Nihilism and emptiness: Nishitani's encounter with Nietzsche

In this thesis, I examine the relationship between the Kyoto School philosopher, Nishitani Keiji, and the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, focusing on the two thinkers’ respective approaches to the problem of nihilism. The work begins by positioning Nishitani’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s account of nihilism with reference to diverse readings of Nietzsche in Western scholarship. I then consider the development of Nishitani’s reading of Nietzsche from his lecture series on nihilism, The Self- Overcoming of Nihilism, through to his magnum opus, Religion and Nothingness. I make two key contributions to recent scholarly debate on Nishitani’s relationship to Nietzsche. The first is to emphasise the importance of Nishitani’s response to the idea of eternal recurrence for understanding his critical approach to Nietzsche’s thinking. I argue against the view, offered by Bret Davis, that Nishitani’s criticisms of Nietzsche are primarily based on the former’s negative assessment of the idea of will to power. The second contribution is to situate Nishitani’s critical approach to eternal recurrence within his broader attempt to formulate a Zen-influenced conception of temporality and historicity. I then argue for the necessity of this conceptual background for coming to grips with his conception of the ‘transhistorical’ grounds of historicity in emptiness (śūnyatā), as outlined in the later chapters of Religion and Nothingness.

Existência e liberdade: a trans-descendência extática da vida no livro A religião e o nada de Nishitani Keiji

The dialog between the East philosophy and the Western thinking allow us to think the problems inherent to our time from several point of views. Nishitani Keiji, from the Kyoto School, sees the contemporaneity, or the time of the technic, for Heidegger, as derivation and as an immediate consequence of perspective introduced in the modern era form the Cartesian s cogito which creates a barrier that separates man and world. Scientific thinking that dominates our era was created from the thinking that ennobles human reason to the detriment of the others things in the world, determining that the knowledge just can be produced by the man himself and his set of rational powers. However, alerts us Nishitani, this point of view derived from modern thought which imposes subjectivity egocentric type besides not apprehend things in their truth, neither achieves the true self of man. In an attempt to overcome the abuses produced in modernity and that reverberates in our way of be until today, our philosopher will propose the point of view of the nothingness (śūnyatā) as a way to trans-descendance, that is, to overcome the traditional thinking overvalues the reason for the encounter with the original face of man, which by no longer impose its cognitive power can know all things in their true, in the tathatā