Ethics of Nishitani, Watsuji, and Berdyaev – Sevilla

“The Communality of Creativity and the Creativity of Communality: A Comparison of the Ethics of Nikolai Berdyaev and Watsuji Tetsuro” by Anton Luis Sevilla (PDF – 308 KB):

Comparison of Berdyaev’s and Watsuji’s Ethics – Sevilla

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Sevilla, Anton Luis. “Ethics of Emptiness East and West: Examining Nishitani, Watsuji, and Berdyaev.” In Questioning Oriental Aesthetics and Thinking: Conflicting Visions of “Asia” Under the Colonial Empires, edited by Shigemi Inaga. Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2010. Retrieved from: <http://publications.nichibun.ac.jp/region/d/NSH/series/kosh/2011-03-31/s001/s026/pdf/article.pdf >.

Sevilla, Anton Luis. “The Communality of Creativity and the Creativity of Communality: A Comparison of the Ethics of Nikolai Berdyaev and Watsuji Tetsuro.” Kritika Kultura, No. 15 (2010), pp. 226-253. Retrieved from: <http://philpapers.org/archive/SEVTCO-2.pdf >.

Notes on other resources: See also the article about the debate on Kitaro Nishida’s philosophical positions, a Japanese philosopher who was a significant influence on Tetsuro Watsuji and Keiji Nishitani: “The Nishida Enigma: ‘The Principle of the New World Order’” by Yoko Arisaka. However, we should note to our audience that Arisaka’s article deals mostly with Nishida’s political and cultural philosophy, and only briefly mentions his philosophy in the fields of religion, ontology, science, and ethics. Likewise, Sevilla’s articles above mostly deal with the ethical philosophies and (to a lesser extent) religious philosophies of Watsuji and Nishitani, but neglect the philosophy of culture and climate which Watsuji is well-known for.

More information on all of these thinkers can be found in various books and journals, including for example at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (see Kyoto School, Nishida, Watsuji). Another good reference for external resources on Japanese philosophers is the Japanese Philosophy Blog (see categories of Kyoto School, Nishida, Watsuji) and Nichibunken (see publications search). However, we should warn our readers that the majority of academic resources on these philosophers in English contain anti-Right-wing or anti-Conservative bias and commentaries (especially the Stanford Encyclopedia), and thus must be compared and balanced with alternative explanations for a better understanding. A more neutral, although somewhat limited, discussion of Watsuji’s political (and ethical-social) philosophy can be found in “Watsuji Tetsuro’s Contributions to Political Philosophy” by Kazuhiko Okuda (Paper delivered to the XVIIth World Congress of International Political Science Association (IPSA), Seoul, Korea, August 17·21, 1997. Originally published online at: <http://nirr.lib.niigata-u.ac.jp/bitstream/10623/31224/1/2011_2_iuj1_019.pdf >. ).