On Tanabes Logic of Species :: Philosophy Japan Papers

On Tanabe's Logic of Species Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962), another pole of the so-called Kyoto-School of Philosophy of modern Japan, attempts to construct a dialectical, triadic logic of genus, species and individual as a creative synthesis between Eastern and Western philosophy. Although the formal pattern of his method is influenced by the Hegelian dialectic, the way of his thinking is rather prevailed by Kantian dualism. This makes a sharp contrast to his mentor Nishida Kitaro, whose logic of Topos or Place qua Absolute Nothingness is criticized as all-embracing and static in character by him. The difference between them might be parallel to that of Greek and Latin theology concerning the Trinity. Tanabe never presupposes any preexistent entity as the primordial One in the eternal dimension, but rather maintains the individuality as the free subjective agent in the field of history. The dichotomy between the universal and the individual is overcome in and through the mediation of the third term — the spec ies — as the negatively self-realized, specific form of the genus. The species, however, turns out to be the self-estrangement, when it loses the perpetually negative mediation of the free subjective activity of the individual. The species-like substrative being, in its function of negative mediation, is necessary for an individual subject to arise in accordance with the universal genus. The substratum retains its self-identity in the form of continuum, though it contains the negatively opposed moment within itself. The self-identity is no other than the balance between the continuum and the moment of negative opposition. That is, the substratum as matter is the self-negating mediation to a spiritual subject. Spirit cannot manifest itself without the negativity matter has. The substrative continuity of matter is the mediator to the subjective action of the individual person, and functions as the expedient being or means for it. The universal genus is to be actualized only through the mediation of the individual practical subject, and the individual must negatively mediate its own egoity, i. e. , radical evil hidden in the bottom of itself, tending to cling to its self-identity, to be purified through repent ance. This is the self-realization of the principle of the mutual identification of Pathos and Nous. The Pathos corresponds to the species-like substratum, and the sin and evil involved in that substratum is to be purified through its active subjectification. The individual does not disappear into the universality, but rather the universality is to be realized in the individual through the mediation of a particular species as the material substrative being.