Aristotle and Keiji Nishitani

Ono Makoto

doi:10.14989/jps_581_70

This paper tries to clarify the development of Nishitani's thought and to reveal the significance of Aristotle on Nishitani's thought. Almost all of the great philosophers find clues for solving their own problem in Aristotle. Aristotle not only represents a philosophical tradition to study and to overcome, but is also a creative source for great philosophers. One such Eastern philosopher who dealt with Aristotle was Keiji Nishitani. He took up Aristotle once in his youth and published his interpretation in "Essays on Aristotle" (1948). These essays have not attracted much attention among scholars of Nishitani's thought since the major topics he deals with, such as the standpoint of sūnyāta or Zen Buddhism, seems to have little relation with Aristotle. But the fruits of "Essays" underlies all of Nishitani's thought and appear as two chief motifs late in his life. One is the analyses of "sensus communis" and "imagination" as the chief function of "sensus communis". They provide the chief theoretical basis of his analysis in his article "sūnyāta and Identity" (Kū to soku, 1982). This article tries to show how sūnyāta or the authentic religious world projects itself on "images" based on the sensus communis mediating the reason and the sensibility. The other motif is the insight that the essential idea of the western philosophy from Aristotle to Hegel is "noēsis noēseōs" from "Metaphysica" at the last part of "Enzyklopädie". Nishitani has already made this point in "Essays". He tries to overcome this idea in his article "Prajñā and Reason" (Hannya to risei, 1979). Nishitani's central concern in "Essays" was in fact to provide an interpretation of "noēsis noēseōs". Nishitani planned to illustrate the Buddhist concept of authentic Buddha-nature with the idea of "noēsis noēseōs", and he undertook an analysis of sensus communis in "Essays" for this purpose. Not until Nishitani's own final standpoint did he try to overcome the idea "noēsis noēseōs", and the analysis of "sensus communis" is given a new meaning in relation of Nishitani's own standpoint. Nishitani highlights the aspect of the absolute negation originally contained in the idea of "noēsis noēseōs" and criticizes the presupposition lying at the starting point of "noēsis noēseōs". This point is "the direct knowledge" that is based on images. The idea "noēsis noēseōs" departs from this direct knowledge. But Nishitani emphasizes another form of the truth and tries to deepen this direct knowledge itself. The importance of the analysis of the sensus communis in "Essays" can be seen from another perspective in this light.

Aristotle and Keiji Nishitani

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