An Inquiry into the Good
 | |
| Author | Kitaro Nishida |
|---|---|
| Original title | Zen no kenkyū |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Subject | Ethics |
| Published | 1911 |
| Media type | |
| ISBN | 978-0300052336 |
An Inquiry into the Good (Japanese: 善の研究, Zen no kenkyū) is a 1911 book by Kitaro Nishida, the foremost Japanese philosopher of the 20th century and founding father of the Kyoto School.[1]
Background
The work was made possible by the Japanese interest in western philosophy that began with the Meiji Restoration of 1868.[2]
Summary
With An Inquiry into the Good, Nishida began to articulate a system of thought based on the Zen Buddhist experience in terms borrowed from French, German, and Anglo-American philosophy, psychology, and natural science. Drawing on William James and Henri Bergson, he developed a philosophy based on "pure experience" as that which underlies the subject-object relation.[1]
Pure experience does not contain any cognitive perception of oppositions such as those of subject and object, body and mind, and time and space. Nishida aimed to use the concept to define the value of religious experience. By transcending the dichotomous standpoint, Nishida opens a new metaphysical passage to the consideration of immediate experience absent all intervention by judgmental reflection. Nishida, who did not consider ethical problems separate from the problem of self for each individual, understood pure experience to be the realization of true selfhood. The good is the perfection of true individuality, the only foundation for the well-being of all humanity.[3]
Influence and reception
A path-breaking work, An Inquiry into the Good is Nishida's best known accomplishment,[1] and has been described as a "masterpiece" by Graham Parkes.[2]
References
Footnotes
- 1 2 3 Parkes 2005. p. 659.
- 1 2 Parkes 2005. p. 458.
- ↑ Machida 1995. p. 384.
Bibliography
- Books