Kuki Shüzö and the question of origins
- Autores: Oda Kazuaki
- Localización: European Journal of Japanese Philosophy: EJJP, ISSN-e 2367-3095, Nº. 5, 2020, págs. 33-50
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The idea of metaphysics as a reflection of one’s own view of life and the world is key to Kuki’s philosophy. At the heart of his metaphysics is a theory of primal contingency as the origin of all things, which he developed roughly between 1932 and 1935. Primal contingency is comprised of two aspects, one of which refers to the natural world, or physis; and the other to the world of mind and spirit, or psyche. This distinction was elaborated after he formulated a general theory of the eternal return of time. This led him to abandon his previous view of the creation of the world by subjective will and redefined the creativity of the subject as a collaboration between the microcosm of the individual life and the macrocosm of the whole of reality. This shift was occasioned by his study of the aesthetic theory of the German philosopher Oscar Becker, from whom he picked up the notions of “carriedness” and “fragility” and applied them to his theory of primal contingency. This paper will trace this shift in Kuki’s thinking
