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Contemporary Buddhism: An
Interdisciplinary Journal
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Japanese Buddhist Thought and

Continental Philosophy: Three
Perspectives
Dennis Hirota
Published online: 17 Oct 2014.

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To cite this article: Dennis Hirota (2014) Japanese Buddhist Thought and Continental
Philosophy: Three Perspectives, Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal,
15:2, 432-432, DOI: 10.1080/14639947.2014.936660
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2014.936660

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JAPANESE BUDDHIST THOUGHT AND
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY: THREE
PERSPECTIVES

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Dennis Hirota
The three articles published here were originally presented at workshops held
under the auspices of Ryukoku University in Kyoto in 2011 and 2012. (A fourth
article, Heidegger and Nishitani on Nature and Technology by Graham Parkes,
has already been published elsewhere.) The meetings were part of a series
organized with the aim of developing fresh understandings of the implications for
contemporary life of traditional Japanese Buddhist thought. The three-year
project, now concluded, sought to explore the possibilities of illuminating vital
aspects of Japanese Buddhist thinking by viewing it, in its various strains, in the
light of European continental philosophy. Sponsored by the Ryukoku Research
Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Religion, Science, and the Humanities, it also
included two meetings held at the Harvard University Center for the Study of
World Religions, in which some of the contributors here also participated.
Over the past century, Japanese thinkers trained in western philosophy such
as Nishida Kitaro, Nishitani Keiji, and Takeuchi Yoshinori have sought to articulate
the stance of Japanese Buddhist thinking in relation to western philosophical
issues and modes of thought. On the whole, however, religious scholars within
sectarian Buddhist institutions have retained a highly conservative posture,
seeking to preserve and transmit doctrinal orthodoxies developed during the
Tokugawa period. At the same time, western specialists of Japanese religions have
been inclined to focus any philosophical interests on the Zen tradition and have
tended to view other major forms of Buddhism in Japanthe Shin Buddhist Pure
Land tradition of Shinran, in particularwithin the parameters of western
religious traditions, informed largely by Christian presuppositions.
As illustrated in the diversity of articles presented here, the themes and
approaches of continental philosophy since Hegel offer particularly rich resources
for elucidating Japanese Buddhist thinking by highlighting the sometimes striking
resonances and revealing divergences, and by dislodging Japanese Buddhist
doctrinal stances from their traditional footing and bringing them clearly to bear
on matters of contemporary life.
Contemporary Buddhism, 2014
Vol. 15, No. 2, 432, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14639947.2014.936660
q 2014 Taylor & Francis