409.
  • ‘Lecture on Philosophical Thinking’ (1946), reprinted in CW15:249-286.

1947

  • ‘The Present Task of the Intellectual Classes’ (Chōryū , January 1947), reprinted in CW8:411-441.
  • ‘Christianity, Marxism and Japanese Buddhism: Predictions for the Second Reformation’ (Tenbō , No. 21, September 1947), reprinted in CW10:271-324.
  • Dialectic of the Logic of Species (Akitaya , November 1947), reprinted in CW7:251-372.
  • Existence, Love and Practice (Chikuma Shobō , December 1947), reprinted in CW9:271-492.

1948

  • ‘A Theoretical Solution to Class Warfare’ (March 1948, unpublished), reprinted in CW8:443-462.
  • Dialectic of Christianity (Chikuma Shobō , June 1948), reprinted in CW10:1-269.
  • ‘Localised and Microscopic: Characteristics of Contemporary Thought’ (Tenbō , No. 35, November 1948), reprinted in CW12:3-58.

1949

  • Introduction to Philosophy: The Fundamental Problems of Philosophy (Chikuma Shobō , March 1949), reprinted in CW11:1-132 and SPW3:11-216.
  • ‘Dialectic of Classical Mechanics’ (Kiso Kagaku , No. 2, April 1949), reprinted in CW12:59-131
  • The Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Appendix 1: Philosophy of History and Political Philosophy (Chikuma Shobō , September 1949), reprinted in CW11:133-282.

1950

  • ‘Science, Philosophy and Religion’ (Chikuma Shobō Tetsugaku Kōza , Vol. 4, March 1950), reprinted in CW12:132-207.
  • The Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Appendix 2: Philosophy of Science and Epistemology (Chikuma Shobō, April 1950), reprinted in CW11:283-425.

1951

1952

  • Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Appendix 3: Philosophy of Religion and Ethics (Chikuma Shobō , April 1952), reprinted in CW11:427-632.

1953

  • ‘Special Lecture at Kita-Karuizawa (May 1-3 and October 1-3, 1953), reprinted in CW15:287-417.
  • ‘Philosophy, Poetry and Religion: Heidegger, Rilke, Hölderlin’ (begun in 1953, unfinished), reprinted in CW13:305-524.

1954

  • A Historicist Further Development of Mathematics: A Memorandum on the Foundations of Mathematics (Chikuma Shobō , November 1954), reprinted in CW12:209-334.

1955

  • Oskar Becker, Die Grundlagen der Mathematik in geschichtlicher Entwicklung’ (Kagaku Kisoron Kenkyū , Vol. 1, No. 3, March 1955), reprinted in CW14:250-252.
  • Proposition of a New Methodology for Theoretical Physics: The Necessity of Theory of Functions of Complex Variables qua Method of Theoretical Physics and Its Topological Character (Chikuma Shobō , May 1955), reprinted in CW12:335-368.
  • Dialectic of the Theory of Relativity (Chikuma Shobō , October 1955), reprinted in CW12:369-402.

1958

  • ‘Memento Mori’ (Shinano Kyōiku , No. 858, May 1958), reprinted in CW13:163-175 and SPW4:11-29.

1960

1961

1962

  • ‘Ontology of Life or Dialectic of Death?’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū , No. 483, November 1962), reprinted in CW13:525-576 and SPW4:219-295.

English translations

Early Works (1910–1919)

  • "The Logic of the Species as Dialectics," trans. David Dilworth and Taira Sato, in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 24, No. 3 (1969): 273–88.
  • "Kant's Theory of Freedom," trans. Takeshi Morisato with Cody Staton in "An Essay on Kant’s Theory of Freedom from the Early Works of Tanabe Hajime" in Comparative and Continental Philosophy, vol. 5 (2013): 150–156.
  • "On the Universal," trans. Takeshi Morisato with Timothy Burns, in "Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Deductive Reasoning: The Relation of the Universal and the Particular in Early Works of Tanabe Hajime" in Comparative and Continental Philosophy, vol. 5 (2013): 124–149.

Middle Work (1920–1930)

  • "Requesting the Guidance of Professor Nishida," trans., Richard Stone and Takeshi Morisato, Asian philosophical Texts: Exploring Hidden Sources, eds., Roman Pasca and Takeshi Morisato, 281–308. Milan: Mimesis, 2020.

Logic of Species (1931–1945)

  • (Forthcoming) "The Social Ontological Structure of the Logic," Tanabe Hajime and the Kyoto School: Self, World, and Knowledge. London: Bloomsbury, 2021.

Later Works (1946–1962)

  • Philosophy as Metanoetics, trans. Takeuchi Yoshinori, Valdo Viglielmo, and James W. Heisig, University of California Press, 1987.
  • "Demonstration of Christianity", in Introduction to the philosophy of Tanabe: According to the English translation of the seventh chapter of the demonstratio of Christianity, trans. Makoto Ozaki, Rodopi Bv Editions, 1990.

Secondary sources

Books and theses

  • Adams, Robert William, "The feasibility of the philosophical in early Taishô Japan: Nishida Kitarô and Tanabe Hajime." PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1991.
  • Dilworth, David A. and Valdo H. Viglielmo (translators and editors); with Agustin Jacinto Zavala, Sourcebook for modern Japanese philosophy : selected documents, Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1998.
  • Fredericks, James L., "Alterity in the thought of Tanabe Hajime and Karl Rahner." PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1988.
  • Heisig, James W., Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School, Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture, University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
  • Morisato, Takeshi, Faith and Reason in Continental and Japanese Philosophy: Reading Tanabe Hajime and William Desmond, London: Bloomsbury, 2019.
  • Ozaki, Makoto, Individuum, Society, Humankind: The Triadic Logic of Species According to Hajime Tanabe (Brill's Japanese Studies Library), Brill Academic Publishers (April 2001), ISBN 90-04-12118-8, ISBN 978-90-04-12118-8.
  • Pattison, George, Agnosis: Theology in the Void, Palgrave Macmillan (February 1997), ISBN 0-312-16206-5. ISBN 978-0-312-16206-1.
  • Unno, Taitetsu, and James W. Heisig (Editor), The Religious Philosophy of Tanabe Hajime: The Metanoetic Imperative (Nanzan Studies in Religion and Culture), Asian Humanities Press (June 1990), ISBN 0-89581-872-8, ISBN 978-0-89581-872-0 .

Articles

  • Cestari, Matteo, "Between Emptiness and Absolute Nothingness: Reflections on Negation in Nishida and Buddhism."
  • Ruiz, F. Perez, "Philosophy in Present-day Japan," in Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 24, No. 1/2 (1969), pp. 137–168.
  • Heisig, James W., "Tanabe's Logic of the Specific and the Critique of the Global Village," Archived 2021-07-28 at the Wayback Machine in Eastern Buddhist, Autumn95, Vol. 28 Issue 2, p198.
  • Sakai, Naoki, "SUBJECT AND SUBSTRATUM : ON JAPANESE IMPERIAL NATIONALISM," in Cultural Studies; Jul2000, Vol. 14 Issue 3/4, p462-530 (AN 4052788)
  • Viglielmo, V. H., "An Introduction to Tanabe Hajime's Existence, Love, and Praxis" in Wandel zwischen den Welten: Festschrift für Johannes Laube, (Peter Lang, 2003) pp. 781–797.
  • Waldenfels, Hans, "Absolute Nothingness. Preliminary Considerations on a Central Notion in the Philosophy of Nishida Kitaro and the Kyoto School," in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 21, No. 3/4 (1966), 354–391.
  • Williams, David, "In defence of the Kyoto School: reflections on philosophy, the Pacific War and the making of a post-White world," in Japan Forum, Sep2000, Vol. 12 Issue 2, 143–156.

Online links

References

  1. ^ The Editors. "Tanabe Hajime, Japanese philosopher". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 3 July 2023. {{cite web}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  2. Shaw, Kendrick. "Zen Buddhism: The Kyoto School". University at Buffalo. Retrieved June 25, 2010.
  3. Davis, Bret W. (2019), "The Kyoto School", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2020-06-24
  4. Flanagan, Damian (2019-02-09). "'Philosophers of Nothingness': Philosophy built on quietly gripping human dramas". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  5. Ozaki, Makoto. Introduction to the Philosophy of Tanabe. p. 1.
  6. Ozaki, Makoto (2001). Individuum, Society, Humankind: The Triadic Logic of Species According to Hajime Tanabe. Leiden: BRILL. p. 2. ISBN 978-90-04-12118-8.
  7. Yusa, Michiko (2002). Zen and Philosophy: An Intellectual Biography of Nishida Kitarô. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-8248-2459-4.
  8. "科学の価値 - 国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション".
  9. 田辺元記念哲学会求真会 田辺元紹介
  10. 田辺元記念哲学会求真会 田辺元紹介
  11. "哲学論叢. 6 - 国立国会図書館デジタルコレクション".
  12. Cf. Hubbard, Jamie, 'Tanabe's Metanoetics: The Failure of Absolutism,' in Unno and Heisig, p. 362.
  13. Embree, Lester (2013). Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. Dordrecht: Springer Science & Business Media. p. 368. ISBN 9789048144297.
  14. Quoted in Heisig, James, 'The Self That Is Not a self,' in Unno and Heisig, p. 284.
  15. Cestari, Matteo, "Between Emptiness and Absolute Nothingness: Reflections on Negation in Nishida and Buddhism," p. 323.
  16. John C. Maraldo, 'Metanoetics and the Crisis of Reason: Tanabe, Nishida, and Contemporary Philosophy,' in Unno, pp. 235-255
  17. Ozaki. p. 193. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) By these terms, Ozaki paraphrases Tanabe as meaning "a synthesis of relativistic historicism and individualistic existentialism".
  18. Fredericks, James, 'Philosophy as Metanoetics', in Unno and Heisig, pp. 59-60.
  19. Tanabe's stance on system-building in philosophy is an open question. Heisig, for example, notes the systematic approach that Tanabe takes to philosophy. Tanabe's writings in the philosophy of science often give the appearance of identifying basic metaphysical principles which, combined with Absolute Nothingness, reveal something akin to Aristotle's axioms, the guiding archetypes for matter and thought.
  20. Fredericks, pp. 65-66.
  21. Laube, Johannes, "The Way of Metanoia and the Way of the Bodhisattva," in Unno and Heisig, pp. 318 and 321.
  22. For critique, see Hubbard, Jamie, "Tanabe's Metanoetics: The Failure of Absolutism," in Unno and Heisig, p. 368 and pp. 374-376.
  23. 「是より余が説かんとする所の科学概論といふはPhilosophy of science, Philosophie der Wissenschaftの訳語である」(CW2:159).
  24. 「是より余が説かんとする所の科学概論といふはPhilosophy of science, Philosophie der Wissenschaftの訳語である」(CW2:159).
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