Non-Buddhism

Nishida  Kitarō:
The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview
Hannes Schumacher

Dates: Four Saturdays in July: 6, 13, 20, 27, 2024
Time: 12-1:30 PM (Eastern, US Time)
(See time zone converter if you’re in a different location.)
Cost: Four options:
(i) $80 for non-members
(ii) $64 for Incite Seminars members (become a member!)
(iii) Donation of your choice, including no cost solidarity ticket if you cannot afford to pay at this time (please email us requesting the solidarity option: inciteseminarsphila@gmail.com).
Registration at bottom of this page.

SEMINAR DESCRIPTION

The founder of the Kyoto School, Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945), throughout his lifetime critically engaged with European philosophy in order to define a strain of thought which is unique not only to modern Japanese philosophy but to Asian thought in general. In his final text, in fact, Nishida reveals his great influence from a vast variety of Mahayana Buddhist sources which—according to Nishida—are better able to express his own philosophy of place (basho).

“The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview” articulates a surprisingly profound summary of Nishida’s voluminous oeuvre, revisiting his most important concepts such as pure experience, absolute nothing, active intuition, inverse correspondence and contradictory self-identity. On top of that, Nishida here develops his own concept of religion which paradoxically expands beyond good and evil: religious sentiment—according to Nishida—cannot be reduced to morality or to the cult of reason.

Following an overview of Nishida’s works from 1911 to 1945, we will read and discuss his final text together and consider what his philosophy of place might mean for us today. Note that the text will be read in English, although those with knowledge of Japanese are more than welcome to share insights from the source text with the group.

In this seminar we learn:

• why Western thought is trapped in the extremes of abstract individualism and New Age style mysticism
• how Nishida anticipated complex systems theory and paraconsistent logic, particularly dialetheism
• what is wrong with Leibniz, Kant and Hegel
• why morality does not suffice to grasp religious sentiment
• why God is also Satan
• why samsara is nirvana
• why ordinary experience is more profound than big events
• why life is still so goddamn problematic

Facilitator: Hannes Schumacher. Having lived and studied all around the world, Hannes Schumacher works in European and Asian philosophies focusing on their various intersections in terms of metaphysics, logic and religion. He completed his MA in Berlin with a thesis on Hegel and Deleuze, and he also published widely on Nishida, Nagarjuna, chaos theory, and global mysticism. In his current micro-projects he explores the potential of real dialogue as a method for philosophy and fabulates a subterranean network of subversive spiritual practices across the continents. Hannes is the founder of the Berlin-based publisher Freigeist Verlag and co-founder of the grassroots art space Chaosmos ∞ in Athens, Greece.

Primary text (pdfs will be provided on registration)

Nishida Kitarō, “The Logic of the Place of Nothingness and the Religious Worldview,” Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview, trans. David A. Dilworth (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), 47-123.

Nishida Kitarō, “The Logic of Topos and the Religious Worldview,” trans. Yusa Michiko. The Eastern Buddhist, 19-2 (1986): 1-29, & 20-1 (1987): 81-119.

Recommended readings

Krummel, John W. M., “Basho, World, and Dialectics: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Nishida Kitarō”, in Place and Dialectic: Two Essays by Nishida Kitarō, trans. John W. M. Krummel and Shigenori Nagatomo (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 3-48.

Krummel, John W. M., Nishida Kitarō’s Chiasmatic Chorology: Place of Dialectics, Dialectic of Place (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2015).

Dilworth, David. A., “Introduction: Nishida’s Critique of the Religious Consciousness” & “Postscript: Nishida’s Logic of the East”, in Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview, trans. David A. Dilworth (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), 1-45 & 127-149.

SEMINAR SCHEDULE

July 6: Nishida’s patterning of contradiction
July 13: Religion beyond good and evil (sections 1 & 2)
July 20: The self facing the absolute (sections 3 & 4)
July 27: Contradictory self-identity and ordinary life (section 5)

REGISTRATION

Member discount: $64. Clicking image will take you to our payment account. You may back out at any point before checking out.

Non-member: $80

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