From the Acting to the Seeing

From the Acting to the Seeing is a 1927 book by Kitaro Nishida, a turning point in his thought.[1]

Summary

Nishida introduces his new concept of basho.[1] Nishida views human existence as essentially self-contradictory. He argues that human existence contains within itself absolute contradictions, such as those between instinct and reason, body and mind, and self and world. Nishida tries to explore the ground of self-identity at the bottom of human existence by breaking through the dichotomy of the subject-predicate relation, the paradigm of human perception. Dissatisfied with the Aristotelian anthropocentric worldview, he forms the logic of the basho or topos as the only rational way to approach ultimate reality. Nishida defines the basho as a "predicate of predicates", a truly universal place in which subject and predicate are mutually inclusive. The basho contains three categories: basho of being, basho of relative nothingness, and basho of absolute nothingness.[2]

The basho of being is a ground that supports all beings existing in space. Because all beings of form and matter in the phenomenal world, including human beings, need the space they occupy, they are dependent upon the basho of being as a fundamental restriction of their existence. The basho of relative nothingness, which is invisible, exists at the bottom of the basho of being. It is referred to as relative nothingness because it exists only in relation to the basho of being. Only the basho of absolute nothingness is truly transcendent and universal. It is the place where the authentic self turns around and becomes the "self without self." Nishida defines this existential transition as one "from that which functions to that which sees", meaning that the self as basho can reflect objects as they are by truly emptying itself and can see things "by becoming things." Thus the self as basho identifies itself with all beings in the absolute contradictory mode of the world.[2]

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

Books
  • Machida, Soho (1995). McGreal, Ian P., ed. Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers. ISBN 0-06-270085-5. 
  • Odin, Steve (1999). Audi, Robert, ed. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-63722-8. 
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