Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences / Philosophical Conceptions of Cultural Space in Russia and Japan: Comparing Nishida Kitaro and Semën Frank

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Issue
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences. 2013 6 (11)
Authors
Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten
Contact information
Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten:Gulf University for Science and Technology, PO Box 7207, 32093 Hawally, Kuwait;E-mail:
Keywords
Nishida Kitaro; Semyen Frank; Basho, sobornost’; philosophy of space; comparative Russian and Japanese philosophy
Abstract

Jean-Luc Nancy notes that the community, since it is no absolute subject (self, will, spirit), is by its nature not inscribed in any logic metaphysics. In spite of this, or indeed because of this, Western philosophy has persistently tried to interpret the community through precisely these metaphysical terms (Nancy, 1986, page 18, La Commonauté désoevrée, Christian Bourgeois, Paris). Some thoughts about Russian and Japanese notions of community and space will show that characteristics pointed out by Nancy and Kant are binding only for societies that function within a Western intellectual framework. I want to introduce and compare the thought of Nishida Kitaro. (1870 – 1945) and Semën L Frank (1877 – 1950), who develop the notions of basho and sobornost' as alternative philosophical concepts of space. Both Nishida and Frank attempt to overcome what they consider a typically `Western' idea of individual `I's as materialized `objects'. Procedures like Einfü h- lung or intuition are inefficient because all they do is to transform the other, from the point of view of the `I', into an object. Finally, for the Eurasianist, the state organization had at its center a personal god, and the `symphonic personality' of Russia-Eurasia represented a nonegoistic, communal consciousness

Pages
1555-1574
Paper at repository of SibFU
https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/10097

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