Presentation at the 5th Annual Conference of the European Network of Japanese Philosophy
Venue: Nanzan University Nagoya, Japan
Date: 29 August – 1 September 2019
Presentation title: “In-between Watsuji’s and Spinoza’s Ethics: Questioning the Relation between Individuality and Commonalty”
This presentation is a part of ongoing research focused on the obscure notion of kata in relation to Watsuji’s Ethics. Central to the research is the concept of kata or in Watsuji’s own words rin, a means of practical individual connection or fellowship, where these specific kata (forms or patterns) circumscribe the topology of human interaction within which human relationships take place. The newly expanded scope of inquiry allows for kata to be investigated as a generic technique for the self-creation and self-transformation of individuals, similar to Michel Foucault’s technologies of the self considered an ethical and aesthetic paradigm dating back to European antiquity. In the same vein, this presentation expands further the inquiry on kata as a technology of the self that delineates a Japanese form of ethics, in contrast to Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics one of the most philosophically revered and influential texts on the matter in the West. Spinoza speaks of two possible modes of existence where one can live either in a rightful or a wrongful way, where virtuous life naturally supports a rightful mode of being in the world. This is somewhat similar to the function of the kata itself which posits a framework for morality in the sense that one’s actions can be said to be rightful or in-kata as well as wrongful or out-of-kata.
Watsuji and Spinoza both emphasize the importance of reason in under- standing the highest good common to all men. Therefore, I will argue that this mutual emphasis on the understanding of the highest good is articulated in Watsuji as a moral ethos based on reason and founded on the use of kata, at the same time attempting to establish a comparative framework within Spinoza’s Ethics. This comparison will be based on a shared view, in both Watsuji and Spinoza, on the importance of concrete human existence as a part of a greater socially entangled existence. Both Watsuji and Spinoza, find that the true starting point for ethics must be this concrete human existence whilst at the same time underlining the role of human beings as contemplating subjects. This presentation tries to establish a starting point for the possibility of a comparison of these two philosophers based on what they share in common, an ethical approach based on the dynamic nature of the relation between the individual and the communal.
