Page iii

2/693

Shuzo * Kuki and Jean-Paul Sartre

Influence And Counter-Influence In The Early History Of Existential Phenomenology
By Stephen Light Including The Notebook "Monsieur Sartre" And Other Parisian Writings Of Shuzo Kuki Edited and Translated By Stephen Light

3/693

Foreword by Michel Rybalka Published for The Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS Carbondale and Edwardsville

title:

author: publisher: isbn10 | asin: print isbn13: ebook isbn13: language:

Shuzo Kuki and Jean-Paul Sartre : Influence and Counter-influence in the Early History of Existential Phenomenology Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series Light, Stephen.; Kuki, Shuzo Southern Illinois University Press 0809312719 9780809312719 9780585033723 English

4/693

subject publication date: lcc: ddc: subject:

Kuki, Shuzo,--1888-1941, Sartre, Jean Paul,--1905- , Existential phenomenology, Time. 1987 B5244.K844L53 1987eb 181/.12 Kuki, Shuzo,--1888-1941, Sartre, Jean Paul,--1905- , Existential phenomenology, Time.

Page iv

For Tetsuo Kogawa and Osamu Mihashi Copyright 1987 by The Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Edited by Curtis L. Clark Designed by Cindy Small Production supervised by Natalia Nadraga Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

6/693

Light, Stephen, date Shuzo Kuki and Jean-Paul Sartre: influence and counter-influence in the early history of existential phenomenology. (The Journal of the history of philosophy monograph series) "Including the notebook 'Monsieur Sartre' and other Parisian writings of Shuzo Kuki, edited and translated by Stephen Light." Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Kuki, Shuzo *, 1888-1941. 2. Sartre, Jean Paul, 1905- 3. Existential phenomenology. I. Kuki, Shuzo, 1888-1941. II. Title. III. Series. B5244.K844L53 1987 181'.12 86-11861 ISBN 0-8093-1271-9 (pbk.)

7/693

CONTENTS

The Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograp Foreword Michel Rybalka Preface Richard H. Popkin Acknowledgments

Part One Shuzo Kuki and Jean-Paul Sartre: Influence and Co of Existential Phenomenology Stephen Light

9/693

Part Two Considerations on Time: Two Essays Delivered at P August 1928 Shuzo * Kuki

The Notion of Time and Repetition in Oriental Tim The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art

Part Three Propos on Japan Shuzo * Kuki Bergson in Japan Japanese Theater A Peasant He Is The Japanese Soul Time Is Money In the Manner of Herodotus Subject and Graft Geisha Two Scenes Familiar to Children General Characteristics of French Philosophy

11/693

Part Four "Monsieur Sartre": A Notebook Shuzo Kuki Bibliography Index

Page vii

THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY MONOGRAPH SERIES

THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF Philosophy Monograph Series, consisting of volumes of 80 to 120 pages, attempts to accommodate serious studies in the history of philosophy that are between article length and standard book size. Editors of learned journals have usually been able to publish such studies only by truncating them or by publishing them in sections. In this series, the Journal of the History of Philosophy will present, in volumes published by Southern Illinois University Press, such works in their entirety.

13/693

The historical range covered by the Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series will be the same as that covered by the Journal itselfthe range from ancient Greek philosophy to that of the twentieth century. We anticipate including extended studies on given philosophers, ideas, and concepts, as well as analyses of texts or controversies and new documentary findings about various thinkers and events in the history of philosophy. The editors of the Monograph Series, Richard H. Popkin and Richard A. Watson, will draw upon the directors of the Journal of the History of Philosophy and other qualified experts to evaluate submitted manuscripts.

14/693

We believe that a series of studies of this size and format will fulfill a genuine need of scholars in the history of philosophy, and we hope to present important new studies and texts to the scholarly community.

Page ix

FOREWORD
IT WAS GENERALLY KNOWN, THROUGH Simone de Beauvoir and Fernando Gerassi, that Jean-Paul Sartre had had substantial talks in the late twenties with an unnamed Japanese philosopher who had just met Heidegger in Germany, and that, later on, Sartre had tried unsuccessfully to obtain an assistantship in Japan. In 1966, during Sartre's stay in that country, it was learned from him that his interlocutor was indeed the philosopher Shuzo * Kuki, also known as Baron Kuki because of his aristocratic descent. This intriguing East-West encounter remained, however, a mystery; when I investigated it in France a few years ago, I was unable to come up with any precise information.1

16/693

Then, a miracle of research happened: Stephen Light, a young American scholar from Berkeley, helped by his knowledge of French, by his Japanese wife, and by his passion for philosophy, gained access, thanks to Professor Akio Sato, to Kuki's papers, among which was a notebook marked "Monsieur Sartre." This notebook contained a series of brief notes on French philosophy, and lo and behold! one page was in the handwriting of Sartre himself, thus giving an unforeseen dimension to the whole document.

17/693

In his well-researched introduction, Stephen Light provides all necessary information about the life and works of Baron Kuki and states that Kuki had weekly talks with Sartre during two and a half months in 1928, very likely from September to November. These dates can be confirmed from what we know of Sartre's schedule: in June 1928, he took the strenuous examinations for the agrgation de philosophie and failed because he had attempted to develop a line of thinking which was considered too personal; he had some vacations with his friend Nizan in August, and returned to Paris towards the end of the summer, being thus free for his talks with Kuki.

18/693

We know from the notebook what Sartre, more or less, said to Kuki, or at least we are able to read what Kuki found useful to jot down in a sometimes faulty French. It is likely that the experienced Kuki asked the young Sartre (who was then twenty-three) to tell him about the present state of French

Page x

philosophy, and that Sartre, fresh from the comprehensive preparation needed for agrgation,was happy to oblige, happy to make some money and to communicate his own personal ideas and preferences. Sartre, for instance, mentions an article by his former professor of philosophy at the Lyce Louis-le-Grand, Colonna d'Istria, and introduces remarks on communists and radical-socialists. The presence of names like Proust, Valry, and Breton associated with names like Nietzsche, Alain, and Bergson shows clearly the importance that Sartre was already attributing to the connection between philosophy and literature. Several pages are devoted to Descartes, Pascal, Valry, but no mention is made of Freud or Marx.

20/693

A comparison of Kuki's notes with his rather positivistic texts (to be found later in this volume) on the general characteristics of French philosophy or on Bergson clearly reveal, in my opinion, the difference between the Japanese philosopher and Sartre. It is striking, for instance, that the page in Sartre's handwriting insists on negation and proposes, as it appears, a dialectical approach to the problem of being and nothingness. The words "Premire solution: Esthtisme" linked to "pessimisme" refer already to a major theme in Sartre's literary philosophy, and especially to his studies of Baudelaire, Genet, Mallarm, and Flaubert.

21/693

Kuki's notes can certainly be read as an abbreviated text by Sartre (or as an interview), but it would be difficult to find in them a central unifying vision or a clear delineation of what Sartre's philosophy will become later. In this respect, texts written by Sartre in 1927-28such as his diplme d'tudes suprieures thesis on the image, such as his novel Une dfaite (where Sartre sees himself in the situation of Nietzsche in his relationship with Richard and Cosima Wagner), such as the recently discovered essay "Er l'Armnien," based on book 10 of Plato's Republicprovide a much richer, a more explicit and more original material. 2

22/693

Was there a meaningful dialogue between Sartre and Kuki? Was Sartre influenced by Kuki? To my knowledgebut this is to be verifiedthere is no written trace in Sartre's manuscripts of his encounter with the Japanese philosopher. In his mature life, Sartre repeated time and again that he thought that discussions among philosophers were futile and unproductive and that invention in philosophy could be achieved only through writing. The difference of age and of culture, the language barrier, the apparent respect with which Kuki treated "Monsieur Sartre" were probably not conducive to an open exchange of ideas. We can surmise, however, that Kuki explained to Sartre what he had heard about phenomenology in Germany and that this explanation had some importance in Sartre's further development.

Page xi

It is obvious today that the discovery of phenomenology by Sartre is not the simple affair related by Simone de Beauvoir in her memoirs. Much before the famous meeting (in 1932) with Raymond Aron in front of a peach cocktail, Sartre displayed in several of his early writings a strong predisposition to phenomenology and an acute sensitiveness to what will be defined later as "existentialist" themes. On the other hand, we know that the painter Fernando Gerassi, who had studied philosophy in German universities, had told Sartre specifically about phenomenology and about Husserl and Heidegger when he met him in 1929. Thus, Shuzo * Kuki is without a doubt an early and important link in Sartre's progress toward a philosophy of freedom: through Kuki's notebook, we learn that in 1928 already people were in a "triste et neurasthnique" state of mind, but that finally, "il faut croire la libert."

24/693

It would be unjust (some would say europocentric) to limit Kuki to his encounter with Sartre. He is obviously a major figure in Japanese philosophy, and we should be grateful to Stephen Light for introducing us to his work. MICHEL RYBALKA

Notes
1. The extensive biography of Sartre by Annie Cohen-Solal, published in October 1985 by Gallimard, does not mention this episode at all. 2. The text of Une dfaite and of "Er l'Armnien," edited by Michel Contat and me, will be published in 1986 by Gallimard in a volume entitled Les Ecrits de jeunesse de Sartre.

25/693

Page xiii

PREFACE

27/693

WHEN STEPHEN LIGHT FIRST TOLD ME of the relationship between Jean-Paul Sartre and Shuzo * Kuki, and of the existence of Kuki's notebook of conversations with Sartre, I thought it was an interesting historical curiosity that deserved to be explored, and I encouraged him to do so. (Light is married to Naoko Haruta, a Japanese artist, and through her he was able to make contact with the Japanese academicians who have given him Kuki's notebook, plus much additional information.) When he sent me the first draft of his paper, along with a photocopy of the notebook, I was truly amazed at the cross-cultural relationships involved, and at the role Baron Kuki of Japan, studying in Germany and France, played in bringing Sartre first into contact with Heidegger's and Husserl's thought, and then introducing Sartre to Heidegger. Later, when Light sent me copies of the talks and writings Kuki produced in France at the time, I realized there was more here than could be

28/693

contained in one article. Yet it all had to be read together to appreciate the picture of an intellectual explosion taking place as a result of the Sartre and Kuki meeting in 1928. The conclusions that flow from Light's account seemed to me so revolutionary and important that I suggested he send his original draft to several specialists in existentialist and phenomenological thought for their reaction. They all expressed amazement and excitement about what he had found. My colleague, Michel Rybalka, who has devoted so much time and energy to Sartre scholarship, then agreed to write a foreword.

29/693

In considering what form of publication to recommend to Light, I realized the material he had put togetherhis article, the Kuki-Sartre notebook, and Kuki's French talks and writings of 1928was too much for a single journal article, yet too little for a conventional book. It occurred to me that sometimes scholars cannot condense their findings to 30-40 pages of journal printing and would be stretching their material to expand it to the conventional 200 pages for a book. What was needed was something between these

Page xiv

two extremes: a monograph size roughly 80 to 120 pages for certain kinds of presentations. At the 1984 meeting of the Board of Directors of the Journal of the History of Philosophy,I presented a plan for such a monograph series to include Light's work, a study on Hume that will follow, and other such writings. The Board agreed to commence such a series, and so I am happy to present its first volume.

31/693

This particular study, presenting an important discovery about the history of modern philosophy, provides an excellent beginning for the Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series. Not only is it a fine piece of work in its own right, it also should make us aware of currents of influence that do not fit into preconceived modes. We are too used to studying developments of philosophical movements primarily in terms of antecedents within their own cultures, or in terms of influences of adjacent cultures. Stephen Light's findings should make us aware that more distant cultural meetings can and do occur, and may have significant consequences in the history of thought. Perhaps once we assimilate the significance of the tale told by Light, we can explore what has obviously been happening through European colonization and imperialism and through the dislocation of intellectuals caused by wars, revolutions, and tyrannies, as well as by the spirit of

32/693

adventure, and find many more cases in which such unexpected cross-cultural fertilization has occurred. It is a genuine pleasure to have been able to encourage Stephen Light and to work with him and with my colleagues Richard A. Watson and Michel Rybalka in arranging this monograph series and bringing this volume to fruition. RICHARD H. POPKIN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS

Page xv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NAOKO HARUTA, PROFESSOR AKIO SATO * and Professor Richard Popkinwithout them this book could not have appeared. Thankful that Shuzo* Kuki can today come before a new audience, I am gratefully indebted to them, and especially to Professor Richard Popkin for his gracious interest and efforts on behalf of this volume. The notebook ''Monsieur Sartre" is reproduced with the kind permission of the Shuzo Kuki Archive at Konan* University (Kobe*, Japan) and of its director, Professor Akio Sato.

Page 1

PART ONE SHUZO * KUKI AND JEAN-PAUL SARTRE INFLUENCE AND COUNTERINFLUENCE IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF EXISTENTIAL PHENOMENOLOGY
By Stephen Light

Page 3

36/693

IN JAPAN IT HAS LONG BEEN SAID THAT THE Japanese philosopher Shuzo * Kuki (1888-1941) while in France in the 1920s had engaged a French student as a language tutor. This student was said to have been a philosophy student at the Ecole Normale Suprieure, one Jean-Paul Sartre.1 The interest in this matter has, of course, rested on the role Kuki, long versed in phenomenology and fresh from meetings with and studies on Husserl in Freiburg and studies with Heidegger in Marburg, might have played in turning Sartre's attention towards German phenomenology.2 The question has been of all the more interest because Simone de Beauvoir's second volume of memoirs, La Force de l'ge,has always been taken as a definitive account of Sartre's early philosophical development, recounting as it does that Sartre's interest in phenomenology was first sparked in 1932 by Raymond Aron, who, back from studies at the French Institute in Berlin, had spoken in a caf

37/693

on the rue Montparnasse to Sartre of Husserl and phenomenology. Sartre, eager to inform himself on the subject, rushed out to purchase Emmanuel Levinas's book on Husserl and "leafed through the volume as he walked along, without even cutting the pages."3

38/693

In fact, Kuki did meet Sartre in Paris, but not exactly in the context of having engaged a language tutor. Rather Kuki, desiring a partner with whom to discuss French philosophy, was directedmost probably by Emile Brhier (1876-1952), then professor of philosophy at the Sorbonneto the student Sartre4. Sartre himself, when he was in Tokyo in 1966, confirmed this in an interview with Takehiko Ibuki. In response to Ibuki's query about his encounter with Kuki, Sartre replied that when he had been in his third or fourth year at the Ecole Normale, he and Kuki had met weekly for the two and a half months Kuki had been in Paris and had discussed French philosophy from Descartes to Bergson. Sartre also confirmed the fact that Kuki had

Page 4

in the course of their discussions brought up the subject of Heidegger and phenomenology, noting that "Kuki . . . was very enthusiastic about Heidegger." 5 Clearly then, Kuki, a number of years before Aron, had articulated for Sartre the nature of the newly emergent German philosophy. In fact, the Japanese philosopher Takehiko Kojima has noted that when Sartre, impelled by Aron, arranged to succeed Aron at the French Institute in Berlin in 1933, he traveled to Germany bearing a letter of introduction to Heidegger from Kuki.6

40/693

We have, thus, in this meeting between Shuzo* Kuki and the then youthful Jean-Paul Sartre, a remarkable circumstance, one all the more interesting, as familiarity with Kuki will soon show, because of a series of striking similarities between Kuki and Sartre. Who then was Shuzo Kuki? the Western reader will ask. Kuki was born in Tokyo in 1888, the fourth son of Ryuichi* Kuki, later Baron Kuki, one time member of the Japanese delegation in Washington, D.C. Kuki began his higher education in German law, although he had earlier exhibited an interest in botany (an interest he would sustain throughout his life). Upon entering Daiichi Kotogakko* (First Higher School)the Japanese equivalent of the (at that time) French lyce Henri-IV or lyce Louis-le-GrandKuki changed over to the humanities (bunka).7 Kuki completed his studies at Daiichi Kotogakko in 1909 and in the fall of that same year entered the philosophy department at Tokyo University. There he studied with

41/693

Raphael von Koeber (1848-1923), "Koeber Sensei,"a Russian of German extraction who had been teaching in Japan since 1893 and who had exerted influence on an entire generation of Japanese philosophy students. Graduating in 1912, Kuki began graduate studies in philosophy in the same year, subsequently finishing at Tokyo University in 1917. In 1918 he married his brother's widow, and in 1921, under the auspices of the Japanese Department of Education, he and his wife left for Europe. There he would spend the next eight years, studying first at Heidelberg, then at the Sorbonne, and later at Freiburg and Marburg.

42/693

In October of 1922 Kuki attended the neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert's lectures "From Kant to Nietzsche: An Historical Introduction to the Problem of the Present" at Heidelberg University, and at the same time engaged Rickert as a private tutor in order to read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.8In addition, he also studied Kant with Eugen Herrigelhimself later known for his short book based on his experiences in Japan, Zen in the Art of Archeryattendingthe German philosopher's lectures on "Kant's Transcendental Philosophy." After a trip to Switzerland and to Dresden in the spring of 1923, Kuki

Page 5

44/693

returned to Heidelberg in May 1923 and once again attended Rickert's lectures, this time the summer lectures bearing the title "Introduction to Epistemology and Metaphysics," and participated in Rickert's seminar on "The Concept of Intuition." Kuki, it should be noted, was not the only Japanese philosopher in Heidelberg at this time. He had been joined by his friend Teiyu * Amano (1888-1980), and, in addition, Jiro* Abe* (18831959), Hyoe* Ouchi* (1888-1966), Mukyoku Naruse (1885-1958), Goro* Hani (1901-), and Kiyoshi Miki (1897-1945) all were in attendance at Heidelberg.9 In fact, the German philosopher Hermann Glockner, then Rickert's assistant, would later in his memoirs speak of various Japanese philosophers in residence in Heidelberg in the early 1920s: "One day Rickert surprised me with the news that he had now decided to take on a Japanese visitor in private study: an extremely well-to-do samurai, who had asked to read the Critique of Pure

45/693

Reason with him. This gentleman, of unusually distinguished bearing, appeared entirely different from his fellow countrymen: of tall, slender figure, he had a somewhat small face, an almost European nose, and hands of extremely delicate proportion. His name was Kuki. . . ." Kuki's private study with Rickert was not without influence, albeit an indirect one, on Rickert himself. Occasioned to once again take up the later Kant, Rickert, Glockner writes, ''daily made new discoveries." "Compared to Kant," Rickert animatedly tells Glockner, "Plato is only a beginnerand Hegel and Schopenhauer have much too carelessly thrown over the fundamentals of Kantianism. All recent philosophers, insofar as they are of any use, return to Kant."10 (I cannot help but note parenthetically that Kuki, never a partisan of neo-Kantianism, would not have entirely agreed with this reassertion of the neoKantian motto.)

46/693

Kuki left Heidelberg in August 1923 and traveled to the Alps. His botanical interests having remained with him, he spent much time collecting plants, thus joining a tradition of which Rousseau and Goethe are the better known names. In the autumn of 1924 Kuki journeyed to Paris.11 There he would remain until the spring of 1927, engaged in the study of French philosophy (he would begin attending lecture courses at the University of Paris in October 1925), in the preparation of two philosophical manuscripts later to become two of his most important works, and in the composition of a series of poetic manuscripts which he would begin sending to Japan for publication.

47/693

Thus it was that Kuki in April 1925 sent a series of tankastraditional Japanese short poemsbearing the title Pari Shinkei (Spiritual Views of Paris) to the Japanese journal Myojo*where they would later be published. During the course of 1925 and 1926 Kuki sent three other series of poems,

Page 6

this time poems in open form, to the same journal, series bearing the respective titles Pari no Mado (Window on Paris), Pari Shinkei (Spiritual Views of Paris), and Pari no Negoto *(Paris Sleep-Talking).12 In December 1926 Kuki finished a manuscript, Iki no Honshitsu (The Essence of Iki), the first draft of what would later become his classic work Iki no Kozo* (The Structure of Iki), first published in 1930.13 Before leaving Paris for Freiburg in April 1927 Kuki also completed another manuscript, Oin* ni Tsuite (On Rhyming), a manuscript which would subsequently become another key work in his oeuvre, Nihonshi no Oin (Rhyming in Japanese Poetry).14

49/693

In Freiburg Kuki studied phenomenology with Oskar Becker and was able to meet a number of times with Edmund Husserl. It would be at Husserl's home that he would meet Martin Heidegger.15 Thus, in November 1927 Kuki moved to Marburg in order to attend Heidegger's lectures, "Phenomenological Investigations of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason,"as well as Heidegger's seminar, "Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom."In the spring of 1928 Kuki attended Heidegger's lectures on "Leibniz' Logic" and Heidegger's seminar, "Phenomenological Studies: Interpretations of Aristotle's Physics."If Heidegger's philosophy found an admirer in Kuki, Kuki in turn left a lasting impression on Heidegger.16 Years later Heidegger would pay Kuki lasting homage and would recount the discussions in which the two had engaged at his, Heidegger's, home, discussions in which Kuki had attempted to convey to Heidegger the results of his philosophical

50/693

investigations on iki.17 It was in Marburg too that Kuki became friends with another philosopher, Karl Lwith, then Heidegger's assistant. Later, in 1936, Kuki would be responsible for securing Lwith a post at Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai, a position Lwith would hold from 1936 to 1941.18

51/693

Kuki returned to Paris in June of 1928. In August he was invited by the French writer and scholar Paul Desjardinsmember along with Henri Bergson and Jean Jaurs of the famed promotion of 1878 at the Ecole Normale Suprieure and founder and organizer of the famous dcades held at Pontignyto participate in a philosophical dcade on "Man and Time. Repetition in Time. Immortality or Eternity."19 Here at Pontigny on August 11 and on August 17, 1928, Kuki delivered two lectures, one on "The Notion of Time and Repetition in Oriental Time," the other on "The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art." These two lectures subsequently constituted Kuki's book Propos sur le temps,published in Paris in 1928.20

52/693

The first dcade of the summer of 1928: we can imagine the setting. In the audience are Gide, Martin du Gard, the German Curtius, the Russian Berdyaev, the Englishman Strachey; hosting are Desjardins and du Bos; on

Page 7

54/693

hand to make presentations are Dominique Parodi, Emile Namer, Alexandre Koyr, Vladimir Janklvitch, and fresh from success in the agrgation, (a success his "petit camarade" Jean-Paul Sartre had not found), the youthful Raymond Aron. At the head of the room a speaker from a foreign land, in immaculate dress, is reciting in French a celebrated Japanese poem: " ' . . . where those who know and those who do not know each other meet. . . .'" The poem concluded, the speaker pauses, and then begins a commentary: "Again, an example of 'time lost' and of 'time remembered.' It is that instant when two roads meet. . . . It is the moment of a present of infinite plentitude. . . . It is the blessed moment when one soul interrogates another soul. . . . It is also this moment which we pass here in this salon in Pontigny, here where I speak to you of a verse of Semimaru, where we wonder if we might not have lived this moment before, if we might not live it again. . . Let us

55/693

leave it to our venerable blind Semimaru to meditate on the problem of chance and circular time. Let us pray that he now takes up his biwa and plays us an ancient Yamato air." At Pontigny Kuki himself offered up the harmonies of the Yamato air, presented two superb discussions of Japanese culture, discussions bearing the imprint of an erudition ranging over many aspects of Japanese art and literature; of a philosophical conception of time marked by German phenomenology that, if here only touched upon, must nevertheless have marked one of the very first, if not the first, public discussions in France of Heidegger's recent reflections on temporality in Sein und Zeit;and of an appreciation for and a mastery of just that literary culture represented by La Nouvelle Revue Franaise and that musical culture represented by French impressionism constituting the predominant orientation of his audience at Pontigny. 21

56/693

In the first essay of Propos sur le temps,Kuki aims not at a sustained analysis of time. Rather, the discussion of time aims at the vindication of that 'will' found in Bushido*(as I shall have occasion to discuss in more detail below), aims at the derivation of an ethic on the basis of contingent existence. Thus, given the ethical context, it is quite natural that Kuki finds in "anticipation" the "most important characteristic of time."22

57/693

Kuki speaks of "anticipation" in time with reference to Guyau and Heidegger (and Hermann Cohen). Guyau (1854-1888), a moral philosopher of great talent whose life was cut short at the age of thirty-three, saw in time the growth of experience. Countering the Kantian notion in which time was the condition of experience, Guyau saw in time the result of that very experience. Thus, time, being considered in this philosophy of life the "concrete order of our experience," must be analyzed not in relation to the outward world of motion, transformation, and event, but in terms of mem-

Page 8

ory, imagination, and will. 23 If then Kuki, attempting to vindicate the will in Bushido*attentive,thus, to notions tying time to the willhas felt the impact not only of Guyau's critique of Kant, but of Bergson's as well (of Bergson's critique of time as empty and homogeneous milieu), it is quite natural that he will find congenial the recent Heideggerian notion whereby in a triadic structure of ekstases past, present, and future constituting time, the essential moment of temporality is located in the future. As will become apparent more fully below, elemental in the ethic here to be derived is the motto "Let not your encounters take place in vain!"

59/693

Appropriate Western notions surveyed, Kuki turns to those oriental notions in which time is considered dependent on the will, notions found primarily in Indian texts. Thus, Kuki begins his discussion of time by writing: "If one has the right to speak of 'oriental time,' it seems it can be a question of nothing other than the time of transmigration."24 Periodic time, the "time of transmigration," poses liberation from "the wheel of time," liberation from the endless cycle of reincarnated births, as a goal. And this question of the liberation from time gives Kuki the opportunity of setting Buddhism and Bushido in opposition, an opposition which, however, is set up only in terms of "their basic tendencies." ''There cannot be the least question," Kuki writes, "of denying the great value of Buddhism." "We owe an eminent part of our oriental civilization to Buddhism." With this in mind, Kuki, to the nirvana*of Indian inspiration, to deliverance from repetitive time by

60/693

means of the intellect, by means of the denial of time, to this Buddhistic intellectualism, Kuki offers the voluntarism of Bushido: a moral idealism, an immanent, not transcendent, liberation from timean unconcern with time "in order to live, truly live, in the indefinite repetition of the arduous search for the true, the good, the beautiful."25

61/693

With the beautiful we move to the second essay contained in Propos sur le temps,"The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art." The beautiful, liberation par excellence from time: in moving from moral idealism to the absolute idealism of Japanese art, "the inward art of Yamato," Kuki moves from the infinite striving of the good will found in Bushido,to the sensuous expression of the infinite, from eternal striving to the "beautiful image of eternity." Here in the aesthetic realm Kuki is no longer concerned with viewing Buddhism and Bushido from the standpoint of their opposition; rather, in taking up a Japanese art of pure spirituality, he takes up an art whose nature derives from a triple source, the mysticism of Indian religion (Buddhism), the pantheism of Chinese philosophy, and Bushido, the "cult of the absolute spirit."

62/693

In referring to this "triple source," an understanding of which alone enables an understanding of Japanese art,26 Kuki, as the opening quotation

Page 9

of his essay shows, follows the analyses of Kakuzo * Okakura's sagacious introduction of Japanese art to the West, The Ideals of the East,a study, written directly in a fine and lyrical English, which appeared in 1905.27 Here Okakura poses Indian religion and Chinese philosophy as the twin pillars of one single edifice, Asian culture: Asia is one. And in this perspective it became the privilege of Japan to realize with especial clearness this "unity-in-complexity" of Asian culture. Kuki, of course, is not here concerned with the question of the unity of Asian culture. But he is concerned with the utilization of an idealist heritage. Thus, his quotation from Okakura: "The history of Japanese art becomes the history of Asiatic ideals."28

64/693

Okakura had written: "Japanese art ever since the days of the Ashikaga masters, though subjected to slight degeneration in the Toyotomi and Tokugawa periods, has held steadily to the Oriental Romantistic idealthat is to say, the expression of the spirit as the highest effort in art. This spirituality, with us, was not the ascetic purism of the early Christian fathers, nor yet the allegorical idealisation of the pseudo-renaissance. It was neither a mannerism, nor a self-restraint. Spirituality was conceived as the essence or life of a thing, the characterisation of the soul of things, a burning fire within."29 The rise of the Ashikaga shoguns to power in the middle of the fourteenth centuryinitiating, thus, the Muromachi period (1392-1573)represents an important turn: Japan's reopening of intercourse with China and the concomitant influence upon Japanese art of Sung culture and of Zen; the developments in ink painting represented above all by Sesshu*; the rise to maturity of a national

65/693

music as well as the development of No* drama. The aesthetic ideal of the period: "Beauty . . . or the life of things, is always deeper as hidden within than as outwardly expressed, even as the life of the universe beats always underneath incidental appearances. Not to display, but to suggest, is the secret of infinity."30

66/693

What for Kuki is the meaning of Japanese art? It is "the idealist expression of the infinite in the finite."31 And in his discussion of Japanese art in Propos sur le temps,Kuki in a series of detailed analyses finds in all the realms of Japanese art techniques perfectly suited for the expression of just that metaphysical and spiritual experience lying at the bottom of these arts, the liberation from space and time to be found in Indian mysticism and Chinese pantheism. The liberation from time is everywhere accomplished in Japanese poetry and music. The liberation from space is accomplished in the plastic arts, above all in ink painting, an ink painting wherein a taste for simplicity and a nostalgia for the infinite serve in the perfect realization of the very "aesthetic of suggestion" characteristic of the "inward art."

67/693

In Kuki's little Parisian volume, then, are displayed, even in a language not his own, sentiments whose flavor will be apparent in all his subsequent

Page 10

works, an "I-know-not-what" flavor which will everywhere give the reader the feeling of having been truly and genuinely charmed.

69/693

While in Paris Kuki also authored a number of short pieces akin in theme to Propos sur le temps.With these pieces we find similarity to the propos of the French philosopher Alain (nom de plume of mile Chartier [1868-1951]), a genre created by him. Early in his career Alain began writing a series of short entries for a French provincial newspaper in Rouen. Limiting himself to two pages, Alain wrote almost without stop and almost without correction. Anecdotal, aphoristic, at once philosophic and literary, the propos could be called an essay in miniature, if it were not that the very use of the word "essay" would already encroach on the sui generis character of the propos.Genre unto itself, the propos would be improperly translated if rendered "remarks," or even if rendered more formally as "considerations." In Alain's work each propos became a world unto itself, and yet each propos could become the part of a greater whole. The propos became the building block of this genuis of

70/693

French prose, the building block of each of his marvelously lucid and unified works. For Alain, "whose richness [was] thought," the propos was an ideal form, enabling him to ''spread [his thought] everywhere" (Valry).

71/693

Kuki, consummate master of a French culture of which Alain was an essential part, found his own thoughts flowing with marvelous ease into this form par excellence, the propos.Thus, we will find his propossome of which, the one on "Thtre Japonais," for example, seeming to have been written with inclusion in Propos sur le temps in mindserving as prisms through which the thoughts of Propos sur le temps (where, however, Propos signified only "remarks") are spread in renewed refraction. The piece on "Japanese Theater" carries Kuki's analysis of the expression of the infinite in Japanese art into the realm of theater; the pieces on the "Japanese Soul," and on "Two Pictures Familiar to Children," take up Kuki's discussion of moral idealism; the piece entitled "Geisha" already hints at Kuki's analysis of iki.

72/693

English translations of Propos sur le temps and Kuki's propos pieces appear in the present volume, along with translation of one other piece, Kuki's "Caractres gnraux de la philosophie franaise," originally a lecture delivered in both Japanese and French in Japan in 1930 at the Japanese-French Cultural Society. 32 Kuki's charm, his unique sensibility, can serve to highlight the sui generis place occupied by Kuki in the world of modern Japanese philosophy and letters. When Kuki ultimately returned to Japan in 1929 he received a post at Kyoto University.33 There he joined on the philosophical faculty Kitaro* Nishida (1870-1945), whom Kuki in an article on Bergson had already

Page 11

referred to as "perhaps the most profound thinker in Japan today," and Hajime Tanabe (1885-1962). 34 But even though the relations between Nishida, Kuki, and Tanabe were those of the highest mutual esteem, Kuki never belonged to the Kyoto School. Kuki, like Nishida, had assimilated Husserlian phenomenology, but unlike Nishida, he remained distant from Hegelian phenomenology. Professor Hisayuki Omodaka in speaking of the intellectualism of Nishida and the voluntarism of Tanabeand thus of the strains of speculative Indian philosophy in Nishida and Chinese practical philosophy in Tanabemarks off Kuki's philosophy by the importance there given affectivity.35 Omodaka makes particular reference to Kuki's concern with those aspects of Japanese culture such as iki and furyu*.

74/693

Mention has, of course, already been made of the element of detachment in iki. Furyu,a word made up of the characters fu*(wind) and ryu*(flowing) and designating refined elegance, also signifies a form of detachment. In a study of furyu Kuki describes the transcendent character of the "free person of furyu"as that of a "current of wind" (kaze no nagare).36But it is important to emphasize that this is not a question of an other-worldliness, nor is it a question of the extreme aestheticism of, for instance, Huysman's Des Esseintes. We do not have here the detachment of the mystic or eremite, rather we have the detachment of the flneur.And in the flneur we have in many respects Kuki himself: "I wish to contemplate (shisakusuru),to feel (kankakusuru),to yearn (shokeisuru),wandering, with a few readers, the little path between philosophy and literature, seeking fervently the eternal tranquility of truth and beauty."37 Philosophical flneur,Kuki took the "little path.'' Thus, as

75/693

the Japanese philosopher Tetsuo Kogawa has noted: "too liberal for those adhering to the Nishida-Tanabe line of Japanese idealism, . . . too artistic for those of Marxist circles, . . . he never belonged to any mainstream, right or left."38

76/693

A philosophical flneur upon the "little path"but mistake should not be made as to the nature of this flneur's contemplations. And here I may cite the rigor of thought characteristic of an earlier stroller, the original Peripatetikos*.We have in Kuki a rare combination, one in which "delicate and passionate sentiments are linked to a calm and rigorous reason." Kuki held it a "crime to fashion a veil of grey philosophy." "I am too tormented by my passions," he writes, "to live in the grey world of abstractions."39 Partisan of the Bergsonian critique of abstract rationalism ("To seize the palpitation of life, to feel the shiver of life, that is philosophy," Kuki writes), Kuki is the author of a philosophy of which may be said exactly what has elsewhere been said of Bergson's, that it "submits itself to the exigencies of language whose exactitude require a complete analysis in order to translate precisely that which resists analysis."40 Dialectical rigor, meticulous and precise, will

77/693

Page 12

animate Kuki's works, works woven with a language whose gossamer-like purity will carry in its threads the marvelous clarity of his ideas. Sublime aesthetic sentiment, the rigor of philosophical calmthese will be found forever united in the "passages" of Kuki's ouevre.

79/693

In the autumn of 1928 Kuki once again visited Henri Bergson, whom he had come to know during his first visit in Paris. At Bergson's home he met Frdric Lefevre of Les Nouvelles Littraires,to which Kuki would subsequently contribute an article on the occasion of Bergson's 1928 reception of the Nobel Prize for literature. The article Kuki contributed, "Bergson au Japon"also included in the present volumecan in certain respects be considered a philosophical self-portrait, revealing the unique development whereby Japanese philosophy was led from neoKantianism to Husserlian phenomenology by way of the Bergsonian intuition. 41

80/693

With Kuki's return to Paris, we return to his encounter with Sartre. When did they in fact meet? Several different dates have been proposed: 1925, 1926, and 1928.42 Sartre, as noted earlier, spoke of the meeting as having taken place during his "third or fourth year at the Ecole Normale," which would correspond to the academic year of either 1926-27 or 1927-28. The date of their meeting is important because if Kuki met Sartre in 1928, rather than during his earlier stay in Paris, the meeting would have been after the publication of Sein und Zeit and after Kuki's studies in Freiburg and Marburg on and with Husserl and Heideggerin other words, after Kuki's full assimilation not only of Husserlian phenomenology but also of the new hermeneutical variation represented by Heidegger.

81/693

That the date of their meeting was 1928, sometime after Kuki's return to Paris in June of 1928, is, however, something that can be determined. In Kuki's private library, unexamined until it was organized by Professor Akio Sato* in 1976 during the preparation of the Shuzo* Kuki Archive at Konan* University in Kobe*,43 a notebook of Kuki's (approximately eight by six inches in size) with brown cover bearing the heading Sarutoru-shi,that is to say, "Monsieur Sartre," was discovered. This notebook contained notes (primarily in French with a few scattered jottings in Japanese) on what were obviously the various topics Kuki and Sartre discussed during their weekly meetings referred to by Sartre in his 1966 interview in Tokyo. What is more, one of the pages of the notebook was in Sartre's own hand! Here was happy confirmation of, and hitherto unsuspected insight into, the nature of the Kuki-Sartre encounter.44

82/693

The notebook, however, carried no date on any of its pages. Indeed, outside of a few seemingly personal reminders in Japanese"which book," "typewriter," and so forth (the most interesting of which reminders was an entry, on the ninth page of the text, reading "Chartier's address," leading

Page 13

one to wonder when and if Kuki met the French philosopher Alain)there were only the thirty-five pages of entries on the philosophical discussions. Thus, it seemed that the exact date of Kuki and Sartre's meeting would as yet remain unknown. But already on the first page of entries a reference to Julien Benda's La Trahison des clercs,published in 1927, can be found, and on the fourth page of text there is reference to Andr Breton's Nadja.Thus, the riddle can be solved, for an excerpt of Nadja appeared in La Revolution Surraliste (no. 11) in March 1928, the book itself appearing later that year. Sartre and Kuki must, then, have met sometime between Kuki's return to Paris in June 1928 and his subsequent departure for Japan in December 1928.

84/693

It was noted earlier that Sartre in his interview with Takehiko Ibuki said that he and Kuki had met weekly for the "two and a half months Kuki was in Paris." The remark is, of course, inaccurate as regards Kuki's stay in Paris, for Kuki was in Paris for more than two and a half months. Yet, perhaps not so inaccurate as all that. Kuki and his wife returned to Paris, as Madame Kuki's journal shows, on the evening of May 31, 1928. From August 11, Kuki was at Pontigny for the philosophical dcade and returned to Paris, after vacationing at the French seaside, on September 6, 1928. Kuki and his wife then departed for Japan on December 9, 1928. Thus, either the period from Kuki's return to Paris the last day of May until his departure for Pontigny in August or the period from his return to Paris in September until his departure for Japan in December could correspond to Sartre's "two and a half months Kuki was in Paris." Which of these periods to choose then? Perhaps, having

85/693

just returned from fourteen months in Germany, Kuki was anxious to brush up on his French conversation skills. This would account for Emile Brhier's remark, previously cited, implying that Kuki was, in part, looking for practice in employing his French. But in view of Kuki's language skills, his previous three-year stay in Paris, and Sartre's denial that he had served as a language tutor, this does not seem altogether likely. It is more likelyand this, again, merely to attempt to give a reason for choosing the first period referred to aboveKuki simply sought to once more immerse himself in French philosophy (such version would not be inconsistent with Emile Brhier's remark). On the other hand, in the "Monsieur Sartre" notebook, reference is made to Georges Friedmann and Pierre Morhange, members of a group of young leftwing philosophers to which Sartre's lyce and now Ecole Normale companion Paul Nizan also belonged. 45 And written beside Friedmann's

86/693

name is a parenthetical note reading ''camarade de Janklvitch." As we noted earlier, Vladimir Janklvitch, substituting for his former teacher Lon Brunschvicgdetained in Pariswas, along with Kuki, one of the participants in the August 1928 philosophical dcade at

Page 14

Pontigny. 46 May we take this to mean that Kuki's notebook and, thus, his meetings with Sartre date from after Kuki's appearance at Pontigny? We might do so only if we knew for certain that Kuki had not met or come to know of Janklvitch prior to his, Kuki's, participation at Pontigny, and if we knew whether the parenthetical note was a note of Kuki's or a note based on a remark of Sartre'swhich is to say, if we knew that which cannot be fully known. Thus, we are left with the choice between the period before and the period after Kuki's visit to Pontigny.

88/693

Nonetheless, with the discovery of Kuki's "Monsieur Sartre" notebook, we are given Kuki's confirmation of Sartre's account of their meetings on French philosophy, as well as access, muffled though it may be, to these very meetings. Many of the entries in this notebooklistings of articles and books, listings of various writers and philosophers, notes on aspects of these, and so forthhave all the appearance of notes jotted down during an ongoing conversation (the entry in Sartre's hand indicates this), while others could well have been written in preparation for, or following upon, a discussion. There is, of course, no definitive way of interpreting all of the various entries in the notebook, which is to say, no definitive way of giving the content of the discussions in question. It follows, then, that there is also no definitive way of determining in every case to what (or whom) the entries ought be attributed, to a remark of

89/693

Sartre's or to a thought of Kuki's (this for those entries appearing to come from a conversation). Of course, each entry determines its own range of possible interpretations. Here the way in which one positions the speakers in the discussion in question is crucial in determining an interpretation. How weigh the differences in age and intellectual development? Kuki was forty, Sartre twenty-three. How weigh Kuki's position as foreign visitor? Is this or that entry a function of Kuki making inquiry of, or statement to, Sartre in regard to an aspect of French philosophy or culture, or a function of Sartre seeking to inform his foreign visitor of something he, Sartre, might have felt important? Such questions could be multiplied.

90/693

Best, it seems, to imagine the several possibilities in each case; then, discarding and altering as may be necessary, arrive at an approximate picture. I shall not, of course, take up here the task of giving content to all of the discussions and entries. (And one must remember that there is no way of determining whether and how many discussions might have been omitted from entry coverage.) Rather, I would like to focus on those moments in the discussions of particular interest in regard to the significance of Kuki and Sartre's encounter. The notebook is devoted to French philosophy. And it is important, at the outset, to mention that even though French philosophy had by no means

Page 15

been ignored in JapanBoutroux, Bergson, and others having been assimilated before World War Inevertheless, French philosophy was not paid the attention of its German counterpart. It would be Kuki, in part through his lecture courses at Kyoto University on French philosophy, who upon his return to Japan, would be responsible for increasing Japanese attention in regard to this traditionlectures that can well be seen as quintessential examples of the transmission of a philosophical and cultural heritage. And in this context Kuki's notebook, with its entries on such philosophers as Brunschvicg, Alain, and Blondel, can be viewed as directly preparatory to these very lectures. 47

92/693

Sartre, as noted before, spoke of discussions on French philosophy from Descartes to Bergson. And the notebook, particularly with a number of pages containing listings of readings on, for example, Descartes, Pascal, Comte, and Maine de Biran, gives evidence of this; but the notebook also, primarily, gives significant attention to then contemporary French philosophy. Thus, and it would have been hard to imagine it otherwise, the early part of the notebook is devoted to two of the leading figures of post-World War I French philosophy, Lon Brunschvicg (1869-1944) and Alain.48 Brunschvicg was at that time, after Bergson, the most important philosophical presence in France, his major work, the two volume Le Progrs de la conscience dans la philosophie occidentale,having appeared the year previous to Kuki and Sartre's meeting. Given his position as a professor, the professor, at the Ecole Normale Suprieure, it was with Brunschvicg's philosophy that all the

93/693

normaliens of the time had to come to terms, positively or negatively as the case may have been. Paul Nizan's Les Chiens de garde,as even his Aden-Arabie before it, was of course the classical negative account, scathing and mordant, albeit from the politico-existential, not philosophical, standpoint.49 Be that as it may and in spite of our position retrospective to the developments in French philosophy initiated in part by one Bruschvicg pupil, Sartre, the remark of another distinguished pupil, Jean Hyppolite, is not without application: "Even when we reacted against his thought or sought in different directions a renovation of our intellectual perspectives, it could not escape our recognition that we had been profoundly marked by him and that beyond certain formulas, there was a spirit of Brunschvicgian philosophy to which we remained ever faithful."50 As for Alain, he was one of the central figures of French intellectual and literary life in the period between the two

94/693

wars and was a not unimportant influence on the young Sartre.51 Kuki and Sartre appear to have discussed Brunschvicg and Alain in detail. As part of this, the two French philosophers are found compared to one another in the notebook. On the first page of the notebookbeneath a

Page 16

96/693

figure in which the names Parodi and Le Senne are bracketed beside that of Hamelinis a reference to Brunschvicg's important essay 52 "L'Orientation du rationalisme," which had appeared in La Revue de Mtaphysique et de Morale in 1920. The article was Brunschvicg's response to Dominique Parodi's 1919 work La Philosophie contemporaine en France.There, Parodi, specifically targeting Brunschvicg's philosophy as exemplified, for instance, in the 1912 volume Les Etapes de la philosophie mathmatique,asks: "Must contemporary thought definitively draw back before the task of a properly philosophical systematization of nature?"53 He gave his response by way of presenting Octave Hamelin's 1907 Essai sur les lments principaux de la reprsentation as that representational form of idealism that could surmount what for Parodi was the reticent idealism, the idealism of judgment, of Brunschvicg. In "L'Orientation du rationalisme," an entry into

97/693

the orientation of Brunschvicg's rationalism and thus an excellent place to take up discussion of Brunschvicg's philosophy, Brunschvicgopposing Hamelin and behind him the finitist position of Renouvier's neo-criticism,54 the conceptualism in the Aristotelian il faut s'arrter quelque parteverywhere opposes concept and synthesis in the name of judgment and analysis. Thus, Brunschvicg states elsewhere, in a 1921 discussion of the Socit Franaise de Philosophie devoted to just this issue between Parodi and Brunschvicg:

98/693

"For the dialectician of categories who has constructed a finite and discontinuous tableau, the discovery of a new species of number, of a new kind of space, of a new model of mechanics, will result only in putting the equilibrium of the doctrine in peril. He will employ all his patience and all his ingenuity to preserve his ideal essences from dangerous contact with the diversity of the notion's aspects in order to reduce these aspects to the rank of secondary, derived forms. If, on the contrary, number and space, time and cause, are not frameworks forever fixed, but laws of indefinitely progressive activity, rational idealism will say so much the better there where synthetic idealism will say so much the worse."

99/693

For our purposes it is interesting that in just this particular discussion of the Socit Franaise de Philosophie Gabriel Marcel takes issue with Brunschvicg, arguing that if Hamelin attempts to construct being, Brunschvicg eliminates being altogether. Seeking to defend ontology on the one hand, the particular on the other, Marcel polemicizes against Brunschvicg by arguing that "what counts is to know if there is a hierarchy of planes of thought or modes of experience or categories . . . [and] if to this question one holds it necessary to respond negatively, then there can be no metaphysics, I would even say no philosophy. . . . Thought denies itself there where it

Page 17

denies being. . . ." The validity of Brunschvicg's ripostethat "to a hierarchy of concepts unfolding exterior to consciousness, as if on a painted canvas, I for my part oppose the progress of living thought, immanent to the soul in which it has taken root and which it carrys along within itself" 55cannot be our concern here. Rather, we might wonder to what degree the question of ontology, the question of being, seized upon by Marcel, might not also have emerged for Kuki in this context, leading him to bring up with Sartre just that philosophy which had so recently placed the question of being at its center. That Sartre was dissatisfied with the rationalism represented by Brunschvicg's philosophy and sought a way beyond it has already been noted. Was it here that he was first given an idea as to the philosophical tools with which he would eventually fashion his philosophical liberation?

101/693

There is, of course, little doubt that Brunschvicg's philosophy came under fire in Kuki and Sartre's discussions. The sudden reference in Kuki's notebook, in the midst of the notebook's remarks on Brunschvicg, to the aforementioned Friedmann-Morhange group (Nizan, Politzer, Guterman), as well as to surrealism and Andr Breton's Nadja, must have represented a break in the discussion of Brunschvicg, a break initiated by this very discussion and devoted to oppositional currents in French intellectual life. It does not seem inappropriate to attribute this reference to a remark of Sartre's.56 Nizan, as I have mentioned, played an important role in this philosophes group of young Marxist philosophers; his political choice served as significant reference for the young Sartre. Furthermore, surrealism together with Cline's 1932 Voyage au bout de la nuit would serve Sartre in his liberation from the classical prose style of an Alain or Valry evident in

102/693

Sartre's early work La Lgende de la vrit.In any case, it is not surprising to find reference to oppositional currents. Brunschvicg's absolutely supple thoughtNizan characterized Brunschvicg as a thinker having the "precision of a watchmaker . . . the sleight-of-hand of a conjurer . . ."57was the other side of a philosophy of culture, of a humanism of culture, which for all its magnanimity could not have represented, even in the non-Marxist Sartre's eyes, anything but an official culture.

103/693

The notebook's reference to oppositional currents in French culture is sign of a surprising political leitmotif that runs throughout the notebook's entries on both Brunschvicg and Alain. Thus, when Kuki and Sartre turn attention to Alain, it is to his Mars ou la guerre juge and to his Elments d'une doctrine radicale. Mars ou la guerre juge,Alain's brilliant condemnation of the war, appears to have been discussed quite extensively by Kuki and Sartre. The frequent references to Alain's politicshis radicalism (liberal variant) and socialismas well as a notebook entry charting all positions along the political spectrum, show that it was in a political, and not

Page 18

only ethical, context that Alain's texts were discussed. These references, together with a notebook entry detailing two forms of radicalism (now in its generic usage), one artistocratic, the other anarchistic, are all the more interesting given the relative absence of a political reflection in Kuki and given the young Sartre's studied, nuanced distance from the left-wing options to which he was, after all, inclined. We cannot, of course, find an answer to the intriguing question: How would Baron Kuki and the iconoclastic young Sartre have discussed these two forms of radicalism, aristocratic and anarchistic? But we should be reminded of what is already known: that Sartre's political history only partially lends itself to the view, thus schematic, of an apolitical young Sartre, a political postWorld War II Sartre. 58

105/693

In regard to Brunschvicg and Alain, it should also be mentioned that Sartre's undoubted opposition to their center-left politics and his evident dissatisfaction with their rationalisms of judgment ought not serve to obscure the influence, alluded to before, of Brunschvicg's philosophy, which for all that it was a philosophy of intelligence was by this very fact a philosophy of liberty; ought not obscure a more important fact, that the distinct stoic dimension in L'Etre et le nant was derived, in part, from the stoicism, however much mediated by its Cartesian and Spinozistic variants, of that stoic sage par excellence, Alain.

106/693

If for Sartre a polemical relation to Brunschvicg and Alain was in certain respects the other side of an undeniable influence,59 in the case of Kuki the fact of an already achieved intellectual independence, underscored by Kuki's implantation in another culture, would not have entailed the breaking of influences. Indeed, everything conspired to make of Alain a figure of affinity for Kuki. Kuki's valorization of the voluntarist element in Bushido* would lead him to an especial appreciation of Alain's stoic ethic, and Kuki's aesthetic sensibility could not but deepen his feeling of affinity with this philosopher who, par excellence, was un crivain,with the author of Systme des beaux-arts.

107/693

Indeed, Kuki and Sartre took up discussion of Systme des beaux-arts,perhaps the centerpiece in Alain's oeuvre. Worth nothing here are the specific references in Kuki's notebook to chapters 1 and 5 of the first section of Alain's work, chapters on the imagination. These specific references are worth noting precisely because they deal with chapters that Sartre would critically analyze in his first published book, the 1936 L'Imagination,a book in which Alain's theory of the imagination is analyzed (as a concluding example in a historical overview of theories of the imagination) and superceded by means of Husserl. That this 1936 work was the revised version of Sartre's thesis, written for his diplme at the Ecole Normale, offers the

Page 19

opportunity to wonder what type of discussion Kuki and Sartregiven Kuki's familiarity with Husserlian phenomenologyengaged in with reference to Alain's text.

109/693

Concluding their discussions of Brunschvicg and Alain, Kuki and Sartre turned their attention to another leading figure of then contemporary French philosophy, the Catholic Maurice Blondel (1861-1946), giving themselves over to a reading of Blondel's 1893 work L'Action. 60This choice is noteworthy; for these two future exponents of existential phenomenology to take up the reading of a work that in its depiction of action as, to use Louis Lavelle's phrase, "an elan by which being strives to surmount its own insufficiency" has been seen by some to have prefigured (albeit in a Catholic context where faith is the goal) notions in French existentialism. Thus, we have Blondel's "Condemned to life, condemned to death, condemned to eternity, how, and by what right, if I have neither known nor willed this?"61

110/693

The notebook contains a listing of a number of chapters of Blondel's book, presumably chapters to be read and discussed, but the notebook's page references refer only to the opening chapters of the work. Here Blondel carries out an intense polemic against a nihilist position, now dubbed aestheticism, now dubbed dilettantism, that would attempt to evade the problem of action, the condemnation to action, by "willing the nothingness of man and his acts." This solution is shown to break down because beneath every negation a love of negation is found; denial entails the constitution of denial, has a positive resolution. The nihilist's "nolont" itself "dissimulates a subjective end." '''I do not want to will,' nolo velle,is immediately translated in the language of reflection into these words, 'I want not to will,' volo nolle."It is in this context, Blondel's discussion of the aesthetic-nihilist solution, of this "volont de nant," that we find a page of the notebook in Sartre's own hand, a

111/693

schema of the aesthetic/pessimist solution and of the contradiction found at its base between, as Blondel terms it, "two divergent movements, the one bearing the will towards a grand idea, towards a noble love of being, the other giving it up to the desire, the curiosity, the obsession for the phenomenal."62 The existence of a notebook page in Sartre's hand isbeyond the immediately evident reasonsimportant, for it bears out the notion that certain of the notebook's entries were jotted down during an ongoing discussion. That just here, in the context of Blondel's critique of a "volont de nant," a page in Sartre's own hand appears is more than likely merely a matter of chance. But there is reason to wonder. In the course of his entries on Blondel, Kuki jotted down the phrase, "on nothingness, as in Bergson." Kuki had in mind, of course, Bergson's critique of the "deification of nothingness" in L'Evolution cratrice.63Nothingness, nihilism, negationKuki, it should be noted, was

112/693

Page 20

at just this time working on a paper, "Negation," begun during his participation the year before in Heidegger's seminar. 64 Would not this context have especially invited Kuki to introduce his youthful French partner to the new existential variant of phenomenology?

114/693

The discussion of Blondel gives way in the notebook to the aforementioned pages where listings of readings on Descartes, Pascal, Maine de Biran, Comte, and others are found. Various informal notes scattered among the listingsof the nature, for example, "bad translation" and "very good,"give one the feeling that Kuki may have consulted or perhaps even constituted these lists with Sartre. Following these lists the notebook moves on to Paul Valry. Earlier in the notebook, amid pages devoted to Alain, there are references to Eupalinos, L'Introduction la mthode de Leonardo di Vinci,and La Jeune Parque.In the latter part of the notebook, Kuki and Sartre give close attention to the pieces in Valry's Varit I. And here, in the context of Valry, is another intriguing feature of the KukiSartre encounter, for it is probable that in discussing this writer in whose poetics the position of the Muse was held by the Mistress Chance, Kuki and Sartre were led to a discussion of

115/693

contingency. It need hardly be mentioned the place contingency would hold in La Nausetheearly draft of which Sartre had referred to as Factum sur la contingence65aswell as in L'Etre et le nant.The young Sartre considered contingency his central philosophical intuition, as is illustrated by Simone de Beauvoir's description of Sartre's purchase of Levinas's book on Husserl: "[Sartre's] heart missed a beat when he found references to contingency. Had someone cut the ground from under his feet then? As he read on he reassured himself that this was not so. Contingency seemed not to play any very important part in Husserl's systemof which in any case Levinas only gave a formal and decidely vague outline."66

116/693

Contingency had, of course, been central to Sartre from the time of his days at the Ecole Normale. In a series of discussions with Simone de Beauvoir held in 1974 Sartre recounted that he had in his student years begun entering reflections on contingency into a notebook he had chanced (!) upon while riding the metro. Films, Sartre recalled, had been the occasion of his discovery of contingency. Exiting a movie theater, he had been struck by the contrast between the necessity of the events in films and the contingency of the comings and goings of people in the street. Contingency existed. So too, Sartre came to feel, existed an elective affinity between himself and this notion: "I found that the notion had been neglected. . . . All Marxist thought culminated in a world of necessity; there was no contingency, only determinism, dialectics; there were no contingent

Page 21

facts. . . . I thought that if I had discovered contingency in films and exits into the street, it was because I was meant to discover it. 67

118/693

We need not linger over this re-entry of necessity by way of destiny. Contingency and finality can be reconciled. Rather, what is so very interesting is that contingency occupied a central place in Kuki's own philosophy; indeed, his was precisely a philosophy of contingency.68 Contingency had been the topic of his 1932 doctoral dissertation, Guzensei*(Contingency), of which his 1935 work Guzensei no Mondai (The Problem of Contingency) was the considerable elaboration.69 Kuki's interest in contingency, however, well predated these works. He had, for example, delivered an important lecture on contingency in 1929 at Otani* University shortly after his return from Europe. And the notion was in evidence in his 1928 Propos sur le temps.In the first essay of this book, Kuki is concerned, as was noted earlier, with the derivation of an ethic on the basis of contingent existence. Setting off, in contradistinction to linear time, an oriental time, a "time of transmigration," Kuki

119/693

notes that, if the supreme evil for Buddhism lies in the perpetual repetition of the will, this is the supreme good for Bushido*. "Bushido is the affirmation of the will, the negation of the negation. The infinite good will, which can never be entirely fulfilled, which is destined always to remain deceived, must ever and always renew its efforts." Bushido says: "Let us confront transmigration fearlessly, valiantly. Let us pursue perfection with a consciousness well aware that it will remain ever deceived. . . ." Partisan of the voluntarism in Bushido,Kuki takes issue with what he sees as the Greek tendency to see in the myth of Sisyphus, for example, a myth of damnation. For Kuki there is no tragedy here, rather the possible foundation of a moral attitude: "Everything depends on the subjective attitude of Sisyphus. His good will, a will steadfast in always beginning anew, in ever rolling the rock, finds in this repetition itself a complete ethic, and, consequently, all its happiness."70

120/693

It is precisely these analyses that will reappear a number of years later and form part of Kuki's systematic treatment of contingency in Guzensei no Mondai (The Problem of Contingency). An account of this book cannot be given here. But I shall note that after a sustained analysis of contingency in its three modalitiescategorical, hypothetic, and disjunctivean analysis in which contingency is revealed as the metaphysical absolute, the arrival point of the work becomes the derivation of an ethic, the "interiorization of contingency." And here is why Kuki in Propors sur le temps valorized that Heideggerian temporality in which the meaning of time is founded on "the future as coming towards the self and passing, thereby, into the already existing past," that Heideggerian temporality in which "if possibility [is] a

Page 22

122/693

coming towards,"it is so "because the logical nature of possibility [lies] in the future"for in regard to the "interiorization of contingency" Kuki writes: "[That] 'nothing takes place in vain' signifies my future possibility of interiorizing the very thou (nanji)conditioning me. The almost impossible tiniest possibility (gokubi no kanosei *)becomes reality in contingency, and this contingency, ever giving rise to new contingencies, leads on toward necessity. Here lies the salvation of man. . . . A sense of eternal destiny can be given to contingency, containing nothingness in itself and whose destiny is ever to lose itself, only by vitalizing (ikashimuru)the present by means of the future." Thus, Kuki could bring Guzensei* no Mondai to close: "When reality is confronted with nothingness, unable to restrain our surprise we cry out with Milanda: Why? . . . To the 'why' of Milanda we can only respond that contingency is an inevitable condition of concrete reality in the domain of theory, but that

123/693

in the domain of action it is, perhaps, possible to fill the lacuna of theory if we give ourselves this order: Let not your encounters take place in vain (oute munashiku suguru nakare)."71Here in this concluding command, taken from the Buddhist Jodoron*,we find precisely that good will previously rendered to Sisyphus.

124/693

The author of a philosophy of contingency, Kuki was also the author of an aesthetic of contingency, fashioning a poeticsof which the first text was his 1927 Oin* ni Tsuite (On Rhyming)in which contingency holds central place. What, in this regard, is the function of rhyme? It is to "make of the poetic form a place of contingency, a place where, fugitively, words meet and sounds respond to one another; it is in poetry to signify symbolically the pulsation of life. . . . Thus, the full force of poetry is found where one knows how to make manifest in a precarious and fragile aesthetic form that sense of contingency which is at the heart of one's faith in language, in the spirit of words." And with contingency and rhyme we return to Kuki's notebook, for in fashioning his work on the poetics of rhyme, Kuki was influenced precisely by the poetics of Paul Valry: "From the point of view of form Paul Valry considers poetry as the pure

125/693

system of the destiny of language and speaks of the philosophical beauty possessed by rhyme."72 By what destiny, then, by what chance, this meeting between these two philosophers of contingency? We cannot, of course, know for certain whether Kuki and Sartre discussed the question of contingency, but in view of the attention paid Valry in Kuki's notebook, it seems likely. And if they did, it would carry all the more significance given Sartre's feeling of elective affinity with the philosophy of contingency and given the fact that they very certainly did discuss the philosophy of existence. Sartre, of course, could not later have read Guzensei no Mondai.Thus, only Kuki could have known of the subsequent reflections on contingency of his philosophical discussion

Page 23

partner. But a search of Kuki's library did not turn up La Nause nor any of Sartre's other prewar works. Kuki's knowledge of Sartre's subsequent development is not thereby ruled out, but it cannot, obviously, be demonstrated. 73 In any case, this "contingent" parallel remains arresting.

127/693

As for other parallels, they have already been well in evidence. Thus, if Sartre was to become the leading exponent of existential phenomenology in France, Kuki was to occupy a similar position in Japan. And Kuki's aforementioned 1933 work on Heidegger, his 1934 Jitsuzon no Tetsugaku (The Philosophy of Existence), and his 1937 Ningen to Jitsuzon (Man and Existence) were not only works representative of the existential phenomenological current in Japan, they were works that also made entry of this current into Japan possible in the singular way that in them a portion of the vocabulary of existential phenomenology, previously not existent in Japanese, was coined. Jitsuzon (existence), for example, was a word created by Kuki.74 And, then, a remaining parallel: Kuki and Sartre both divided their time between philosophy and literature, Sartre in the novel and drama, Kuki in poetry.

128/693

It remains, then, to consider Kuki's influence on Sartre, to consider the significance of their encounter. At the time of their meeting Sartre was a twenty-three-year-old student, one year away from passing the agrgation in philosophy.75 If in contingency he had already seized upon one of the central notions of his subsequent mature philosophy, he would not be in a position to systematically develop his intuitions until he had completed his apprenticeship in Husserl, Heidegger, and Hegel. Kuki, on the other hand, was forty years old, possessor of an enormous culture and, now having meditated on the lessons of German phenomenology, beginning an independent philosophical production that would make him one of the outstanding talents in modern Japanese philosophy. Sartre in his 1966 interview in Tokyo noted that if Kuki had introduced him to Heidegger's phenomenology, he, Sartre, as yet only a student, had not been in a position to take up Heidegger. As regards

129/693

Heidegger and phenomenology, then, it was Kuki's distinct role to have turned Sartre's attention to Heidegger and phenomenology, to have given Sartre an agenda,no matter that it could not be immediately attended. But what of the role given Raymond Aron in Simone de Beauvoir's La Force de l'ge? Clearly, Aron could not have introduced Sartre to phenomenology.76 But doubtless Sartre's 1932 conversation with Aron was important. That Sartre was thus impelled to make arrangements to study in Germany attests to that fact and shows that Aron had quickened the urgency of Sartre's agenda. Sartre's receptivity to phenomenology had surely increased in the years subsequent to, indeed by very virtue of, his encounter

Page 24

with Kuki. He was now better placed to hear that which Aron had to tell him. And today, with the seemingly ever-present journals of the drle de guerre,Sartre himself provides us insight into the nature of this receptivity and, what is more, offers us a way of discussing the significance of, as well as just that aforementioned destiny in, Sartre's encounter with Kukifor there at the head of an entry (of February 1940) is found: "If I want to understand the share of liberty and destiny in what is called 'undergoing an influence,' I can reflect on the influence Heidegger has exercised on me." 77

131/693

In this entry Sartre gives in a way not available before, the chronology and significance of his encounter with Heidegger. Sartre had journeyed to Berlin in the fall of 1933 with the intention of reading "the phenomenologists." Taking up first with Husserl, he plannedhaving purchased a copy of Sein und Zeit in Decemberto read Heidegger the following spring. However, he found upon commencing with Heidegger that he was "saturated with Husserl." The intense study of Husserl had exhausted him that year for philosophy. Of Sein und Zeit he was only able to read fifty pages, the difficulty of the vocabulary, in any case, putting him off.78 Sartre would find that his apprenticeship with Husserl would require four years, carrying well into 1937 the time of his composition of the never-to-be completed La Psyche (of which only the section on the emotions would ever be published). If Sartre broke off writing this work, it was because his dissatisfactions with it revealed to him his

132/693

dissatisfactions with Husserl: with, for instance, the passivity entailed by the sensationalism rooted in the Husserlian hyl (the hyletic data through which intentional objects were given); with his, Sartre's, inability to find satisfaction in Husserl's treatment of the problem of the other's consciousness, the treatment of which problem necessitated for Sartre assurance that "two distinct consciousnesses perceive the same world"; and finally with Husserl's refutation of solipsism, "inconclusive and weak."79

133/693

Dissatisfaction with Husserl now impelled Sartre to turn to Heidegger "in order to evade the Husserlian impasse." Thus, Sartre notes, "one sees that I could not have studied Heidegger earlier than I did." But if the reason delaying his engagement with Heideggerthe necessity of his truly passing through Husserlhad been of an objective naturethis very reason now coincided with another set of objectivities: the historical situation. "History,"Sartre writes, led him "to seek out a philosophy which would not only be a contemplation, but a wisdom, a heroism, a saintliness, anything at all in fact that would allow me to come to grips with the situation." It is Heidegger as sage. Sartre writes: "I was in the exact situation of the Athenians, who, after the death of Alexander, turned away from Aristotelian science in order to take up the more brutal, the more totalitarian doctrines of the Stoics and

134/693

Page 25

Epicureans, doctrines which could teach them how to live." 80In Heidegger Sartre felt he had found his Zeno, his Epicurus: "This influence now appears to me providential since it taught me about authenticity and historicity just at that moment when the war rendered these notions indispensible to me. If I try to imagine what I would have made of my thought without these tools, I am taken with a retrospective fear. How much time I had gained."81

136/693

An impasse with Husserl and a period of historical crisis provided Sartre with Heidegger. Sartre reflects: "Sufficiently detached from Husserl, seeking out a philosophy of pathos (une philosophie 'paththique'), I was ripe to understand Heidegger." Yet what is there to say of chance, of the fortuitous appearance of Corbin's translation of Heidegger's Was ist Metaphysik? Chance not at all Sartre writes, for "the publication of Qu'est-ce que la mtaphysique was a historic event in whose production I had for my part justly contributed a share."82

137/693

Sartre had heard speak of the phenomenologists, had found his curiosity raised in regard to phenomenology. He had read "a few rare French works" on the subject and later had gone to Berlin. Returning with some degree of familiarity, he taught what he had learned and thus "augmented this inquisitive public" of which he saw himself a part. Subsequently, this public grew. If then Corbin's book appeared, it was, Sartre argues, precisely because a public had come to demand this book: "Corbin had produced his translation for us.All that had been necessary was this first curiosity. . . . Thus, if Corbin had translated Qu'est-ce que la mtaphysique,it was because I (among others) had freely constituted myself as public awaiting this translation and in so doing had assumed my situation, my generation, and my epoch." Thus, after speaking of the circumstance whereby Heidegger and not Husserl was first translatedwhich circumstance Sartre explained with reference to the greater

138/693

attraction a philosophy of pathos, notwithstanding its incomprehensibility to the general public, would have, and in which circumstance he saw the dictation of the aforementioned inquisitive publicSartre could conclude: "In other words it was my epoch, my situation, and my freedom which had determined my encounter with Heidegger. And in this there had been neither chance nor determinism, but historical convenience."83

139/693

Yet one necessity: for the Corbin translation to have appeared "all that had been necessary was this first curiosity." And so we are returned to Kukito him who would provide Sartre this first curiosity; indeed, to him who by virtue of his intercouse with French philosophical circles in Paris and at Pontigny would serve as one of the very first in the transmission of the new German thought to France; to him who would thus serve in the augmentation of that very public that, to follow Sartre, would lead to the possibility of phenomenology's naturalization in France.

Page 26

Of the notions of phenomenology, Sartre could write in his notebook: "I dreamed of these notions which I knew but poorly and about which I desired to know more. " 84 And we can, in this regard, think of Merleau-Ponty's later declaration to the effect that "if we so readily welcomed phenomenology it was because it was what we had everywhere dreamed about for so long." Kuki, then, provided Sartre that very special kind of curiosity, that type of expectancy for the needed, for the necessary as yet hidden, scarcely known: that internal tropism of thought and taste that can lead one day to the discovery of an elective affinitythere seemingly from the very starthappily found. "Influence," this provision? Provision certainly, and one at that so very felicitous. Thus, by way of conclusion: Kuki, by word and in his person itself, exposed Sartre to his, Sartre's, very own future, added to his predisposition for it.

141/693

Notes
1. A footnote gives brief mention of this in Y. Nitta, H. Tatematsu, and E. Shimomisse*, "Phenomenology and Philosophy in Japan," in Analecta Husserliana,vol. 8, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht, 1979), p. 17, n. 24.

142/693

2. The Japanese philosopher Kitaro* Nishida (1870-1945) initiated Japanese discussion of Husserl in an article of 1911. The first French article on Husserl appeared in 1910. However, if discussion of Husserl as phenomenologist commenced in earnest in Japan in the early 1920s, such discussion did not truly begin in France till the late 1920s and early 1930s. For the French reception of phenomenology see Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction,vol. 2 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960), pp. 401-8. 3. Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life,trans. Peter Green (New York: Meridian 1962), p. 112.

143/693

4. The philosopher Yasumasa Oshima*, in an article on Kuki, has recounted that when his elder colleague Yasutaro* Awano was in Paris in 1934, Awano asked Emile Brhier if Brhier could provide him a partner for purposes of discussing French philosophy and thus employing his French. Brhier, exclaiming, "that was just Kuki's request!" introduced Awano to a young lyce professor, Maurice Merleau-Ponty! Oshima takes the remark as sign that it was probably Brhier who had earlier directed Kuki to Sartre. (See Yasumasa Oshima, "Kuki Shuzo* to Guzensei* no Mondai"[Shuzo Kuki and The Problem of Contingency], Chuo Koron*82 [September 1967]: 394.) Toshihito Naito* also cites Brhier as having provided Kuki introduction to Sartre. (See Toshihito Naito, "Kuki to Sarutoru" [Kuki and Sartre], Geppo*12 [March 1982]: 7-9 [insert in supplementary volume (Bekkan)of Kuki Shuzo Zenshu*(The Collected Works of Shuzo Kuki), 11 vols. and

144/693

supplementary volume (Tokyo: Iwanami: Shoten, 1980-1982), ed. Hisayuki Omodaka, Akio Sato*, and Tetsuji Ishigaki)]. References to Kuki Shuzo Zenshu will hereafter be cited as KSZ.It should also be noted that in Japanese the surname is given first. To avoid confusion, however, I have chosen not to follow this order. All names are, thus, given in English order. Exception is made for names appearing in Japanese publication titles.) 5. The text of Ibuki's interview appeared in the newspaper Sankei Shinbun,October 6, 1966. Relevant passages can be found in Oshima, "Kuki Shuzo to Guzensei no Mondai,"p. 394, and Naito, "Kuki to Sarutoru," p. 7. Sartre indicates that he did not serve as a language tutor in a passage quoted in Oshima (p. 394).

Page 27

146/693

6. According to Kojima, Heidegger in the course of a discussion with Kojima (in Germany in 1955) remarked: "Did you know that Sartre came to me (watashi no moto ni yattekita)with a letter of introduction from Kuki. While a student at the University of Paris Sartre served Kuki as a tutor and was surprised to learn from Kuki of the developments in German philosophy. Sartre thought these developments originated with me and, therefore, came to seek me out (watashi o tazunete kitandayo)."Kojima adds that he, Kojima, had not heard this story before. (See Takehiko Kojima, "Boden * kohan ni Haidegga* o Otonau" [Visiting Heidegger along Bden Lake], in Sekai Nippo*[World Daily Report], Feb. 13, 1981. Naito*, citing Kojima, also speaks of such a letter.) Madame Simone de Beauvoir, however, informs me in a letter that Sartre did not possess such a letter. It is known, of course, that Sartre almost certainly did not meet Heidegger during his 1933-34 stay in

147/693

Germany, meeting Heidegger but one time, in Freiburg in late November or early December of 1952. In addition, no letters between Kuki and possible European correspondants seem to be extant.

148/693

Kojima was not, however, the only recepient of Heidegger's information. Professor Tetsuo Kogawa remarked to me in discussion that commencing in the early 1950s Heidegger spoke to all his Japanese visitors about Kuki. This can also be gathered from the testimony of Professor Tomio Tezuka (see footnote 16 below). Putting aside for the moment the question of the letter of introduction, Heidegger is thus one of the sources (perhaps the source) for the story in Japan regarding Kuki's meeting with Sartre, a story that, as Toshihiko Naito notes, had always a fabled tone about it (isshu densetsutekina iroai).Furthermore, Professor Herbert Spiegelberg, the historian of the phenomenological movement, in a letter to me writes that he had first heard Kuki spoken of during an interview he held with Heidegger in Germany in 1953. Heidegger spoke of Kuki as "his [Heidegger's] source of information

149/693

about Sartre." In addition, Professor Spiegelberg in a note forwarded to me by Professor Richard Popkin writes: "When, according to my notebook of interviews with varied witnesses of the phenomenological movement ("Scrapbook"), I visited Heidegger at his ski hut near Todtnasberg on 15 September 1953, he mentioned in answer to my inquiries about his contacts with Sartre: Sartre had studied Heidegger's Sein und Zeit at the suggestion of a Count Kuki, a gifted Japanese who had studied with Heidegger in Marburg."

150/693

All this would seem to lend support to the notion that either Sartre possessed a letter of introduction to Heidegger from Kuki orand this is the more likely event given that Sartre did not meet Heidegger in 1933-34that Kuki had written directly to Heidegger regarding Sartre. For to whatever degree Heidegger's testimony about a letter must be viewed with caution (and it must be), his testimony is accurate in that Kuki and Sartre did meet while Sartre was a student.

151/693

How then account for Heidegger's testimony? One possibility: Kuki had in 1933 written a letter of introduction directly to Heidegger for a young French lyce professor, who, however, did not come to call upon Heidegger. Subsequently, after the war and the rise to prominence of this professor (and the recommencement of Japanese visitors to Heidegger), Heidegger was reminded of the letter he had received from Kuki. His testimony twenty years later would then merely have confused the manner in which he received the letter. It is one possibility. There is another. In a memoir of Heidegger, Hans A. Fischer-Barnicol notes that Kuki during his stay in Paris had sent Heidegger an edition of Descartes' works. (See Hans A. Fischer-Barnicol, "Spiegelungen-Vermittlungen," in Erinnerung an Martin Heidegger,ed. Gnther Neske [Pfllingen: Neske, 1977], p. 102.) Might Kuki in a letter

152/693

accompanying the Descartes works have mentioned to Heidegger his meeting with a French student of philosophy? Perhaps this student had informed Kuki as to a suitable edition to purchase. And, again, after the war the letter took on meaning for Heidegger. And there is still another possibility. Heidegger's testimony seems to commence in the early 1950s. Could it have been the result of his meeting with Sartre in 1952? Perhaps in the course of their conversation Heidegger mentioned Kuki with the result that Sartre then spoke of his own relations with Kuki. 7. It is worth mentioning that at this time others to become subsequently famous, such as the writer Junichiro* Tanizaki and the philosophers Tetsuro* Watsuji and Teiyu* Amano, the latter to

Page 28

become Kuki's devoted and lifelong friend, were also in attendance at Daiichi Kotogakko *. For more on Watsuji and Amano see notes 15 and 9 respectively. 8. There is a discussion of Kuki in Heidelberg in Keizo Ikimatsu, "Haiderubergo no Kuki Shozo*" (Shuzo Kuki in Heidelberg), Geppo*1 (Nov. 1980): 3-6 (insert in KSZ,vol. 2 [Tokyo,1980]). 9. All of these men came to occupy important places in Japanese intellectual life upon their return to Japan. Amano, as we noted earlier, Kuki's devoted friend, became a leading Kant scholar, as well as the author of a number of ethical works. Hani and Ouchi* became important Marxist historians; Naruse, also a friend of Kuki's, authored works on the question of contingency.

154/693

Jiro* Abe* and Kiyoshi Miki, however, played the most important roles. Abe, primarily an aesthetician, influenced by German romanticism, had already attained prominence with works such as the 1916 philosophical diary Santaro* no Nikki (The Diary of Santaro), the 1917 Bigaku (Aesthetics), and the 1920 Jinkakushugi (Personalism). Kiyoshi Miki, a student of Kitaro* Nishida and Seiichi Hatano (1877-1950) at Kyoto University, in Heidelberg in 1923 delivered a lecture, "Wahrheit und Gewissheit," attended by his Japanese colleagues. He also in that year contributed an appreciation of Rickert, "Rickerts Bedeutung fr die Japanische Philosophie," to the Frankfurter Zeitung.(Both of these essays can be found in Miki Kiyoshi Zenshu*[The Collected Works of Kiyoshi Miki], vol. 2 [Tokyo, 1966], pp. 15-26 and 43-49 respectively [note should be taken that Japanese books

155/693

read from right to left; the foreign language material in the volume here cited has, however, been printed in Western order and carries separate pagination]). Miki,whose first book, published in 1925, was devoted to the subject of man in Pascal, authored important works in the areas of social philosophy, the philosophy of history, and philosophical anthropology. His philosophical enterprise assimilated Heidegger (whose seminar he attended while in Germany) on the one hand and the Hegelian Marxism of Lukcs on the other. Arrested and imprisoned for a short time in 1930, Miki was once again arrested in 1945 and died in prison that same year, two months after the war's conclusion.

156/693

The Western reader can find an outline of modern Japanese philosophy in Gino K. Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 1862-1962 (Tokyo: Sophia Univ. Press, 1968). 10. Hermann Glockner, Heidelberger Bilderbuch: Erinnerungen von Hermann Glockner (Bonn: H. Bouvier 1969), p. 232. Glockner recounts that Rickert referred to Kuki as "Baron Neunteufel," Kuki himself having indicated this as the meaning of his name (the two characters comprising his name, ku and ki,signify 9 and devil respectively).

157/693

11. Kuki's movements in Europe can easily be followed owing to listings of arrivals and departures in a diary-journal kept by Madame Kuki. I am indebted to Professor Akio Sato* of Konan* University, director of the Shuzo Kuki Archive at Konan University, for graciously providing me with relevant excerpts from Madame Kuki's diary.

158/693

12. Myojo*(Morning Star) was founded in 1900 by the poet Tekkan Yosano, whose second wife was the famed poetess Akiko Yosano. The journal was the organ of Yosano's group Shinshisa (New Poetry Society). The most influential review of its time, (during its pre-WWI period), at the center of the modern movement and the tanka revival, attentive to the visual arts and Western poetry, Myojo attracted many of the most able Japanese poets of the day and was crucial in establishing modern Japanese poetry.(See Theodore W. Goosen, "Myojo," in The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan,vol. 5 [Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983], p. 290.)

159/693

Kuki's manuscripts were published in Myojo under the initials S. K. or, as in the case of Pari no Negoto*,under the pseudonym Rokozo Komari. In 1938 Kuki under his own name published excerpts from the series Pari Shinkei.In 1942, a year after his death, the entire series of Paris poems were collected (with the addition of one new series, "Kyo* no Fuyu" [Kyoto Winter]) and published, along with an afterword by Teiyu* Amano, under the title Pari Shinkei.This volume was later included in KSZ,vol. 1 (Toyko, 1980), pp. 109-218. 13. Iki no Kozo*was first published in the journal Shiso*(Thought) in the early part of 1930

Page 29

and appeared in book form later that year. Iki no Honshitsu and Iki no Kozo *are included in KSZ,vol. 1, pp. 89-108 and 3-83. In addition, a notebook of Kuki's containing preparatory notes for Iki no Kozo has been published under the editor's title Iki ni Tsuite (On Iki)in the supplementary volume of KSZ,pp. 3-35.

161/693

Iki was an aesthetic and moral ideal specific to the middle classes of Edo (Tokyo's name before 1868) during the Bunka-Bunsei period (1804-1830). A person holding this ideal sought to live a refined, tasteful life. If inclined to wealth, he or she scorned attachment to money; if inclined to amorous pleasure, he or she resisted being carried away by desire. Not ignorant of the details of the everyday world, indeed living decidedly in the world, the person of iki sought to maintain a form of detachment. (See Makoto Ueda, ''Iki and Sui," in The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan,vol. 3, pp. 267-68.) Thus, in Iki no Kozo Kuki can contrast iki with the blind intoxication characteristic of Stendhalian amour-passion. Iki carries a rejection of exclusive attachment; detachment is sought "in order to live far from this world in the transparent atmosphere of amourgot" (KSZ,vol. 1, p. 23).

162/693

Kuki, man of iki himself, was acting as if by election in selecting iki as a subject for analysis. Iki,a cultural form and phenomenon of consciousness specific to Japan, is, as Kuki shows in the opening methodological (and etymological) chapter of Iki no Kozo,an untranslatable termthe French "chic" and the English "elegant" carrying only one-sided meanings of the termand finds its model representative in the geisha.The ideal of the geisha is at once "moral and aesthetic . . . iki . . . a harmonious unity of voluptuousness and nobility." At the base of iki a sexual relation to another is implied. Thus, iki turns out to be a form of coquetry modified by two other elements, on the one hand ikiji,a certain spirit of rebelliousness and pluck, boldness and worldliness (iki originally meant "spirit" or "heart"), derived from the ethic of Bushido*, "the way of the bushi"(or, in Western parlance, "the way of the

163/693

samurai"), and on the other hand by akirame,resignation or renunciation, derived from the Buddhist experience of the impermanence of life. (See KSZ,vol. 1, pp. 16 ff.) Thus, "iki . . .is that coquetry acting as a material cause . . . modified by the formal factors of Bushido's moral idealism and the Buddhist notion of the impermanence of the world, by the two main characteristics of Japanese civilization." A nuanced complex by which a system of moral and aesthetic values finds expression, iki is in fact fundamentally a form of charm,a charm "carrying an infinite authority" and playing "a significant part in Japanese culture," a charm and authority evident in the late Edo period (1603-1868) saying, quoted by Kuki, "Ah, [her] iki spirit (ikina kokoro),leading me to take as truths what I knew to be lies "(ibid.,p. 23).

164/693

In Iki no Kozo the phenomenological influence of Husserl and Heidegger is immediately apparent, both from the structure of the work as a whole and from the methodological cautions Kuki sets forth at the opening of the work, where he warns against questioning "the essentia (honshitsu)of iki before questioning the existentia (sonzai)of iki"(KSZ,vol. 1, p. 13). Hermeneutical (kaishakuteki)understanding is counterposed to a mere formalist (keisoteki)understanding. Thus, the book will analyze iki first as a comprehensive structure, then as an extensive structure, before moving on to an analysis of the natural as well as aesthetic manifestations of iki.In these latter two chapters, marvelous analyses of various aspects of Japanese culture abound, and we can find here an aesthetic of iki,which is to say, in certain respects, Kuki's own aesthetic.

165/693

14. Nihonshi no Oin*deals not only with Japanese poetry, but ranges over many of the world's major poetries. It (as well as Kuki's poetry itself) played an influential role among several Japanese poetic movements and groups, particularly the "Matine Poetique" group, during the 1940s. A version of the work was first published in 1931 in the lecture series Nihon Bungaku (Japanese Literature) of the publisher Iwanami Shoten. Another, shorter version was published in the same year in the newspaper Osaka Asahi Shinbun.Kuki remained occupied with this subject throughout the 1930s, reworking his 1931 manuscript (as was his wont with many of his manuscripts) several times before preparing in 1941 a fully revised version containing substantial new additions to be included in a volume of writings on literature he was putting together for publication. The volume, Bungeiron (Literary Studies), appeared in 1941

166/693

Page 30

shortly after Kuki's death. It now makes up vol. 4 of KSZ (Tokyo, 1981). The 1931 versions of the work are included in KSZ,vol. 5 (Toyko, 1981), pp. 264-270 and 271-471 respectively. 15. In a letter of October 22, 1927, to Husserl, Heidegger, in a passage recounting his own work and upcoming lectures, refers to Kuki. The informality of the reference indicates that Kuki is no stranger to Hussers (and Heidegger's) circle: ". . . with the lectures and the two studies and the talks in Kln and Bonn and in addition Kuki" ([Brief an Edmund Husserl], in Edmund Husserl, Phnomenologische Psychologie, Husserliana,ed. Walter Biemel [The Hague: Nijhoff, 1962], band 9, pp. 600-601).

168/693

After World War I, Japanese philosophers began traveling to Freiburg in order to study with Husserl. As a result they had come to know Hussers assistant, Heidegger. In Japan these visits became known as the Furaiberugu Mode (Freiburg Pilgrimage). This "Freiburg Pilgrimage" continued into the 1930s and recommenced after World War II, augmented by the vogue Heidegger and existentialism knew after the war.

169/693

Heidegger had become known in Japan as early as 1921 when a transcript of one of his seminars was brought back to Japan by several Japanese participants, Hajime Tanabe among them. (See the remarks of Tomio Tezuka in Martin Heidegger, "Aus einem Gesprch von der Sprache, zwischen einem Japaner und einem Fragenden," in Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache [Pfllingen: Neske, 1959], pp. 83-155.) Tanabe's article "Genshogaku-ni * okeru atarashiki tenkoHaidegga*-no sei-no genshogaku" (A New Turn in Phenomenology: Heidegger's Existential Phenomenology), published in Shiso*(Thought) in Oct. 1924, was one of the earliest articles devoted to Heidegger, all the more significant in that it appeared several years before Sein und Zeit.

170/693

The Japanese presence in Germany in the 1920s resulted in an interesting historical circumstance: the first foreign philosophical culture to feel the impact of Heidegger's philosophy was the Japanese. And in this regard there may be cited an interesting, albeit indirect, result of this impact: the philosopher Tetsuro* Watsujias noted before, a classmate of Kuki's at Daiichi Kotogakko*read Sein und Zeit while in Berlin in the summer of 1927. Impressed with the description given temporality in human existence, Watsuji felt that Heidegger had neglected the existential dimension of space. Thus, Watsuji would author his Fudo (Climate and Culture), a philosophico-anthropological analysis of the relation between climate and human existence (climate here writ large, that is to say not limited to its meteorological sense, but rather seen as a total physico-cultural framework). An English translation of the

171/693

work is available as A Climate,trans. G. Bownas (Tokyo: Print Bureau of the Japanese Govt., 1961). Watsuji was, of course, a major figure in modern Japanese philosophy. Among the works in his vast oeuvre are his numerous works on Japanese as well as European culture and his important threevolume ethics. English readers will profit from the sagacious study of Professor Robert Bellah, "Japan's Cultural Identity: Some Reflections on the Work of Watsuji Tetsuro," Journal of Asian Studies,24, no. 4 (1965): 573-94.

172/693

16. Kuki began publishing on Heidegger as early as 1929, the year of his return to Japan. His study "Jikan no Mondai: Berukuson to Haidegga" (The Problem of Time: Bergson and Heidegger) appeared in Tetsugaku Zashi (The Journal of Philosophy) in May 1929. His 1933 study Haidegga no Tetsugaku (The Philosophy of Heidegger), published in the Iwanami Shoten lecture series Tetsugaku (Philosophy), was one of the very first full-length accounts of Heidegger's philosophy in any language. It and the earlier study on time are included in KSZ,vol. 3 (Tokyo, 1981), pp. 199-271 and pp. 295-337. Kuki's book-length set of lectures on Heidegger, delivered at Kyoto University in 1931-32, can be found in KSZ,vol. 10 (Tokyo, 1982), pp. 1-257.

173/693

Heidegger held Kuki in highest esteem. Professor Tomio Tezuka in an article in the volume containing his Japanese translation of Heidegger's dialogue from Unterwegs zur Sprache remarks on the warmth with which Heidegger spoke of Kuki and notes that prior to his own visit to Heidegger in March of 1953, Heidegger had asked another Japanese visitor, Keiichi Uchigaki, for pictures of Kuki's gravestone. Subsequently Uchigaki had these pictures sent to Heidegger from Kyoto. Tezuka says that Heidegger showed these pictures to him during his

Page 31

175/693

visit. (See Tomio Tezuka, "Haidegga * tono Ichijikan" [An Hour with Heidegger], in Martin Heidegger, Kotoba ni tsuiteno Taiwa [Dialogue on Language], trans. Tomio Tezuka, [Tokyo: Risosha*, 1968], pp. 159-60.) In his 1957 preface to the posthumous publication of Kuki's lectures on French philosophy, Gendai Fransu Tetsugaku Kogi (Lectures on Modern French Philosophy), Teiyu* Amano notes that Heidegger in 1957 had remarked to Koichi* Tsujimura, then studying with Heidegger, that he was happy to see the publication of Kuki's lectures and that he would like to write a preface for a German edition of one of Kuki's works (Teiyu Amano, Jo [Preface] to KSZ,vol. 8 [Tokyo, 1981], p. iii). In actuality Amano's preface does not directly name such a German edition, merely that Heidegger desired to write a preface for one of Kuki's works. However, in a letter to the present author

176/693

Professor Hisayuki Omodaka, editor of Kuki's lectures on French philosphy, kindly provides clarification of this matter, namely that Heidegger anticipated that Koichi Tsujimura would translate one of Kuki's workseither Iki no Kozo*or Guzensei* no Mondai,or possibly the lectures on French philosphyinto German and that he, Heidegger, very much desired to provide a preface for such German edition. Unfortunately, the planned translation was never undertaken. (For more on Kuki's lectures on French philosophy see note 47 below.) 17. See Heidegger, "Aus einem Gesprch von der Sprache." Madame Kuki's diary notes these visits, as well as farewells to Heidegger upon the Kukis' departure for France.

177/693

18. Lwith's widow, Madame Ada Lwith, recounts in a memoir the importance of this post, coming as it did during the Lwiths' exile in Italy, and spoke of Kuki's graciousness as host, of the pleasant times spent in conversation during visits to Kuki's home ("Kuki Kyoju* no Omoide" [Remembrances of Professor Kuki], trans. Akio Sato*, Geppo*6 [April 1980]: 6-8 [insert in KSZ,vol. 5]).

178/693

19. Three dcadesonedevoted to literature, one to philosophy, one to politicswere held each summer from 1910 to 1939 (with the exception of the years 1915-1921) at a twelfth-century abbey purchased by Desjardins in 1906 when the Catholic Church, secularizing its holdings, put it up for auction. These dcades soon after their institution in 1910 became the gathering place each summer for some of the most distinguished intellectuals and writers of France and of other countries. The Russian philosopher Nicolai Berdyaev, in attendance at many of the dcades at Pontigny, left this description: "Of all the forms of intercourse with French and, generallyspeaking, foreign circles in which I have taken part the most interesting were the dcades ...at Pontigny. It was there that I really came to know French culture and French life, and not the least the Frenchman's attitude to foreigners. [These dcades were] also attended by a great number of intellectuals from abroad: English,

179/693

Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Americans, Swiss, Dutch, Swedes, and Japanese" (Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography,trans. Katherine Lampert, [New York: Macmillan, 1951], pp. 267-68).

180/693

20. Propos sur le temps was published by Phillipe Renouard. Both of its two essays, were also published separately: the first essay, on time, appearing in Correspondance de l'union pour la vrit (Mar.-Apr. 1929), the second, on Japanese art, appearing in Cahiers d'Etoile (Jan.-Feb. 1929). In addition, the first essay appeared in Japanese under the title "Toyoteki* Jikan ni Tsuite" (On Oriental Time) in 1937 in the journal Zengaku Kenkyu*(Studies on Zen). Finally, Propos sur le temps was included, along with a Japanese translation, in KSZ,vol. 1. (Note should again be taken of the right to left printing format in Japan. Foreign language material is, however, printed in Western order. Thus, the Japanese translation appears in regular pagination, pp. 399-434, whereas the original text of Propos sur le temps,in addition to carrying the volume's regular pagination, here corresponding to pp. 296-263, also carries separate pagination, given in parentheses [pp. 54-86]. A final note: the text

181/693

in the KSZ is the same as that in the original volume except that the KSZ edition carries one additional editorial page identifying those of Kuki's quotations unidentified by him in the first edition.) Kuki sent a copy of Propos sur le temps to Professor Kitaro* Nishida of Kyoto University, already at that time acclaimed the first intelligence in modern Japanese philosophy. Nishida, in a letter of December 21, 1928, wrote to his former student, now his colleague at Kyoto

Page 32

University, the philosopher Hajime Tanabe: "Shuzo * Kuki has sent me a little book, Propos sur le temps,which he has just published in France. Here is a man of real Bildung.It would be good to have him here at Kyoto as a lecturer" (Nishida quoted in KSZ,supplementary volume, pp. 293-94.)

183/693

21. Master of his own culture, Kuki was also the master of others. If like many other Japanese philosophers of his and other generations, Kuki studied in Germany and thoroughly imbibed German culture, at the very same time he completely assimilated French culture. If German phenomenology ultimately played a very significant role in his philosophical investigations, in cultural matters French culture was closest to his heart (bracketing, of course, Japanese culture), a fact not contradicted by the predominance of French over German culture in his private library. (See Akio Sato*, "Kuki Shuzo Bunko ni Tsuite" [On the Shuzo Kuki Archive], Geppo*1 [Nov. 1980]: 6-8 [insert in KSZ,vol. 2].)

184/693

Also: if Kuki, obviously, knew the principal classical and modern European languages, he also knew Chinese and Sanskrit. Thus, the access here given a supreme philosophical intelligence to the three major world civilizations could not but deepen the nature of all Kuki's comparative investigations. 22. KSZ,vol. 1, p. 54. 23. Jean-Marie Guyau, La Gense de l'ide de temps (Paris: Alcan, 1923).

185/693

24. KSZ,vol. 1, p. 54. The phrase "If one has the right to speak" is important because as Kuki knew, one cannot in fact easily speak of (one) oriental time. It is certainly not possibleand Kuki of course in no way attempts thisto definitively counterpose an oriental to a Western time, either in terms of the categories "cyclical" and ''linear" or in terms of subjective and objective conceptions. Thus, Kuki, already in the beginning of his discussion, speaks of subjective notions of time in the Orient and in the West, and later speaks of cyclical notions of time in the Greeks. If a distinction is to be posed, it must as Joseph Needham has elsewhere shown be posed in terms of an Indo-Hellenistic notion of cyclical time on the one hand, and a Judaeo-Christian notion of linear time on the other. So too it must be kept in mind, as Needham has again shown, that the predominant notions of time in China have been linear, the cyclical notions appearing only in the Taoist tradition (later influenced by

186/693

Indian Buddhism)"Returning is the characteristic movement of the Tao,"says the Tao Te Chingandin neoConfucianism, which, in this regard, merely drew on ancient Taoism. (See Joseph Needham, Time and Eastern Man [London: Royal Anthropological Society, 1965].) If, then, linearity dominated in the Chinese mind, conceptions of time as real also predominated there. Cyclical and subjective notions (the two do not necessarily go together) abounded, by contrast, in India. Entirely consistent with this, Kuki in developing his discussion of periodic, repetitive time relied precisely on Indian texts such as the Upanishads and on the one Chinese text, the Tao Te Ching. 25. KSZ,vol. 1, pp. 64-65.

187/693

26. A polemic thread runs through Kuki's discussion, for he aims to overturn the notion, posed in France at the time by those such as Andr Suars, whom Kuki will later quote at length, that "Japanese art never turns inward."

188/693

27. Critic and philosopher of art, Okakura (1862-1913) had studied at Tokyo University with Ernest Fenellosa and had pursued studies of Western art in Europe. An important figure in the movement to restore and preserve Japanese art, he became, through a number of journeys to the United States and Europe, the leading interpreter for the West of Japanese art both through works such as The Ideals of the East, The Awakening of Japan,and The Book of Tea and through work done at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (beginning in 1905), first as advisor to and then as curator of the Chinese and Japanese division there. (See M. William Steele, "Kakuzo* Okakura," in The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan,vol. 6, p. 79.) In 1937 Kuki wrote a memoir of Okakura, "Okakura Kakuzo shi no Omoide" (Remem-

Page 33

brances of Kakuzo * Okakura). It is now collected in KSZ,vol. 5. Kuki had met Okakura several times at his, Kuki's, mother's house (Kuki's parents were separated) during his youth. Kuki's relation to the older man, a friend of Kuki's father before Kuki was born and later a friend of Kuki's mother, was, as his memoir shows, complicated.

190/693

Okakura belonged to that generation of Japanese intellectualsthe writers Soseki* Natsume and Ogai* Mori can be considered as among the leading representatives in this regardreacting much more soberly and sagaciously to the West than did the immediately preceding generation, enamored as it was of "things Western." Such note is added because Michitaro* Tada and Takeshi Yasuda in their book Iki no Kozo* o yomu (Reading Iki no Kozo)(Tokyo: Asahi Shinbuusha, 1979) speak of Soseki Natsume in literature and Kuki in philosophySoseki, born 1867, was of the generation preceding Kuki'sas those two early 20th-century Japanese intellectuals who best understood the West (without in any way losing their self-conscious rootedness in and their profound comprehension and appreciation of Japanese culture).

191/693

28. Kakuzo Okakura, The Ideals of the East with Special Reference to the Art of Japan (London: J. Murray 1905), pp. 1-5; KSZ,vol. 1, p. 66. 29. Okakura, The Ideals of the East,pp. 168-69. 30. Okakura, The Ideals of the East,pp. 176-77. It is the art of this Ashikaga period that Okakura especially appreciates. This period's aesthetic is also dear to Kuki, who takes care to advise his Western auditors against the notion that in referring to Japanese art he refers to the more popular arts of Edo-period Japan (woodblock prints and so forth). 31. KSZ,vol. 1, p. 68.

192/693

32. The short propos pieces were found among Kuki's papers and published for the first time, along with the article "Bergson au Japon" (which had originally appeared in Les Nouvelles Littraires,December 15, 1928, pp. 1-2), under the editor's title Choses Japonaises,in KSZ,vol. 1, pp. 261-39 (in Japanese page order). "Caractres gnraux de la philosophie franaise" was subsequently published (in abridged version) in the bulletin of the JapaneseFrench Cultural Society. The complete version was included in KSZ,vol. 3 (Tokyo, 1981), pp. 1-9pp. 423-15 in Japanese page order.

193/693

33. Kuki returned to Japan in December of 1928 via the United States (in Washington D.C. he met Paul Claudel with whom he discussed, among other things, Alain's aesthetics). On board ship he completed two studies, "Futsudoku tetsugakkai-no genjo* (The Present Situation of French and German Philosophy) and "Nihon Bunka" (Japanese Culture). The Western philosophies he had just assimilated, the Japanese culture he would (under impact of, among other things, these philosophies) so marvelously analyzeit seems fitting that on a return voyage to a Japan he would subsequently never leave Kuki should concern himself with just these. Receiving a post as lecturer in French philosophy at Kyoto University in April of 1929, he became an assistant professor in 1932 and a full professor in 1935. He remained in Kyoto for the rest of his lifeleaving only to visit his family in Tokyoliving for many years near Nanzenji (Nanzen Temple) and then in 1940, a

194/693

year before his death, moving to the outskirts of Kyoto. 34. KSZ,vol. 1, p. 89. Nishida and Tanabe initiated an idealist current of philosophy which, after World War II, would become known as the Kyoto-ha*,the Kyoto School of philosophy. Nishida's first work, the 1911 Zen no Kenkyu*(A Study of Good), signaled definitively that a period of Japanese reception of Western philosophy had been superceded by independent and creative philosophical production. (I note here, parenthetically, that both Kuki in his French article on Bergson and Miki in his German article on Rickert alluded to the weight of Nishida's philosophy.)

195/693

A number of Nishida's works are available in English translation: (1) A Study of Good,trans. Valdo H. Viglielmo (Tokyo: Print Bureau of the Japanese Govt., 1960); (2) Art and Morality,trans. David Dilworth and Valdo H. Viglielmo (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1973); (3) Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness,trans. Robert Schinzinger (Tokyo: Maruzen,

Page 34

1958); (4) Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, trans. David Dilworth (Tokyo: Sophia Univ. Press, 1970). 35. Introduction to Le problme de la contingence (Tokyo: Universit de Tokio, 1966), pp. viii-ix. This is Omodaka's French translation of Guzensei * no Mondai (Tokyo, 1966). 36. Kuki, "Furyu* ni kansuru Ichikosatsu" (Thoughts on Furyu) in KSZ,vol. 4, p. 82. 37. Kuki, Jo (Preface) to Bungeiron in KSZ,vol. 4, p. 4.

197/693

38. Letter to the present author. Note should be taken that if Kuki's Iki no Kozo*has become a well-known work, Kuki himself both during his lifetime and in the years following his death was known only by the "happy few" as it were. As Professor Hisayuki Omodaka remarked in "Recollections of Professor Kuki," a 1979 discussion in Kyoto before the Japanese-French Philosophical Society, as well as in his 1980 and 1982 discussions "Testimony of the Editor of Shuzo* Kuki's Collected Works" and "After the Kuki Shuzo Zenshu*,''Kuki was in the years following his death never paid the attention warranted by the fascination and brilliance of his person and oeuvre. And Professor Omodaka noted that even where he was known it was, generally, only in partiality, only for Iki no Kozo here, only for his literary studies in Bungeiron there. (See Hisayuki Omodaka, "Kuki Shuzo o Shinonde," "Kuki Shuzo Zenshu hensha no Kotoba," and "Kuki Shuzo Zenshu no Henshu* o

198/693

oete," in Omodaka, Waga Shi, Waga Tomo: Sona Shiso* to Ikikata [My Teachers, My Friends: Their Thought and Their Way of Life] (Tokyo: Keizaioraisha*, 1984], pp. 32-39, 40-43, and 49-58.) In short, it can be saidechoing a line from Bossuet's funeral oration for Nicolas Cornet ("Thus, the glory of this illustrious man lies in his having remained a hidden treasure")that Kuki has, hitherto, been the "hidden treasure" of Japanese philosophy and letters. With the publication (overdue) of Kuki's Collected Works,with the translation of several of his writings, may the word "hidden" be removed from the homage. 39. Omodaka, Introduction, p. v; Kuki quoted in Omodaka, Introduction, p. v. 40. Henri Gouhier, Introduction to Henri Bergson, Oeuvres,ed. Andr Robinet (Paris: PUF, 1959), p. viii.

199/693

41. It was Henri Gouhier who made request of Kuki for a contribution on Bergson, Gouhier having himself been asked by Frdric Lefevre to put together this special Bergson issue. Gouhier had come to know Kuki when Kuki had called upon him, presenting Gouhier at that time a copy of Propos sur le temps.(At Bergson's home Kuki had also presented Bergson a copy of Propos sur le temps inscribed "A Monsieur Henri Bergson de Acadmie franaise, ce respectueux hommage de ma reconnaissance.") In a letter graciously written to the present author, Gouhier recounts: "I was at once most charmed by his person and I found remarkable the studies on time which he had had the kindness to offer me. That is why I immediately thought of him when Frdric Lefevre charged me with preparation of the pages on Bergson for Les Nouvelles Littraires."(Here note should be made that in the editorial chronology contained in the supplementary volume of KSZ indication is given that

200/693

Kuki may have met Gouhier at Bergson's home and that either Gouhier or Lefevre asked the contribution of Kuki. Gouhier's testimony now gives us a better picture of this sequence.) As conclusion to his letter, Gouhier writes that he very much regretted "not having undertaken a correspondence with this remarkable man [of whom] I had news . . . through his pupils and [whose] death pained me." That Gouhier continued to receive word of Kuki through his, Kuki's students (Professor Hisayuki Omodaka, for one, traveled to Europe in the 1930s) is intriguing. But we have not yet been able to make precise the nature of Kuki's ties with Europe after his return to Japan. (In a letter to the present author, Professor Omodaka indicates that he, Omodaka, did not meet Gouhier while in Paris.)

201/693

Of Kuki's piece on Bergson, Gouhier, in the previously mentioned letter, writes: "He had, of course, himself chosen his subject, but I was myself eager to have articles on the interest awakened in various countries for Bergsonism. 'Bergson au Japon' particularly interested me because in the course of our discussions Kuki had told me that the Japanese spirit could more

Page 35

easily enter into Bergsonism than could the Western spirit. He sought here, I believe, to make allusion to a certain sense of fluidity, of becoming, more familiar to Japanese than to Cartesian thought." Once again, I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Gouhier for having kindly provided me recollection of Kuki. 42. See Y. Nitta, H. Tatematsu, and E. Shimomisse *, "Phenomenology and Philosophy in Japan"; the editorial chronology in KSZ,supplementary volume; and Toshihito Naito*, "Kuki to Sarutoru."

203/693

43. In his will Kuki bequeathed his library to his friend, the philosopher Teiyu* Amano, then a professor at Kyoto University. Shortly after Kuki's death, Amano became the principal at Konan* Higher School (now Konan University) in Kobe*, taking Kuki's library with him. However, two years later Amano was appointed principal at Daiichi Kotogakko*, and for a variety of reasons, including the war, Kuki's library was left at Konan. Thus the library was left untouched until the organization of the Shuzo* Kuki Archive in 1976. (See Akio Sato*, "Kuki Shuzo Bunko ni Tsuite" [On the Shuzo Kuki Archive], and Akio Sato, "Kuki Shuzo Bunko no Koto" [On the Shuzo Kuki Archive], Shiso*628 [October 1976]: 121-26.)

204/693

44. The notebook contains lined pages, the first two of which are blank on both sides. Entries were made in pencil and the back sides of each of the pages were left blank with the exception of (1) four pages carrying the section headings Brunschvicg, Alain, Blondel, and Valry; (2) several pages in the middle of the entries containing listings of readings on Descartes, Pascal, Maine de Biran, Comte, etc.; and (3) the page, which unlike all the other pages is in black ink, in Sartre's hand. Following upon the entries the remaining pages in the notebook are blank. I am indebted, once again, to professor Akio Sato for having so very kindly allowed me to examine this notebook.

205/693

45. The reference to Friedmann and Morhange is listed under reference to the group's journal Esprit (not to be confused with the Catholic review of the same name), by this time defunct but soon to find a successor in the famous La Revue Marxiste.Paul Nizan, friend of both Sartre and Friedmann, would give a portrait of this group (and time) in his novel La Conspiration. Friedmann, born in 1902, was several years ahead of Sartre and Nizan at the Ecole Normale. He passed the agrgation in 1925 and went on to author a number of philosophicosociological studies of the modern labor process and of its relation to contemporary civilization. He did not, however, abandon philosophy, authoring, for instance, the sagacious study Leibniz et Spinoza (Paris: Gallimard, 1946).

206/693

46. A photograph of the speakers at this dcade shows Parodi and Janklvitch standing to the left and right respectively of Aron, Namer, Koyr, and Kuki, all gathered on a picturesque spot on the grounds of Pontigny and seated in ascending order on a short series of stone steps. Sartre was himself not a stranger to the dcades at Pontigny, having been contributor, along with Louis-Martin Chauffier, Ren Poirier, Jean Baruzi, M. Gatteau, and Charles du Bos, to the 2d dcade of 1926 (August 15-25), the dcade carrying as its title, of all things, "The Christian Imprint. By what recognition? Could it disappear?"

207/693

47. Thus, of particular note: on the 11th page of notebook entries Kuki has jotted down a cardinal motto of the ever-Cartesian rationalism and intellectualism of Alain, "The real Hegel is the true Hegel." And then immediately following, Kuki quotes from Alain's Souvenirs concernant Jules Lagneau (Alain's volume in homage to the man he honored above all others, his own teacher Jules Lagneau [1851-1894]) another maxim from the rationalist pedagogy of Lagneau-Alain: "Neither Athenian, nor accidental, nor momentary Plato, but the true Plato." In Kuki's lecture on Alain in his lectures on French philosophy we find once again the Hegel maxim and once again (with the same reference to p. 87 of Souvenirs concernant Jules Lagneau)the "true Plato" (KSZ,vol. 8, p. 244).

208/693

The lectures devoted to "Modern French Philosophy," as noted earlier, were first published in 1957. Kuki's lectures on the "History of Modern Philosophy" first appeared in two volumes

Page 36

(1944 and 1948) and now make up vol. 6 and 7 of KSZ (both Tokyo, 1981). The lectures on "Modern French Philosophy" make up vol. 8. Vol. 9 (Tokyo, 1981) is composed of lectures on "Trends in Modern Philosophy," and vol. 10, as already noted, contains lectures on Heidegger, as well as Kuki's own reading notes on Husserl, Bergson, Descartes, Leibniz, and Boutroux.

210/693

The lectures on "Modern French Philosophy" were edited with the great care and attention of Kuki's former student, Professor Hisayuki Omodaka, to whom readers of that volume are much indebted, the volume having been 4 years in preparation. The volume is based on transcribed lecture notes. Here and there Professor Omodaka made revisions and, where necessary, additions. In an afterword Professor Omodaka notes that Kuki's lectures, composed in a careful and clear language, would not have been published by Kuki himself, who would have considered them too reflective of the constrictive format of the lecture. The lectures themselves essentially cover French philosophy from Descartes to the immediate postWorld War I period (with a brief survey of the medieval period), but the greater part of the volume is given over to the period from Comte to Bergson. In regard to Kuki's role

211/693

in the transmission of French philosophy to Japan, it is noteworthy that at the conclusion of a series of lectures giving an overview of the subject as a whole, Kuki quotes a long passage from Alexander Gunn's 1922 English volume Modern French Philosophy that concludes: "The history of thought in France, especially in the period between Comte and Bergson has remained in sad neglect. This can and should be speedily remedied" (KSZ,vol. 8, p. 35). In Japan, thanks to Kuki, who as Teiyu * Amano noted, was with French philosophy "truly in his element," it was.

212/693

48. Brunschvicg and Alainpupils respectively of those exemplary teachers of philosophy, Alphonse Darlu and Jules Lagneau (Brunschvicg at the lyce Condorcet where Marcel Proust was two years behind him)esteemed and admired one another, but as the writer Pierre Bost noted, "did not particularly like one another." 49. Nizan would have denied this distinction; indeed, such distinction was the object of his book's criticism. 50.Jean Hyppolite, Introduction to Marcel Deschoux, La Philosophie de Lon Brunschvicg (Paris: PUF 1949), p. vii.

213/693

51. Sartre, of course, had not been one of Alain's pupils. Interestingly enough, one of Alain's pupils, the writer Pierre Bost, elder brother of Sartre's own lyce pupil-to-be, Jacques-Laurent Bost, recounts in a memoir of Alain, that he believes ("Je crois savoir [Je dis: je crois]") that Sartre had specifically chosen not to become one of Alain's pupils, choosing to carry out the khgne at the lyce Louis-le-Grand rather than at the lyce Henri-IV. Sartre, the elder Bost notes, was thus one of the first non-pupils of Alain to recognize and honor in Alain the teacher,even, or just by, feeling the necessity of "refusing him" (Bost's memoir in the special issue Hommage Alain of La Nouvelle Revue Franaise [Sept. 1952], p. 39). In Sartre's recently published letters, a letter of 1926 to Simone Jollivet quotes with enthusiasm a passage from Alain's Propos sur le bonheur.(See Lettres au Castor et quelques autres, 1926-1939 [Paris: Gallimard, 1981], p. 13.)

214/693

52. Octave Hamelin (1856-1907), Dominique Parodi (1870-1955), and Ren Le Senne (1882-1954) all descended from the neocriticism of Charles Renouvier. Kuki in his lectures grouped them under the heading "Idalisme dialectique," itself a section within the larger grouping "La Philosophie rationaliste." Alain and Brunschvicg were also discussed within the latter grouping, under the headings "Rationalisme thique" and "Rationalisme critique" respectively. Hamelin's major work, Essai sur les lments principaux de la reprsentation,discussed at great length by Kuki in his lectures, was written under the direct influence of Renouvier and Hegel. In Parodi and Le Senne one finds a rationalist ethics, Le Senne's decidedly the more interesting of the two. Thus see Parodi's Le Problme moral et la pense contemporaine (Paris: Alcan, 1909) and Le Senne's Le Devoir (Paris: Alcan, 1930), Le Mensonge et

215/693

le caractre (Paris: Alcan, 1930), and Obstacle et valeur (Paris: Aubier, 1934).

Page 37

53. Parodi quoted in Lon Brunschvicg, "L'Orientation du rationalisme," in Brunschvicg Ecrits philosophiques II (Paris: PUF, 1954), p. 2. 54. With Charles Renouvier (1815-1903) it was a question of the French "return to Kant." Thus, under inspiration of Kant and Comte (with whom he had studied) his neocriticism was expounded in the four-volume Essais de critique gnrale (Paris, 1854-1864; rpt., 3 vols., Paris: A. Colin, 1912). 55. Marces discussion appears in Lon Brunschvicg, "L'Intelligence est-elle capable de comprendre," in Brunschvicg, Ecrits philosophiques II,pp. 292, 306.

217/693

56. In his recently published journals written during his mobilization at the beginning of World War II, Sartre in a passage of self-analysis makes reference to "the reviews Esprit and Philosophie (of Friedmann and Morhange)" (Les Carnets de la drle de guerre, Novembre 1939-Mars 1940 [Paris: Gallimard 1983], p. 108). Doubtless this tells us little, but it is interesting that among the several members of the Friedmann-Morhange (Nizan, Politizer, Guterman) group it is the names of Friedmann and Morhange that appear both in Kuki's notebook and in Sartre's journal. 57. Paul Nizan, Aden-Arabie (Paris: Maspro, 1971), p. 59.

218/693

58. Sartre would again take up a reading of Mars ou la guerre juge during his mobilization in Alsace in 1939. Thus, in a letter of 20 October 1939 he writes to Simone de Beauvoir: "Don't forget to send Mars in the next batch of books. . . . "On 26 October 1939 he again writes: "Don't forget to buy a copy of Mars ou la guerre juge for me . . ." (Lettres au Castor, 1926-1939,pp. 365, 378). And in a journal entry of 29 November 1939, an entry listing books he has read since 2 September, we find Mars ou la guerre juge (Les Carnets de la drle de guerre,p. 83).

219/693

59. Here I can do no more than allude to this influence. Thus, with reference to Brunschvicg and Alain I use the word influence in general fashion. Influence is, after all, nothing other than a relation, the content of which does not exist outside its intellectual construction.Herbert Spiegelberg's "Towards a Phenomenology of Influence: Its Nature and Its Varieties" provides an excellent and incisive discussion of this question. (See Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry [Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1972], pp. xxxviii-xli.) 60. Kuki's lectures on French philosophy conclude with a section on religious philosophy in which brief discussion of L'Action is found.

220/693

61. Louis Lavelle, La Philosophie franaise entre les deux guerres (Paris: Aubier, 1942), p. 130; Maurice Blondel, Action: Essai d'une critique de la vie et d'une science de la pratique (Paris, 1893; rpt. Paris: PUF, 1950), p. vii. 62. Ibid.,pp. 12, 30 63. Bergson, L'Evolution cratrice in Oeuvres,ed. Andr Robinet (Paris: PUF, 1959) pp. 725-47. 64. See Naito *, "Kuki to Sarutoru."

221/693

65. In their The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre (Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1974), vol. 1, Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka refer to this fact. And now with the publication of Sartre's letters we can find in a letter of 9 October 1931 to Simone de Beauvoir: "I lunched at a restaurant . . . one across from the station in this quarter of Le Havre that I love so much and which I have decided to include in the factum sur le Contingence"(Lettres au Castor, 1926-1939, p. 45). Naito also refers to the Factum. 66. De Beauvoir, The Prime of Life,p. 112. 67. Quoted in de Beauvoir, La Ceremonie des adieux, suive de Entretiens avec Jean-Paul Sartre (Paris: Gallimard, 1981), pp. 181-82. Contat's and Rybalka's The Writings of JeanPaul

Page 38

Sartre includes reference to a 1926 letter mentioning contingency. Again, publication of Sartre's letters gives us the following (in a letter to Simone Jollivet): "Here the weather you love so: rain and wind. Excellent for writing on Contingency" (Lettres au Castor, 1926-1939,p. 28). 68. Professor Hisayuki Omodaka in his 1979 tribute to Kuki, "Kuki Sensei o Keiboshite" (In Admiration of Professor Kuki), placed the philosophy of contingency (Guzensei * no tetsugaku) at the heart of Kuki's philosophical enterprise. (See Omodaka, Waga Shi, Waga Tomo,pp. 28-29.)

223/693

69. These two works, as well as other writings on contingency, such as "Guzenka* no Ronri" (The Logic of Contingency) and "Guzensei no Kisoteki Seikaku no Ichi Kosatsu" (Reflections on the Basic Character of Contingency), are included in KSZ,vol. 2. 70. Kuki's original statements (in French) can be found in KSZ,vol. 1, pp. 62-63. 71. KSZ,vol. 2, pp. 207-8, 259-60. 72. Ibid.,p. 220.

224/693

73. In a letter of 25 January 1940 to Simone de Beauvoir Sartre writes: "Know that a Japanese review has written me requesting 8 typed pages for which they will pay accordingly, given that my 'works are much admired in Japan.' I will not write the 8 pages, but as you can imagine, I was stirred to read this." And the following day, a 26 January 1940 letter to de Beauvoir contains: "There is a Japanese review which requests my collaboration, but I have courteously declined . . ." Lettres au Castor et quelques autres, 1940-1963 [Paris: Gallimard, 1981],pp. 58,60). Of what journal and of which works could it here have been a question? "Kabe,"the Japanese translation (by Yu Ichikawa) of Sartre's short story "Le Mur," had appeared in the January 1938 issue of the journal Jiyu*.''Le Mur" would also appear (in the translation of Daigaku Horiguchi) in the January 1940 issue of Chuo Koron*.In addition, the December 1938 issue of the journal Serupan had contained an article by

225/693

Ryu Sekimizu (pseudonym of Saku Sato*), "Hakike: J. P. Sarutoru," summarizing La Nause. And the April 1939 issue of the journal Buntai had contained Saku Sato's article "Gendai Fransu Shosetsu Oboegaki" (Notes on the Contemporary French Novel) in which a summary and discussion of La Nause could also be found. This was the extent of Sartre's public reception in Japan at the time of Sartre's January 1940 letters to de Beauvoir, although the June 1940 issue of the journal Bunka-hyoron would contain Saku Sato's article "Sarutoru ni Tsuite"(On Sartre). It seems likely to surmise that Sartre's Japanese correspondent had been Saku Sato, but given Sato's collaboration with a number of journals, one would simply have to choose, most likely among Jiyu, Serupan,and Buntai as to the journal in question. The important question is, of course: Might Kuki have seen these reviews and, most particularly, Sato's summary of La Nause?

226/693

74. Professor Tetsuo Kogawa has in a letter provided me this information.

227/693

75. In Sartre's journals of the drle de guerre we can find description of his intellectual-philosophical stance during his years at the Ecole Normale. In a passage in which he refers to an "existential" shading given philosophical problems by other students, Sartre writes: "Against them . . . we [Nizan, Aron, and I] placed ourselves under the sign of Descartes because Descartes was an explosive thinker. Nothing could displease us more than this grey thought, these transmutations, these evolutions and metamorphoses, these languid shivers. Phrases such as 'become what you are' set our teeth to gnashing. We passed the time, on the contrary, isolating concepts in order to render them incommunicable, closed tightly in on themselves, as Descartes had done, separating soul and body so successfully that no one could subsequently succeed in rejoining them" (Les Carnets de la drle de guerre,p. 111). This passage is of interest because in his lectures on French philosophy Kuki

228/693

would in a section devoted to Alain speak of a renewal of interest in Descartes on the part of a number of students at the Ecole Normale during the 1920s (See KSZ,vol. 8, p. 243). Sartre's passage allows us to surmise that Kuki received this information from Sartre. It also allows us to situate Sartre philosophically at the time (or close to the time) of his meetings with Kuki.

Page 39

76. Excluding even our present knowledge of Kuki's role, we can find in Sartre's journals of the drle de guerre,in a passage referring to Henri Corbin's 1938 translation of Was ist Metaphysik?,the following statement: "In fact [Corbin's translation] was not my first meeting with Heidegger. I had heard him spoken of long before leaving for Berlin"; to which statement Sartre himself adds the note: "I had read Qu'estce que la mtaphysique without understanding it in 1930 in the review Bifur" (Les Carnets de la drle de guerre,p. 225). (Actually the issue of Bifur to which Sartre refers appeared in 1931). 77. Sartre, Les Carnets de la drle de guerre,p. 224.

230/693

78. Sartre adds in this journal entry that the question of vocabulary was, however, insignificant. Without his German having improved, he notes, he was later, in 1939, able to read Sein und Zeit. 79. Sartre, Les Carnets de la drle de guerre,pp. 226-27. 80. Ibid.,p. 227.

231/693

81. Sartre, Les Carnets de la drle de guerre,p. 227. Sartre's reading of Corbin's translation of Was ist Metaphysik? and his subsequent reading in the spring of 1939 of Sein und Zeit provided him final impetus for the composition of Etre et le nant.Thus Etre et le nant appears in Sartre's drle de guerre journals in statu nascendi.An abundance of entries can be found there on nothingness, on the consciousness of the other, on temporality, on anguish, on freedom; entries that already reveal the vocabulary, indeed, the very ontology that will be found in Etre et le nant.

232/693

And just this concept of nothingness, at bottom of the theory of consciousness, at bottom of the dualistic ontology of being-in-itself and being-for-itself to be found in Etre et le nant,is here found fashioned in direct relation, indeed, opposition to Heidegger's theory of the nothing. Thus, in a letter to Simone de Beauvoir of 15 January 1940 Sartre writes: "This morning I re-read Heidegger's Qu'est-ce que la mtaphysique and I have been occupied throughout the day 'taking up a position' in relation to him on the question of nothingness. I have a theory of nothingness although it is as yet not well developed. . . ." In a letter of the following day, again to de Beauvoir, just those problems pivotal in Sartre's dissatisfaction with Husserl appear to have been solved: precisely through this theory of nothingness: "At first to elaborate this theory of nothingness that you will surely admire, since 1) it suppresses Hussers

233/693

recourse to the hyl2)it explains the unicity of the world for a plurality of consciousnesses and 3) it permits one to transcend once and for all realism and idealism." A letter of 22 February 1940 (to de Beauvoir) shows us (as do his drle de guerre journals of the same time) that he now felt quite happy with elaboration of his notion: "This theory of nothingness bears fruit, I am quite certain.'' And he briefly elaborated a theory of consciousness as founded on lack, as itself a nothing. Then, on 5 June 1940, Sartre wrote to de Beauvoir that the loss of some of his notebooks must be of no great matter, the theory of nothingness remains in his head and "will be the object of a book." On 22 July 1940, Sartre, now a prisoner-of-war, concludes a letter to de Beauvoir with the line: "I have begun writing a metaphysical treatise: Etre et le nant"(Lettres au Castor, 1940-1963,)39, 40-41, 87, 268, 285.

234/693

82. Sartre, Les Carnets de la drle de guerre,p. 227. 83. Ibid.,pp. 228, 229. 84. Ibid.,p. 228.

Page 41

PART TWO CONSIDERATIONS ON TIME TWO ESSAYS DELIVERED AT PONTIGNY DURING THE DCADE OF 8-18 AUGUST 1928
By Shuzo * Kuki

Page 43

The Notion Of Time And Repetition In Oriental Time

Thus spoke Yajnavalkya: "Give me your hand Artabhaga, friend, this knowledge is given only to the two of us. Not a word down there among the people." Brihad-aranyaka * Upanishad

237/693

IF one has the right to speak of "Oriental time," it seems it can be a question of nothing other than the time of transmigration. This time is a time that repeats itself, periodic time. However, before considering this conception of time, it is first necessary to characterize time in general. What is time? Time is of the will. I say that time is of the will because time does not exist so long as there is no will. For a table, for a chair, there is no time. If time exists for them, it is because consciousness, as will, has given them a time. Time exists for them only in relation to the will, to consciousness.

238/693

We can, for example, find such a conception of time in Guyau. Time for him is the disparity between the will and its goal, "the distinction between wanting and possessing," "an interior perspective that goes forward toward the future." Thus, the most important characteristic of time lies in its "anticipation."1 Similarly, Hermann Cohen conceives of time as above all anticipation or Vorwegnahme.He says that the idea of the series supposes ordering activity. This activity in turn poses the series as its goal. Hence, the series creates succession as something "which must follow,'' Folgensollendes.What follows is anticipated. Thus, "anticipation is the fundamental characteristic of time."2 And just recently M. Martin Heidegger has said that "the primordial phenomenon" of time is the future, that future corresponding to the Sich-vorweg-sein (Being-ahead-of-itself) of "care."3 All these conceptions are in accord in envisioning time as constituted by the will. The

239/693

pure dure of M. Bergson would not be an exception. The development of his ideas from his Essay on the Immediate Givens of Consciousness to Creative Evolution testifies to this. In the Orient, time is also considered as being, at bottom, of the will. Several ancient metaphysical conceptions of time already prove this. Thus, we can read in the Svetasvatara* Upanishad: "Several masters speak to us of nature, others speak to us of time. But they are deluded. It is by the

Page 44

omnipotence of God that the wheel of Brahman revolves in the universe." 4 Time is born from the omnipotence of God, from his will. And in the Bhagavad Gita*Krishna declares: "I am limitless time." And from yet another point of view, the Milanda-panha says: "Of past, present, and future duration the root is ignorance; from ignorance come the dispositions of the will." Thus, from ignorance comes the will and from the will time. Later we read: ''What has preceded ignorance has not existed at all; such an anterior limit cannot be discovered." "Without beginning, without end, the circle is closed." What is this closed circle? What is the wheel of Brahman? Both designate nothing less than transmigration.

241/693

Let us, then, deepen this conception of the time of transmigration. Transmigration is indefinite rebirth, the perpetual repetition of the will, the endless return of time. Now the most remarkable and striking case of transmigration conceivable is the one in which a man becomes again, in perpetual repetition, the same man. The caterpillar passing from one leaf to another finds always the same leaf. The embroideress creating a new pattern finds that the new one is but the old. In the final analysis, however, such case is not an exceptional one. Transmigration in general is submitted to the law of causality, to the sequence of causes and effects. Man passes from one existence to another, but the latter is determined by the former. A deceased is reborn as a man on account of a good act, another is reborn as a woman on account of a bad act. Others become worms, locust, mosquitos. In appearance there is change here, but, at bottom, there is none at all. "As he was here, so will he be there;

242/693

as he acts so will he become; doing good, he becomes good, doing bad, he becomes bad"; thus says the Upanishad.And Buddhism teaches: "These inner dispositions he has nourished and encouraged lead him to be reborn in just such an existence. Such is, 0 disciples, access; such is the path which leads to rebirth in such an existence." A woman reborn as a man already possessed the virtue of a man, she was a woman only in appearance; at bottom she was a man. A man reborn as a woman was already a woman in the weakness of his morals. People who become worms already led the life of worms. In the notion of karma,that is to say, works and moral retribution, the conception of identity is necessarily included. What reigns here is inexorable fatality. In general, causality aims at and results in identity. And the doctrine of transmigration is subject to the principle of identity: A is A. Thus, the case of transmigration, wherein man becomes the same man, is not the exceptional but

243/693

rather the typical case. Everything particular here is only part of a more consequential logic, a more profound abstraction. Hence, by enlarging the horizon and, at the same time, by following this logic out to its conclusion, we end up with the conception that all men, in their concrete relations with one another, in the

Page 45

245/693

ensemble of their concrete circumstances, periodically return.In a word, the worldin its state of identityperiodically returns. "What it produced, it reabsorbed . . . in order to begin its creation anew," says the Svetasvatara * Upanishad.And in the Bhagavad Gita*we read: "All beings, O son of Kunti, at the end of the kalpa re-enter my creative power; at the beginning of the kalpa I once again emit them." The kalpa is precisely the cosmic period about which it is said elsewhere: "The world perishes, but its forces remain, and they are the roots from which it is reborn anew; if not we would have an effect without a cause. Now, productive forces, old and new, cannot be any different. Thus, despite ever recurring cosmic interruptions, there remains for the order of the universe, for the various orders of living beings (gods, animals, and men), and for the different states of castes, acrama*,duties, and recompenses . . . a rigorous determination."5

246/693

Now it is here that we find the notion of an identical time repeating itself in perpetuity. Alongside lived time and measurable time perhaps, a third conception of time can be distinguished. This conceptionthe conception of the Great Yearhad been adopted in Greece by the Pythagoreans and above all in the stoic eschatology. It was said that the world would reproduce itself in exactly the same details. Socrates would be born in Athens, would marry Xanthippe, would die by drinking hemlock, and all this would be repeated indefinitely. A Great Year, periodically repeating itself, can thus be considered, if I may be permitted to employ the terminology of M. Husserl, the realization of an eidetische Singularitt,an "eidetic singularity," an "ideal singularity." All the Great Years are identical, absolutely identical among themselves. Their characters consist only in being exemplars of an eidos; no matter how many times these Great Years recur, they all remain

247/693

perfectly identical among themselves. The Great Years do not have, strictly speaking, the characters of individualities. Thus, they remain outside the domain where the Leibnizianprincipium identitatis indiscernibilium reigns. This is why their absolute identity is in no way opposed to their numerical multiplicity. Consequently, each instant, each present is an identical moment of different times. Time is conceived as a circle instead of as a straight line. Instead of having the form of an arrow, it has the form of a "wheel turning on itself."6 What is of the past can be of the future, what is of the future can be of the past. Time in this conception contains something of reversibility. Perhaps this conception of time is imaginary; if you want, the counterpart of the Klein-Clifford notion of space. In any case it is the time of the poet-philosopher Nietzsche. Zarathustra, while hearing a dog howl, remembers a time far offlong, long agoa

248/693

time when he heard the same howl of the same dog. It was long ago, when he was not yet born.7 This notion of an identical, of an ever renewed time, what relation does it

Page 46

250/693

have with normal time? The word "ecstasis" has recently been employed to characterize the ontophenomenological structure of time. Time has three modes of "ecstasis," of being ''outside itself": the future, the present, the past. The character of time consists precisely in the integral unity of its "ecstases," in its "ecstatic unity." 8 Ecstasis in this sense is, as it were, horizontal.Now, it could be saidapropos of the time of transmigrationthat there is yet another ecstasis, one which is vertical.Each present has identical moments, in the future as well as in the past. Each is an instant whose thickness is of infinite depth. However, this ecstasis is no longer phenomenological,rather it is mystical.The word ecstasis reassumes here something of its former signification. Now, the difference between a phenomenological and a mystical ecstasis of time consists principally in two points. Whereas in the former the continuity of constitutive elements is essential, in the latter, on the contrary,

251/693

there is a discontinuity of elements connected only by a kind of attraction at a distance. In the former, then, the elements manifest a pure heterogeneity and, consequently, time is irreversible. In the latter the elements of ecstasis are of an identical homogeneity,are thus interchangeable; time is in this sense reversible. By admitting these essential differences we could say: the horizontal plane represents the ontologico-phenomenological ecstasis, the vertical plane the metaphysicomystical ecstasis. The crossing of the two planes is, then, nothing other than the special structure of time with its two faces, the one real and the other imaginary.

252/693

It could, perhaps, be objected that there is nothing extraordinary in this conception of periodic time. The fact that the Great Years are numbered first year, second year, third year, etc., testifies that the Great Years succeed one another. They bear ordered numbers; they are not reversible since it is necessary to admit a spectator who counts them. It seems to me, however, that as soon as one insists on this point, one involuntarily abandons the initial hypothesis. The Great Years no longer remain identical among themselves. Socrates married to Xanthippe is no longer the same Socrates, nor is Xanthippe the same Xanthippe. Both would age with each successive Great Year. In their faces a little more melancholy would each time be discerned. Now the notion of "Great Years," consistently thought, implies, rather, an independent beginning and an absolute renewal of every one of the years. We could, perhaps, say again that the identity that is supposed is only the identity

253/693

of the content of different Great Years. The Great Years themselves are not and cannot be identical among themselves. But can one imagine a time having no content? Can a notion of time be maintained in abstraction from all of its content? Does not time retain all the characteristics of its content? When it is said that time is not reversible, is it not because

Page 47

its content is not reversible? Now it is true that we cannot separate time from its content, and if we are not hesitant in submitting to all the exigencies of the dialectic, the notion of Great Years comes to imply precisely the paradoxical character of the absolute identity of one time with another time. The time of transmigration, more exactly the time of the Great Years, has this "something" of reversibility; it is a time which is not entirely time.

255/693

To be more precise, the problem is found, above all, in the passage from one Great Year to another, in the link binding the different Great Years. "As a man swaying above a pit on a cord suspended to a tree," so one Great Year embarks on another Great Year. Is this man a fool passively swayed by time? Is he an infant in need of someone to watch over him? Or is he not, rather, a clever magician himself creating time ever anew? We established at the outset that time is of the will and that it does not exist there where there is no will. Therefore, this magician in absolute solitude is a true demon, one capable of a true feat of strength, or rather, a feat of the will, the power to terminate his existence and to be reborn anew. Doubtless, between his death and his rebirth his will does not exist virtually,but it does not exist any the less potentially.The problem is concentrated in this notion of the "will to power." The entire paradox in the notion of the Great Year was born, perhaps, from the

256/693

ambiguity of thought concerning this actuality and potentiality of the will, but it was a fecund and happy ambiguity, one that permitted the birth of a grandiose metaphysical speculation. 9

257/693

Another possible objection could be raised by a "positivist" mind. It considers the time of the Great Years as a kind of "agrarian time" or "canonical time." It says that in noncivilized peoples the notion of time is above all periodic: the time between the epochs of sowing and reaping, the time between spring and autumn festivals. This time repeats itself periodically each year. It is in this way that the positivist mind thinks itself able to explain the notion of Great Years. But between agrarian or canonical time and the time of the Great Years there are essential differences. Whereas the Great Years suppose an absolute identity in all their details, agrarian or canonical time requires no absolute homogeneity of times among the fixed periods. Certainly the differences between these two notions of time can be reduced in this regard to a minimum, but their relation resembles that between zero and number. An insurperable abyss will always exist between the two. When

258/693

this abyss is crossed the positivist is no longer true to his own principle. And then, agrarian or canonical time leaves intactor even supposesa conscious continuity of the aging self. It is always the aging self which counts on the return of the agrarian or canonical cycle. In the time of transmigration, on the contrary, the self is submitted to the law of rebirth and re-death;

Page 48

260/693

it always recommences its life anew in order to finish anew. A continuity of the self exists here only in an imaginary wayit is a continuity which reveals itself only in mystical moments, the profound moments of a "profound enlightenment," moments in which the self takes recognition of itself with an astonishing shudder. "The self exists" at the same time that the "self does not exist." We are always obliged to rewrite ourselves the dialogue of Saint Nagasena * with King Milinda: "O great king, if a man lights a flame, would it not burn the entire night?Yes, Master, it would burn the entire night.Now then, O great king, is the flame during the first part of night identical to the flame during the middle part of night?No, Master.And the flame during the middle part of night, is it identical to the flame during the last part of night?No, Master.Well then, O great king, is the flame during the first part of night one flame, the flame during the middle part of night another, and the flame

261/693

during the last part of night another one still?No, Master, the flame burned the entire night by attaching itself to the same wick.'' Thus, the metaphysical notion of the time of the Great Years cannot be reduced to the agrarian or canonical time of comparative sociology. In any case a genetic and empirical explanation does not touch upon the essence of the notion of metaphysical time.

262/693

I have already explained the notion of time originating in the Orient. How, then, is the problem of the emancipation from time to be posed and how is it be resolved? The time in question is the time of transmigration, a time on account of which "more tears have been shed than there is water in the four great oceans." It is necessary to liberate oneself from this time. Now Buddhistic pessimism sees in the will the cause of all evil, all grief. To be "delivered," it is necessary, quite simply, to deny the will. "Annihilation is beatitude." This annihilation is what is called nirvana*"extinction," "the suppression of the world," the negation of that will conceiving this world. Perhaps someone would object to the use of the word will. The employment of the word desire in place of the word will might be proposed. In this regard allow me to make appeal to a suggestive example. In Japanese Buddhism we sometimes find tendencies which consider the satisfaction of desire, even when carried to

263/693

excess, permissible. Desire is nothing when one learns to envisage it as a phantom. As soon as the will is conquered and attachment to the illusion of the ego vanquished by the intellect, by knowledge, the desire which has been satisfied becomes something unreal. Nirvana consists in denying the will in generalwhich is ignorance; particular desire can exist for the "one who knows," for "the enlightened one," merely as a kind of phantom or shadow. But what is this subject which denies the will? As I just said, it is the intellect. It will be objected that the intellect, at the very moment that it denies the will, is the will itself. We would have here a vicious

Page 49

circle. But it could also be said that the intellect possesses something active, a minimum activity, and that is why I say that nirvana *is the negation of the will.10 And since time is of the will one can in this way liberate oneself from time. "The torrent of being is stopped."11

265/693

In Japan during the feudal period another moral ideal, Bushido*"theway of the bushi"wasdeveloped alongside Buddhism. Rectitude, Valiance, Honor, Charity: these are the cardinal virtues of Bushido. Bushido is the affirmation of the will, the negation of the negation, in a sense the abolition of nirvana.12The will concerns itself only with its own perfection. Thus, the perpetual repetition of the will, the supreme evil for Buddhism, now becomes the supreme good. "Of all that it is possible to conceive in the world, and in general even outside the world, there is nothing that could without restriction be held for good, nothing that is except a good will," Kant said.13 It is this very idea that Bushido affirms. The infinite good will, which can never be entirely fulfilled, and which is destined always to be deceived, must ever and always renew its efforts. For Bushido it is the good will in-itself which has an absolute value. And it does not matter if it is an unsatisfied will, an unrealizable

266/693

idealthe life of misfortune and sadness, "the disconsolate empire of thirst and grief," in sum, that "time lost" perpetually repeating itself. Confront transmigration without fear, valiantly. Pursue perfection while maintaining a clear consciousness as to its "deception.'' Live in perpetual time, in Endlosigkeit,to use Heges terms. Find Unendlichkeit in Endlosigkeit, infinity in the indefinite, eternity in succession without end.

267/693

That the Greeks saw damnation in the myth of Sisyphus has always appeared superficial to me. Sisyphus rolls a rock almost to the summit of a hill, only to see it tumble back down again. And he is, thus, set to perpetually beginning anew. Is there misfortune, is there punition in this fact? I do not understand. I do not think so. Everything depends on the subjective attitude of Sisyphus. His good will, a will firm and sure in ever beginning anew, in ever rolling the rock, finds in this very repetition an entire system of morals and, consequently, all its happiness. Capable of a repetition perpetually unsatisfied, Sisyphus would be compelled to happiness. He is a man impassioned by moral sentiment. He is not in hell, he is in heaven. Everything depends on the subjective attitude of Sisyphus. Let me give an example. We commenced construction of the Tokyo subway just after the great earthquake which five years ago destroyed almost half of Tokyo.14 At that time I was in Europe. People

268/693

asked me: "Why do you build a subway destined to be destroyed by one of these earthquakes you perpetually have every hundred years?" I answered: "It is the enterprise itself which interests us, not the goal. We are going to construct it anew. A new earthquake will

Page 50

destroy it once again. Ah well, we will always recommence. It is the will itself we esteem, will to its own perfection."

270/693

To sum up: the time which could be called oriental is the time of transmigration, that is to say, that time which repeats itself, periodic and identical time. There are two methods, two means of liberating oneself from this time: (1) transcendent, intellectualist liberation and (2) immanent, voluntarist liberation.Transcendent, intellectualist liberation is the nirvana *of the religion of Indian inspiration. Immanent, voluntarist liberation is Bushido*, the way of the bushi,the moral ideal of Japan. The first consists in denying time by means of the intellect in order to live, or rather to die, in nontemporal "deliverance," in "eternal repose." The second consists in an unconcern with time, in order to live, truly live, in the indefinite repetition of the arduous search for the true, the good, and the beautiful. One is the consequence of that hedonism which seeks to escape from misfortune; the other is the expression of moral idealism, always valiantly determined to put itself in the service

271/693

of the God within us, struggling without respite and, thus, transforming misfortune into happiness.15

Page 51

The Expression Of The Infinite In Japanese Art

The height of virtue appears as a valley. Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching

273/693

OKAKURA said very justly that "the history of Japanese art becomes the history of Asiatic ideals. 1 Japanese art reflects oriental thought in a good many ways. Now if in the West it was Greek philosophy and the Jewish religion which, while being either in harmony or in opposition, fixed the course of European civilization, in the Orient it was Indian religion and Chinese philosophy which conditioned the route of our Asiatic civilization. Indian philosophy finds its highest expression in the Buddhist mystic, Chinese philosophy in the pantheism of the school of Lao Tzu. Mysticism and pantheism, are they not, perhaps, only the expression of the same spiritual experience, on the one hand in religion, on the other in philosophy: the expression of the liberation from time and space.

274/693

The ideal of Buddhism is nirvana*.Bodhidharma, the founder of the Dhyana*or Zen sect, remained seated for nine years, legs crossed, face to the wall, plunged in meditation. It is said that because of this he lost his legs, but that in his ecstatic meditation he arrived at the absolute intelligence which embraces nirvana,at that supreme beatitude wherein the world is abolished in emptiness. When the Chinese emperor of South Wu asked him: "In what lies the meaning of the sacred truth?" Bodhidharma responded: "In the indefinite giveness of profane things." Then the emperor asked: "Who speaks with me?I do not know," replied the great master and left the country. For the one who has elevated himself to these supreme heights, the distinction between sacred and profane, between Bodhidharma and the emperor Wu, vanishes. Truth is nirvana and nirvana is Buddha. One day Sakyamouni Buddha picked a flower and then fell silent. His disciple Kasyapa* smiled. He had

275/693

understood nirvana,Buddha. To discover in oneself nirvana is to become Buddha; for this words are not needed. Seizing Buddha in the absolute void of nothingness, seizing Buddha as by a leap, here is the Zen mystic. For Lao Tzu, the Tao is the essence of things. The

Page 52

Tao has no beginning. It penetrates everything; all things depend on it. The Tao precedes the birth of heaven and earth. The Tao is "the mother of the world." 2 But "the Tao that can be defined is not the eternal Tao" (TTC,1). The eternal Tao "has no name" (TTC,32). It is a ''form without form" (TTC,14). It is as big as it is small. It is both Being and non-Being, essence and void. "A great square with no angles, a great voice having but an imperceptible sound" (TTC,41). Chuang Tzu, the great dialectician, dreamed once that he was a butterfly, a fluttering butterfly. When he awoke he wondered: was it Chuang Tzu who dreamed he was a butterfly, or was it a butterfly who dreamed he was Chuang Tzu? Chuang Tzu and the butterfly, perhaps, at bottom, they are one and the same; there is nothing else in the world except the one Tao.

277/693

Japanese art developed under the influence of this Indian mysticism and this Chinese pantheism. And Bushido*,"the way of the bushi,"was not an obstacle in its development. On the contrary, Bushido deepened the conception of art. Bushido,ethic of Japan, is the cult of the absolute spirit, contempt for what is material. Its ideal consists only in living and dying as the "cherry blossom, exhaling its perfume in the morning light." It is from this triple source that the "inward art" of Yamato is born. It is in this spiritual atmosphere that it attains its full flowering. Consequently, without knowing something of these conceptions of life and world it becomes almost impossible to understand Japanese art. Its meaning, the idealist expression of the infinite in the finite, will go unexplained. Therefore, there are in Europe very few people who truly understand Japanese art. Does not Japanese art for most Europeans consist in woodblock prints of women and landscapes, or

278/693

in the tea ceremony with its multicolored porcelain. Yet for the most part these things are rather insignificant. The truly great works of art habitually remain unknown.

279/693

I will speak at first of painting. In order to study the expression of the infinite in Japanese painting I will not, however, describe the subjects of several masterpieces of art, Buddhist for example. Doubtless this would be very interesting, but it would not lead us very far. I would like, rather, to speak of something which from the aesthetic point of view is more important, that is to say, of the painting techniques themselves, for it is in the techniques themselves that the dominant tendency of Japanese art together with its essential preoccupations manifests itself: to aid the finite in the expression of the infinite. Painting is an art expressing itself in space. Metaphysical and moral idealism, searching for absolute infinity, can find its artistic expression in painting only by destroying the banal conception of space. With what concrete methods is this destructive as well as constructive idea realized in Japanese art?

280/693

Page 53

282/693

Perspective played a very important role in Western art, at least up until recently. Oriental art, on the contrary, and I understand here its idealist school, wants above all to destroy the geometric structure of space. What it searches for is the essence, the infinity underlying the whole. What is the meaning of "near?" What is the meaning of "far?" God is often nearer us than is our own self. The distant mountain is often nearer to us than the trees beside us. Often "we are standing in water yet searching for water." 3 And everyone knows the anecdote in which it is recounted how the sixth Zen patriarch, Hui-neng, resolved the quarrel of two monks regarding the subject of a flag waving in the wind. One insisted, "It is the flag that moves"; the other insisted, "It is the wind that sets the flag in motion.'' Hui-neng said: "Neither wind nor flag moves, it is your spirit that moves." The world of mathematics and physics is relative. The spirit alone is absolute. In any

283/693

case, the artist is always at liberty to reconstruct a geometric perspective if and in so far as he desires, but he is, doubtless, more an artist if he replaces mathematical perspective with metaphysical perspective.4

284/693

Furthermore, the forms which visible things possess are forms relative to action; they are not absolute forms. Art must force itself to seize the absolute. Thus, it is necessary for it to destroy and break the natural forms, decorated with names, in order to create aesthetic and absolute forms. Thereby arises the arbitrary composition.Instead of an entire tree, a painting will often represent only a tree trunkwithout top or bottom-and in the background, for example, a temple will be represented. Another painting will show one or two branches, a black bird above them. A bridge will be represented only by its pillars, boats flowing between them. Of a house only a roof will appear; in the distance one will see mountains.5 What, then, is the aesthetic function of the arbitrary composition? "That which is incomplete will be entire, that which is empty will be filled" (TTC,22), said Lao Tzu. Absolute and aesthetic forms are most often incomplete and empty forms, forms

285/693

without form. The spectator is, thus, placed in a situation in which he must exercise the spontaneity of his spirit, in order that he may himself reproduce the natural forms of things. It is in this involuntary activity that the spectator finds his happiness. Here could be placed a psychological analysis of the enjoyment of art. We would find, it seems to me, that aesthetic value most often consists in the value of suggestion.6 We have, then, a further point: the habitual representation of things in their static states. Thus, an arrow portrayed no longer flies; a horse no longer gallops. However, the infinite, the Tao,is "the door of all spiritual things," is "the mysterious female," is always "in flux" (TTC 1, 6, 25). Thereby arises the importance Japanese art gives to the line.The line is dynamic. It can hold the future within the present; it can hold one space

Page 54

within another; it can move. It can, therefore, be employed to express the power of the absolute and the elan of the infinite. The life of the infinite and of the absolute must be rendered visible by the rhythm and expression of the line. That is why the talent of a painter is often judged by his ability or inability to sketch a powerful and audacious line. It is said that the horse depicted by a great artist takes flight. I am sure that it is a horse created with bold and rigorous lines. 7

287/693

Finally, several words on colors.Red, blue, green, yellow, violetthese are colors for children, for people. "Colors render the eyes of men blind," says the Tao Te Ching (TTC,12). True artists live in the infinite. They live only in the simple colors of black and white, colors at once opposed and in harmony, as light and darkness. In these colors, which, strictly speaking, are not colors, artists find nothing less than the means of "coloring": by graduating the intensities of the black ink on the white paper, they create with several pleasing brushstrokes a world of nuances and tonalities. "All beings move from yin to yang,they are harmonized by the breath of the void" (TTC,42). Yin is darkness, black; yang is light, white. The breath of the void, it is the brushstroke. Here wreathed in haze a mountain brings itself to life; there a river gleams; here is a dreaming moon; there a cloud hiding all. The taste for simplicity and for fluidity arises from

288/693

nostalgia for the infinite and from the effort to efface differences in space.8 I have enumerated four characteristics of Japanese painting: the absence of exact perspective, the arbitrary composition, the importance of the line,and the preference for ink painting.All are expressions of a pantheist idealism. All are methods for gaining liberation from space. Even a painter as Europeanized as Fujita retains, in my opinion, at least two of these technical characteristics: the dominating line and the taste for black and white.

289/693

I would like to add one more word on this subject. The infinite is everywhere; there where it is not, there is nothing. Chuang Tzu once exclaimed: "The Tao is in this excrement!" If the infinite is in all things, all things, without exception, must be beautiful. Everything depends on knowing how to look at them. And the task of the artist justly consists in searching for and finding beauty, even in things physically and morally ugly. We are all naive children, we all flee the dark night. It is the artist who reveals to us the light in the very heart of night. At every step he reveals to us the realm of beauty. He tells us: here is the beautiful monster! here is the beautiful demon! One of the ancient makimono (scrolls) of the Kamakura period (1200-1400 A.D.)depicts all species of physical illness, unpleasant and disgusting. An astonishing love of truth and beauty! Shameful and repugnant things from the moral point of view were sometimes the subject of prints during the

290/693

Page 55

Tokugawa period (1600-1850). 9 With what pure and serene ardor were they treated! Thus, for several centuries we see practiced a theory of art for art's sake, a theory of absolute idealism in art.

292/693

Japanese sculpture and architecture are also characterized by this same effort of liberation from space expressed in the predominance of the line and in the taste for simplicity and the void. These characteristics are found most remarkably in wood sculptures. Several Buddhist statues of Unkei (circa 1150-1220), as well as the masks of No* drama, manifest in the most ingenious way this aspiration for the infinite. In architecture, the lines of roofs, straight or delicately curved, are almost always loyal interpreters of this same thought. The special cult given to the "pillar of the tokonoma,"10honored place in the house, is only the cult of the line. The employment of bamboo as construction material also testifies to this. As for simplicity, the largest temple, as the smallest tea room, both present in their interiors, the one as well as the other, the same expression of the idea of the void.

293/693

Turning now to Japanese poetry, we may begin with this: if the infinite is everywhere, then a very small thing contains the infinite just as much as does a thing of great dimensions. "The smallest is equal to the largest," says the Scent of Faith of the third Zen patriarch, Seng-ts'an*. In the Song of the Experience of Truth,another master of the same sect says, "One cannot, while looking at the blue sky through the end of a flute, call it small." This shows why with us the most cultivated type of poetry is a very short poem, a tanka,for instance, having thirty-one syllables, or the haiku,having seventeen syllables. We could say that it is the infinite which here liberates itself from time: a short time comes to be seen as containing much more than contains a long time. The Manyoshu*,dating from the eighth century, one of the oldest anthologies of Japanese poetry, collects poems from a period between the second half of the seventh century and the first half of the eighth century.

294/693

In it one finds three types of poetry: the choka*,or "long poem''; the sedoka*,or "headrepeated poem"; and the tanka,or "short poem." The tanka was at first only the hanka,a sort of "envoi" of the choka.In the beginning of the ninth century the imayo-uta*was developed, "poem in the fashion of the day." Of relatively recent origin is the haiku,created in the sixteenth century. It is also called hokku,"initial verse," indicating that the haiku was the initial tercet of the tanka.The development of the tanka as an independent formhaving once been a part of the chokaandof the haiku,once part of the tanka,testifies to the aesthetic exigency of creating brief forms. Thus, the tanka and haiku represent the most refined phases of our poetry, which otherwise still cultivates the "long poem" and modern forms beside that of the "short poem" and the "initial verse." Secondly: the symmetric form has something of the rigid and finite about

295/693

Page 56

it. The expression of the infinite, "the supreme life" and "the formless form," only realizes itself in an asymmetric and fluid form. 11 Thus, the rhythmic unity of Japanese poetry is formed originally from the union of a pentasyllable and a heptasyllable, or vice-versa.12 The choka*and imayo-uta*are composed according to this metric system. The tanka and haiku,the two kinds of short poetry, have, as it were, relaxed the links in the legitimate union of pentasyllable and heptasyllable. These two forms, having acquired greater independence and freedom, do not fail to make use of it. A tanka is divided exactly into five lines of five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables. For example:
Shi-ra-tsu-yu mo Shi-gu-re- mo i-ta-ku Mo-ru ya-ma wa Shi-ta-ba no-ko-ra-zu I-ro-zu-ki ni ke-ri

297/693

A haiku is divided into three lines of five, seven, and five syllables. For example:
Ho-ro-ho-ro-to Ya-ma-bu-ki chi-ru ka Ta-ki no o-to

298/693

This series of five, seven, and five syllables in a haiku,as well as in the initial tercet of the tanka,reveals its original beauty in the possibility of different subjective combinations, both in five-seven and in seven-five. The overly harmonious union of five-seven is disturbed by the presence of a third term. The heptasyllable of the middle line, while preserving its function of following the pentasyllable of the first line, acquires at the same time the function of preceding the concluding pentasyllable. Thus, this median part proceeds with slow steps from the preceding pentasyllable, yet in the transition hastens with bounding step towards the verse which follows. The irresistable beauty of the rhythmic melody of the haiku consists precisely in this changing fluidity, in this enchanting coquetry.13 And in this asymmetrical and fluid form, the idea of liberation from measurable time is realized.

299/693

Thirdly: the elan and the dynamic nature of the infinite can be expressed in poetry not only by an asymmetric and fluid form, but also by the employment of suggestive expression which outstrips time in a kind of anticipation. It is not necessary to express and disclose everything; it is only necessary to indicate with several essential lines and leave the rest to the active play of the

Page 57

imagination. The poet is the man who knows how to remain silent; silence can be more eloquent than eloquence itself. He takes up in his hand several green leaves and in a subdued voice says: Inhale all the fragrance of this forest. "A grand eloquence is as if silent" (TTC,45), says Lao Tzu. In a word, the poetry of the infinite must truly be "poetry," and not "literature." The presence of this quintessential characteristic of poetry is the fundamental trait of the haiku of Basho * (1643-1694), one of our greatest poets. Here is an example:14
Nara of seven hedges, Temple of seven chapels, Cherry blossoms of eight folds.15

301/693

Instead of describing the splendor of Nara, the ancient capital, the poet indicates with the words "temple of seven chapels" the grandeur of the Buddhist religion, and then by these other words, "cherry blossoms of eight folds," the dazzling beauty and the licentious delights of the court. Nothing but substantives and adjectives, no verbs. Alliteration and the concordance of graphic signs contribute in giving this verse a sumptuous luxury. Another example:
And the dried salmon, And the gaunt monk Kuya*, Both in cold winter.

302/693

This verse compares dried salmon with the gauntness of the monks of the Kuya sect. Dried salmon is eaten in winter; the Kuya lead the lives of beggars, above all in winter. The two symbols employed are both expressions of an ascetic ethic of which the poet was himself a partisan. Once again, not a single verb. The employment of alliteration gives great firmness to the writing. Drawn with several brushstrokes carrying all the richness of ink-tones, it is a picture of incommensurable bearing.

303/693

Passing now to the subjects of poetry, a few remarks. It goes without saying that as in the poetry of other countries, there is in Japanese poetry just as much of the expression of profound religious and moral sentiment as there is the eternal voice of "Psyche in love." It is sufficient to mention the titles under which the poems are classed in the Kokinshu*(circa 905 A.D.) and Shin-Kokinshu (1205 A.D.) anthologies: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Separation, Travels, Love, Shinto Poems, Buddhist Poems, etc. Although it would be useless to give examples, I would like, however, to present several other expressions, habitually ignored, of the infinite in our poetry.

Page 58

Thus, fourthly: pantheistic thought, the idea of the essential identity of the whole, underlies the haiku of Basho *.
O octopus jar, Ephemeral dream, The summer moon.

An octopus is caught in a jar; the octopus dreams always of the joy of life, of the heaven above, of the clear moon. The fisherman who has caught the octopus, the octopus sleeping in ignorance of the fate awaiting him, the moon surveying them both with nonchalant omniscienceall these are in cosmic sympathy.
O paulownia leaf, Won't you come visit My solitude?

305/693

Paulownia is the name of a tree. The poet addresses a falling leaf and prays to it to console him in his solitude. Tranquil silence of autumn. We hear the voices of leaves. We hear a heart beating. Now, a fifth point. The taste for white and for subdued colors, in a word, the taste for simplicity, this is also found manifest in the content of the poems. The infinite is something simple, containing and surpassing multiplicity.
O, dawn, White shirauo, A touch of white.

The shirauo is a very small white fish. The sentiment of dawn, the limpidity of a sky growing white, these are rendered by this verse.

306/693

Yellow chrysanthemums, white chrysanthemums: O, how I wish that there could be No other names than these!

This haiku,carrying the title "On a Hundred Gathered Chrysanthemums," was composed by Ransetsu, pupil of Basho. We find here a man of taste, but also a man drunk with the infinite, a man whose sole desire is that of simplification. Sixthly: as in painting, so in idealist-pantheist poetry, the negative aspect

Page 59

of things finds positive place. The poet appreciates life's dissonances, employs them in order to create a harmonious melody.
There's the nightingale, Its droppings on rice cakes On the veranda.

A country life in the bright afternoon of a spring sun is evoked by a magician's wand. Exquisite little picture.
A swaying willow Gently touched My abscess!

A man suffering from an abscess experiences at the very moment when a willow branch touches him something which is at once joy and appeasement. An extremely refined sentiment, a mix of the detachment of life and of a love of nature.

308/693

Finally: I would like to add that the idea of repetitive time is found in our poetry.
O, tachibana blossoms! When? It was in the fields. Listen, the cuckoo!

309/693

Basho * inhales the fragrance of the tachibana blossoms. He remembers that long ago he had inhaled the same fragrance from the same blossoms while hearing a cuckoo in the fields. Allow me to present a commentary on this: "But let a sound already heard or an odor caught in bygone years be sensed anew, simultaneously in the present and in the past, real without being of the present moment, ideal but not abstract, and immediately the permanent essence of things, usually concealed, is set free and our true self, which had long seemed dead but was not dead in other ways, awakes, takes on fresh life as it receives the celestial nourishment brought to it. A single minute released from the chronological order of time has re-created in us the human being similarly released from the order of time. . . ."16

310/693

O, here is Osaka Gate, Where those going east And those returning part, Where those who know and Those who do not know one another meet.17

Page 60

312/693

This is a tanka by the celebrated poet-musician of the ninth century, the blind Semimaru. Again, an example of "time lost" and of "time remembered." Osaka Gate, "portico with two faces," whose ''name, found inscribed on the pediment, is the instant."It is the instant in which two roads meet: 18 the past and the future. It is the moment of a present of infinite plenitude, the eternal moment in which Zarathustra speaks with the dwarf, "with lowered voice, because he fears his own thoughts and his hidden motives"; it is the sacred moment when Yajnavalkya says to Artabhaga: "Give me your hand, friend, this knowledge is given only to the two of us." And it is the blessed moment when one soul interrogates another soul: "The ginko leaf, was it one and then two? Or was it two and then one?" It is also this moment we pass here in this salon in Pontigny, where I speak to you of a verse of Semimaru and where we wonder if we might not

313/693

have lived this moment before, if we might not live it again, if we might not have already become acquainted an indefinite number of times, if we might not become acquainted anew. Let us leave it to our venerable blind Semimaru to meditate on the problem of chance and circular time. Let us pray that he now takes up his biwa and plays us an ancient Yamato air.

314/693

As for Japanese music, I will not speak of it at any great length. I will assume that you know almost nothing about it. It is difficult to speak of music in an abstract manner. I will limit myself to indicating several European melodies which come closest to approximating our music. One of the best examples is the Children's Corner of Debussy, and above all "Golliwogg's Cake Walk," a thoroughly Japanese melody. We can feel the cords of the shamisen vibrating. I once remember having seen this music set to dance. It was in Paris-Plage, in summer. The dancer was clothed as in the Japanese Shishi-mai (dance of the lion), and this costume harmonized perfectly with the dance and music. "The Girl with Flaxen Hair" also has something of the Japanese about it, in the free succession of its melodies and in the perfection of the imperfect. The prelude, played "very calm and softly expressive," and then "murmured and restrained little by little," has always made me think of our

315/693

utazawa,19intimate and fully suggestive music. And, in fact, Debussy was a great devotee of Japanese art. I will take the liberty of citing from the memoirs of one of his friends: "The large table at which Debussy composed his masterpieces was covered with Japanese objects in the best style, among them a porcelain toad which he called his fetish and which he carried with him during his travels, claiming not to be able to work without it under his eyes. . . . In this room I also remember a Hokusai print, depicting a gigantic wave breaking. Debussy had a particular dilection for this work; he was inspired by it while he composed La Mer; he asked us to

Page 61

have it reproduced on the cover of the printed copy of this work." 20 Aside from these works of Debussy the Jeux d'eau of Ravel can also be cited. We could say that here the playing of the koto can be heard.

317/693

Now in what does the fundamental characteristic of Debussy and his school consist? Doubtless, on the one hand, in the effort to be liberated from stereotypic time, liberated in a fluidity in which "the music completely fills every moment," and in which "all parts are united, run softly into one another";21 on the other hand, in that simplification in which all the orgies of sound are abolished, bringing about, thus, a "delicate sobriety . . . enveloping everything in silence."22 And this is justly the characteristic of Japanese music, as well as of Japanese art in general. Among several European testimonies I can cite, for example, Albert Maybon, who says: "The music of the shamisen has something of the nebulous, of the indefinite, of the unequal," and, then, doubtless with some exaggeration, adds: "no light, only flashes!"23 In memoirs of a journey to Japan, Charles Vildrac tells us: "I saw two pilgrims wearing wrinkled clothing, their faces hid under large conical hats. They

318/693

could guide themselves only by looking at their feet. They stopped in front of the threshold of every shop and one of the pilgrims would hold out a little bowl for alms while the other would always play the same tune on a small wooden flute, a tune which was, O prodigal! exactly the one of Golaud in 'Pellas et Mlisande.'"24 About shamisen music he says: "The same nostalgic and delicate phrase serves as the basis of all the airs of the shamisen and is sufficient to evoke for me all of Japan. According to the variations one draws and the rhythm one gives it, it is now meditation, now romance, now dance."25 Another Western traveler, having had the occasion to sing a European tune before a Japanese listener, stated: "As I sang, suddenly the air and the melody appeared to me barbarous in comparison with the refinement of the particular character of a Japanese song, and for the first time I sensed something of the beauty and art of Japanese music and of the Japanese

319/693

air."26 These words are all of the more significant in that this "stroller" comes from the same country as Wagner, antipode of Debussy. Thus, there is hardly the need to say that a music whose dual character consists in the liberation from measurable time and in this simplicity wherein all multiplicity is founded, can be considered as that art mode most expressive of pantheistic mysticism. Furthermore, the word impressionism has too often been thoughtlessly employed. Man is not a mechanism passively receiving impressions; his spontaneity never slumbers. Thus, the wave of Hokusai is as much an example of expressionism as it is of impressionism, it is just as much mundi intelligibilis forma as mundi sensibilis forma.In the same way, what has in music been called, sometimes abusively, impression-

Page 62

ist, what has been thought to be only a fleeting, "momentary impression," is very often the expression of an eternal and mystic voice coming from the depths of the soul.
And his song, and his dance Are the voices of truth

says the hymn of Hakuin, Japanese Zen monk.

27

321/693

The most eminent characteristic of Japanese art in general is, thus, from the objective point of view, the expression of the infinite. This characteristic is manifest, as we have seen, above all in the liberation from space found in the plastic arts and in the liberation from time found in poetry and music. And, then, what is the subjective function of art? What relation does Japanese art, as an element of spiritual life, have with the infinite? Spiritual life's plane of action is time. Man, enclosed in time, aspires to liberate himself from time. Hence, he searches for those things eternal: truth, morality, beauty. And the function of art does not, therefore, consist so much in the immortalization of a fleeting moment of time, as in the creation of eternity. A true artist takes hold of eternal infinity; beauty, it is of that which he takes possession. In this, and in this alone, he is the educator of humanity. He teaches man to liberate himself from time, to live in that which is eternal, beauty. But he does

322/693

not model himself on the unpracticed educator who takes pleasure in showing off his ideas, the better to tyranically require their passive acceptance. He acquaints himself with the truth of the Tao Te Ching:
The greatest perfection must appear imperfect, The better to be infinite in its effect. The greatest abundance must appear empty, The better to be inexhaustible in its effect. (TTC, 45)

323/693

Hence, he believes in the value of suggestion, in the power of the imagination. He knows how to bring about an active spontaneity on the part of spectators. Thus it is that he gives indication only of those points of view in which the latter may place themselves; he only traces lines and only points out directions in order that the spectators may themselves follow these. Doubtless it is his divine hand which unveils eternal beauty and, thereby, gives the spectators vertigo, but the task of the spectators remains intact: it is incumbent upon them to make the great leap, to enter into depthless metaphysical abysses and to be overwhelmed there. Thus, twice is art liberated from time: once in the artist who creates infinity, once in the

Page 63

spectators who participate, as it were, in this creation by their contemplation of works of art.

325/693

Andr Suars, in the preface to his small collection Western Haiku,eulogizes the great aesthetic value of the brief form of the Japanese haiku and tanka.But in regard to the depth of such poetry, in regard to the question of "all Japanese art," he affirms that the Japanese only pay attention to the object, to the fugutive instant, affirms that they ignore the aspiration to the infinite, to eternity. He says: "Here we live only so as to live always. Seemingly, our sole desire is to endure always. This desire to be eternal forms one body with our perishable condition. . . . Over there, on the contrary, in the Empire of the Rising Sun, such appetite is unknown . . . The spirit of man is the locus of all space and time. On one condition, however: that it has created a metaphysics from which a mathematics has been able to follow. The Far East remains totally foreign to this. Their art and poetry is, therefore, founded on principles opposed to ours. All is spatial in these spirits. . . . Their art never turns

326/693

inward, even disdains this. The geometric point must be transformed into an instance of thought and must know itself as such: that is the goal of consciousness in the West. All this has no meaning for Orientals (les hommes jaunes)." I believe I have shown to what extent such considerations are wrong and to what extent Andr Suars is mistaken in this regard. Already the famous preface to the Kokinshu *,written by Ki-no-Tsurayuki (883-946), said that "the human heart is the seed of the poetry of Yamato from which sprouts, like leaves, a myriad of words. In this life men are occupied with many things: they express the thoughts of their heart by means of the objects which they see or hear.'' Infinity and eternity only exist in the heart, in thought. "Inward art" objectivates them, no matter whether it be plastic, poetic, or musical art. All our art is impregnated with immateriality. It is in no way an external art, indeed, it is this it disdains; every object of our art is testament to this. And

327/693

he who has not seized upon this character will have understood nothing of Japanese art. Thus, we can conclude that almost everything belonging to the object or thing in Japanese art must be considered as fugitive and finite symbol of the infinite and of the eternal. Notes The Notion of Time and Repetition in Oriental Time 1. Jean-Marie Guyau, La Gense de l'ide de temps (Paris, 1923), pp. 33-39. 2. Hermann Cohen, Logik der reinen Erkenntnis (Berlin, 1922), p. 154. 3. Martin Heideger, Sein and Zeit (Halle, 1927), pp.327-29.

Page 64

4. Existing English translations differ, at times significantly, from Kuki's own translations from Sanskrit and Chinese texts such as The Upanishads and the Tao Ching. Thus, I have everywhere translated into English Kuki's own version. 5. The problem of the relation between transmigration and cosmic period, between samsara and kalpa,does not especially interest us here. The kalpa is, perhaps, only cosmic transmigration. In any case, the notion of periodic time we are analyzing here is common to both samsara and kalpa.

329/693

6. "As someone traveling quickly in a vehicle and contemplating the wheels from above, thus did he contemplate day and night from above" (Kaushutaki * Upanishad)."The thera traced a circle on the ground and said to the king: 'Does the circle have an end?"' (Milanda-panha).''This wheel reddened by fire, inflamed, the flame of my life" (Avadanasataku*). 7. "Yes, when I was a child, in the most distant childhood" (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra).One sees clearly from the context that this signifies anterior life. Similarly the Milandapanha,posing the question "The one reborn, is he the same or another?" responds, albeit in a rather lame "comparison": "I was an infant and am now a man." [I have used Walter Kaufmann's translation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (New York, 1966, p. 159) to render Kuki's quotation from Nietzsche.Trans.]

330/693

8. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit,p. 329. 9. It is certain that the stoics were aware of this capital difficulty in the notion of the Great Year. The proof is that instead of having Socrates reborn in person, they were content with "someone not different from Socrates": a subtle conception, but disastrous for the theory ([Hans Friedrich von Arnim], Stoicorum veterum fragmenta [Leipzig, 1903-1924], vol. 2, no. 626). 10. From this point of view one can, perhaps, also justify the employment of the word will in Schopenhauer.

331/693

11. There is, doubtless, a contradiction between the notion of karma and the idea of nirvana*, at least there where one carries these conceptions out to their logical consequences. One implies predetermined identity, the other, on the contrary, intellectual liberty. But this difficulty, assuredly very great, is only the difficulty common to almost any kind of determinism. It is true, on the other hand, that in order not to fall into this contradiction, one must often evade pursuing in the notion of karma a conception of identity. However, from the logical point of view, once the notion of karma is admitted, the refusal to accept identical transmigration cannot escape the reproach of dialectical inconsequence.

332/693

12. In placing Buddhism and Bushido*in opposition I take into account only their basic tendencies. The development of positive elements in the thought of Mahayana* Buddhism, on the one hand, and the influence of Buddhism on certain particular aspects of Bushido,on the other hand, are incontestable. There cannot be the least question of denying the great value of Buddhism. We owe an eminent part of our Oriental civilization to Buddhism. 13. This quotation can be found in Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals,tr. Lewis White Beck (New York, 1959), p. 9. Translation emended in accordance with Kuki's version.Trans. 14. Kuki refers to the earthquake of 1923.Trans.

333/693

15. I would like, in order to be clear, to say that, personally, I do not believe in Buddhist transmigration, no more than in life after death in the Christian sense. I have sought only to establish the possibility of imagining transmigration. There is neither more nor less of the imaginary in the conception of transmigration than in the conception of the future life in Christianity. I have, thus, indicated and developed a problem, one of Oriental origin, the

Page 65

problem of periodic and identical time. And what I have said about Bushido *concerning transmigration is only the eventual application of the ethic of the "bushi"to this imaginary domain. The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art 1. K. Okakura, Les idaux de l'Orient,tr. Serruys, (Paris, 1917), p. 36. 2. Tao Te Ching,paragraph 25. As previously noted, I have translated Kuki's own translations from the Chinese. Hereafter, all references to this work will be given in the text itself as TTC.Trans. 3. Hakuin, Zazen Wasan (Hymns of Meditation).

335/693

4. Soami* (circa 1450-1530), landscape painter, was one of the greatest masters of "metaphysical perspective." On the other hand, Korin* (1661-1716) knew how to resolve, in magnificent fashion, another, more particular problem: the transition from metaphysical to decorative perspective. Regarding this ideal of beauty, "at once decorative and expressive," Maurice Denis writes: "It has been habitual for quite some time to consider the truth of art solely from the point of view of imitation. There is, on the contrary, no paradox in holding that trompe l'oeil is a synonym for lying with the intention to deceive. A painting conforms to its truth, to the truth, when it says well what it must say and when it fulfills its ornamental role" (Nouvelles thories,p. 182).

336/693

5. There is something very Japanese to be found in the room of Claude Monet at the Muse de Orangerie. The canvases portray at right and at left the great trunks of willows with neither summit nor base, and in the middle a pool with nymphs can be found. One could very well be in a Japanese room surrounded by byobu*(folding screens). Kano Eitoku (1543-1570) or Okyo* (1733-1795) could surely furnish examples. 6. As Bergson wrote: "The object of art is . . . to lead us to a state . . . in which we grasp the idea that has been suggested to us" (Essai sur les donns immdiates de la conscience,p. 11).

337/693

7. Hokusai (1760-1849) said: "I would like my personages and animals to appear as if leaping out from the paper, I would like that everything be alive in my art, be it a line, be it a point." Van Gogh, initiate in Japanese art, energetically practiced the cult of the line. Without doubt, he often practiced it with pathological exaggeration, but he often succeeded, and marvelously, in giving expression to the power of the soul and to the movement of nature.

338/693

8. It should be clear that in regard to color I think here, above all, of the school of Sesshu*. Yet the technique of the gradation of ink has always held important place in almost all Japanese painters. Brush "painting" and drawing do not signify the same thing. The ink monochrome possesses in addition to a graphic manner, a pictorial manner, in addition to line, tonality. And if it is true that in drawing, "it is the judgment which speaks to the judgment" (Alain, Systme des beaux-arts [Paris, 5th ed.], p. 278), in ink painting it is ecstasis which speaks to ecstasis. It would be difficult to find an artistic means more efficacious for expressing the signification of the coincidentia oppositorum. 9. Kuki has here given only approximate dates. The actual dates: Kamakura period (1192-1331) and Tokugawa (Edo) period (1603-1868).Trans.

339/693

10. The tokonoma is an alcove in the zashiki (drawing room) of a Japanese house. The tokonoma has a wooden base about six inches high, and within the tokonoma one generally places a hanging scroll, an okimono (decorative object), and a flower arrangement.Trans. 11. The absence of symmetry is not a characteristic of Japanese poetry alone; to a certain degree it could be said to characterize Japanese art in general. 12. Since this unity is composed of twelve syllables, it could be compared to an alexandrine.

Page 66

But the essential difference consists in this, that a caesura breaks an alexandrine into two hemistiches, equal and symmetrical, while, on the contrary, the typical unity of the poetry of Yamato is divided into two unequal and asymmetrical parts, five-seven and seven-five. It is true that the "Invitation au voyage" of Baudelaire is a composition of pentasyllables and heptasyllables. Nevertheless, two pentasyllables following each other have the metric value of only one decasyllable divided into two symmetrical hemistiches and carrying an internal rhyme.
Mon enfant, ma soeur, Songe la douceur D'aller l-bas vivre ensemble! Aimer loisir, Aimer et mourir Au pays qui te ressemble!

341/693

13. This fluidity is produced in a purely rhythmic way without any relation to the meaning of the verse. This should not be confounded with an enjambement,which consists in the noncoincidence of a metrical articulation with a logical articulation. The rhythm of the haiku is sometimes imitated by French poets.
J'ai fait un beau rve. Ce matin j'ai sur mes levrs Un gout de baiser. (Ren Maublanc) [A beautiful dream. This morning my lips glazed with The taste of a kiss.]

It is difficult for me to judge whether it is possible to reproduce perfectly the melody of the haiku by mechanical imitation in a foreign language.

342/693

14. The formula of Mallarm, "To suggest instead of to say," and in several respects the "Art potique" of Verlaine, can be found perfectly accomplished in the haiku of Basho *, as already in the tanka of Hitomaro* (end of the seventh century). But in the case of short poems such as the haiku and tanka,translation destroys almost all of their beauty, a beauty consisting, above all, in the color, sonority, and odor of words, in their symphonic harmony, in their cadenced rhythm, all the artistic effects which, as is their nature, cannot be rendered in translation. 15. In order to preserve the unity of Kuki's translations and commentary I have everywhere given literal translations of Kuki's own French versions of various haiku without attempting to supply finished English poems.Trans.

343/693

16. This quotation can be found in Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past,tr. F. Blossom, vol. 2 (New York, 1932), p. 996Trans. 17. Here too it is a question of a literal translation.Trans.

344/693

18. Ousaka-no-seki*,here translated as "Osaka Gate," was a place name, literally "Customs (Gate) of Osaka." The two characters comprising Ousaka, Ou and Saka,mean "to meet" and "hill" respectively. All those traveling east from Kyoto or returning to Kyoto from the east had to stop here. Ousaka-no-seki,place of parting, place of meeting, was, therefore, often used in songs. We may note, also, that one factor in the richness of Chinese and Japanese poetry is the readiness with which some characters lend themselves to dual and manifold meanings. This is a factor, evidently, in the difficulty of translating Chinese and Japanese poetry. Too often, as the poet and translator Kenneth Rexroth once noted, translators in the West have spelled out all the meanings contained in a character and, consequently, the translated poem has carried all the less the resonances of the original.Trans.

Page 67

19. A type of song falling under the more general name kouta,the kouta being popular songs of the late Edo period sung with the accompaniment of the shamisen. The kouta were derived from the hauta,a type of popular song also accompanied by the shamisen and favored by the chonin *(town-dwellers) of the Edo period.Trans.

346/693

20. Jacques Durand, Quelques souvenirs d'un diteur de musique (Paris, 1925), pp. 92-93. Romain Rolland also made reference to the rapprochement obtaining between the music of Debussy and the art of Japanese painting (cf. Musiciens d'aujourd'hui [Paris, 12th ed.], p. 205). We know also that the Prints ("Pagodas," etc.) and the Images ("Golden Fish," etc.) exhibit an Oriental, if not specifically Japanese inspiration. And with these begins, to follow Alfred Cortot, the most characteristic period of Debussy's piano music (cf. Alfred Cortot, "La Musique pour piano de Claude Debussy," in Revue Musique, 1December 1920, pp. 134, 136). La Mer was also composed in this period, 1903-1905. Pellas et Mlisande was completed in 1902. Daniel Chennevire states on this subject: "Debussy introduced the Orient into music." "He regenerated music; he impregnated it with Oriental youthfulness; he gave it air, light, life'' (Claude Debussy et son oeuvre,pp. 15, 45).

347/693

21. Jacques Rivire, Etudes (Paris, 10th ed.), p. 156. 22. Romain Rolland, Musiciens d'aujourd'hui,pp. 204, 206. 23. Albert Maybon, Le Thtre japonais (Paris, 1925), p. 89. 24. Charles Vildrac, D'un voyage au Japon (Paris, 1927), p. 36. 25. Ibid.,p. 63. 26. Bernhard Kellermann, Ein Spaziergang in Japan (Berlin, 1922), p. 152.

348/693

27. Thus, in Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun we find as much the expression of naturalistic desire and pantheistic dream as the impression of a suffocating and weary afternoon. It would, certainly, be very interesting to establish a parallelin all domains of artbetween the technique of the "inward art" of Japan and French symbolism.

Page 69

PART THREE PROPOS ON JAPAN

By Shuzo * Kuki

Page 71

Bergson In Japan
JAPAN, completely isolated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, was constrained to open its ports sixty years ago by the arrival of American gunboats. The Western civilization introduced in this way was only Anglo-American civilization. At that time "Western philosophy" signified for us "philosophy in the English language." The utilitarianism of Stuart Mill and Spencer was the first Western philosophy we knew. Fortunately, the Japanese spirit was not such as to fully accept this genre of thought. We turned away from it without having found any satisfaction. Thus, when much later this same utilitarianism, now disguised under the name of pragmatism, tried to introduce itself to us, we knew how to politely close our ports.

351/693

German philosophy entered Japan around 1885. The first among Western philosophers, Kant, inspired in us profound respect. His principal works were translated and discussed. His doctrine was made the object of numerous writings. "Kantian evenings" were even created in order to discuss from time to time the transcendental philosophy. Fichte and Hegel were equally esteemed. We also knew an extremely distinct neo-Kantian movement. The Marburg School as well as the Heidelberg School was ardently studied. Hence, Hermann Cohen and Heinrich Rickert possessed among us a very eminent prestige.

352/693

It was at this moment, when criticism and logic almost exclusively represented Western philosophy in Japan, it was at this very moment that the name of M. Henri Bergson suddenly appeared. It was around 1910. At first Creative Evolution was translated, then Matter and Memory,and then the Introduction to Metaphysics.Of his Essay on the Immediate Givens of Consciousness we possessed only an abridged translation. His principal role was that of giving us a taste for metaphysics. Our spirit, dessicated by the critical formalism of German neo-Kantianism, received "celestial nourish-

Page 72

354/693

ment" from the Bergsonian metaphysical intuition. (M. Bergson saw as the fundamental error of Kantianism its too sharply drawn distinction between the content and the form of knowledge. Thereby arose the idea of the "thing-in-itself," thereby arose the placing in doubt of the absolute value of our knowledge. M. Bergson advised us not to remain content with "the manufactured clothing of ready-made concepts." He showed us the "necessity of working to measure." He kept us from remaining satisfied with ''translation"; he encouraged us to go directly to the "original." His philosophy proposed "to take hold as much as it is possible of the original itself, to deepen life, and by a kind of intellectual auscultation to feel the soul palpitate." To philosophize consisted in placing oneself, by an effort of intuition, in the interior of concrete reality. To the same degree that M. Bergson combated Kantianism, philosophical thought in Japan removed itself from the neo-Kantian

355/693

theory of knowledge. M. Bergson made us "revive the absolute.") And the philosophy of Nishida, perhaps the most profound thinker in Japan today, presents itself as an effort to synthesize the transcendental philosophy and Bergsonism. It is this synthesis which is already indicated by the titles of his principal works: Discursive Thought and Vital Experience, Intuition and Reflection in Self Consciousness.We could say that in general his meditations, while accepting the intuition of the pure dure,have as a goal the safeguarding of the a priori values.

356/693

It is necessary to also point out two secondary effects produced by Bergsonism, which characterize in a precise way the present state of the study of Western philosophy in Japan. In the first placeand it is quite a curious phenomenonit was through the intermediary of Bergsonian philosophy that we learned to appreciate German phenomenology. It was Husserl at first, although not so much the Husserl of the first part, rather of the second part of Logical Investigations,not so much, then, the "pure logician" as, rather, the "phenomenologist." And then it was Max Scheler, philosopher of life, and very recently Martin Heidegger, author of Being and Time.Among the points in common between Bergsonian philosophy and German phenomenology, what seems most characteristic to us is just that which distinguishes them both from the neo-Kantian philosophy: on the one hand the Bergsonian requirement of abolishing a too clear cut distinction between the content of

357/693

knowledge and its form, on the other hand the idea of "intentionality" in Husserl and the notion of "Being-in-the-world" in Heidegger. This point in common is, perhaps, only a common result of the method of intuition. In any case, we have in Japan been led from neo-Kantianism to "phenomenology" by means of Bergsonian philosophy. The second effect of Bergsonism was a much more natural one: we were taught to appreciate French philosophy in general. The little French phi-

Page 73

losophy that we had previously known consisted only in the Montesquieu of The Spirit of Laws,the Jean-Jacques Rousseau of The Social Contract,and the Comtean sociology. Now we began to examine Boutroux, Ravaisson, Maine de Biran. We sought to find in the philosophy of "contingency," in the notion of "habit," and in the method of "immediate apperception'' the principal current of French philosophy. In addition, we wondered what relation the brilliant philosophy of M. Bergson sustained, on the one hand with Descartes, and on the other hand with Pascal. The one had deepened the meaning of "meditation," the other had appreciated the "esprit de finesse."We learned to recognize the fruit from the tree. (And I am sure that the study of French philosophy will be cultivated by us in the near future with an intensity much greater than today.)

359/693

Now why is it that we have had an instinctive aversion to utilitarianism? Why has Kant exercised such a great influence on us? Why is M. Bergson so highly esteemed in Japan? Sometimes the puerile reproach has been made against us that we are clever "imitators." When one civilization is confronted with another civilization a reciprocity of influence is nothing out of the ordinary. But the acceptance of an idea does not signify imitation. What is produced is an assimilation according to choice. And the mode of choice itself always reveals the spontaneity and activity characteristic of the subject who chooses. Now, in us there are two predominant currents of thought: Shintoist thought in the form of Bushido *,and Buddhist thought in the form of Zen. Bushido,"the way of the bushi,"is the cult of the absolute spirit, contempt for what is material. It is an idealist ethic of the "good will." Therefore, it had to be the sine qua non of the acceptance of Kantianism in Japan.

360/693

Kantianism, if, perhaps, not so much as a theory of knowlege, at least as a "foundation of the metaphysic of morals," could, once imported, never die in the country of Bushido.On the other hand, Zen, or Dhyana*,or "meditation," consists in an effort to seize the absolute by intuition. And it is precisely this which has in Japanese thought opened the way to the philosophy of M. Bergson.

361/693

The Bergsonian method is "simple and indivisible intuition of the spirit," "taking direct possession" of the dure.Bergson says: "The dure cannot be rejoined by means of a detour; it is necessary to install oneself in it straightaway." A Zen monk would say the same thing. M. Bergson writes: "We are going to demand of consciousness that it isolate itself from the external world and, by a vigorous effort of abstraction, become itself once again." This is also the method of Zen meditation. Speaking of the dure,M. Bergson says: Its "representation . . . although clear for that thought having returned into itself, cannot be translated into the language of common sense." For the same reason, Zen scorns the word and language. Certainly

Page 74

the religion of Zen and Bergsonian philosophy are not the same thing. Yet there is a spirit so evidently common to both that we cannot fail to recognize their essential affinity. (All Japanese without exception can feel a kind of "intellectual sympathy" for this French philosophy.)

363/693

Not just in method, but in content as well, Bergsonian philosophy displays great resemblance to Buddhist thought. We will mention but two principal points: (1) the Bergsonian idea of the dure,expressing itself in the image of "flowing water," is precisely the fundamental idea of Buddhism: the ceaseless flight of things, a watery flux; (2) when Bergsonism admits the possibility of at the same time, and on the same terrain, "accepting the thesis and antithesis of antinomies," it is very near the paradoxical truth enunciated by Zen: Nirvana *is Buddha, Nothing is Being. This resemblance is result of the fact that Bergsonism and Zen are both served by analogous, albeit independent, methods of intuition. And the fascinating attraction that Bergsonism exercises consists precisely in the fact that it shows us this affinity in all its original spontaneity. By contrast, there are in Schopenhauer and in Nietzsche, no matter the admiration they inspire in us, too many oriental

364/693

reminiscences for us in the Orient to regard them as truly Western philosophers. M. Bergson remains in the limits of occidental genius and, therefore, appears all the more attractive to us. Now progress, in whatever sense one understands it, is in no way conceivable if it is not solidly united with tradition. Whoever says progress, says, thereby, tradition. Our oriental thought, although willing to study Western thought, will never achieve true progress without abundant nourishment from its own tradition. It is, therefore, necessary that we follow our own tradition in order to transcend it. It is necessary to pursue it in order to surpass it. "Progress, carrying on the past, nibbling away at the future, swells up, yet all the while advances." Herein is progress defined, herein the Bergsonian dure is defined.

Page 75

Japanese Theater
. . . TO SAY THAT A MUSIC, WHOSE FORM consists in fluidity, can be considered as an expression of pantheist mysticism.
And his song and his dance Are the voices of truth

says the hymn of Hakuin, Japanese Zen monk.

366/693

The choreographic and scenic art of Japan display the same characteristics as the other kinds of Japanese art, above all the taste for simplicity and the predominance of suggestion, both being but expressions of the infinite. In dance each gesture of the hand, each cadence of step, has a symbolic sense, reflecting the profound life of the soul and the rhythm of sentiments. A French observer says: "A slow and trembling dropping of the hand signifies autumn leaves imperceptibly collecting on the ground. Hands shading the eyes will make one think of a mountain landscape. A swinging of the arms gives the image of the sea or of a river. It suffices for a young girl to nibble the edge of her kimono, to raise to her lips the lengthy sleeve, in order to express sentiments like shame, timidity, modesty, or to express, as if in a whisper, an acknowledgment. As far as the interpretation of thoughts and sentiments by mime, the knowledge of the Japanese school is inexhaustible." 1 In a word, artistic

367/693

expression, always loyal to the principle of suggestion and simplicity, is reduced to its essential contours, everything superfluous being categorically forbidden. In theater, suggestion of the infinite finds expression not only in the ingenious simplicity of the "mute art," but also in the original technique of the hanamichi,"flower paths." Hanamichi are extensions of the stage out into the auditorium, two walkwaysat stage levelcrossing the theater pit

Page 76

369/693

at right angles. 2They are, as it were, dynamic lines giving indication of eternity. They enable the spectators to be freed, first from the theatrical limits of space and time, and then from cosmic limits. Action on a platform, facing the spectators, can only be played in two dimensions. In spite of all the activity, it remains for the static hanamichi to instill a dynamic sense. At first they give to the action a third dimension, and then a fourth, time, and finally an infinite dimension, the metaphysical. When some superhuman advances from the stage on one of the hanamichi,when he passes behind and then again before us, we often feel a shudder. He has come from a faraway and unknown world. Here indicated, here suggested, is the infinite. When an old and devoted vassal, fallen into disgrace through too much rectitude and sincerity, leaving his young and licentious lord among the ladies of the gay quarters, goes along the hanamichi with heavy step, tears in his eyes, our

370/693

souls are led along the same path and with the same heavy steps, steps we repeat so often in life at every occasion of separation, a separation at once and always temporal and eternal. And sometimes, when two despairing lovers are going to die together, who is the spectator who does not want to strew their path with flowers, hoping with all his heart that this "flower path" will become a path leading the lovers to the happy land of the lotus of Amitabha? Thanks to these hanamichi,indicators of the infinite, the spectator plunges into the sweet plenitude of eternity and aspires to the spiritual light that comes from beyond.

Page 77

A Peasant He Is

372/693

WE have in Japan the proverb: it is the peasant who boasts of his country. He who understands this proverb will find speaking of his country a difficult task. There where one simply renders justice to one's country, one is exposed to a malicious interpretation whereby one is depicted in the colors of vanity. Why then speak of my country? Because while I have been living in Europe I have everywhere experienced a lack of understanding in regard to it. I have not been astonished by this; it is so far away, beyond Persia, beyond India, beyond China. There, among the eternal waves of the Pacific, rests the island of the Rising Sun. The difference between the customs of this island's inhabitants and the customs of those in Europe is as great as the distance is far.

373/693

Certainly, there are Europeans who have traveled to Japan. But how, living in a European style hotel, can one understand this country? Even those who remain in Japan several years, leading the life of the Japanese themselves and speaking passably good Japanese, do not generally know how to read the language. The exceptions are very rare. The characters at once symbolic and phonetic are an enigma sealed with seven seals. How can the soul of a country be penetrated if one does not have access to its literature, above all when the country has such a singular and complicated civilization? Yet some have the admirable audacity to transcribe their impressions and observations. Mistaken themselves, they mislead others, all the while passing in Europe as connoisseurs of Japan. A traveler arriving in Japan states frankly: "Aboard the trans-Siberian express I had leisure enough to prepare myself, and yet each and every particularity surprised me to the highest degree. It was

374/693

another world entirely, absolutely foreign." And he confesses at the end of his book, while recounting his departure aboard ship, the island having passed from view: "While I was taken with nostalgia for this strange country, I perceived more and more clearly that I

Page 78

had understood nothing at all." He had reason enough to say so. No need then to repeat why I am not astonished that in Europe my country is little understood. Yet this country is my native land. I love it and am deeply attached to it. Not only does my entire being belong to it, but I owe it all the aspects of my soul, all the nuances of my heart. I would hardly pay heed to my country being ignored. But I am saddened each time that I run across false ideas in regard to it. Ah well! I will speak of my country, I will even risk being a peasant. But it will not be a question of politics, nor of commerce, nor of the army and navy. Let us leave to the side superficial things. I will speak of that which lies in the depths of us all. I will speak of the Japanese soul and of its moral civilization.

Page 79

The Japanese Soul

WHAT IS THE JAPANESE SOUL? LISTEN to the famous verse of Motoori, scholar of the seventeenth century:
If one asks What is the Japanese soul? It is the mountain cherry blossom Exhaling its perfume in the morning light.

377/693

Do you know the cherry blossoms of Japan? They are the color of dew. So soon have they blossomed, the soft breeze makes them fall. They remain on the trees but several days. The meaning of this verse, comparing the Japanese soul to these blossoms, is it not the expression of the melancholy of life, no less of the world? It signifies that the soul is always ready to offer itself up, and to die for its ideal. The morning light, it is the moral ideal, that same light about which Plato speaks in his allegory of the cave. This verse expresses an absolute contempt for all that is material. In short, we have here idealism.
Traveling by sea My body under water, Traveling mountains My body under grass, Ah, let me die by the side of my emperor!

378/693

In this verse of the eighteenth-century poet Ootomo * no Yakamochi, the same sentiment is found. The emperor is only a concrete example of the ideal. In this epoch the emperor is the incarnation of the ideal. Is such moral sentiment extinct in modern Japan? The name of General Nogi is not unknown in Europe. He was the commander-inchief of the army during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. After the war he became the

Page 80

380/693

president of a school for young nobles and showed himself a supreme example of the sous nobility. On the day of the Meiji emperor's funeral he committed "seppuku," formerly a means of death reserved for samurai and consisting in the opening up of the stomach with a sword. Most Europeans will not understand this event. 1 They will say it is the barbaric habit of sacrificing oneself for the emperor. This attachment to the emperor will be seen as admirable, but as lacking in any real edification. Something ignorant and naive will be seen there. Yet, in my opinion, just this negative appreciation is confession of ignorance and navet. During the siege of Port Arthur hundreds of men perished day and night. But the fort had to be taken by any means. The fate of the country depended on it. Two of Nogi's sons, officers, also fell. Receiving such unhappy news, the general was each time consoled by the thought that he had offered to his country his dearest relations. On

381/693

the day of the fall of Port Arthur, the very day when the country sang hymns in his praise, Nogi decided to kill himself. He had sent so many soldiers to their deaths. He was responsible for so many sacrifices. He felt the necessity of also renouncing his own life. But two feelings of duty were at odds within him. The emperor still lived. Thus, the general decided to postpone his own death till the day of the emperor's death.

382/693

The condemnation of suicide is a prejudice of Christianity. The ancient Greeks did not hold such a view. Suicide was for them often a rational exit. Christian dogma has penetrated so many European souls that they find themselves at present unconsciously under the yoke of this prejudice. Is there not something ignorant and naive here? Schopenhauer in this respect is a rare example. He viewed suicide directly and without veil, in spite of whatever other bias he might have possessed. In the case of General Nogi it is often said: If he had continued to consecrate the rest of his life to the education of youth, with the absolute disinterestedness of his character, surely he would have done more for his country. His conception of duty was entirely wrong. Those who say this ignore the moral force of the tragic heroism which surpasses mediocre reasoning. The feeble clarity of reason vanishes before the great light born from darkness. What a profound impression Nogi's suicide

383/693

left to youthful souls! We are happy to have one Nogi instead of thousands of moralists and priests. Thus we say:
It is the mountain cherry blossom Exhaling its perfume in the morning light.

And if European civilization condemns this moral idea, we for our part will condemn this civilization, so long as it remains blind to the nobility and heroism of the human soul.

Page 81

Time Is Money

385/693

UP until 1868, the year of the Meiji Restoration, we in Japan had four castes: bushi, 1farmers, artisans, and merchants. Our moral ideal was "the way of the bushi,"constituting itself, above all, in valiance, in the nobility of the soul, and in generosity. The merchants, last in the rank of castes, met with great contempt. To give an example from literature, Turayuki, tenth-century poet and critic, in speaking of verses composed of words at once pretty, but without correspondence to their subject, compared them to merchants dressed in fine clothing. Doubtless this contempt for merchants and for commerce was from all points of view unjust. Yet on the whole I dare congratulate this caste order once possessed by us, since it clearly served in the formation of our country's ideal. And if this caste order no longer exists, the moral ideal survives it. Thus, we have been nourished and have grown in an atmosphere removed from that of banks and shops.

386/693

I remember a summer evening several years ago in the lounge of one of the most luxurious hotels in Deauville. The musicians had just finished playing the meditation of Thais, whose melody still resounded delightfully in my ear, when a lady in a gold evening gown addressed me with a marvelously harmonized charm and distinction. She spoke to me, among other things, of her brother in Chicago, who numbered among his friends several Japanese diplomats. He is an engineer, she said, and added: "You know, that vocation is very prosperous." I also remember a winter sojourn in Nice. On a hotel bus slowly descending the Boulevard de Cimiez, I was contemplating the sweetness of the mimosas, when my dream was brusquely interrupted by an accentuated voice: "Very expensive, isn't it?" A lady, sitting facing me, wearing a green outfit and green hat, a bracelet encrusted with emeralds on her wrist, was speaking with her

387/693

neighbor on I do not know what subject and repeated once again: "Very expensive!"

Page 82

Even with all good will it is difficult for us to imagine this kind of mentality which acts and speaks always according to the law to the dollar's weight, this necessity of the mind to bring everything down to the level of money. For our taste the ugliest proverb imaginable would be: Time is money. Nevertheless, it is this proverb which is adopted and worshipped in all parts of the world. Born in the new world, it victoriously invades the old. Now, this being the case, will we too say: Well! Shall we not also play? Ours is a different logic. We would say: We at least shall take a contrary path!

In The Manner Of Herodotus

I WILL, now, in the manner of Herodotus, relate so not be something important in triviality? Just as the nature different from other countries, the Japanese i Europeans. For example: in the street women walk Letter Left right 1 Book Left right Address How to get rid of someone Woman ahead, man behind Shaking of hands Decollet Bread Fork Silver nickel

390/693

To decorate with all that one has To eat, standing To enter a home with shoes Women It is the men who are more feminine and po are represented as army commanders. The pouring of bird's eggs, milk, and butter over fis a mayonnaise not mixed with milk and butter) Women's clothing Left front Actor A woman often plays a man
Continued on next page

Continued from previous page To kiss in the street so as to show others

To int Blonde is the preferred color Bl Men Clothing with buttons,to guard against the Wo attack of women To shrug the shoulders (shrug the shoulders, To Epicurus 181) Tepid bath Ho To put sugar in tea, hot water black tea No Artichoke Sa litt Only women use fans Me Name, surname (Victor Hugo) Su Wine (grapes) Sa Are you not in good health? Yes. 2 Ar

Page 85

Subject And Graft

393/693

WHEN in 1549 St. Francis Xavier first brought the evangel of Christ to this far away island, Catholicism was greeted with an incomparable ardor. Not only were people among the masses baptized, but so too several daimyo *.1A short time later churches were erected. Latin hymns sung. The prohibition of the Christian religion resulted after Spanish missionaries had in a surreptitious but banal way mixed themselves up in politics and, thus, menaced the peace of the country. In order to pursue believers and in order to distinguish them from others, the government produced wooden and metal plaques bearing images in relief of Christ and the Virgin. The accused were ordered to step on these plaques. Those who refused were put to the cross or burned alive. How many Japanese St. Sebastians and St. Cecilias died for this faith! If there were a Christian heaven, would these unknown martyrs be any the less celebrated and adored there than those canonized on earth by

394/693

the papacy? With a severity without equal a prohibition against the religion endured for two and one-half centuries. It was the revolution of 1868 that provided tolerance and liberty for all religions. Christianity, thought to have been completely uprooted, suddenly reappeared. In Kyushu*, the southern island of Japan, several thousand inhabitants proclaimed themselves Catholics. Holy images hidden in walls were put up, prayer books concealed under floorboards were taken out.

395/693

Today one sometimes finds school children with an Imitation of Jesus Christ in their pockets. The autobiography of St. Theresa is favorite reading in certain circles of young girls from better families. One of my school companions,2 a Catholic, chose for his thesis topic at Tokyo University, the philosophy of St. Augustine. After having passed his exam brilliantly, he went to Europe to continue his studies. Neither the Sorbonne nor the University of Louvain could satisfy the desire in his heart. He went to Rome

Page 86

and became a priest. Christianity in Japan is not as negligible as it might seem.

397/693

How can this rather singular fact be explained? To say that it is the grace of God would signify a refusal of explanation. An explanation in the proper sense of the term can only be given by someone outside religion, someone able to judge by means of reason alone. Now in the first place what strikes us about this religion is not its dogma, but its ethic. Dogmawith the mysterious force belonging to every religiononly comes later. At first it is Jesus, dying for his ideal, who compels our sincere admiration. Then the Sermon on the Mount awakens in us a melodious echo. ''Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?For I say unto you, 'Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" We hear a voice condemning categorically the politics of a certain country, a politics which loves to speak of justice and peace but which in reality practices

398/693

something resembling it not in the slightest. "But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what they right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in secret."

399/693

He who expresses himself in this way has a taste quite different from those who make a show of their so-called donations. "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it!" We see before us a man who urges us to follow upon a path not so very different from our Bushido *,"the way of the bushi."And when we read in The Little Flowers of St. Francis Assisi that he gave to a beggar all that he possessed, the Holy Bible itself, this story strikes us by revealing to us the absolute purity of the soul. We find here something true and valiant. To many of our compatriots, Christianity appears with fascinating attraction.

400/693

Anatole France wrote: "A beautiful verse is like a bow drawn across the strings of our senses. It is not his own thoughts, it is ours to which the poet gives voice." It is the same in the domain of morals. What sounds in our heart faced with a new idea is not always its novelty, but precisely that part of the idea which we already have within us and which we recognize with delight as our own. A horticulturist knows well that in order to make a good graft it is first necessary to choose a suitable subject.

Page 87

Geisha

402/693

IN Europe the demi-mondaines are the "halfdead." They are exiled from the world, horsmondaines.People are, thus, astonished to learn that in Japan the geisha play a certain role in society. They occupy a rank almost like that of the hataerae,courtesans of Ancient Greece. It is said that there were hataerae who frequented the garden of Epicurus. One of them, Leontio, wrote a subtle piece against Theophrastus, peripatetic philosopher. Then, there is this famous dictum: "I cannot at all remember you because I have never forgotten you." This psychological truth, expressed in an exquisite form, and addressing the metaphysical problem of truth, we owe to a love letter written by an erudite demi-mondaine of eighteenth-century Edo (Tokyo). Poetesses similar to Bilitis are not lacking in Japan. It is important to know that in order to become a geisha,a rigorous examination in music and dance must be undergone. The ideal of the geisha,at once moral and aesthetic, that which is

403/693

called iki,is a harmonious union of voluptuousness and nobility.

404/693

Christianity condemns the flesh. One of the most unfortunate consequences of this has been the pitiable and perverse state into which certain women in Europe have fallen. Abandoned, they are left without hope. Absolute degradation is the result. And with few exceptions most Europeans have lost, it seems, the capacity to judge these things without prejudice. For Christianity and for those unconsciously undergoing its influence, there is in this regard only the one alternative between heaven and hell. It is from this point of view that one judges oneself and others. But does not true idealism consist in supressing hell in order to replace it with purgatory? To sell the flesh in sin is an avarice undignified of God, as transforming wine into poison an absurdity undignified of men. To prohibit often means taking the path of abandonment. To abolish is easy, to accomplish is difficult. An idealism excluding realism is a pseudo-idealism. It contents itselfwith

405/693

Page 88

astonishing facilitywith dualism. On the other hand, sensual pleasure animated by a noble spirit is testament to a great idealist civilization. It is the reason why Baudelaire, for example, has so many admirers in Japan. The principle of contradiction can claim right only in the domain of formal logic. Instead of the negative judgment, to appreciate in life the positive meaning in the limitative judgment is the key to a true idealism. "Because the depth must act in order that love may be." He who understands the meaning of these words understands the raison d'tre of the geisha and their social situation. Besides, it is a profound man who is able to say to Mephisto: Ah, you, sensual and supersensual galant!

Page 89

Two Scenes Familiar To Children

IN order to cultivate our aesthetic taste, it is necessary from time to time to contemplate the masterpieces of art we have known since childhood. They live within us, they grow within us. Each time we return to them, we find they have acquired new aspects, we find that an unknown depth has all the while been establishing itself there. Thus, we come to admire these pieces with new astonishment. Masterpieces, however, must need not exist solely in the domain of art. They can also be of a moral nature, those the human heart has painted on the canvas of history. Here, then, are two pieces familiar to all Japanese children.

408/693

It was in the middle of the sixteenth century, the time of Japanese feudalism. Kenshin Uesugi and Shingen Takeda, mortal enemies, struggled against one another without cease. The first possessed Etigo, land extending to the sea, whereas the latter possessed Kai, a province surrounded by mountains. At the very moment in which Uesugi attacked Kai from all sides, Takeda and his subjects were suffering from a lack of salt, salt in Japan being obtainable only from the sea. Knowing his enemy to be in great misery, Uesugi sent him a great quantity of salt. The enemy must be defeated by force of arms, not by other means.

409/693

During the "Nine Years War" of the eleventh century, Yoshiie, leader of the emperor's party pursued Sadato * Abe, enemy leader. Both rode on horseback. Sadato, losing ground to his pursuer, improvised a tanka,wrote it on a piece of paper and attached it to an arrow he let fly at Yoshiie. The arrow lodged in the armor of the pursuer, Yoshiie, who was able to read these lines:
For years Suffering wear

Page 90 The entangled threads Alas, Koromonotate, Come undone: 1

His heart moved to pity, Yoshiie gave up his pursuit.

411/693

That things such as this could happen today in the same way cannot be believed, unless one is a Don Quixote. Yet the material is always there, impatiently waiting to be fashioned by way of the creative form. The change in times would only require a few modifications. Can we not hope to find the spirit of Kenshin Uesugi in the milieu of the officer corps of a modern army? Can we not hope to find this noble spirit, opposed as it is to the dictum of the Jesuits, dictum in which the end justifies the means? And might it not be desired that a peace treaty piously invoke the soul of Yoshiie? Can we not hope to find this sensitive soul, knowing as it does how to pardon an enemy in desperate straits? The history of humanity is a history always thirsting for love and light. Who says that idealism is a chimera. Idealism becomes a chimera only at that moment in which we allow ourselves to lose hold of our faith in its realization.

412/693

Page 91

General Characteristics Of French Philosophy

MESDAMES, MESSIEURS, Permit me, now, to repeat in French in a somewhat abridged form, what I have just pronounced in Japanese regarding the general characteristics of French philosophy.

414/693

Philosophy is a form of knowledge whose goal consists in seizing the truth of the universe. Now if the truth were one and absolute, philosophical knowledge would have universal validity, and, consequently, philosophy would be the same for all. However, the subject creating philosophy is an individual. One of course may suppose that truth is one and unique; nonetheless, the manner in which it is seized reveals a character specific to the individual. Now the assemblage of individuals, geographically and historically conditioned, constitutes the race and nation. A nation has its own civilization, and the philosophy of a nation has its own character. Thus, Indian and Chinese philosophy differ by national traits. Thus, German philosophy is distinguished from French philosophy.

415/693

This relation between the universality and particularity of knowledge may be observed in philosophy as well as in positive science. The Greeks possessed an especial feeling for the plastic form; they loved to geometricize their mathematical problems, providing, thus, striking contrast with the entirely abstract mathematics of India. We find the same thing in physics. The law of energy was discovered on the occasion of a study of heat. The differing ways in which Carnot, Robert Mayer, and Joule carried out their studies permits us to discern clearly the different nationalities of these scientists. In psychophysics Fechner's method of minimal modification and Plateau and Delboeufs method of average gradations reveal to us the nationalities of these men. The ideal of knowledge seeks, doubtless, universality. Pasteur said: "Science has no country." Yet I have just presented several examples

416/693

Page 92

showing that in the research methods of knowledge something like a national division of labor obtains. And in philosophy, above all, differences in method often do not abstain from imposing themselves on ideas.

418/693

What, then, are the essential characteristics of French philosophy? At first it is inner observation which plays a very great role. Already it is to be found in Descartes, the title of his first book, Meditations,serving as indication. The first truth, "Cogito, ergo sum," "I think, therefore, I am," is not an argument. If it were an argument, the major premise, "All of that which thinks is, or exists," would have previously been known and the first truth would, therefore, have lost its primacy. Descartes's point of departure was not abstract logic; that which he wanted to say was simply "Sum cogitans,'' "I am thinking." Descartes himself explained, it is "a thing known by itself," "a thing seen by a simple inspection of the mind"; it is an intuition. Descartes, at one and the same time the initiator of modern philosophy and the initiator of French philosophy, showed the possibility of founding philosophy on inner observation. Pascal wanted to understand that inner life filled with anguish.

419/693

Malebranche, aside from his effort to fashion a system, exhibited a splendid talent for psychological observation. Rousseau also excelled in analyzing the inner life. The ideologists taking leave from Condillac also testified to the same tendency. And then, above all, Maine de Biran, who said of himself, "I am, by my nature, devoted to inner apperception, and I have, for that which takes place inside me, the kind of certain tact which other men have for external objects." According to him it is necessary to turn away from logical abstraction in order to seize the concrete truth by means of an "immediate apperception." He compared the method of introspection to the work of a miner following a multitude of subterranean detours, and he hoped that one day a new inner world would be discovered by some Columbus of metaphysics. The "primitive fact" of his philosophy was "I will, I act, therefore, I exist." Ravaisson also thought it possible to erect "the intimate intuition of

420/693

ourselves by ourselves" into knowledge of absolute reality. Lachelier wrote a book entitled Psychology and Metaphysics,and he affirmed that "the highest stage in psychology is but one with metaphysics." As for M. Bergson, the title of his first book characterizes his method very well: Essay on the Immediate Givens of Consciousness.And his work Creative Evolution begins with these words: "The existence of which we are most assured and of which we know best is incontestably our own, because if we have notions which could be judged external and superficial of every other object, of ourselves our perception is internal, profound. What then do we find? What is, in this privileged case, the precise meaning of the word exist? "His manner of posing the problem is entirely Cartesian. What is more, Bergson consciously avoids all abstract

Page 93

and generalizing constructions; he tries to seize reality internally by intuition. This same penchant for inner observation can also be found in one particular discipline of philosophy: in psychology. In Germany the method in favor is that of experimental psychology in the laboratory. In France it is, above all, pathological psychology which internally observes morbid phenomena. The gift of inner observation manifests itself here in all its force.

422/693

The second essential trait of French philosophy can be found in its alliance with positive science.Descartes is, of course, testament to this. He is not only the creator of analytic geometry, he is, in fact, founder of modern mechanical physics. It is Descartes who initiated the application of mathematical method to nature in its entirety. Omnia, apud me, mathematice fiunt,he said. To reduce matter to extension, physics to geometry, such was his ideal. Einstein, it is said, realized this Cartesian ideal in his theory of general relativity. Pascal distinguished himself at the same time as mathematician and physicist. In the eighteenth century, French materialism was nothing less than the consequence of the excessive application of the mathematical method, and numerous philosophers were at this time mathematicians, naturalists, and doctors: D'Alembert, Bonnet, La Mettrie, Cabanis, etc. In the nineteenth century, Ampre, who attached himself to Maine de Biran, was known as one of

423/693

the great physicists. Auguste Comte, Cournot, Renouvier, were at first mathematicians. The positive philosophy of Comte is characterized as systematization of the positive sciences. Cournot unveiled the relation existing between the calculation of probabilities and the philosophy of contingency. Renouvier founded his philosophy of discontinuity on a critique of infinitesimal mathematics. And in contemporary philosophy Henri Poincar is a mathematician of genius. Monsieur Le Roy is also a mathematician. Pierre Duhem is a physicist, M. Emile Meyerson a chemist. M. Bergson already in his youth distinguished himself by his mathematical talent, and his work Duration and Simultaneity,written in order to criticize the idea of time in the theory of Einstein, testifies to his competence in matters of mathematics. His profound knowledge of biology and physiology is manifested, above all, in Matter and Memory and in Creative Evolution.And many physiologists

424/693

recognize as definitive his studies on aphasia. Other contemporary philosophers, such as Hannequin, Couturat, and M. Brunschvicg, are equally known for their knowledge of mathematics and physics. In Germany it is often theologians who become philosophers, Protestantism, in according them the occasion to form religious ideas by means of free thought, having given them a taste for philosophy. In France, on the

Page 94

contrary, it is scientists who often become philosophers. In any case, on account of this liaison between philosophy and positive science, there is in France, as nowhere else, a particular discipline known as the "philosophy of science." This philosophy of science is a reflection upon scientific methods, an elucidation of their signification, value, and limits. In this regard the names of Henri Poincar, Duhem, and Meyerson are paramount.

426/693

A third essential trait is that of the dualist tendency. Whereas the first and second traits relate to philosophical method, this third trait touches the very foundation of French philosophy. The philosophy of Descartes is of the dualist type. Soul and body, thought and extension, nature and libertysuchare the antitheses. Thus Pascal recognized two organs of knowledge: esprit de geometrie and esprit de finesse.To the one belongs the domain of abstract logic, to the other the domain of sentiment and will. Maine de Biran established that the human soul tends to a union with God at the same time that it tends to a union with the body, and he said that there is "a double tendency which prevents man from finding repose in present life, insofar as he is the man that he is. The most elevated, the purest souls are often dominated by a terrestrial tendency, and those who have most completely abandoned themselves to animal life are most often tormented by needs of another nature. . . .

427/693

All creatures moan." His philosophy proposes to understand this moral duality and, consequently, places in opposition passive affectibility and voluntary motility, sensation and perception, passion and action, necessity and liberty.There is also in Auguste Comte, aside from his positive philosophy,his religion of humanity; aside from his rather negative early philosophy, there is his truly positive later philosophy. And lastly, the philosophy of M. Bergson is sometimes characterized as a modern transformation of Cartesian dualism. Intuition and intelligence, arthropoda and vertebrae, dure and simultaneity, matter and memorywe find here Bergsonian dualism.

428/693

In short, to examine French philosophy through its great philosophers is almost always to find dualism. A monist system such as the one of Spinoza or Hegel is unfindable in French philosophy, and if, perchance, a philosopher sought a monist solution, it is more than certain that he would not succeed in France. Alfred Fouille, for example, tried to reconcile necessity and freedom by means of the conception of the ideaforce; needless to say, he is not highly esteemed in France. This dualist tendency is rooted, it seems to me, in the fact that French philosophy from the time of Descartes has striven always and above all for clear and distinct ideas. Clear and distinct knowledge is typified by the categorical judgment in the principle of identity: A is A. And the ideal case of the knowledge of causal relations consists precisely in proving the identity

Page 95

430/693

between cause and effect, in expressing this by means of an equation. Causa aequat effectum.Consequently, to explain the events of the universe by means of causality is only to reduce all apparent novelties to conditions known and ancient, to refer all heterogeneity to homogeneous and identical elements, as for example atoms. To explain the universe is, in this sense, to make it vanish by means of its explanation. The ideal pursuit of a clear and distinct knowledge would, thus, lead to an acosmism. Yet as long as we keep our eyes open to reality it is impossible for the universe to vanish before the advance of the principle of identity. In the world there is always something new and heterogeneous which resists arbitrary suppression. When one pursues the clarity of ideas to the extreme, one necessarily finds a residue of obscure and incomprehensible things; thus, dualism, is justified: rational and irrational, scientific knowledge and sentimental postulate.

431/693

In French religious philosophy several representatives of Catholic modernism seek to found their theory on philosophical dualism. For example, M. Le Roy supports his thought on Bergsonian dualism, while the disciples of M. Maurice Blondel like to attach themselves to the dualism of Meyerson. As a fourth trait, French philosophy strives in several ways to be social. Descartes said of his work the Discourse on Method that he wanted both that "women be able to understand something of it, and that the subtlest of minds find enough material in it to occupy their attention." In effect, women themselves understood his philosophy, and philosophy became the common good of all. Les femmes savantes of Moliere is an echo of this.

432/693

The rapprochement of philosophy and social life explains, also, the existence of those writers known as the "great moralists" in French literature: Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyre, Vauvenargues, and, perhaps, Alain as a contemporary writer. French pedagogy has also given great importance to philosophy. In the "philosophy class" in the lyce,philosophy lessons occupy eight and one-half hours a week. Pupils must be armed with a philosophical education before making their entry into society.

433/693

Still another important point. In Germany philosophers often create new words in consequence of which philosophy becomes, by the very nature of its form, difficult to understand. Thus, philosophy remains limited to a narrow circle. French philosophers, on the contrary, take up as a task the explication of their thought in terms accessible to the public. They try to find equivalents for new ideas in a combination of subtle but commonly used terms. And then French philosophy is, very often, social in its very depths. In this regard, we can compare Nietzsche and Guyau, two eminent philosophers of

Page 96

life. Nietzsche was anti-social, "the great solitaire." Guyau, on the contrary, was social; in his verse we can read:
This word so sweet, so dear to heart: Freedom, And yet to it I do prefer another: Solidarity. A gathering, a concert, such is life for me.

His moral ideal was "the most intensive and most extensive life possible." Extensive, that is to say social. He saw in religion not only anthropomorphism, but also sociomorphism. In aesthetics he maintained that aesthetic sentiment must be social. He said in his verse:
As virtue, art must be generous: When I see the beautiful, I want to be two.

He wrote a book entitled Art from the Sociological Point of View.In addition, the aesthetic work of M. Bergson, Laughter,is equally constructed from the sociological point of view.

435/693

Finally, sociology as a particular discipline was founded in France, and the "sociological" school of Durkheim and his disciples wishes to explain by society alone all spiritual products. It goes so far as to insist that even logical categories are conditioned in their genesis by society. Doubtless it is a bold affirmation, but it is only one of the manifestations of the French spirit. Thus far I have enumerated four essential characteristics of French philosophy: (1) inner observation, (2) the alliance with positive science, (3) the dualist tendency, (4) the taste for social life.

436/693

Perhaps these four characteristics could be reduced to one alone: contact with reality.The penchant for inner observation, on the one hand, and the intimate liaison with positive science, on the other, are only reflections of the need to grasp as much internal and external reality as possible. And, then, that philosophy takes a dualist form is often explained by the fact that this very duality is found in reality.Finally, the social character of philosophy testifies, above all, to the tendency to esteem concrete reality,placing the individual in society and in relation to society instead of making of the individual an isolated being by means of abstraction. In closing, permit me to make several remarks on the relation of these general characteristics of French philosophy to Japanese philosophy. First

Page 97

of all, inner observation is justly the Buddhist method, more specifically, the method of Zen. Zen is Dhyana *,that is to say, meditation. Now, Buddhism teaches the eternal flow of things, often employing the image of flowing water. And Bergsonian philosophy is recognized as the philosophy of the dure,sometimes expressed in just this image of "flowing water." This coincidence does not seem to me to be the result of chance, rather it appears to me to be the common result of analogous methods. In addition, M. Nishida, our contemporary philosopher, accords a very great importance to intuition.

438/693

Secondly, in Japanese philosophy, at least up until now, one scarcely finds a liaison between philosophy and positive science. Japanese philosophy has always been inclined towards either religion or ethics. Of course, it will be interesting to observe future developments, because it is now possible to find thinkers who are at the same time scientists, or who were at first scientists. Thirdly, the Orient is attracted by a dualistic form of comprehension, symbolized in the leaf of ourginkgo tree. Buddhismis a dualism posing at the same time flow as form of the domain of difference, and nothingness as principle of the domain of equality. The dualism of yin and yang in the I Ching,as well as the dualism of li and ki in the Sung school, are dear to us. The philosophy of M. Nishida often presents itself as a dualism of noema and noesis,of scientific knowledge and the postulate of the will.

439/693

Fourthly, philosophy in Japan is not social, or to be more exact, is not yet social. To make philosophy social remains a common task for our philosophers and for our society. Philosophy is not dessicated and abstract knowledge. To seize the palpitation of life, to feel the shiver of lifethat is philosophy. We must strive, as M. Bergson says, "to make philosophy exit from the school so as to unite it with life!" Notes Japanese Theater 1. Albert Maybon, Le Thtre japonais (Paris, 1925), p. 76. 2. Several years ago, I was delighted to find the technique of the hanamichi employed in a Parisian music-hall on the Champs Elysees*. Returning there this year I find the "music-hall" transformed into a "dance-hall."

440/693

The Japanese Soul 1. In regard to General Nogi's suicide, as well as the questions of loyalty and seppuku in Japanese culture, the reader can profit from the historical fiction of Ogai* Mori, particularly

Page 98

from his "The Last Testament of Okitsu Yagoemon" (for the theme of Nogi) and from his "The Incident at Sakai" (both in The Incident at Sakai and Other Stories,ed. and tr. D. Dilworth and J. T. Rimer [Honolulu, 1977]). The theme of Nogi's suicide can also be found in Soseki * Natsume's novel Kokoro,tr. E. McClellan (South Bend, 1977).Trans. Time is Money The phrase "Time is money," both in the title of this essay and in the text, as well as in all quotations, is in English in the original text.Trans. 1. Samurai.Trans. In the Manner of Herodotus

442/693

1. Kuki used both French and Japanese in the writing of this piece. All italicized words were originally in Japanese, the nonitalicized words in French.Trans. 2. In the original version, Kuki here gives a reference to Japon d'aujourd'hui,p. 98.Trans. Subject and Graft 1. Great feudal nobles.Trans. 2. Kuki's classmate at the Daiichi Kotogakko*, Soichi* Iwashita.Trans. Two Scenes Familiar to Children

443/693

1. Koromonotate,place name signifying "house of clothes," and thus "entangled threads" and "come undone." (Even with this explanatory note the deep resonance of the original does not come through. There, the play between Koromonotate, ito-no-midare [entangled threads], and hokorobi [come undone, unsewn] produces a marvelous effect.)Trans.

Page 99

PART FOUR "MONSIEUR SARTRE" A NOTEBOOK

By Shuzo Kuki

446/693

447/693

448/693

450/693

451/693

452/693

454/693

455/693

456/693

458/693

459/693

460/693

462/693

463/693

464/693

466/693

467/693

468/693

470/693

471/693

472/693

474/693

475/693

476/693

478/693

479/693

480/693

482/693

483/693

484/693

486/693

487/693

488/693

490/693

491/693

492/693

494/693

495/693

496/693

498/693

499/693

500/693

502/693

503/693

504/693

506/693

507/693

508/693

510/693

511/693

512/693

514/693

515/693

516/693

518/693

519/693

520/693

522/693

523/693

524/693

526/693

527/693

528/693

530/693

531/693

532/693

534/693

535/693

536/693

538/693

539/693

540/693

542/693

543/693

544/693

546/693

547/693

548/693

550/693

551/693

552/693

554/693

555/693

556/693

558/693

559/693

560/693

562/693

563/693

564/693

566/693

567/693

568/693

570/693

571/693

572/693

574/693

575/693

576/693

578/693

579/693

580/693

582/693

583/693

584/693

586/693

587/693

588/693

590/693

591/693

592/693

594/693

595/693

596/693

598/693

599/693

600/693

602/693

603/693

604/693

606/693

607/693

608/693

Page 145

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alain [mile Chartier]. Les Arts et les dieux.Edited by Georges Bnz. Paris: Gallimard, 1958. . Elments d'une doctrine radicale.Paris: Gallimard, 1925. . Mars ou la guerre juge.Paris: Gallimard, 1921. . Les Passions et la sagesse.Edited by George Bnz. Paris: Gallimard, 1960. . Propos.Edited by Maurice Savin. Paris: Gallimard, 1956. . Propos sur le bonheur.Paris: Gallimard, 1952.

610/693

. Systme des beaux-arts.Paris: Gallimard, 1926. Amano, Teiyu *. Jo (Preface) to vol. 8 of Kuki Shuzo* Zenshu (The Collected Works of Shuzo Kuki). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1981. Beauvoir, Simone de. La Ceremonie des adieux, suive de Entretiens avec Jean-Paul Sartre.Paris: Gallimard, 1981. . La Force de ge.Paris: Gallimard, 1965. . Mmoires d'une jeune fille range.Paris: Gallimard, 1958. . The Prime of Life.Translated by Peter Green. New York: Meridian, 1962. Bellah, Robert. ''Japan's Cultural Identity: Some Reflections on the Work of Watsuji Tetsuro*." Journal of Asian Studies 24, no. 4 (1965): 573-94.

611/693

Benrubi, Isaac. Les Sources et les courants de la philosophie franaise contemporaine. 2 vols. Paris: Alcan, 1933. Berdyaev, Nicolai. Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography.Translated by Katherine Lampert. New York: Macmillan, 1951. Bergson, Henri. Oeuvres.Edited by Andr Robinet. Paris: PUF, 1959. Blondel, Maurice. Action: Essai d'une critique de la vie et d'une science de la pratique.Paris: PUF, 1950. Bost, Pierre, et al. Hommage Alain. La Nouvelle Revue Franaise,September 1952. Boutroux, Emile. De la contingence des lois de la nature.Paris: Alcan, 1929. Bridoux, Andr. Alain.Paris: PUF, 1964.

612/693

Brunschvicg, Lon. Les Ecrits philosophiques.Vol. 2. Paris: PUF, 1954. . Les Etapes de la philosophie mathmatique.Paris: Alcan, 1912. . Experience humaine et la causalit physique.Paris: Alcan, 1922. . Le Gnie de Pascal.Paris: Hachette, 1924. . Idalisme contemporain.Paris: Alcan, 1905. . Introduction la vie de esprit.Paris: Alcan, 1905. . Le Progrs de la conscience dans la philosophie occidentale.2 vols. Paris: Alcan, 1927.

Page 146

Contat, Michel, and Michel Rybalka, eds. The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre.2 vols. Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1974. Deschoux, Marcel. La Philosophie de Lon Brunschvicg.Paris: PUF, 1949. Fischer-Barnicol, Hans A. "Spiegelungen-Vermittlungen." In Erinnerung an Martin Heidegger.Edited by Gnther Neske. Pfllingen: Neske, 1977. Friedmann, Georges. Leibniz et Spinoza.Paris: Gallimard, 1946. Glockner, Hermann. Heidelberger Bilderbuch: Erinnerungen von Hermann Glockner.Bonn: H. Bouvier, 1969. Goossen, Theodore W. "Myojo *." In The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan,vol. 5, p. 290. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983.

614/693

Gouhier, Henri. Introduction to Oeuvres,by Henri Bergson. Edited by Andr Robinet. Paris: PUF, 1959. Guyau, Jean-Marie. La Gense de ide de temps.Paris: Alcan, 1923. Hamelin, Octave. Essai sur les lments principaux de la reprsentation.Paris: Darbon, 1925. Heidegger, Martin. "Aus einem Gesprch von der Sprache, zwischen einem Japaner und einem Fragenden." In Unterwegs zur Sprache,pp. 83-155. Pfllingen: Neske, 1959. . Being and Time.Translated by John MacQuarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.

615/693

. [Brief an Edmund Husserl]. In Edmund Husserl, Phnomenologische Psychologie, Husserliana,band 9, pp. 600-601. Edited by Walter Biemel. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1962. . Qu'est-ce que la mtaphysique? Translated by Henri Corbin. Paris: Gallimard, 1938. . Sein und Zeit.Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1977. Huergon-Desjardins, Anne. Paul Desjardins et les dcades de Pontigny.Paris: PUF, 1964. Hume, Robert Ernst. The Thirteen Principal Upanishads.Translated by R. E. Hume. Madras: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965. Hyppolite, Jean. Introduction to La Philosophie de Lon Brunschvicg,by Marcel Deschoux. Paris: PUF, 1949.

616/693

Hytier, Jean. La Potique de Valry.Paris: A. Colin, 1953. Ikimatsu, Keizo*. "Haiderubergo no Kuki Shuzo*" (Shuzo Kuki in Heidelberg).Geppo*1 (November 1980): 3-6. Insert in Kuki Shuzo Zenshu,vol. 2. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1980. Kojima, Takehiko. "Boden* Kohan ni Haidegga* o Otonau" (Visiting Heidegger along Boden Lake). Sekai Nippo,February 13, 1981. Kuki, Shuzo. Kuki Shuzo Zenshu*(The Collected Works of Shuzo Kuki). 11 vols. and supplementary volume. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1980-1982. . Le Problme de la contingence.Translated by Hisayuki Omodaka. Tokyo: Universit de Tokio, 1966. . Propos sur le temps.Paris: Renouard, 1928.

617/693

Lavelle, Louis. La Philosophie franaise entre les deux guerres.Paris: Aubier, 1942. Lefevre, Frdric. Itinraire philosophique de Maurice Blondel,Paris: Sps, 1928. Le Senne, Ren. Le Devoir.Paris: Alcan, 1930. . Introduction la philosophie.Paris: Alcan, 1925. . Le Mensonge et le caractre.Paris: Alcan, 1930.

Page 147

. Obstacle et valeur.Paris: Aubier, 1934. Lwith, Ada. "Kuki Kyoju * no Omoide" (Remembrances of Professor Kuki). Geppo* 6 (April 1980). Translated by Akio Sato*. Insert in Kuki Shuzo* Zenshu*,vol. 5. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1980. Miki, Kiyoshi. Miki Kiyoshi Zenshu (The Collected Works of Kiyoshi Miki). Edited by Goro* Hani et al. Vol. 2. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1966. Naito*, Toshihito. "Kuki to Sarutoru" (Kuki and Sartre). Geppo 12 (March 1982): 7-9. Insert in Kuki Shuzo Zenshu,supplementary volume. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1982. Needham, Joseph. Time and Eastern Man.London: Royal Anthropological Society, 1965.

619/693

Nishida, Kitaro*. Art and Morality.Translated by David Dilworth and Valdo H. Viglielmo. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1973. . Fundamental Problems of Philosophy.Translated by David Dilworth. Tokyo: Sophia Univ. Press, 1970. . Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness.Translated by Robert Schinzinger. Tokyo: Maruzen, 1958. . A Study of Good.Translated by Valdo H. Viglielmo. Tokyo: Print Bureau of the Japanese Govt., 1960. Nitta, Y., H. Tatematsu, and E. Shimomisse*. "Phenomenology and Philosophy in Japan." In Analecta Husserliana,vol. 8, edited by AnnaTeresa Tymieniecka. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979. Nizan, Paul. Aden-Arabie.Paris: Maspro, 1971.

620/693

. Les Chiens de garde.Paris: Maspro, 1971. . La Conspiration.Paris: Gallimard, 1940. Okakura, Kakuzo*. The Ideals of the East with Special Reference to the Art of Japan. London: J. Murray, 1905. Omodaka, Hisayuki. Introduction to Le Problme de la contingence,by Shuzo Kuki. Translated by Hisayuki Omodaka. Tokyo: Universit de Tokio, 1966. . "Kuki Shuzo." In Waga Shi, Waga Tomo: Sono Shiso* to Ikikata (My Teachers, My Friends: Their Thought and Their Way of Life), pp. 28-58. Tokyo: Keizaioraisha*, 1984. Oshima, Yasumasa. "Kuki Shuzo to Guzensei* no Mondai"(Shuzo Kuki and The Problem of Contingency). Chuo Koron*,vol. 82, September 1967.

621/693

Parodi, Dominique. La Philosophie contemporaine en France.Paris: Alcan, 1919. . Le Problme moral et la pense contemporaine.Paris: Alcan, 1909. Piovesana, Gino K. Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 1862-1962.Tokyo: Sophia Univ. Press, 1968. Renouvier, Charles. Critique de la doctrine de Kant.Paris: Alcan, 1906. . Essais de critique gnrale.3 vols. Paris: A. Colin, 1912. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Les Carnets de la drle de guerre,Novembre 1939-Mars 1940. Paris: Gallimard, 1983. . Esquisse d'une thorie des motions.Paris: Hermann, 1965.

622/693

. Etre et le nant.Paris: Gallimard, 1943. . Lettres au Castor et quelques autres, 1926-1939.Paris: Gallimard, 1981. .Lettres au Castor et quelques autres, 1940-1963.Paris: Gallimard, 1981. . Imaginaire.Paris: Gallimard, 1940. . Imagination.Paris: Gallimard, 1936.

Page 148

. Oeuvres romanesques.Edited by Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka. Paris: Gallimard, 1981. Sato *, Akio. "Kuki Shuzo* Bunko ni Tsuite" (On the Shuzo Kuki Archive). Geppo*1 (November 1980): 6-8. Insert in Kuki Shuzo Zenshu*,vol. 2. Tokyo, 1980. . "Kuki Shuzo Bunko no Koto" (On the Shuzo Kuki Archive). Shiso*628 (October 1976): 121-26. Spiegelberg, Herbert. The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction.2 vols. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960. . Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry.Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1972. Steele, M. William. "Okakura, Kakuzo*." In The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, vol. 6, p. 79. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983.

624/693

Tada, Michitaro*, and Takeshi Yasuda. Iki no Kozo* o Yomu (Reading Iki no Kozo). Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1979. Tanabe, Hajime. "Genshogaku* ni okeru atarashiki TenkoHaidegga* no Sei noGenshogaku" (A New Turn in Phenomenology: Heidegger's Existential Phenomenology). Shiso,October 1924. Tezuka, Tomio. "Haidegga tono Ichijikan" (An Hour with Heidegger). In Martin Heidegger, Kotoba ni tsuiteno Taiwa (Dialogue on Language), pp. 159-66. Translated by Tomio Tezuka. Tokyo: Risosha*, 1968. Ueda, Makoto. "Iki and Sui." In The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan,vol. 3, pp. 267-68. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983. Valry, Paul. Charmes comments par Alain.Paris: Gallimard, 1952.

625/693

. Eupalinos ou architecte prcd de me et la danse.Paris: Gallimard, 1924. . Introduction la mthode de Leonardo da Vinci.Paris: Gallimard, 1968. . La Jeune Parque commente par Alain.Paris: Gallimard, 1953. . Posies: Essais sur la potique et la pote.Paris: Gugan, 1928. . Varit.5 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1952. Waley, Arthur. The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought.With Tao Te Ching translated by Arthur Waley. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1935. Watsuji, Tetsuro*. A Climate.Translated by G. Bownas. Tokyo: Print Bureau of the Japanese Gov't., 1961.

626/693

Page 149

INDEX

A
Abe *, Jiro*, 5 Abe, Sadato*, 89 Action (Blondel), 19, 37n.60 Aden-Arabie (Nizan), 15 Aesthetics: of simplicity, 9, 54, 55, 57, 58, 61; of suggestion, 9, 12, 53, 54, 56, 60, 62, 66n.14, 67n.27

628/693

See also under Art, Japanese; Kuki, Shuzo*; Symbolism, French Alain. See Chartier, Emile-Auguste Alembert, Jean Le Rond d', 93 Amano, Teiyu*, 5, 28nn. 7, 9, 31n.16, 35n.43, 36n.47 Ampre, Andr-Marie, 93 Anticipation. See under Time Architecture, Japanese, 55 Aristotle: Physics,6 Arnim, Hans Friedrich von: Stoicorum veterum fragmenta,64n.9

629/693

Aron, Raymond, 38n.75; and introduction of Sartre to phenomenology, 3, 23-24; at Pontigny, 7, 35n.46 Art, Japanese: absence of symmetry in, 56, 65n.11; absolute idealism of, 8-9, 51-54, 63; of Ashikaga period, 9, 33n.30; expression of infinite in, 8-9, 51-63, 65-67; and French Symbolism, 66n.14, 67n.27; general characteristics of, enumerated, 62-63; as inward art, 8, 10-11, 52-53, 63;

630/693

liberation from time and space in, 9, 55-56, 59-60; spirituality of, 8-9, 51-53; triple source of, 8-9, 51-52 See also Aesthetics; Architecture, Japanese; Dance, Japanese; Music, Japanese; Painting, Japanese; Poetry, Japanese; Theater, Japanese Art from the Sociological Point of View (Guyau), 96 "Art Potique" (Verlaine), 66n.14 Avadanasataku,*64n.6 Awano, Yasutaro*, 26n.4

631/693

B
Baruzi, Jean, 35n.46 Basho*, 57-59, 66n.14 Baudelaire, Charles, 66n.12, 88 Beauvoir, Simone de, 27n.6, 37n.58, 38nn. 65, 73, 39n.81; account of Sartre's introduction to phenomenology of, 3, 20; La Force de ge (The Prime of Life), 3, 23, 26n.3 Becker, Oskar, 6 Being, concept of: in Kuki-Sartre discussions, 16-17

632/693

Benda, Julien: La Trahison des clercs,13 Berdyaev, Nicolai, 7, 31n.19 Bergson, Henri, 3, 6, 11, 15, 34n.34, 36n.47, 43; critique of Kant of, 8, 72; dure of, 73-74; inner observation in, 92; and Kuki, 11-12, 20, 34-35n.41; philosophical motto of, 97; reception in Japan of, 71-74; relation to positive science of, 93; and Zen Buddhism, 73-74, 97. Works: Duration and Simultaneity,93;

633/693

Essay on the Immediate Givens of Consciousness,43, 65n.6, 71, 92; Evolution cratrice (Creative Evolution), 20, 43, 71, 92-93; Introduction to Metaphysics,71; Matter and Memory,71, 93

Page 150

"Bergson au Japon" (Kuki), 11-12, 33n.32, 34n.34, 34-35n.41 Bhagavad Gita *,44-45 Bifur,39n.76 Blondel, Maurice, 15, 20, 35n.44; Action,19, 37n.60; critique of volonte de nant of, 19; dualism in, 95 Bodhidharma, 51 Bonnet, Charles, 93 Bost, Jacques-Laurent, 36n.51 Bost, Pierre, 36n.51 Boutroux, Emile, 15, 36n.47, 73

635/693

Brhier, Emile, 3, 13, 26n.4 Breton, Andr: Nadja,13, 17 Brunschvicg, Lon, 14, 17, 19, 35n.44, 36n.48, 37n.52; influence on Sartre of, 15, 18, 37n.59; relation to positive science of, 93 Works Les Etapes de la philosophie mathmatique,16; "Orientation du rationalisme," 16; Le Progrs de la conscience dans la philosophie occidentale,15 Buddha, 51 Buddhism, 29n.13, 44, 51;

636/693

and Bushido*, 64n.12, 81; Indian, 8, 32n.24, 51; Japanese, 48-49; Mahayanan*, 64n.12; similarities with Bergsonism, 73-74; similarities with French philosophy, 97; Zen, 9, 51, 53,55, 73-74, 97 Bungeiron (Literary Studies) (Kuki), 30n.14 Buntai,38n.73 Bushido,29n.133, 50, 73, 81; and Buddhism, 8, 64n.12; and Christianity, 86; as source of Japanese art, 8-9, 52;

637/693

and transmigration, 65n.15; voluntarism in, 8, 18, 21, 49, 50

C
Cabanis, Pierre-Jean Georges, 93 "Caractres gnraux de la philosophie franaise" (Kuki), 10, 33n.32 Les Carnets de la drle de guerre, Novembre 1939-Mars 1940 (Sartre), 38n.75, 39nn. 76, 81 Carnot, Nicolas Lonard, 91 Cline, Louis-Ferdinand: Voyage au bout de la nuit,17 Chartier, Emile-August [pseud. Alain], 13, 15, 19, 35n.44, 36n.48, 39n.75, 95;

638/693

as influence on Sartre, 16-18, 36n.51, 37n.59; and Kuki, 10, 13, 18, 35-36n.47, 37n.52; propos of, 10 Works: Elments d'une doctrine radicale,17-18; Mars ou la guerre juge,17-18, 37n.58; Propos sur le bonheur,36n.51; Souvenirs concernant Jules Lagneau,36n.47; Systme des beaux arts,18, 65n.8 Chauffier, Louis-Martin, 35n.46 Les Chiens de garde (Nizan), 15

639/693

Choka*,55-56 Choses Japonaises (Kuki), 33n.32 Christianity, in Japan, 85-87 Chuang Tzu, 52, 54 Claudel, Paul, 33n.33 Cohen, Hermann, 7, 43 Composition, arbitrary. See under Painting, Japanese Comte, Auguste, 15, 20, 35n.44, 36n.47, 93-94 Condillac, Etienne Bonnot, 92 Confucianism. See Neo-Confucianism Contingency: interiorization of, as ethic, 21-22;

640/693

in philosophy of Kuki, 7, 21-22, 38nn. 68, 69; in philosophy of Sartre, 20-22, 36n.67 Corbin, Henri, 25, 39nn. 76, 81 Cournot, Antoine Augustin, 93 Couturat, Louis, 93 Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 4-6 Curtius, Ernst Robert, 6

D
Dance, Japanese, 75, 97 Darlu, Alphonse, 36n.48 Debussy, Claude, 60-61, 67nn. 20, 27

641/693

Delboeuf, Joseph, 91 Denis, Maurice, 65n.4 Descartes, Ren, 3, 15, 20, 27n.6, 35n.44, 36n.47, 73; alliance with positive science of, 93; dualism in, 94; inner observation in, 92; and Sartre, 38-39n.75 Works: Discourse on Method,95; Meditations on First Philosophy,92 Desjardins, Paul, 6 Dhyana*. See Buddhism: Zen

642/693

Discourse on Method (Descartes), 95

Page 151

Discursive Thought and Vital Experience (Nishida), 72 Du Bos, Charles, 7, 35n.46 Duhem, Pierre, 94 Duration and Simultaneity (Bergson), 93 Durkheim, Emile, 96

E
Einstein, Albert, 93 Eitoku, Kano, 65n.5 Ekstasis. See Time: ekstases of Elments d'une doctrine radicale (Alain), 17-18

644/693

Epicurus, 25, 87 Esprit,35n.45, 37n.56 Essais de critique gnrale (Renouvier), 37n.54 Essai sur les lments principaux de la reprsentation (Hamelin), 16, 37n.52 Essay on the Immediate Givens of Consciousness (Bergson), 43, 65n.6, 71 Les Etapes de la philosophie mathmatique (Brunschvicg), 16 Ethics, 49-50, 52, 73 and interiorization of contingency, 21-22 and time, 7-8 Etre et le nant (Sartre),18, 20, 39n.81 Eupalinos (Valry), 20

645/693

Evolution cratrice (Creative Evolution (Bergson), 20, 43, 65n.6, 71, 92-93 Existence, contingent, 7, 21 Existentialism, French, 19 "The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art" (Kuki), 6, 8-9, 11, 31n.20

F
Factum sur la contingence (Sartre), 20, 38n.65 Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 91 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 71 La Force de ge (The Prime of Life) (Beauvoir), 3, 23, 26n.3 Fouille, Alfred, 94

646/693

France, Anatole, 86 Freiburg Pilgrimage, 30n.15 Friedmann, Georges, 13, 17, 35n.45, 37n.56 Fudo (Climate and Culture) (Watsuji), 30n.15 Fujita, Tsuguharu, 54 Furaiberugo Mode (Freiburg Pilgrimage), 30n.15 Furyu *,11-12 "Furyu ni Kansuru Ichikosatsu" (Thoughts on Furyu)(Kuki), 11-12 "Futsudoku tetsugakkai-no genjo" (The Present Situation of French and German Philosphy) (Kuki), 33n.33

647/693

G
Gatteau, M., 35n.48 "Geisha" (Kuki), 10 Gendai Fransu Tetsugaku Kogi (Lectures on Modern French Philosophy) (Kuki), 36n.47, 36-37n.52, 37n.60 La Gense de ide de temps (Guyau), 63 Gide, Andr, 6 Glockner, Hermann, 5, 28n.10 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 5 Gogh, Vincent van, 67n.7 Gouhier, Henri, 34n.40, 34-35n.41

648/693

Great Year, conception of, 45-47, 64n.9 Guterman, Norbert, 17, 37n.56 Guyau, Jean-Marie, 7-8, 43, 95-96; Art from the Sociological Point of View,96; La Gense de l'ide de temps,63 "Guzenka* no Ronri" (The Logic of Contingency) (Kuki), 38n.69 Guzensei*(Contingency) (Kuki), 21, 38n.69 "Guzensei no Kisoteki Seikaku no Ichi Kosatsu" (Reflections on the Basic Character of Contingency) (Kuki), 38n.69 Guzensei no Mondai (The Problem of Contingency) (Kuki), 21-22, 31n.16, 34n.35, 38n.69

649/693

H
Haidegga* no Tetsugaku (The Philosophy of Heidegger) (Kuki), 23, 30n.16 Haiku,55-56, 66nn. 13, 14 Hakuin, 62, 75 Hamelin, Octave, 36n.52; Essai sur les lments principaux de la reprsentation,16, 37n.52 Hanamichi. See under Theater, Japanese Hani, Goro*, 5, 28n.9 Hanka,55 Hannequin, Arthur, 93

650/693

Page 152

Hatano, Seiichi, 28n.9 Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich, 23, 35-36n.47, 71, 94 Heidegger, Martin, 23, 25, 72; influence on Japanese philosophy of, 30n.15; influence on Kiyoshi Miki of, 28n.9; influence on Sartre of, 24-25; introduction to Kuki of, 6; knowledge of, of Kuki-Sartre encounter, 27-28n.6; and Kuki, 3-4, 7-8, 12, 22-23, 27-28n.6, 29n.13, 30nn. 15, 16, 31nn. 16, 17, 36n.47; notion of temporality of, 8, 22, 43, 46;

652/693

Sartre's letter of introduction to, 4, 27-28n.6; Sein und Zeit,7, 12, 24, 27n.6, 30n.155, 39nn. 78, 81, 72 Herodotus, 83 Herrigel, Eugen, 4 Hitomaro *, 66n.14 Hokku,55 Hokusai, 65n.7 Horiguchi, Daigaku, 38n.73 Hui-Neng, 53 Husserl, Edmund, 20, 23, 45; Japanese reception of, 26n.2, 72;

653/693

and Kuki, 3, 6, 12, 19, 29n.13, 30n.15, 36n.47, 39n.81; Logical Investigations,72; phenomenology of, 9, 19; Sartre's dissatisfaction with, 24-25, 39n.81; Sartre's reading of, 24-25 Hyppolite, Jean, 15, 36n.50

I
Ibuki, Takehiko, 3, 27n.5 Ichikawa, Yu, 38n.73 Idealism, moral, 10, 50, 52, 79-80, 87-90. See also Bushido*; Ethics

654/693

The Ideals of the East (Okakura), 9, 33n.27 Iki,6, 11, 29n.13, 32n.24, 87 Iki ni Tsuite (On Iki)(Kuki), 29n.13 Iki no Honshitsu (The Essence of Iki)(Kuki), 6, 29n.13 Iki no Kozo*(The Structure of Iki) (Kuki), 6, 29n.13, 31n.16, 34n.38 L'Imagination (Sartre), 19 Imayo-uta*,55-56 Impressionism: and Japanese music, 60-62 Infinity. See under Art, Japanese L'Introduction la mthode de Leonardo di Vinci (Valry), 20

655/693

Introduction to Metaphysics (Bergson), 71 Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness (Nishida), 72 "L'Invitation au voyage" (Baudelaire), 66n.12 Iwashita, Soichi*, 98n.2

J
Janklvitch, Vladimir, 7, 14, 35n.46 "Japanese Soul" (Kuki), 10 "Japanese Theater" (Kuki), 10 Jaurs, Jean, 6 Jesus Christ, 85-86 Le Jeune Parque (Valry), 20

656/693

"Jikan no Mondai: Berukusan to Haidegga*" (The Problem of Time: Bergson and Heidegger) (Kuki), 30n.16 Jitsuzon no Tetsugaku (The Philosophy of Existence) (Kuki), 23 Jiyu*,38n.73 Jodoron*,22 Jollivet, Simone, 36n.51, 38n.67 Joule, James Prescott, 91

K
Kalpa,45, 64n.5 Kant, Immanuel, 5, 49, 64n.13, 71, 73; Critique of Pure Reason, 4-6

657/693

Kantianism, 5, 72-73 See also Neo-Kantianism Karma,44, 64n.11 Ki-no Tsurayuki, 63 Koeber, Raphael von, 4 Kogawa, Tetsuo, 11, 27n.6, 38n.74 Kojima, Takehiko, 4, 27n.6 Kokinshu*,57, 63 Korin*, 65n.4 Koyr, Alexandre, 2, 35n.46 Kuki, Madame: diary-journal of, 28n.11, 31n.17 Kuki, Ryuichi*, 4

658/693

Kuki, Shuzo:* aesthetic of contingency of, 22; aesthetic of iki of, 29n.13; affectivity in philosophy of, 11; and Alain, 10, 13, 18, 35-36, 37n.52; and Teiyu* Amano, 28n.7, 35n.43; analysis of iki of, 6, 11, 29n.13, 32n.24, 87; analysis of Japanese art of, Continued on next page

Page 153

Kuki, Shuzo * continued from previous page 10-11, 32n.26, 33n.30; analysis of time of, 7-8, 21-22; and Oscar Becker, 6; and Bergson, 11-12, 20, 34-35n.41; and Claudel, 33n.33; contingency in philosophy of, 7, 21-22, 38nn. 68, 69; discussions with Sartre of, 3-4, 12-20, 22-23, 39n.75; education of, 4; and ethic of Bushido*,7-8, 18, 21; and French culture, 7, 10, 32n.21;

660/693

and French philosophy, 5, 15, 33n.33; and Henri Gouhier, 34-35n.41; and Heidegger, 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 22, 27-28n.6, 29n.13, 30n.15, 30-31n.16, 31n.17, 36n.47; and Husserl, 3, 12, 30n.15, 36n.47; influence of, on Sartre, 23-26; "interiorization of contingency" as ethic of, 21-22; as introducer of Sartre to phenomenology, 3-4, 17, 19, 20, 23-26, 27n.6, 34n.76; and Kyoto-ha,10, 33n.34; and Karl Lwith, 6, 31n.18; and "Matine Potique" group, 29n.14;

661/693

meetings with Sartre of, 3-4, 12-14, 22, 23, 25, 39n.75; "Monsieur Sartre" notebook of, 12-22, 35nn. 44, 47, 37n.56; and Kitaro* Nishida, 10-11, 32n.20, 34n.34; and Kakuzo* Okakura, 9, 33nn 27, 30; as philosophical flneur,11; poetics of, 22, 29n.14; at Pontigny, 6-7, 14, 35n.46; position in Japanese philosophy of, 10-11, 34n.38; and Rickert, 4-5, 28n.10; and Hajime Tanabe, 10-11, 32n.20;

662/693

as transmitter of German philosophy to France, 7, 23, 25; and Valry, 20, 22 Works: "Bergson au Japon," 11-12, 33n.32, 34n.34, 34-35n.41; Bungeiron (Literary Studies), 30n.14; "Caractres gnraux de la philosophie franaise," 10, 33n.32; Choses Japonaises,33n.32; "The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art," 6, 9, 11, 31n.20; "Furyu* ni Kansuru Ichikosatsu" (Thoughts on Furyu),11-12;

663/693

"Futsudoku tetsugak-kai-no genjo*" (The Present Situation of French and German Philosophy), 33n.33; "Geisha," 10; Gendai Fransu Tetsugaku Kogi (Lectures on Modern French Philosophy), 36n.47, 36-37n.52, 37n.60; "Guzenka* no Ronri" (The Logic of Contingency), 38n.69; Guzensei*(Contingency), 21, 38n.69; "Gusensei no Kisoteki Seikaku no Ichi Kosatsu" (Reflections on the Basic Character of Contingency), 38n.69; Guzensei no Mondai (The Problem of Contingency), 21-22, 31n.16, 34n.35, 38n.69;

664/693

Haidegga* no Tetsugaku (The Philosophy of Heidegger), 23, 30n.16; Iki ni Tsuite (On Iki),29n.13; Iki no Honshitsu (The Essence of Iki),6, 29n.13; Iki no Kozo*(The Structure of Iki),6, 29n.13, 31n.16, 34n.38; "Japanese Soul," 10; "Japanese Theater," 10; "Jikan no Mondai: Berukuson to Haidegga" (The Problem of Time: Bergson and Heidegger), 30n.16; Jitsuzon no Tetsugaku (The Philosophy of Existence), 23;

665/693

"Kyo* no Fuyu" (Kyoto Winter), 29n.12; "Nihon Bunka" (Japanese Culture), 33n.33; Nihonshi no Oin*(Rhyming in Japanese Poetry), 6, 29n.14; Ningen to Jitsuzon (Man and Existence), 23; "The Notion of Time and Repetition in Oriental Time," 6-7, 10-11, 21, 31n.20; Oin ni Tsuite (On Ryming), 6, 22; "Okakura Kakuzo* Shi no Omoide" (Remembrance of Kakuzo Okakura), 33n.27; Pari no Mado (Window on Paris), 6;

666/693

Pari no Negoto* (Paris Sleep-Talking), 6, 28n.12; Pari Shinkei (Spiritual Views of Paris), 5-6, 28-29n.12, 29n.13; Propos on Japan,10, 33n.32; Propos sur le temps,6-7, 9-10, 31-32n.20; "Two Pictures Familiar to Children," 10 "Kyo no Fuyu" (Kyoto Winter) (Kuki), 29n.12 Kyoto-ha*. See Kyoto School of Philosophy Kyoto School of Philosophy, 10, 33n.34

L
Lachelier, Jules:

667/693

Psychology and Metaphysics,92 Lagneau, Jules, 36nn. 47, 48

Page 154

Lao Tzu, 51, 53, 57; Tao Te Ching, 51-54, 57, 62 Lavelle, Louis, 19 Lefevre, Frdric, 12, 34n.41 La Lgende de la vrit (Sartre), 17 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 6, 36n.47 Leontio, 87 Le Roy, Edouard, 93, 95 Le Senne, Ren, 36n.52 Lettres au Castor et quelques autres, 1940-1963 (Sartre), 38n.73, 39n.81 Lettres au Castor et quelques autres, 1926-1939 (Sartre), 36n.51, 38nn. 65, 67

669/693

Levinas, Emmanuel, 3, 20 Logical Investigations (Husserl), 72 Lwith, Ada, 31n.18 Lwith, Karl, 6, 31n.18 Lukcs, Georg, 28n.9

M
Maine de Biran, 15, 20, 35n.44, 73, 92, 94 Malebranche, Nicolas de, 92 Marcel, Gabriel, 16-17 Mars ou la guerre juge (Alain), 17-18, 37n.58 Martin du Gard, Roger, 6

670/693

Marxism, 21; Hegelian, 28n.9 "Matine Potique," 29n.14 Matter and Memory (Bergson), 71, 93 Maybon, Albert, 61, 75 Mayer, Robert, 91 Meditations on First Philosophy (Descartes), 92 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 26, 26n.4 Meyerson, Emile, 93-95 Miki Kiyoshi, 5, 28n.9, 34n.34 Milanda-panha,43, 64n.6 Mill, John Stuart, 71 Molire, Jean Baptiste Poquelin:

671/693

Les Femmes savantes,95 Monet, Claude, 65n.5 "Monsieur Sartre" notebook (Kuki), 12-22, 35nn. 44, 47, 37n.56 Montaigne, Michel Eyquem, 95 Montesquieu, Baron de: The Spirit of Laws,73 Morhange, Pierre, 13, 17, 35n.45 Mori, Ogai *, 33n.27, 98n.1 Motoori, 79 "Le Mur" (Sartre), 38n.73 Music, Japanese, 60-62 Myojo*,5, 28n.12

672/693

Mysticism, Indian, 8-9, 11, 51-52

N
Nadja (Breton), 13, 17 Nagasena*, St., 48 Namer, Emile, 7, 35n.46 Naruse, Mukyoku, 5, 28n.9 La Nause (Sartre), 20, 23, 38n.73 Needham, Joseph, 32n.24 Neo-Confucianism, 32n.24 Neo-Kantianism, 5, 12, 71-72 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 45, 64n.7, 74, 95

673/693

"Nihon Bunka" (Japanese Culture) (Kuki), 33n.33 Nihonshi no Oin*(Rhyming in Japanese Poetry) (Kuki), 6, 29n.14 Ningen to Jitsuzon (Man and Existence) (Kuki), 23 Nirvana*,11, 48-51, 64n.11, 74 Nishida, Kitaro*, 26n.2, 28n.9, 33n.34, 72, 97; and Kuki, 10-11, 32n.20, 34n.34 Works: Discursive Thought and Vital Experience,72; Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness,72;

674/693

Zen no Kenkyu*(A Study of Good), 33-34 Nizan, Paul, 13, 17, 35n.45, 36n.49, 37n.56, 38n.75 Works: Aden-Arabie,15; Les Chiens de garde,15; La Conspiration,35n.45 Nogi, General, 79-80, 98n.1 "The Notion of Time and Repetition in Oriental Time" (Kuki), 6-7, 10-11, 21, 31n.20 La Nouvelle Revue Franaise,7 Les Nouvelles Littraires,12, 33n.32, 34n.41

675/693

O
Oin ni Tsuite (On Ryming) (Kuki), 6, 22 Okyo*, 65n.5 Okakura, Kakuzo*, 51; The Ideals of the East,9, 33n.27; and Kuki, 9, 32n.27, 33n.30 Omodaka, Hisayuki, 11, 31n.16, 34n.38, 35n.41, 36n.47, 38n.68 Ootomo* no Yakamochi, 79

Page 155

''L'Orientation du rationalisme" (Brunschvicg), 16 Oshima *, Yasumasa, 26n.4 Ouchi*, Hyoe*, 5, 28n.9

P
Painting, Japanese: arbitrary composition in, 53-54; colors in, 54, 65n.8; importance of line in, 53-55; and ink painting, 9, 54, 65n.8 Pantheism, Chinese, 8-9, 11, 51-52, 54, 58

677/693

Pari no Mado (Window on Paris) (Kuki), 6 Pari no Negoto*(Paris Sleep-Talking) (Kuki), 6, 28n.12 Pari Shinkei (Spiritual Views of Paris) (Kuki), 5, 6, 28-29n.12, 29n.13 Parodi, Dominique, 7, 35n.46, 36n.52; La Philosophie contemporaine en France,16 Pasteur, Louis, 91 Pascal, Blaise, 15, 20, 28n.9, 35n.44, 73, 92 Perspective: in art, 53-54; metaphysical, 53, 65n.4 Phenomenology, 3-4, 24-26, 26n.2; existential, 19-20, 23;

678/693

German, 3, 7, 71; Hegelian, 9; Heideggerian, 23; Husserlian, 7, 12, 19; Japanese reception of, 26n.2, 72 Philosophie,37n.56 La Philosophie contemporaine en France (Parodi), 16 Physics (Aristotle), 6 Plateau, Joseph, 91 Plato, 36n.47 Poetry, Japanese, 55-60, 65-66n.12; absence of symmetry in, 56, 65n.11;

679/693

aesthetic of suggestion in, 56-57; expression of infinite in, 9, 57, 58, 60; liberation from time in, 9, 55, 56, 59; pantheism in, 58; repetitive time in, 59; translation of, 66n.18 Poincar, Henri, 93-94 Poirier, Ren, 35n.46 Politzer, Georges, 17, 37n.56 Pontigny, dcades at, 13, 31n.19; Kuki at, 6-7, 14, 35n.46

680/693

Le Progrs de la conscience dans la philosophie occidentale (Brunschvicg), 15 Propos,10 Propos on Japan (Kuki), 10, 33n.32 Propos sur le bonheur (Alain), 36n.51 Propos sur le temps (Kuki), 6-7, 9-10, 31-32n.20 Proust, Marcel, 36n.48; Remembrance of Things Past,66n.16 La Psyche (Sartre), 24 Psychology and Metaphysics (Lachelier), 92

681/693

Qu'est-ce que la mtaphysique? (Heidegger), 25, 39nn. 76, 81

R
Ransetsu, 58 Ravaisson, Felix, 73, 92 Ravel, Maurice, 61 Renouvier, Charles, 16, 36n.52; Essais de critique gnrale,37n.54 La Revolution Surraliste,13 La Revue de Mtaphysique et de Morale,16 La Revue Marxiste,35n.45 Rexroth, Kenneth, 66n.18

682/693

Rickert, Heinrich, 28n.9, 34n.34; and Kuki, 4-5, 28n.10 "Rickerts Bedeutung fr die Japanische Philosophie" (Miki), 28n.9, 34n.34 Rolland, Romain, 67nn. 20, 22 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 5, 92; The Social Contract,73

S
Samsara,64n.5 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 4, 7, 27-28n.6, 35n.45; contingency in philosophy of, 20-22, 38n.67;

683/693

discussions with Kuki of, 3-4, 12-20, 22-23, 39n.75; dissatisfaction with Brunschvicg of, 15, 17-18; dissatisfaction with Husserl of, 24-25, 39n.81; influence of Alain on, 16-18, 36n.51, 37n.58; influence of Brunschvicg on, 15, 18; influence of Heidegger on, 24-25; influence of Kuki on, 23-26; interview with Ibuki of, 3, 12-13, 23; introduction to Kuki of, 3, 13, 26n.4; introduction to phenomenology of, 3-4, 17, 19-20, 23-26, 27n.6, 39n.76;

684/693

meetings with Kuki of, Continued on next page

Page 156

Sarte, Jean-Paul continued from previous page 3-4, 12-14, 22-23, 25, 39n.75; notation of, in "Monsieur Sartre" notebook, 14, 19, 35n.44; philosophical stance of, at Ecole Normale, 38-39n.75; at Pontigny, 35n.46; reading of Sein und Zeit of, 24, 27n.6, 39n.78; reception of, in Japan, 38n.73; similarities with Kuki of, 23; Works:

686/693

Les Carnets de la drle de guerre, Novembre 1939-Mars 1940,37n.56, 38n.75, 39n. 76, 39n.81; L'Etre et le nant,18, 20, 39n.81; Factum sur la contingence,20, 38n.65; L'Imagination,19; La Lgende de la vrit,17; Les Lettres au Castor et quelques autres, 1940-1963,38n.73, 39n.81; Les Lettres au Castor et quelques autres, 1926-1939,36n.51, 38nn. 65, 67; "Le Mur," 38n.73; La Nause,20, 23, 38n.73; La Psyche,24

687/693

Sato *, Akio, 12, 26n.4 Sato, Saku [pseud. Ryu Sekimizu], 38n.73 Scent of Faith (Seng-ts'an*), 55 Scheler, Max, 72 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm: Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom,13 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 5, 64n.10, 74, 80 Sculpture, Japanese, 55 Sedoka*,55 Sein und Zeit (Heidegger), 7, 12, 24, 27n.6, 30n.15, 39nn. 78, 81, 74 Sekimizu, Ryu. See Sato, Saku Semimaru, 7, 60

688/693

Seng-ts'an: Scent of Faith, 55 Seppuku,80 Serupan,38n.73 Sesshu*, 9, 65n.8 Shin-Kokinshu*,57 Shuzo* Kuki Archive, 28n.11, 32n.21, 35n.43 Sisyphus, Myth of, 21, 49 Soami*, 65n.4 The Social Contract (Rousseau), 73 Socrates, 45, 46, 64n.9 Song of the Experience of Truth, 55 Soul, Japanese, 79-80

689/693

Souvenirs concernant Jules Lagneau (Alain), 36n.47 Space: Klein-Clifford notion of, 45; liberation from, 9, 51, 54-55; use of, in art, 52, 53 Spencer, Herbert, 71 Spiegelberg, Herbert, 27n.6, 37n.59 Spinoza, Baruch de, 94 The Spirit of Laws (Montesquieu), 73 Stoicism, 9, 18, 45 Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (Arnim), 64n.9 Strachey, Lytton, 7

690/693

Suars, Andr, 26, 63 Surrealism, 17 Symbolism, French, 9; and inward art of Japan, 67n.27 Systme des beaux-arts (Alain), 18, 65n.8

T
Takeda, Shingen, 89 Tanabe, Hajime, 30n.15, 33n.34; and Kuki, 10-11, 32n.20 Tanizaki, Junichiro*, 28n.7 Tanka,5, 55-56

691/693

Tao,32n.24, 51-54 Taoism, 32n.24, 51-54 Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu), 32n.24, 51-54, 57, 62 Temporality. See Time Tezuka, Tomio, 27n.6, 30n.15, 31n.16 Theater, Japanese, 75-76 LeThtre Japonais (Maybon), 61, 75 Theophrastus, 87 Theresa, St., 85 Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche), 64n.7 Time: agrarian, 47; anticipation as characteristic of, 7, 43;

692/693

canonical, 47; cyclical, 32n.24, 44; ekstases of, 8, 46; Heideggerian notion of, 8, 22, 43, 46; identical, 45-47, 50, 65n.15; irreversible, 46; in Japanese art, 9, 56, 59, 60; liberation from, 8, 10, 48-51; linear, 21, 32n.24; lived, 45; measurable 45; mystical, 46; objective notion of, 32n.24;

693/693

Oriental, 8, 21, 32n.24, 43-45, 63; periodic, 8, 43-47, 50, 64n.5, 65n.15; phenomenological, 46; positivist notion of, 47; repetitive, 59; reversible, 45-47; self in, 47-48; subContinued on next page