Itabashi Yūjin - Alterity in Kata (Form): With Reference to the Philosophy of Nishida Kitarō
Channel: European Network of Japanese Philosophy
Date: 2020-06-05

ENOJP4 Hildesheim 2018
Workshop 1: Transforming the Bodymind: Towards a Phenomenology of Ki 気 and Kata 型

Alterity in Kata (Form): With Reference to the Philosophy of Nishida Kitarō 
型における異他性：西田哲学を導きとして

Itabashi Yūjin (Risshō University)

Nishida Kitarō writes in his Philosophical Essays No. 6 (1945), “the inside is thouroughly the outside, the outside is thoroughly the inside, from the inside to the outside and from the outside to the inside, to form means to be formed, the world forms itself.” And “in being like this, the world is bodily”. Further restating this, he writes: “In this sense, our bodies are the forms (katachi) of the self-forming world.” According to Nishida, the action of ones’s own body and its formational activity towards the world are at the same time the emergence of self and other in the midst of the self-formation and self-creation of the world in which they live together. In this sense, the body itself is assumed to be nothing else than the relation between the inside and outside of the self, and also the personal relation between the self and the other. It is furthermore important to note that this self-creation of the world is neither performed by the law of causality nor realized purposively. Therefore, it is not brought about by way of continuity. Rather, according to Nishida, this self-creation of the world is made possible through each and every encounter of the self with an alterity in each new situation in a discontinuous way. Based on this line of thought, the 
important role that the “practice of kata” (“forms” or “patterns”) plays in Japan can be reconsidered. If the “practice of kata” implies a cultivation of the way or mode the body acts onto the world and forms it, this will simultaneously mean a sublimation of the personal relations between self and other in the process of the self-formation of the world. What is important in this context is that this practice of kata is the realization of a kind of creativity in which the practice does not rely on any kind of continuity, be it the law of causality or purposiveness. In my presentation, I would like to think about the idea that the practice of kata is not simply the realization of a unity of body and mind (心身一如) or of subject and object, nor a level of attainment in which an art form or technique can be developed and performed without disturbances, but rather the realization of an act of world-creation which is made possible by a contingent and discontinuous encounter with something that is radically different from oneself.

This talk took place at the forth annual conference of the European Network of Japanese Philosophy [ENOJP], 5 – 8 September 2018, Universität Hildesheim, Kulturcampus Domäne Marienburg, Germany.

More informations:
http://enojp.org/
http://chisokudopublications.blogspot.com/
https://enojp4.wordpress.com/

Art Direction: Robin Alberding & Jerome Ebeling (CC-BY 3.0)