What makes us human ( ningen ) is not the ontological structure made by the first principle or divine transcendence. Nor is it reason, spirit, nor even the metaethical structure of meaning that provides a theoretical ground for our ethical values, but rather the ‘concrete practice of betweenness’ or ‘in-betweenness of act connections’ that... See more

It means that we cannot ultimately fix any definition of anything because nothing remains what it is forever: every thing is in flux, and nothing is fixed. Everything must ultimately turn to nothing and, thanks to this ‘turning into nothing’, everything has a space to be what it is. The world is made of this endless cycle of what the Heart Sutra... See more

In Buddhist philosophy, this logic of emptiness also requires an act of self-negation and compassion

philosopher from a specific cultural and historical background reflects upon how they conceive of the structure of their mind, and declares that what we might call their ‘self-referential abstraction’ is the universal model that theoretically applies to every sentient being across all space and time. (We should also not forget that, in practice,... See more

n 1934, Watsuji laid out the methodological foundation of Japanese ethics with his Ethics as the Study of the Human [ ningen ], and gave the earliest formulation of Japanese environmental ethics in Fūdo (1935) – translated as Climate and Culture: A Philosophical Study . He then published his magnum opus, Rinrigaku – translated as Watsuji Tetsurō’s... See more