- The Body, Japanese Philosophy, Japanese Buddhism, Metaphysics, Nishida Kitarō, Continental Philosophy, and 49 moreKyoto School, Ontology, Zen Buddhism, Philosophy of Death, Nothingness, Philosophy, Phenomenology of the body, Buddhist Philosophy, Japanese Aesthetics, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Technology, Buddhism, Chinese Religions, Chinese Philosophy, Martial Arts, Japanese Religions, Comparative Philosophy, Transcultural Studies, Transcultural theory, Ethics, Buddhist Studies, Thanatology, Death, Death Studies, Thanatology - Death Studies, Jean-Luc Nancy, Vladimir Jankélévitch, History of Religion in Modern Japan, Political Philosophy, Theory of Knowledge, Individualism, Practical Philosophy, Tanabe Hajime, Cultural Criticism, Bioethics, Martin Heidegger, Japanese Studies, Zhuangzi, Laozi, Orientalism, Postcolonial Studies, Roberto Esposito, Giorgio Agamben, Bruno Latour, Biopolitics, Modern Japanese History, Social Theory, Sociology, and Sociological Theoryedit
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... as the conceptual and structural basis of Nishida's conceptions of self-awareness, "I-and-Thou ... a conceptual solution but rather rephrases the problem of personal identity without... more
... as the conceptual and structural basis of Nishida's conceptions of self-awareness, "I-and-Thou ... a conceptual solution but rather rephrases the problem of personal identity without implying a ... its existentialist approach, taking everyday awareness qua the "facticity" of self and world ...
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<div> <p>Death is an insurmountable problem for truth systems. This paper aims at discussing the relationship between death and truth, swaying from European (Plato's <i>Phaedo</i>, Jankélévitch, Morin) to... more
<div> <p>Death is an insurmountable problem for truth systems. This paper aims at discussing the relationship between death and truth, swaying from European (Plato's <i>Phaedo</i>, Jankélévitch, Morin) to Buddhist sources (mainly Chan-Zen Biyanlu and Dogen). These contributions are interpreted according to the distinction introduced here between epistemic-metaphysical transfiguration and semelfactive phenomenalism.</p> </div>
Research Interests: Buddhism, Philosophy, Metaphysics, Comparative Philosophy, Japanese Philosophy, and 15 morePlato, Death, Death Studies, Chinese Buddhism, Edgar Morin, Continental Philosophy, Japanese Buddhism, Body, Jacques Derrida, Phenomenology of the body, Anthropology of Death, Dogen, Derrida, Existentialism, and Dogen studies
The issue of dialectics has been very important in Modern Japan. In the later philosophy of Nishida Kitarō, dialectics is crucial for both the structure of his philosophy and its relationship with Buddhism, since according to him it would... more
The issue of dialectics has been very important in Modern Japan. In the later philosophy of Nishida Kitarō, dialectics is crucial for both the structure of his philosophy and its relationship with Buddhism, since according to him it would help define important and desirable features of Buddhist thought. Therefore, a discussion on this aspect may prove to be decisive in order to understand the overall meaning of Nishida’s thought. This essay aims at discussing the meaning and the implications of dialectics in Nishida Kitarō from the perspective of the philosophical theme of the world’s fundamental ambiguity and its linguistic consequences. Contrary to the political nature of Aristotle’s idea of the principle of non-contradiction, Nishida Kitarō aims at a contemplative approach to the ambiguous world, but falls short of facing the problem of modernity, and is therefore unable to connect the world’s ambiguity with its destructive sides. From such a perspective, his philosophy appears t...
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L'A. traite de la pensee de Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) sur le probleme de la connaissance dans sa dependance par rapport au corps et melant action et intuition. L'A. expose dans une seconde partie des critiques adressees a cette... more
L'A. traite de la pensee de Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) sur le probleme de la connaissance dans sa dependance par rapport au corps et melant action et intuition. L'A. expose dans une seconde partie des critiques adressees a cette conception.
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Today, almost everything public has become of less value, meaning, and importance than what is private. This tendency, which finds its roots in political and economic neo-liberalism, draws its inspiration in a far earlier dualistic and... more
Today, almost everything public has become of less value, meaning, and importance than what is private. This tendency, which finds its roots in political and economic neo-liberalism, draws its inspiration in a far earlier dualistic and reductionist orientation of political thought, and engenders as its extreme and probably undesired consequence a general tendency towards disregarding the very idea of the common. Accordingly, notions such as the common good, common sense, and common world hardly emerge from both the agendas (and rhetoric) of politicians and media, as well as from people’s everyday concerns. The private is invading the realm of what was once public, as scholars like Zygmunt Bauman have pointed out. This has consequences not only on public institutions, but more essentially on individual freedom and possibilities. How to face this challenge? In order to properly deal with such a question, juridico-institutional approaches appear inadequate, especially after what Foucault depicted as the modern biopolitical turn. Only from a radically immanent perspective, can contemporary thought be able to face the double challenge of life and of the technological “material revolution”, which traditional humanism is almost unable to even define. Michel Foucault, Roberto Esposito as well as Michael Hardt-Antonio Negri on the one hand and some Confucian texts and philosophers, mainly from China’s Song period (960-1279), on the other may help to broaden our perspective, avoiding exclusionism, and exploring the possibilities of inclusive paradigms of coexistence.
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The aim of this paper is to provide some hints for a critical discussion about the question of nihilism in Japan from a cultural and philosophical viewpoint. Through the perspectives of Foucault and Bourdieu, different cultural phenomena... more
The aim of this paper is to provide some hints for a critical discussion about the question of nihilism in Japan from a cultural and philosophical viewpoint. Through the perspectives of Foucault and Bourdieu, different cultural phenomena in modern Japan could be defined as “technologies of the self” and “habitus”: the practice of writing among some novelists; the practice of philosophy and (self-) awareness among thinkers influenced by Buddhism; as well as, in a completely different field, the practice of performing arts (dance, theatre, music), or martial arts (budō). The focus of this essay is on recognising two commonly spread hermeneutic tendencies: 1) nihilism in Japan has been more often discussed in the context of the problem of the individual than the problem of truth. 2) The debate on the individual and nihilism in Japan has not been dealt with in exclusively intellectual terms. Rather it has immediately referred to practical levels in which the dialectics between technologies of political control and technologies of the self have played a fundamental part.
Research Interests: Japanese Studies, Philosophy, Performing Arts, Japanese Philosophy, Japanese Literature, and 15 moreJapanese Religions, Modern and Contemporary Japan, Japanese Buddhism, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Nietzsche, Nihilism, Modern Japanese Literature, Modern Japanese History, Baudrillard, Japan, Kyoto School, Bourdieu, Karl Löwith, and Nishitani Keiji
... Publisher: Università Ca&#x27; Foscari Venezia. Issue Date: 1999. ???metadata.dc.rights???: © MatteoCestari, 1999. ???metadata.dc.degree.name???: Civiltà dell&#x27;India e dell&#x27;Asia orientale. ???metadata.dc.type???:... more
... Publisher: Università Ca&#x27; Foscari Venezia. Issue Date: 1999. ???metadata.dc.rights???: © MatteoCestari, 1999. ???metadata.dc.degree.name???: Civiltà dell&#x27;India e dell&#x27;Asia orientale. ???metadata.dc.type???: Doctoral Thesis. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10579/572. ...
This paper deals with the conception of Absolute Nothingness (zettai mu), one of the pivotal terms in Japanese contemporary philosophy. This idea is generally considered as the philosophical version of the Buddhist notion of... more
This paper deals with the conception of Absolute Nothingness (zettai mu), one of the pivotal terms in Japanese contemporary philosophy. This idea is generally considered as the philosophical version of the Buddhist notion of Śūnyatā (emptiness). In the thinking of Nishida Kitarō and Tanabe Hajime, two leading philosophers of the so called Kyōto School, Absolute Nothingness becomes the fundamental tool to build a dialectics which is meant to overcome Hegelian system.
This paper aims to develop some questions addressed in a previous volume of Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy. There I questioned the “interiorist” terminology and the manner in which it poses problems, casting doubt on whether it is... more
This paper aims to develop some questions addressed in a previous volume of Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy. There I questioned the “interiorist” terminology and the manner in which it poses problems, casting doubt on whether it is capable of conveying the general meaning of Nishida’s philosophy, since it seems almost unable to show its practical dimension (Cestari 2009). Here I will concentrate my analysis on the modern idea of absolute nothingness (絶対無) as compared to the original, classical Buddhist notion of śūnyatā (J. kū, C. kong 空) or “emptiness.” The importance of this relationship lies in its being the only theoretical feature that, according to Maraldo, typifies the philosophers of the Kyoto school. In this paper, I will mainly consider the case
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The issue of dialectics has been very important in Modern Japan. In the later philosophy of Nishida Kitarō, dialectics is crucial for both the structure of his philosophy and its relationship with Buddhism, since according to him it would... more
The issue of dialectics has been very important in Modern Japan. In the later philosophy of Nishida Kitarō, dialectics is crucial for both the structure of his philosophy and its relationship with Buddhism, since according to him it would help define important and desirable features of Buddhist thought. Therefore, a discussion on this aspect may prove to be decisive in order to understand the overall meaning of Nishida’s thought. This essay aims at discussing the meaning and the implications of dialectics in Nishida Kitarō from the perspective of the philosophical theme of the world’s fundamental ambiguity and its linguistic consequences. Contrary to the political nature of Aristotle’s idea of the principle of non-contradiction, Nishida Kitarō aims at a contemplative approach to the ambiguous world, but falls short of facing the problem of modernity, and is therefore unable to connect the world’s ambiguity with its destructive sides. From such a perspective, his philosophy appears to be inclined to metaphysics rather than to a practical and transformative attitude.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Today, almost everything public has become of less value, meaning, and importance than what is private. This tendency, which finds its roots in political and economic neo-liberalism, draws its inspiration in a far earlier dualistic and... more
Today, almost everything public has become of less value, meaning, and importance than what is private. This tendency, which finds its roots in political and economic neo-liberalism, draws its inspiration in a far earlier dualistic and reductionist orientation of political thought, and engenders as its extreme and probably undesired consequence a general tendency towards disregarding the very idea of the common. Accordingly, notions such as the common good, common sense, and common world hardly emerge from both the agendas (and rhetoric) of politicians and media, as well as from people’s everyday concerns. The private is invading the realm of what was once public, as scholars like Zygmunt Bauman have pointed out. This has consequences not only on public institutions, but more essentially on individual freedom and possibilities. How to face this challenge? In order to properly deal with such a question, juridico-institutional approaches appear inadequate, especially after what Foucault depicted as the modern biopolitical turn. Only from a radically immanent perspective, can contemporary thought be able to face the double challenge of life and of the technological “material revolution”, which traditional humanism is almost unable to even define. Michel Foucault, Roberto Esposito as well as Michael Hardt-Antonio Negri on the one hand and some Confucian texts and philosophers, mainly from China’s Song period (960-1279), on the other may help to broaden our perspective, avoiding exclusionism, and exploring the possibilities of inclusive paradigms of coexistence.
Research Interests:
The aim of this paper is to provide some hints for a critical discussion about the question of nihilism in Japan from a cultural and philosophical viewpoint. Through the perspectives of Foucault and Bourdieu, different cultural phenomena... more
The aim of this paper is to provide some hints for a critical discussion about the question of nihilism in Japan from a cultural and philosophical viewpoint. Through the perspectives of Foucault and Bourdieu, different cultural phenomena in modern Japan could be defined as “technologies of the self” and “habitus”: the practice of writing among some novelists; the practice of philosophy and (self-) awareness among thinkers influenced by Buddhism; as well as, in a completely different field, the practice of performing arts (dance, theatre, music), or martial arts (budō). The focus of this essay is on recognising two commonly spread hermeneutic tendencies: 1) nihilism in Japan has been more often discussed in the context of the problem of the individual than the problem of truth. 2) The debate on the individual and nihilism in Japan has not been dealt with in exclusively intellectual terms. Rather it has immediately referred to practical levels in which the dialectics between technologies of political control and technologies of the self have played a fundamental part.
Research Interests: Japanese Studies, Philosophy of Technology, Technology, Performing Arts, Japanese Philosophy, and 24 morePractice theory, Japanese Literature, Japanese Religions, Modern and Contemporary Japan, Japanese Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Friedrich Nietzsche, Postmodernism, Michel Foucault, Technology and Society, Pierre Bourdieu, Technology And Culture, Nietzsche, Nihilism, Modern Japanese Literature, Modern Japanese History, Baudrillard, Japan, Kyoto School, Bourdieu, Karl Löwith, Subjectivity, Nishitani Keiji, and Socio Political Philosophy
"This paper inquires the concepts of “emptying” and “filling” in the Daodejing. After a general theoretical introduction to some essential features of ancient Chinese thinking, the author discusses this theme, interpreting some of the... more
"This paper inquires the concepts of “emptying” and “filling” in the Daodejing. After a general theoretical introduction to some essential features of ancient Chinese thinking, the author discusses this theme, interpreting some of the most important passages of the book and indicating in breathing an important image to deepen the Laotian approach to the Dao.
In Italian"""
In Italian"""
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Death is an unsurmountable problem for truth systems. This paper aims at discussing the relationship between death and truth, swaying from Western (Plato's Phaedo, V. Jankélévitch, E. Morin) to Buddhist sources (mainly Chan-Zen Biyanlu... more
Death is an unsurmountable problem for truth systems. This paper aims at discussing the relationship between death and truth, swaying from Western (Plato's Phaedo, V. Jankélévitch, E. Morin) to Buddhist sources (mainly Chan-Zen Biyanlu and Dogen). These contributions are interpreted according to the distinction introduced here between epistemic-metaphysical transfiguration and semelfactive phenomenalism.
Research Interests: Buddhism, Philosophy, Metaphysics, Comparative Philosophy, Japanese Philosophy, and 21 morePlato, Death, Death Studies, Chinese Buddhism, Death & Dying (Thanatology), Edgar Morin, Continental Philosophy, Japanese Buddhism, Truth, Zen Buddhism, The Body, Body, Vladimir Jankélévitch, Jacques Derrida, Phenomenology of the body, Theories Of Truth, Anthropology of Death, Dogen, Derrida, Existentialism, and Dogen studies
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This essay examines the relationship between Nishida's foundational notion of absolute nothingness and the classical Buddhist idea of emptiness. I reflect on the possibilities and risks of using Buddhism as hermeneutic paradigm in... more
This essay examines the relationship between Nishida's foundational notion of absolute nothingness and the classical Buddhist idea of emptiness. I reflect on the possibilities and risks of using Buddhism as hermeneutic paradigm in approaching the complexities of a modern Japanese philosophy with its alleged, but philologically ambiguous, references to a premodern Buddhist context.
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In reply to critics who summarily dismiss Nishida's philosophy as weakened on the historical front by excessive attention to the mind and interiority, in this essay I provide textual proof of a major shift in Nishida's late work based on... more
In reply to critics who summarily dismiss Nishida's philosophy as weakened on the historical front by excessive attention to the mind and interiority, in this essay I provide textual proof of a major shift in Nishida's late work based on the attept to overcome the dichotomy between the "within" and the "without". This is accomplished by applying a "dialectic of the historical world" to the mutual self-expression of the world and the things that make it up, including but not restricted to conscious subjects. I see here the core of Nishida's complementary ideas of praxis and poiesis, and from there discuss the revised notions of politics, technology, morality and history. I conclude by displacing a blanket rejection of Nishida's view of history with a particular critique aimed at an overly abstract and optimistic tendency that kept Nishida from recognizing the darker side of technology and the relationships of humans to their natural and social world.
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Japanese translation: “Itaria ni okeru Nihon no shūkyō-tetsugaku kenkyū” 「イタリアにおける日本の宗教・哲学研究」, in J. W. Heisig hen, Nihon tetsugaku no kokusaisei. Kaigai ni okeru juyō to tenbō 『日本哲学の国際性・海外における受容と展望』, Kyoto, Sekai shisōsha 世界思想社, 2006,... more
Japanese translation: “Itaria ni okeru Nihon no shūkyō-tetsugaku kenkyū” 「イタリアにおける日本の宗教・哲学研究」, in J. W. Heisig hen, Nihon tetsugaku no kokusaisei. Kaigai ni okeru juyō to tenbō 『日本哲学の国際性・海外における受容と展望』, Kyoto, Sekai shisōsha 世界思想社, 2006, pp. 149-181. Japanese version not uploaded for editorial copyright reasons.