The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism

by Keiji Nishitani, Graham Parkes, Setsuko Aihara

Overview

Nishitani Keiji was for many years Professor of Religious Philosophy at Kyoto University, and since his retirement has been Professor Emeritus at Otani Buddhist University in Kyoto. Graham Parkes is Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is the editor of Heidegger and Asian Thought and Nietzsche and Asian Thought. Setsuko Aihara teaches Japanese at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and is the author of Reading Japanese: Strategies for Decoding Japanese Sentence Structure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438414751
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	10/02/1990
Series:	SUNY series in Modern Japanese Philosophy
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	274
File size:	755 KB

About the Author

Nishitani Keiji was for many years Professor of Religious Philosophy at Kyoto University, and since his retirement has been Professor Emeritus at Otani Buddhist University in Kyoto. Graham Parkes is Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is the editor of Heidegger and Asian Thought and Nietzsche and Asian Thought. Setsuko Aihara teaches Japanese at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and is the author of Reading Japanese: Strategies for Decoding Japanese Sentence Structure.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Notes on Texts

Preface to the First Edition

One
Nihilism as Existence

1. Two Problems

2. Nihilism and the Philosophy of History

3. European Nihilism

Two
From Realism to Nihilism: Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach

1. Hegel's Absolute Idealism and Radical Realism

2. Schopenhauer—Will as Real—The Nullity of Existence

3. Kierkegaard—Becoming and Existence

4. Feuerbach—Critique of Religion, Philosophy, and Ethics

Three
Friedrich Nietzsche: The First Consummate Nihilist

1. The Significance of Nihilism in Nietzsche

2. Radical Nihilism

3. Nietzsche's Interpretation of Christianity

4. The Concept of "Sincerity"—"Will to Illusion"

Four
Nietzsche's Affirmative Nihilism: Amor Fati and Eternal Recurrence

1. Value-Interpretation and Perspectivism

2. The Problem of Amor Fati

3. Love of Fate as "Innermost Nature"—Suffering—Soul

4. The Idea of Eternal Recurrence: The "Moment" and Eternity

5. Eternal Recurrence and Overcoming the Spirit of Gravity

6. Love of Fate and Eternal Recurrence

7. The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism

Five
Nihilism and Existence in Nietzsche

1. "God is Dead"

2. Critique of Religion

3. The Stages of Nihilism

4. Nihilism as Existence

5. The First Stage of Existence

6. The Second Stage of Existence

7. Nihilism as Scientific Conscience

8. Science and History as Existence

9. "Living Dangerously" and "Experimentation"

10. The Third Stage—Existence as Body

11. The Dialectical Development of Nihilism

Six
Nihilism as Egoism: Max Stirner

1. Stirner's Context

2. The Meaning of Egoism

3. Realist, Idealist, Egoist—"Creative Nothing"

4. From Paganism to Christianity

5. From Christianity to Liberalism

6. From Liberalism to Egoism

7. Ownness and Property—All and Nothing

8. The State and the Individual

Seven
Nihilism in Russia

1. Russian Nihilism

2. Bazarov's Nihilism—"Fathers and Sons"

3. Nihilism as Contemplation—"Notes from Underground"

Eight
Nihilism as Philosophy: Martin Heidegger

1. Existentialism as a Discipline

2. The "Ontological Difference"

3. Transcendence and Being-in-the-World

4. Being-toward-Death and Anxiety

5. Finitude—Metaphysics—Existence—Freedom

Nine
The Meaning of Nihilism for Japan

1. The Crisis in Europe and Nihilism

2. The Crisis Compounded

3. The Significance of European Nihilism for Us

4. Buddhism and Nihilism

Appendix The Problem of Atheism

1. Marxist Humanism

2. Sartrean Existentialism

3. Atheism in the World of Today

Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

"As a past reader of Nishitani in both the original Japanese and English translation, I find this manuscript to be the most accessible and clearly written of any book-length work I have read by him. It shows Nishitani as a vital and vigorous thinker, and serves as an introduction to his widely acclaimed Religion and Nothingness.

"The summaries of the relation to nihilism of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Stirner, a nearly forgotten figure in intellectual history, are all perspicacious. Even the chapters on Nietzsche, about whom volumes are written these days, provide new insights. The brief section on the problem of nihilism for Japan is unprecedented in the English literature, and the sketches on karma and historicity whet the appetite for the more extensive and difficult expositions in Religion and Nothingness.

"It will be mandatory reading for an understanding of both Nishitani's thought and the problem of nihilism. Scholars and other persons interested in nihilism, in Nietzsche, and/or in contemporary Buddhist or Japanese philosophy, will greatly profit from a study of this book." -- John C. Maraldo, Department of Philosophy, University of North Florida

"This is a fine translation of an important work in the corpus of Nishitani's early writings. The translation is timely both because of the Western interest in Nishitani as a preeminent contemporary Japanese philosopher and because of the continuing Western perplexity about the problems Nishitani addresses. Nishitani is one of the world's greatest living philosophers and even in this early work of his that brilliance shines through." -- Thomas P. Kasulis, Department of Philosophy, Northland College

From the Publisher