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Finding a Common Ground: Löwith and Nishida

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2018

ANTOINE CANTIN-BRAULT
ANTOINE CANTIN-BRAULT*
Affiliation:
Université de Saint-Boniface
*
*<acantinbrault@ustboniface.ca>
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Abstract

Karl Löwith moved to Japan in 1936 where he became acquainted with the founder of the School of Kyôto, Nishida Kitarô. Löwith was unable to appreciate the meaning of Nishida’s philosophy and maintained, until the late 1940s, a Eurocentric point of view regarding Japanese culture. Nonetheless, beyond this missed historical encounter between Löwith and Nishida lies a space of philosophical common ground located in a shared understanding of time and history that puts much emphasis on the eternal present and the impossibility of thinking history as a linear progression bringing salvation, as some philosophies of history have attempted to prove.

Karl Löwith quitte pour le Japon en 1936 et y rencontre le fondateur de l’École de Kyôto, Nishida Kitarô. Incapable de saisir la philosophie de Nishida, Löwith maintiendra, jusqu’à la fin des années 1940, un point de vue eurocentrique sur la culture japonaise. Cependant, au-delà de cette rencontre manquée entre Löwith et Nishida, il est possible d’apercevoir un terrain d’entente dans leur façon d’approcher le temps et l’histoire. Tous deux, en effet, insistent sur le présent éternel et l’impossibilité de penser l’histoire comme une progression linéaire vers le salut, contrairement à ce que certaines philosophies de l’histoire ont tenté de démontrer.

Keywords

Karl LöwithNishida Kitarôhistoryeternal presentNature/physisnothingness
Type
Special Issue: Philosophy and its Borders
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 251 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2018 

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