Yu Inutsuka - Panel 04 ENOJP Brussels
Channel: European Network of Japanese Philosophy
Date: 2018-01-04

The Concepts of Mono and Koto in the Philosophy of Watsuji Tetsurō

Yu Inutsuka (The University of Tokyo, Japan)

In the past decades, several Japanese philosophers have addressed the Japanese concepts of mono and koto. Watsuji
Tetsurō (1889–1960) was the first to focus on these notions
before Hiromatsu Wataru (1933–1994) and Kimura Bin
(1931–) (Kimura 1982). However, it is not well known that
Watsuji more precisely came to distinguish these concepts on
the basis of his thinking in a foreign language because of his
works in German. Further, in recent works on Watsuji’s philosophy,
the concepts of koto and mono have not been mainly
focused on (apart from some studies such as Miyagawa 2008).
Nevertheless, understanding these notions, including their
basis, is important for comprehending the development of
Watsuji’s philosophy and positioning his theory of fūdo (climate)
and ethics within this development. Considering these situations, this paper aims to examine the generation of Watsuji’s
analysis of mono and koto and shows the development
of Watsuji’s thought within and among these concepts.
Before his studies in Germany from 1927 to 1928,
Watsuji conducted a research on Buddhist philosophy.
During that time, Watsuji began to use the concepts of mono
and koto in a distinctive way and to consider the fundamentality
of koto for all ephemeral existence. In his lecture notes,
we can note that Watsuji acquired his idea from the work
of a German Orientalist, Wilhelm Geiger. The distinction
between the two concepts of mono and koto became more
evident in the revised edition of Watsuji’s work, The Practical
Philosophy of Primitive Buddhism. Watsuji’s reference to
Heidegger’s philosophy after studying in Germany was partially
also due to the notions of mono and koto. Watsuji reinterpreted
Heidegger’s discussion of daß using Geiger’s ideas.
Watsuji also attained new interpretations of mono and koto,
under the influence of Heidegger, in two ways. First, taking
Heidegger’s idea of Dasein, Watsuji began to distinguish
mono as a human being from mono as a non-human and to
consider the former as the basis of koto. Watsuji further proposed
the sociality of mono. Secondly, Watsuji adopted from
Heidegger the idea of self-understanding of Dasein in the interaction
with mono, which is later reinterpreted in Watsuji’s
theory as fūdo. Under the influence of Heidegger, these two
aspects, the particularity of Dasein and its self-understanding,
led to Watsuji’s finding of the particularity and fundamentality
of interactions between people. Watsuji finally proposes his
ethics as comprehending koto no wake in order to understand
human existence, which possesses a duality of the individual
and the social. Thus, these notions led to a generation of the
analysis of fūdo and ethics by Watsuji, who thought in a world
of multiple languages.

This talk took place at the Second annual conference of the European Network of Japanese Philosophy [ENOJP] 7–10 December 2016, Université libre de Bruxelles [ULB].

For more informations:
http://enojp.org/
http://chisokudopublications.com/

Art Direction: Choplair (CC-BY 3.0)