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The Kyoto School: Modern Buddhist Philosophy and the Search for a Transcultural Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

James Fredericks
James Fredericks*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Abstract

The author argues that the Kyoto school of modern Japanese Buddhist philosophy can contribute much to Christian reflection on the problem of a transcultural theology. Starting with the work of Nishida Kitaro in the early part of this century, the Kyoto school has attempted to express Mahayana Buddhist thought in Western philosophical categories. Articulating his own “logic” based on the Mahayana notions of emptiness and nothingness, Nishida went on to advance a fully developed philosophy of religion which offers a unique interpretation of Christian theism while presenting the Mahayana tradition in a critical and systematic language accessible to a Western readership. Nishida's colleagues in the School include Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keiji, Takeuchi Yoshinori, and Abe Masao among others. A review of the literature available in Western languages is offered, as well as a discussion of some of the salient theological problems raised by this Mahayana critique of Christian theism and its contribution to the problem of a transcultural theological standpoint.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , Fall 1988 , pp. 299 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1988

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References

1 Yoshinori, Takeuchi, “Buddhism and Existentialism: The Dialogue between Oriental and Occidental Thought” in Religion and Culture: Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich, ed. Leibrecht, Walter (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), p. 292.Google Scholar

2 Masao, Abe, “Buddhism and Christianity as a Problem for Today” (Part II), Japanese Religions, 3/3 (Autumn, 1963), 8–31.Google Scholar

3 See below, note 9 and note 12.

4 Piovesana, Gino, Contemporary Japanese Philosophical Thought (Jamaica, NY: St. John's University Press, 1969), pp. 16–18.Google Scholar

5 Kataro, Nishida, A Study of Good, trans. Viglielmo, V. (Tokyo: Print Bureau of the Japanese Government, 1960).Google Scholar See also Nishida Kitaro Zenshu (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1979 ed.), Vol. 1, pp. 1–202.Google Scholar A new translation by Abe Masao, Thomas Kasulis and Christopher Ives is forthcoming.

6 Yoshinori, Takeuchi, “The Philosophy of Nishida” in The Buddha Eye: An Anthology of the Kyoto School, ed. Frank, F. (New York: Crossroad, 1982), p. 182.Google Scholar

7 Yoshinori, Takeuchi, “Hegel and Buddhism,” Il Pensiero 7/1–2 (1963), 10–13.Google Scholar

8 Nishida Kitaro Zenshu, Vol. 11, pp. 289–464.Google Scholar

9 The importance of this text for the dialogue between Buddhists and Christians is coming to be increasingly recognized on both sides of the conversation. Happily, two different translations are now available, one by Michiko, Yusa, “The Logic of Topos and the Religious Worldview,” The Eastern Buddhist 12/2 (Autumn 1986), 1–29;Google Scholar and another by Dilworth, David, “The Logic of the Place of Nothingness and the Religious Worldview” in Last Writings, Nothingness and the Religious Worldview (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), pp. 47–123.Google Scholar The Yusa translation is the first of a two-part series.

10 Yoshinori, Taksuchi, “The Philosophy of Nishida,” pp. 195–201.Google Scholar

11 Dilworth, David, Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945): The Development of His Thought (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1970), pp. 406–57.Google Scholar

12 Philosophy as Metanoetics, trans. Yoshinori, Takeuchi, Viglielmo, Valdo and Heisig, James (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).Google Scholar

13 In the Japanese text of Philosophy as Metanoetics (Zange-do toshite no tetsugaku), Tanabe uses the Greek term metanoia synonymously with the Japanese term for “conversion” or “repentance,” zange.

14 For a good example of Takeuchi's affinities with Tillich see his “Buddhism and Existentialism: The Dialogue between Oriental and Occidental Thought,” pp. 291-318.

15 The clearest treatment of Takeuchi's contribution to this question is to be found in a collection of his articles, The Heart of Buddhism, ed. and trans. Heisig, James (New York: Crossroad, 1983).Google Scholar

16 Nishitani's own work in this area is admirably presented in a collection of his essays translated and edited by van Braght, Jan, Religion and Nothingness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982).Google Scholar

17 See Abe's, recently collected essays, Zen and Western Thought, ed. Lafleur, William (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Among several of Nishida's works available in English, see A Study of Good, trans. Viglielmo, V. (Tokyo: Print Bureau of the Japanese Government, 1960);Google ScholarArt and Morality, trans. Dilworth, D. and Viglielmo, V. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1973);Google ScholarFundamental Problems in Philosophy, trans. Dilworth, D. (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1970);Google ScholarIntelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness, trans. Schinzinger, R. (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1973).Google Scholar A new translation by Abe Masao, Thomas Kasulis and Christopher Ives of A Study of Good is forthcoming. Several translations are currently in progress, including From the Actor to the Seer, being translated by D. Dilworth and V. Viglielmo; Human Existence, translated by D. Dilworth; and Die Welt als das dialektische Allgemine, translated by P. Pörtger.

19 See note 9 above.

20 See Keiji, Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, pp. vii–xlv.Google Scholar

21 See Yoshinori, Takeuchi, The Heart of Buddhism, pp. xiii–xxi.Google Scholar

22 Masao, Abe, Zen and Western Thought, ed. Lafleur, William (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), pp. xi–xix.Google Scholar

23 Frank, Frederick, ed., The Buddha Eye: An Anthology of the Kyoto School (New York: Crossroad, 1982).Google Scholar

24 Hajime, Tanabe, Philosophy as Metanoetics, trans. Yoshinori, Takeuchi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).Google Scholar

25 Laube, Johannes, Dialektik der absolute Vermittlung: Hajime Tanabes Religions-philosophie als Beitrag zum “Wettstreit der Liebe” zivischen Buddhismus und Christentum (Freiburg: Herder Verlag, 1984).Google Scholar

26 Buri, Fritz, Der Buddha-Christus als der Herr des wahren Selbst: Die Religions-philosophie der Kyoto-schule und das Christentum (Bern and Stuttgart: Verlag Paul Haupt, 1982).Google Scholar

27 Trans. James Heisig (New York: Paulist, 1980).

28 Masao, Abe, Zen and Western Thought, pp. 231–75.Google Scholar

29 Unpublished manuscript of a paper delivered at the First North American Buddhist-Christian Encounter, Honolulu, 1985. In expanded form, this text is to be published by Orbis Books with responses from Christian theologians.

30 An especially useful and well documented example of a theocentric solution to the problem posed by Christology for interreligious dialogue is Knitter's, PaulNo Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Towards the World Religions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985).Google Scholar

31 Keiji, Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, pp. 1–76.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., pp. 35-40.

33 Ibid., pp. 30-35; 55-56.

34 See Lafleur's introduction to Abe's, volume of essays, Zen and Western Thought, pp. xi–xix.Google Scholar