Watsuji’s Balancing Act: Changes in his Understanding of Individuality and Totality from 1937 to 1949

A Critical Recuperation of Watsuji’s Rinrigaku

“…Sevilla ( 2014a , p. 112) notes that this account is somewhat puzzling: ‘But what does this self-awareness actually accomplish? Why take the detour towards individuality, if only to negate the individual again to realize totality?’ Sevilla ( 2014a , p. 105) believes that one should look to the third volume of Rinrigaku to resolve the ambiguities in the account of double negation contained in the first volume; if we do so, he argues, we can appreciate that ‘individuality … guides social change by intuiting how the totality ought to be.’ It is clear, then, that what troubles Sevilla ( 2014a ) in Rinrigaku’s first volume is that, in insisting that individuality be negated in the interest of totality, Watsuji backgrounds the question of whether the demands of totality are justifiable.…”

“…Sevilla ( 2014a ) expresses a legitimate concern; but we think we need not look so far as the third volume of Rinrigaku to address it. Specifically, we think that, in arguing that ethics demands that the individual, having negated totality, be negated and return to it, Rinrigaku has in mind not just any society, but the case of ningen sonzai (relational existence) in which ningen (humans) are truly ningen .…”

“…Because we are interested in the intention behind the first volume of Rinrigaku , we do not attempt to read the text in light of Watsuji’s other writings. 2 Nor do we attempt to resolve interpretive questions in light of either the political pressures that, at different times, may have acted upon Watsuji’s working out of his account of ethics in the different volumes of Rinrigaku (see Sevilla 2014a , pp. 125–126), or the religio-cultural influences silently informing that account (see Nagami 1981 ; Lafleur 1978 ).…”

The Buddhist Roots of Watsuji Tetsurô's Ethics of Emptiness

“…First, the balance between individuality and totality as reflected in the “shape” of the movement of double‐negation and the functions of individuality and totality (particularly surrounding social change) has shifted erratically from the pre‐war to the wartime to the post‐war volumes of Ethics (as discussed in Sevilla ). This is something that directly involves the Buddhism‐influenced notion of emptiness.…”

“…Steve Bein has partially translated this book as Purifying Zen: Watsuji Tetsurô's Shamon Dôgen (2011). This book may have single-handedly rescued Dôgen from obscurity, and can be said to be one of Watsuji's most significant contributions to Buddhism (Sevilla 2013;M€ uller 2009). Other works on Buddhism include The Practical Philosophy of Primitive Buddhism (Genshi Bukkyô no jissen tetsugaku, 1927), Further Studies on the History of Japanese Spirit (Zoku Nihon seishinshi kenkyû, 1935), and his last book, The Early Development of Buddhist Philosophy (Bukkyô tetsugaku no saisho no tenkai, posthumously published).…”