Events Nishida and Mahāyāna

The relationship between Nishida's philosophy and Mahayana Buddhism has always been one of the most debated topics within Kyoto School studies. Two South American scholars will discuss it starting with Nagarjuna and the concept of absolute nothingness, thus introducing us to how Nishida's philosophy is currently interpreted in the Spanish-Portuguese linguistic area.

April 27, 2024

20:00-23:00 pm (Japanese time) 

N.B.: This seminar will take place in Spanish, Portuguese and English. It will be possible to ask questions using other languages.

Speakers: 

1) Carlos Barbosa Cepeda（Universidad Pedagógica Nacional de Colombia）: 

¿Hasta qué punto es Nishida un filósofo mahāyāna? Algunas consideraciones desde su último ensayo y la lógica del lugar

Abstract: 

Es bastante claro que el budismo mahāyāna ejerce una significativa influencia en el pensamiento de Nishida Kitarō. John Maraldo señala que dicha influencia va mucho más allá del número de citas explícitas que aparecen en las obras del filósofo japonés. Ese número, además, crece a medida que pasan los años hasta la aparición de su último ensayo, “La lógica del lugar y la cosmovisión religiosa” (「場所的論理と宗教的世界観」), trabajo en el cual Nishida afirma explícitamente que su lógica del lugar desarrolla el pensamiento mahāyāna expresado en la literatura de los sutras Prajñāpāramitā; y, desde esa línea de pensamiento, articula su cuestionamiento de la lógica de objetos.

Ahora bien, ¿hasta qué punto es Nishida consistente con el pensamiento mahāyāna? Abordar esta pregunta en toda su extensión requeriría un largo estudio de toda su obra. No obstante, creo que se puede comenzar a abordar la pregunta desde「場所的論理と宗教的世界観」. Mi propuesta es contrastar este último ensayo de Nishida con la filosofía de Nāgārjuna, figura fundacional del mahāyāna como filosofía.

2) Lucas Nascimento Machado（Director of the Latin-American Network of Intercultural Philosophy (ALAFI)）:

Emptiness of Emptiness or Absolute Nothing? On Dialectics and Negation in Nāgārjuna and Nishida

Abstract: 

Although, as is well known, Nishida draws deeply from his Zen-Buddhist background to formulate his concept of absolute nothing, one can still ask to what extend Nishida’s understanding of that concept is close to what a certain part of the Buddhist traditions – specially those of the Madhyamika strand – understand to be the concept not of nothingness, but rather of emptiness, Śūnyatā. In fact, if one takes Nāgārjuna’s approach to the concept of emptiness, which sometimes is approximated to a skeptical point of view, emptiness, as the negation of all self-being, of all svabhāva, must be itself empty, i.e., must itself not have any self-being, and thus only be real in interdependence with the phenomena of which it is the emptiness. In other words, Nāgārjuna’s conception of emptiness denies that anything subsists by means of self-determination and in no relationship to anything other than it, emptiness included. On the other hand, Nishida often uses the concept of absolute nothing or of place together with the concept of “self-determination” or of “self-determination of the place”. In fact, according to Nishida, it is by means of the self-determination of the place that the individual and the universal can come to determining themselves and one another. To what extent, however, this idea of self-determination would be compatible with Nāgārjuna’s concept of emptiness and its denial of all svabhāva? This shall be the topic of our presentation. 

Here the link for the seminar: 

Entra Zoom Riunione

ID riunione: 885 6694 3620

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