著者

長谷 正當

出版者

宗教哲学会

雑誌

宗教哲学研究 (ISSN:02897105)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.21, pp.1-22, 2004 (Released:2019-03-21)

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When it comes to pinpointing the key concept that guides Takeuchi Yoshinori’s thought and gives it its direction, we can say, I think, that it is the idea of trans- descendence. Takeuchi’s research covers Shinran’s Kyogyōshinshō, Early Buddhism, Philosophy of Religion, Phenomenology of Religion, etc., and the idea of trans-descendence resonates, while changing its form, in all these fields, as it were, as the carrying bass note. Takeuchi himself, however, stops at suggesting this concept, without formally discussing it. Therefore it gives the impression of floating in Takeuchi’s thought world, a bit like an iceberg the bulk of which is hidden under the water surface. I would like, therefore, to examine how it appears in each of the above mentioned fields and, by joining these forms together, to bring out the main motives of Takeuchi’s thought. The concept of Trans-descendence was first used by Jean Wahl. Takeuchi borrowed the term from him, but gave it a different meaning. In Jean Wahl the term denotes a descent into a level of deep experience that opens up reality, as seen in artists; Takeuchi uses it to signify a deepening of the awareness of the human finitude. He attempts, namely, with the help of this concept, to clarify the nature of the transcendence, which opens up through the self-awareness of finitude. Ordinarily, the attention to human finitude is thought to lead away from transcendence or even to negate it. There is, however, a transcendence that stands by being negated. Such a transcendence is what Takeuchi calls “trans-descendence (inverted transcendence).” This transcendence does not obtain by going beyond the finite; it opens up in the midst of the self-awareness of finitude. In order to show the special nature of this transcendence, Takeuchi often contrasts it with the “transcendental” standpoint. If the transcendental standpoint consists in having a foothold in the topical opening that reveals itself at the bottom of the existence of the self, according to Takeuchi, the particularity of the transcendence that is trans-descendence is to be found in grasping the existence of the self in the encounter with a “Thou,” that breaks through that topical expansion and comes from the other side of it. Takeuchi attempts to show this transcendence, which opens up in the self-awareness of finitude, in the fields of the Philosophy of Religion, Early Buddhism, Shinran’s thought, and so on. How would it be grasped in each of these fields?

著者

長谷 正當

出版者

西田哲学会

雑誌

西田哲学会年報 (ISSN:21881995)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.4, pp.1-21, 2007 (Released:2020-03-24)

著者

長谷 正當

出版者

宗教哲学会

雑誌

宗教哲学研究 (ISSN:02897105)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.16, pp.1-22, 1999 (Released:2019-03-20)

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From the time of “Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness,” Nishida’s thinking gained in depth by pondering the problem of self-awareness. In his later years, however, the viewpoint from which he grasped self-awareness was not the same anymore as before. Self-awareness, earlier defined as “the self seeing the self within the self,” came to be rethought as “the self seeing the absolute other in the bottom of self, and seeing the absolute other as the self”. Now, knowing the other in the self is the reality of self-awareness. Nishida, then, clarified this “structure of the self-awareness” by the concept of “representation (expression).” Nishida borrowed the meaning of the concept “expression (representation)” from Leibniz and understood it as “the one reflecting the other, when a durable relationship between the one and the other originates.” From there, Nishida spoke of the self seeing the absolute other in the bottom of the self as the absolute other reflecting itself in the bottom of the self, and thus interpreted the other that is reflected in the bottom of the self as the representation (expression) of the absolute other. In the same line, he then came to understand the self as “a point of self expression of the world,” which reflects the world within itself ; in other words, as an individual self. This kind of self-grasp is what Nishida now understand by “self-awareness” The relationship involved in the structure of self-awareness manifests the relationship in religion between immanence and transcendence, this shore and the other shore, I and Thou. The characteristic of this relationship is that there does not exist an outside (or third party) to grasp both from the outside ; in other words, that the relationship can only be grasped from the inside. Here lies the reason why the religious relationship are “irrational” imprevious to reason, and inseparably linked to scandal (stumbling block for reason) and faith. In other words, self-awareness contains the problems of irrationality, scandal, and faith within itself. In the attempt at clarifying the relationship proper to the notion of representation (expression), as involved in self-awareness, I first wanted to look for the clues of understanding outside Nishida, before engaging Nishida’s own texts. I refer to the later Nishitani’s “image-ination of emptiness” and “diaphanation of being,” Descartes’ “idea of God”, Heidegger’s “Herstellung,” Soga Ryojin’s “Primal Vow as watershed,” and Levinas’ “dire”. In their reflections on these themes, these different thinkers all pursue the structure of self-awareness, each from a different perspective. In the present essay, I have tried to shed some light on the matter which Nishida endeavored to grasp through the concept “representation”, by way of an investigation of the above-mentioned strains of thought. This “matter” is the idea that the self is itself by reflecting in itself that which transcends the self.