Jomo K 2008-02-26

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

I am not sure why other reviewers said they found this book overly difficult. Yes, Nishida was a layman who trained in Zen meditation, but to my thinking, his spartan verbal approach does not detract from the task at hand; on the contrary, this stoic attempt lends to the book's sublime clarity and intelligence. So, yes, the work requires special attention and thought, but what of value does not?

Overall I find his discourse to be universal rather than localized and, as such, I feel this text will be of interest to ALL students of philosophy - not just those studying Zen or Buddhism, but those with an interest in James, Heidegger, pragmatism, existentialism, or even poststructuralist thought.

Thus, I recommend this book highly.

That said, however, I do have one or two reservations. On one hand, this slim but dense philosophical text represents a brilliant attempt by Nishida to reconcile the traditional Cartesian subject/object bifurcation so privileged in the Western philosophy, but de-emphasized in Buddhist thought. I think Nishida accomplishes this daunting reconciliation with startling clarity, as well as insightful, thought provoking analysis. His arguments do, in fact, remind me a lot of Heidegger's Being and Time, with only a fraction of the words!

On the other hand, I find his overall philosophy somewhat troubling. That is, if we conflate the subject/object (as Heidegger does as well), what are we left with? To me, it would be a foundation-less present moment without moral precedent whereby, say, a Nietzschen Super Man, can - and historically has done so - successfully hoodwink philosophy in the name of Nationalism. Nishida was, in fact, a member of the controversial Kyoto School, and he did sit back and watched silently (whether he approved or not is not clear even today) as the radical military faction of Japan's emerging Rightwing pre-War political movement incorporated their words as a foundation to their staunch nationalistic ideology and propaganda - leading, of course, to war. But does that negate the power of this specific text? I would say no, and hence, my five star rating.

Give it a read. Then read it again. I think it will begin to sink in. Is it difficult? Well, yes, but then again, as I said before, what of value is ever easy?

Anton Sevilla 2005-10-28

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Nishida's book was a bit tedious. The translation seems good and his writing style isn't deliberately cryptic. Familiarity in Eastern thought, particularly Zen Buddhist thought, greatly aids making sense of what he says. Also a familiarity with Kant and Hegel (whom he responds to) and the Western tradition would be greatly helpful.

Aside from his key point on reckoning with things in their immediacy (paraphrase), I found quite a gem in his description of God in his later chapters -- a view of God even atheistic materialists might agree with.

All in all a good book, lacking in style but not in substance.

Shawn Standefer 2004-02-19

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

Nishida's writing is heavily influenced by Zen. A bit of introduction to it will make many parts of this book more coherent. That is not to say that this book is pointless without an exposure to Zen, but rather that it rewards the reader with a passing familiarity with the subject. For the reader without such a background, it could still prove fruitful, but it will definitely require multiple readings.
Nishida's writing is difficult to follow. He was trying to write a philosphical text in the Western tradition; the particular tradition seems to be German idealism, so his writing seems like Hegel and Kant: hard to penetrate. His argumentation is sparse in many parts since he is laying out so much. When he finally gets around to it, he presents some very interesting ideas. He gives us a good critique of Cartesian dualism. He also gives us a fairly unique (in my opinion) explanation of the self and its relation to the world. It is unfortunate (in my opinion, again) that he wasn't trained in the Analytic style that was soon to come into vogue in other parts of the world. He seems like he could have done some really neat things. As it stands, he did some interesting things with this book that are not studied for the most part. This is sad since it is a very original work.