245
The Buddha Amitabha, here shown
between Kannon (Compassion) and
Seishi (Wisdom), is the principal buddha
of the Pure Land school of Buddhism,
to which Shinran belonged.
See also: Siddharta Gautama 30–33 ■ Socrates 46–49 ■ St. Augustine of Hippo 72–73 ■ Edmund Husserl 224–25 ■
Martin Heidegger 252–55 ■ Jacques Derrida 308–13
THE MODERN WORLD
to Tanabe because of the way he
frankly confessed that he knew
nothing. According to the story, the
oracle at Delphi said that Socrates
was the wisest man in Athens, and
Socrates, who was certain of his
own ignorance, set out to prove the
oracle wrong. After innumerable
conversations with people in Athens,
he came to the conclusion that he
was indeed the wisest person in
the city, because he alone could
accept that he knew nothing.
The Japanese roots of Tanabe’s
idea go back to the thought of the
Buddhist monk Shinran, who
belonged to what is known as the
Pure Land school of Buddhism.
Shinran’s innovation was his claim
that enlightenment is impossible if
we rely on our own power. Instead,
we must confess our own ignorance
and limitations, so that we are open
to what both Shinran and Tanabe
call tariki, or “other power.” In the
context of Pure Land Buddhism,
this other power is that of the
Buddha Amitabha. In the context
of Tanabe’s philosophy, confession
leads to a recognition of “absolute
nothingness”, and ultimately to
self-awakening and wisdom.Forsaking ourselves
For Tanabe, then, philosophy is
not about discussing the finer
points of logic, or about arguing
or debating anything—it is not,
in fact, an “intellectual” discipline.
For Tanabe, it is something much
more fundamental—a process of
relating, in the deepest possible
sense, to our very own being—an
idea that is partly shaped by his
reading of Martin Heidegger.For a problem
to belong to philosophy,
there must be something
inconceivable in it.
Hajime TanabeIt is only through confessing,
Tanabe believes, that we can
rediscover our true being—a
process he describes in directly
religious terms as a form of death
and resurrection. This death and
resurrection is the rebirth of the
mind through “other power”, and
its passing from the limited view
of the “self” to the perspective of
enlightenment. However, this shift
is not simply a preparation for
philosophy—on the contrary, it is
the very work of philosophy itself,
which is rooted in scepticism and
the “forsaking of ourselves to the
grace of other power.” Philosophy,
in other words, is not an activity
that we engage in, but something
that happens through us when we
gain access to our true selves by
letting go of the self—a phenomenon
that Tanabe calls “action without
an acting subject.”
Continual confession is, Tanabe
writes, “the ultimate conclusion”
to which the recognition of our
limitations drives us. In other
words, Tanabe asks us not to find
new answers to old philosophical
questions, but to re-evaluate the
very nature of philosophy. ■Hajime Tanabe
Hajime Tanabe was born in
Tokyo, Japan, in 1885. After
studying at Tokyo University,
he was appointed associate
professor of philosophy at Kyoto
University, where he was an
active member of what became
known as the Kyoto School
of philosophy. In the 1920s,
he spent time in Germany
studying with the philosophers
Edmund Husserl and Martin
Heidegger, and after his returnto Japan he was appointed to
the post of full professor. He
was deeply affected by World
War II, and when it ended in
1945 he retired from teaching
philosophy. Tanabe’s book
Philosophy as Metanoetics was
published a year later, in 1946.
After his retirement, Tanabe
dedicated the remainder of his
life to meditation and writing.Key works1946 Philosophy as Metanoetics