Events 19th Permanent Seminar on Nishida Philosophy "Experience, language, and intuition: a hermeneutic dialogue between Gadamer and Nishida"

In this seminar, the speaker will offer a dialogical interpretation of the relationship between Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and Nishida Kitarō’s concept of pure experience. Rather than viewing them as conflicting traditions, he will argue that both articulate a non-methodological understanding of experience as a transformative and participatory event. First, he will analyze the hermeneutic structure of experience (Erfahrung) in Gadamer, highlighting its dialogical, historical, and linguistic character. Second, he will explore Nishida’s notion of pure experience (junsui keiken) as a pre-reflective unity prior to the subject-object distinction. Third, he will suggest that both perspectives converge toward a conception of intuitive knowledge grounded in lived praxis and self-transformation. Drawing on Kyoto School scholarship, he will further argue that this convergence can be articulated within a non-dualistic framework of experience. In conclusion, he will show that the dialogue between Gadamer and Nishida opens a path for intercultural hermeneutics capable of rethinking the philosophical understanding of experience beyond modern epistemological dualisms.
 

The speaker:

Leonardo Marques Kussler is postdoctoral fellow (PIPD CAPES) in the Graduate Program in Philosophy at UNISINOS, Brazil, and in Humanities at Takachiho University, Tokyo. Member of the Gadamer Society of Japan (ガダマー協会, Tokyo, Japan), the Red Iberoamericana de Hermenéutica (Latin American Hermeneutics Network), and DEMO - a design-fiction lab (UERJ/ESDI, Brazil).

June 26, 2026
16:00-17:30 pm (Japanese time)
Hybrid Conference: Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture (Room 217) and Zoom
 
N.B.: This seminar is organized in collaboration with ENOJP and will take place in English. It will be possible to ask questions using other languages.
 
For the zoom link