Date: 15th July 2017
Time: 16:00〜19:00 (Subject to Change)
Venue: Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Hokkaido University

Speakers:
Yasuo DEGUCHI (Kyoto University): Self as Anyone: Dōgen viewed from analytic Asian philosophy
Shigeru TAGUCHI (Hokkaido University): Self as Mediation: Hajime Tanabe’s Philosophy of Self and Its Consequences
Jay L. GARFIELD （Smith College/Kyoto University）: Dinning on Painted Rice Cakes: Dōgen’s Use of Paradox and Contradiction

Abstracts:
Self as Anyone: Dōgen viewed from analytic Asian philosophy
Yasuo DEGUCHI (Kyoto University)
‘Self’ is among key concepts of Dōgen, a thirteenth century Japanese Zen master. This talk will interpret his philosophy of self from perspectives of Analytic Asian Philosophy. On my reading, Dōgen’s ideas imply the following philosophical stances: Buddha-nature tropism, Eventism, Presentism, Hecism, and Solipsism. Against those philosophical backgrounds, he holds, I claim, the replaceable view of self, according to which self is taken as anyone.

Self as Mediation: Hajime Tanabe’s Philosophy of Self and Its Consequences
Shigeru Taguchi (Hokkaido University)
The influential 20th century Japanese philosopher Hajime Tanabe (1885–1962) developed a unique concept of the self that can help us to rethink the question “What is the self?” In his view, the self should neither be objectified nor thought of as something hidden behind the phenomenal world. It entirely manifests itself in our experience, but nevertheless, cannot be observed as a fixed object. This is because the self is nothing other than the “mediation” that is operating in our experience of all that appears as concrete reality. For example, the mediation between the material and the spiritual is naturally accomplished in the bodily action that the self performs without making itself appear as an objective being. It is neither the case that the visible body is the self, nor that the self is completely apart from the body. The self is the most engaged performer in this play, but who, for all that, does not appear on the stage.

Thus, the self as “mediation” should not be regarded as a being, but as “nothingness.” This does not mean that our self is simply nothing, however. Rather, it is only by being aware of the self as nothingness that we can properly understand how our self is able to serve as a transcendental condition (or mediator) of all those things that appear as beings.

By this thought, we are not required to willfully abandon the self as a being; in a practical action, we are already made to abandon it. This fact shows that the thought of the self as nothingness has significant practical implications. Such a reinterpretation of the self culminates in a reinterpretation of the mediation between the godhead and worldly subjects, which is determined by Love and Great Compassion (大悲).

Dining on Painted Rice Cakes: Dōgen’s Use of Paradox and Contradiction
Jay L. Garfield (Smith College / Kyoto University)
Dōgen’s writings are highly intertextual—they engage, often critically, with a great array of Buddhist scriptural and exegetical materials, as well as with the writings of many famous Zen masters who went before him. His works are also layered, allusive, and highly literary, and, as such, pose many difficulties for translators and interpreters.  He is often explicitly committed to paradox—to the assertion of contradictions—not as a kind of upāya to bring one up short, but as a way of saying how reality must be.  Here we consider a few such passages from his lectures Shōbōgenzō.  We will see how and why Dōgen takes there to be fundamental contradictions in language, thought, and reality. We will consider important passages from Shoji, Gabyō, Uji  and Katto. It will emerge that one of Dōgen’s central insights is that reality itself is inconsistent, and that if we are to understand it correctly, we must be willing to embrace paradox.