EMPTINESS, or ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS

Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, translated with an Introduction by Jan Van Bragt; Foreword by Winston L. King (Berkeley & Los Angles: U. of California Press, 1982) (From the "Foreword": "In passing it is of some interest to inquire why there has been little or no inclusion of any Anglo-American materials in Professor Nishitani's writings. Perhaps the reasons are not far afield. Since Japan's 'opening to the West' her philosophers, for various incidental and cultural reasons, h ave been interested primarily in the Germanic tradition--and Nishitani was educated in this tradition. But doubtless the main reason is that the Anglo-American tradition has had little in it that has appealed to an Eastern and Buddhist-oriented culture. In the British tradition, for example, we have Reid's commonsense realism, practical, simplistic Utilitarianism, the empiricism and political philosophy of Locke, the God-centered idealism of Berkeley--none of which could have much appeal for a Buddhist-oriented thinker. As for American thought, almost the only American philosopher in whom Japan has taken an interest at all is John Dewey and his pragmatic 'learning by doing' educational theories. Indeed for most of Japan, America is not a land of thinkers but of merchants, manufacturers, technical entrepreneurs, and practical-minded enterprise." Id. at xv-xvi. From the bookcover:"In Religion and Nothingness the leading representative of the Kyoto School of Philosophy lays the foundations of thought for a world in the making, for a world united beyond the differences of East and West. Keiji Nishitani notes the irreversible trend of Western civilization to nihilism, and singles out the conquest of nihilism as the task for contemporary philosophy. Nihility, or relative nothingness, can only be overcome by being radicalized to Emptiness, or absolute nothingness. Taking absolute nothingness as the fundamental notion in rational explanations of the Eastern experience of human life, Professor Nishitani examines the relevance of this notion for contemporary life, and in particular for Western philosophical theories and religious beliefs. Everywhere his basic intention remains the same: to direct our modern predicament to a resolution through this insight." "The challenge that the thought of Keiji Nishitani presents to the West, as a modern version of an Eastern speculative tradition that is every bit as old and as variegated as our own, is one that brings into unity the principle of reality and the principle of salvation. In the process, one traditional Western idea after another comes under scrutiny: the dichotomy of faith and reason, of being and substance, the personal and the transcendent notions of God, the exaggerated rile given to the knowing ego, and even the Judeo-Christian view of history itself.")