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Full-Text Articles in History of Philosophy
Zange And Sorge: Two Models Of 'Concern' In Comparative Philosophy Of Religion, James Shields
Zange And Sorge: Two Models Of 'Concern' In Comparative Philosophy Of Religion, James Shields
Faculty Contributions to Books
The concept of Sorge, as developed in Martin Heidegger’s (1889–1976) classic work, Sein und Zeit (1927), describes an existential-ontological state characterized by “anxiety” about the future and the desire to “attend to” the world based on our awareness of temporality. In Japan, this concept was borrowed and critically developed by Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960). In Rinrigaku (1937–49), Watsuji argued that Heidegger’s Sorge remains overly reliant on the philosophical structures of Western individualism and subjectivism, and thus neglects the social dimension of human being. In turn, Watsuji’s contemporary, Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962), developed an alternative theory of “concern” in his reflections on …
The Art Of Aidagara: Ethics, Aesthetics, And The Quest For An Ontology Of Social Existence In Watsuji Tetsurō’S Rinrigaku, James Shields
The Art Of Aidagara: Ethics, Aesthetics, And The Quest For An Ontology Of Social Existence In Watsuji Tetsurō’S Rinrigaku, James Shields
Faculty Journal Articles
This paper provides an analysis of the key term aidagara (“betweenness”) in the philosophical ethics of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), in response to and in light of the recent movement in Japanese Buddhist studies known as “Critical Buddhism.” The Critical Buddhist call for a turn away from “topical” or intuitionist thinking and towards (properly Buddhist) “critical” thinking, while problematic in its bipolarity, raises the important issue of the place of “reason” versus “intuition” in Japanese Buddhist ethics. In this paper, a comparison of Watsuji’s “ontological quest” with that of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Watsuji’s primary Western source and foil, is followed by …