Name: Tang Man To Institution: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. M.

Phil in Philosophy Conference: UTCP Graduate Conference 2012 "Practicing Japanese Philosophy: Mind and Activity" Date: 19-2-2012, 14:50-17:10 Session 3: Constructing Alternative Self-Consciousness Title: Absolute freedom from the account of radicalizing consciousness in Nishida Kitaros philosophy

1. What is this so-called freedom? 1.1 free and true free: In The Eternal in Art and Poetry,
only in the place of true nothingness can we see what is free. In the place of determined being all we can see is working. In the place of oppositional nothingness the working of consciousness are visible, but in the place of absolute nothingness, true free will comes into view. Because oppositional nothingness is still a king of being 1

1.1.1Free= in the place of oppositional nothingness. True free= in the place of absolute nothingness=absolutely free or absolute freedom 1. How does freedom transform into absolute freedom? 2.1.1 Nishida introduces a practice called, radicalizing consciousness. This paper aims at investigating: (1) what is the radicalization of consciousness? (2) How can we practice the radicalization of consciousness?

1. Nishidas understanding of freedom and his critique 1.1 In the place of freedom, ego depends on rational calculative thinking and judgment to adapt itself to the external. 1.1.1 If we aim at adapting itself to the external, ego arouses infinite desires.

1.1.2 Ego arouses the desire through thinking and association of the historical world. 1.1.3 Thinking, for ego is a means to survive but not an end.

1.2 What is the relationship between ego and freedom? 1.2.1Nishida thinks that we believe we can freely desire anything, but that simply means that it is possible for us to desire.2 1.2.2 Freedom, in this sense, means that it is possible to desire. Nishidas critique (1): Although we are possible to desire, but there are some restrict:

Nishida Kitaro, The Eternal in Art and Poetry, in Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook. Edited by J. W. Heising, T. P. Kasulis and J. C. Maraldo. (Honolulu: university of Hawaii Press, 2011), p.658. (Below simply calls it Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook) 2 Nishida Kitaro, An Inquiry into the Good. Translated by M. Abe and C. Ives. (US: Yale University, 1990), p. 25. (Below simply calls it An Inquiry into the Good) 1

Name: Tang Man To Institution: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. M. Phil in Philosophy Conference: UTCP Graduate Conference 2012 "Practicing Japanese Philosophy: Mind and Activity" Date: 19-2-2012, 14:50-17:10 Session 3: Constructing Alternative Self-Consciousness Title: Absolute freedom from the account of radicalizing consciousness in Nishida Kitaros philosophy Our desire essentially is something imparted to us - we cannot produce it freely.3

1.1 free and not-free always come into a pair. We cannot choose whether we desire or not: For example, the desire of food, communication, warmetc. Ego discovers that I am a finite being which is a being-towards-death.

1.2 Ego is incomprehensive to uncover the whole self().

2 Nishidas doctrine of the logic of place and the place 2.1 What is the meaning of place? 2.1.1 Place refers to the field of consciousness, but not to the physical world, in the Place:
when we think of things, then, there must be a place to reflect them to us. To begin with, we can think in terms of a field of consciousness. To be conscious of something means that it is reflected on the field of consciousnessthere must be a further place in which physical space is located (649-50) 2.1.2

The condition of possibility for the representation of physical things or space is a further

place which cannot itself be a physical space. 2.1.3 The place is the field of consciousness where is the condition of possibility for the appearance of things.

Nishidas critique (1): Most philosophers neglect the importance of the field of consciousness. 1.1 They emphasize thing which appears as the grammatical subject. 1.2 They think that place merely refers to the relationship among things, or think that place is secondary because it is founded upon things. 1.2.1 Things are the necessary condition for the appearance for place. Nishidas critique (2): The structure of thinking and judgment, in Western philosophical tradition, bases on subject-logic.

An Inquiry into the Good, p. 25. 2

Name: Tang Man To Institution: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. M. Phil in Philosophy Conference: UTCP Graduate Conference 2012 "Practicing Japanese Philosophy: Mind and Activity" Date: 19-2-2012, 14:50-17:10 Session 3: Constructing Alternative Self-Consciousness Title: Absolute freedom from the account of radicalizing consciousness in Nishida Kitaros philosophy

2.1 Subject-logic based judgment is a concrete thing which is the grammatical subject enveloped in conceptual property which is a grammatical predicate. 2.2 It is necessary to investigate the very ground of philosophy, namely the structure of thinking and judgment or in Nishidas term, the logic of place.

2.2 Nishidas doctrine of the logic of place 2.2.1 Subject appears as concrete things and predicate appears as abstract concept. And the latter envelops the former. Taking Rose is a plant this statement as an example > abstract concepts, > intension of a concrete thing & < extension. 4

2.2.2 Abstract concept is different from concrete thing 2.2.3 Their referents are different. Abstract concept refers to an ideal object and concrete thing refers to a physical object. Rose is a plant as an example.

2.2.4 Predicate can never reach subject. Abstract concept can never completely refer to concrete thing. 2.3 Since what is reflected and thought of in the field of consciousness is an abstract concept, the grammatical predicate which is an abstract concept is grasped by the field of consciousness. 2.3.1 > predicates, the field of consciousness= >content & >horizon. When the field of consciousness envelops all latent being, then the field of consciousness is beyond nothingness and being, where is the place of absolute nothingness.5 The place of absolute nothingness is () absolute freedom.

3.

What is the radicalization of consciousness? How can consciousness be radicalized? How

Intension indicates the internal content of a term or concept that constitutes its formal definition; and extension indicates its range of applicability by naming the particular objects that it denotes. 5 Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, P.334 3

Name: Tang Man To Institution: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. M. Phil in Philosophy Conference: UTCP Graduate Conference 2012 "Practicing Japanese Philosophy: Mind and Activity" Date: 19-2-2012, 14:50-17:10 Session 3: Constructing Alternative Self-Consciousness Title: Absolute freedom from the account of radicalizing consciousness in Nishida Kitaros philosophy

can such practice be demonstrated? 3.1 Self-awareness as the key for the radicalization of consciousness. 3.1.1 The world is a place of coming-to-be and passing away. 3.1.2 We are in the place of searching the very ground of self-identity and ego.

3.1.3 We can reach the very ground of self of identity if and only if we penetrate to the depth of ones own everyday experience and recollect ourselves.6 3.2 Nishida calls it self-awareness which is a kind of religious awareness. In The logic of plac:
In religious conversion or spiritual liberation, we do not leave behind the self-conscious self with all its desires and rationality. We do not become unconscious. Rather, we become even more acutely self-aware and dwell in the intelligible realm. We do not abandon the judging, discriminating self. (665)

3.3 Radicalizing consciousness:

In fact, all that has happened is that we have advanced from a standpoint of oppositional nothingness to one of true nothingness, from a place that reflects the shadow of things to a place where the things are located. It is not a question of abandoning the the standpoint of consciousness but of radicalizing it. True negation has to be a negation of negation; otherwise there would be no point at which we could single out consciousness in general from consciousness; consciousness would become meaningless. (656)

3.3.1

The standpoint of consciousness refers to the standpoint of consciousness towards

being or nothing when we are thinking.

We recognize that something is by opposing it to what is not. But to recognize what is not by setting it against what is, is to make it into being for the sake of the opposition. True nothingness must envelop both the is and the is not of that opposition; it must be the place where both arise. The nothingness that opposes being by negating it is not a true

Nishida Kitaro, Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview. Translated by D. A. Dilworth. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987)p.115 4

Name: Tang Man To Institution: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. M. Phil in Philosophy Conference: UTCP Graduate Conference 2012 "Practicing Japanese Philosophy: Mind and Activity" Date: 19-2-2012, 14:50-17:10 Session 3: Constructing Alternative Self-Consciousness Title: Absolute freedom from the account of radicalizing consciousness in Nishida Kitaros philosophy nothingness. True nothingness forms the back ground of being. (654)

3.3.2

When we ask whether there is something or not, we presuppose that the standpoint is

either being or nothing. 3.3.3 It would be against the law of contradictory if the standpoint is both being or nothing,

or neither being nor nothing. Taking Rose as an example

3.3.4 There is a background or condition of possibility for being and nothing. 3.3.4.1 The place is the background where such latent being arises and where it is possible to posit a lent form of being behind the activity. 3.3.4.2 It is the very ground where our self is established. In such place, the very ground is self-negating and transform into self-emptying. 3.3.4.3 It is the standpoint of standpoints, has no fixed content of its own.
Our religious awareness does not actually arise from within us; it arises from the elemental ground out of which the self comes into being. (664)

3.5 Evoked by the voice of God or Buddha, the self comes into the depths of our being which is an absolutely self-contradictory existence:
In a religious relationship where the self stands opposite an absolute being that is the source of its life, the wise and the foolish, the good and the wicked, are all the same. (664)

3.5.1

Nishida pronounces such a place that it expands infinitely to make room for

intuition. a thought experiment of an infant

In the depth of the self, there is nothing; we are utterly nothing and respond to the absolute by way of an inverse correlation. In this radicalization of consciousness, we transcend everything. We transcend the historical world, which is the self-determination of the absolute present; we transcend the past and the future. In doing so, we are absolute free.7
7

Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, P.667 5

Name: Tang Man To Institution: The Chinese University of Hong Kong. M. Phil in Philosophy Conference: UTCP Graduate Conference 2012 "Practicing Japanese Philosophy: Mind and Activity" Date: 19-2-2012, 14:50-17:10 Session 3: Constructing Alternative Self-Consciousness Title: Absolute freedom from the account of radicalizing consciousness in Nishida Kitaros philosophy

Possible obstacles: 1. Some scholars may think that Nishidas doctrine of absolute freedom is a kind of mysticism.8 1.1 However, Nishida clearly reject such interpretation in An inquiry into the good: People usually say that a transcendent self outside desire freely decides motives, but of course there is no such mystical power; and if decisions made by such a transcendent self did exist, they would be fortuitous and anything but free. (25) In Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview: religion is often called mystical. But when I speak of religion, I do not refer to a special kind of consciousnessthe mystical has no use at all in our practical lives. (115) 1.2 Rather, his doctrine of absolute freedom is a kind of practice in our practical lives.

Tanabe Hajime is the most famous philosopher who criticizes Nishidas philosophy. He regards Nishidas philosophy of place and absolute nothingness as a kind of mysticism. 6