Kuki Shūzō

Kuki Shūzō
Full name Kuki Shūzō
Born February 15, 1888
Died May 6, 1941
Era 20th century philosophy
Region Japanese philosophy
School Kyoto School
Main interests Aesthetics, Culture
In this Japanese name, the family name is "Kuki".

Kuki Shūzō (九鬼 周造?, February 15, 1888 – May 6, 1941) was a prominent Japanese academic, philosopher and university professor.

Contents

Early life

Shūzō was the fourth child of Baron Kuki Ryūichi (九鬼 隆一) a high bureaucrat in the Meiji Ministry for Culture and Education (Monbushō). Since it appears that Shūzō's mother, Hatsu, was already pregnant when she fell in love with Okakura Kakuzō (岡倉 覚三), otherwise known as Okakura Tenshin (岡倉 天心), a protégé of her husband's (a notable patron of the arts), the rumour that Okakura was Kuki's father would appear to be groundless. It is true, however, that Shūzō as a child, after his mother had separated and then divorced his father, thought of Okakura, who often visited, as his real father, and later certainly hailed him as his spiritual father. From Okakura, he gained much of his fascination for aesthetics and perhaps foreign languages, as indeed his fascination with the peculiar cultural codes of the pleasure quarters of Japan owes something to the fact that his mother had once been a geisha.

At age 23 in 1911 (Meiji 44), Shūzō converted to Catholicism; and he was baptized in Tokyo as Franciscus Assisiensis Kuki Shūzō. The idealism and introspection implied by this decision were early evidence of issues which would have resonance in the characteristic mindset of the mature man.[1]

A graduate in philosophy of Tokyo Imperial University, Shūzō spent eight years in Europe to polish his knowledge of languages and deepen his already significant studies of contemporary Western thought. At the University of Heidelberg, he studied under the neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert, and he engaged Eugen Herrigel as a tutor.[2] At the University of Paris, he was impressed by the work of Henri Bergson, whom he got to know personally; and he engaged the young Jean-Paul Sartre as a French tutor.[3] It is little known outside Japan that Kuki influenced in Jean-Paul Sartre to develop his an interest in Heidegger's philosophy.[4]

At the University of Freiburg, Shūzō studied phenomenology under Edmund Husserl; and he first met Martin Heidegger in Husserl's home. He moved to the University of Marburg for Heidegger's lectures on phenomenological interpretation of Kant, and for Heidegger's seminar "Schelling's Essay on the Essence of Human Freedom."[3] Fellow students during these years in Europe were Watsuji Tetsurō and Miki Kiyoshi.

Career

Shortly after Shūzō's return to Japan, he wrote and published his masterpiece, The Structure of "Iki" (1930). In this work he undertakes to make a phenomenological analysis of ‘iki’, a variety of chic culture current among the fashionable set in Edo in the Tokugawa period, and asserted that it constituted one of the essential values of Japanese culture.

Shūzō took up a teaching post at Kyoto University, then a prominent center for conservative cultural values and thinking. His early lectures focused on Descartes and Bergson. In the context of a faculty with a primarily Germanic philiosophical background, his lectures offered a someone different perspective based on the work of French philosophers.

He became an Associate Professor in 1933 (Shōwa 8); and in that same year, he published the first book length study of Martin Heidegger to appear in Japanese.[5] In this context, it is noteworthy that the German philosopher explicitly referenced a conversation "between a Japanese and an inquirer" [6] in On the Way to Language (Aus einem Gespräch von der Sprache).[7] Also, Heidegger expressed a desire to have written the preface to the German translation of The Structure of "Iki"[8]

At the University of Kyoto, Shūzō was elevated to Professor of Philosophy in March 1934 (Shōwa 10).[5] The next year, he published The Problem of Contingency, also known as The Problem of the Accidental.[9] This work was developed from his personal experiences in Europe and the influences of Heidegger. As a single Japanese man within an encompassing "white" or non-Japanese society, he considered the extent to which he became a being who lacked necessity.[4] His Kyoto University lectures on Heidegger, Man and Existence, were published in 1939.[10]

From the mid-thirties, while Japan drifted towards totalitarianism and the war in China dragged on, Shūzō seemed not to be much disturbed by the growth of fascism.[11]

In 1941, Shūzō died prematurely from consequences following an attack of peritonitis.[12]

Major works

  • 1930 The Structure of "Iki" (「いき」の構造, "Iki" no kōzō?)
  • 1933 The Philosophy of Heidegger (「ハイデッガーの哲学, Haideggā no tetsugaku?)
  • 1935 The Problem of Contingency (偶然性の問題, Gūzensei no mondai?)
  • 1939 Man and Existence (人間と実存, Ningen to jitsuzon?)
  • 1941 An Essay on the Fine Arts (文芸論, Bungeiron?)

Notes

  1. ↑ Nara, Hiroshi. (2004). The Structure of Detachment: the Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shūzō with a translation of "Iki no kōzō," pp. 96-97.
  2. ↑ Nara, p. 172.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Nara, p. 173.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Parkes, Graham. (1990). Heidegger and Asian Thought, p. 158.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Nara, p. 174.
  6. ↑ Zwischen einem Japaner und einem Fragendenin
  7. ↑ Marra, Michael F. (2002). Japanese hermeneutics, pp. 89-202. at Google Books
  8. ↑ Light, Stephen. (1987). Kuki Shūzō and Jean-Paul Sartre, p. 31.
  9. ↑ Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Kuki Shūzō" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 571 at Google Books.
  10. ↑ Nara, p. 161.
  11. ↑ Nara, p. 149.
  12. ↑ Nara, p. 175.

References

  • Yasuda, Tekeshi and Tada Michitarō. (1979). "Iki" no kōzō’ o yomu. Tokyo: Asahi Sensho.

External links

bo:ཤུ་ཟོ་ཀུ་ཀི།

de:Kuki Shūzō fr:Shūzō Kuki it:Kuki Shūzō ja:九鬼周造 zh:九鬼周造

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