Kuki Shūzō

Kuki Shūzō ( Japanese. 九 鬼 周 造 ; * February 15, 1888 in Tokyo Prefecture , † May 6, 1941 in Kyoto ) was a Japanese philosopher and university professor.

biography

Shūzō was the fourth child of Baron Kuki Ryūichi ( 九 鬼 隆 一 ), an official of the Ministry of Education and Instruction ( Mombu-shō ). When Kuki's mother, Hatsuko, became pregnant and fell in love with Okakura Kakuzō , also known as Okakura Tenshin, the unfounded rumor surfaced that Okakura might be Kuki's father. Still, Okakura, who frequently visited Kuki after their parents separated and divorced, can be seen as a role model who influenced Kuki. While Okakura owes his fascination with aesthetics, and probably foreign languages, to Okakura, his interest in Japanese hot spots probably stems from the fact that his mother once worked as a geisha herself .

At the age of 23 in 1911, Shūzō was baptized and converted to Catholicism. After graduating in philosophy from Tōkyō University , he spent eight years in Europe to deepen his language skills and his studies of contemporary Western thought. At the University of Heidelberg he studied with the neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert, and hired Eugen Herrigel as a tutor. At the University of Paris he got to know Henri Bergson and his work and hired the young Jean-Paul Sartre as a French tutor.

Outside of Japan it is little known that Kuki sparked Jean Paul Sartre's interest in Martin Heidegger's philosophy . Kuki studied phenomenology with Edmund Husserl at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg , where he met Martin Heidegger for the first time in Husserl's house. Later he went to the University of Marburg to hear Heidegger's lectures on Kant and to take part in his seminar "Schelling's essay on the essence of human freedom". Fellow students during the stay in Europe were Watsuji Tetsurō and Miki Kiyoshi .

Shortly after his return to Japan, he wrote and published his major work "The Structure of Iki" (1930), with which he inspired generations of Japanese writers and thinkers. In this work he performs a phenomenological analysis of Iki and stated that Iki is a central value / component of Japanese culture. He taught at Kyoto University , an eminent center for conservative cultural values ​​and ways of thinking. His first lectures focused on Descartes and Bergson.

In 1933 he became a private lecturer. In the same year he published the first long study on Heidegger in Japanese. In March 1934 he qualified as professor of philosophy. In the following year he published the "Problem of Contingency" ( 偶然性 の 問題 , Gūzensei no mondai ), in which his personal experiences during his stay in Europe and the influences of Heidegger flowed. His lectures on Heidegger at the University of Kyoto were published in 1939 under the title, "Man and Existence" ( 人間 と 実 存 , Ningen to jitsuzon ).

In 1941, Kuki died of complications from peritonitis . Like Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Kuki is buried in the Hōnen'in temple complex in Kyoto. A stanza from Goethe's Wanderer's Night Song is engraved on his tombstone .

Major works

• 1930 The structure of "Iki" ( 「い き」 の 構造 , "iki" no kōzo )
• 1933 Heidegger's Philosophy ( Haideggā no tetsugaku )
• 1935 The Problem of Contingency ( 偶然性 の 問題 , Gūzensei no mondai )
• 1939 Man and Existence ( 人間 と 実 存 , Ningen to jitsuzon )
• 1941 An Essay on the Fine Arts ( 文 芸 論 , Bungeiron )

credentials

1. Sakabe Megumi, Washida Seiichi, Fujita Masakatsu (eds.): Kuki Shūzō no sekai . Minerva Shobō, Tōkyō 2002.
2. Hiroshi Nara: The Structure of Detachment: the Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shūzō with a translation of "Iki no kōzō." Honolulu 2004
3. Graham Parkes: Heidegger and Asian Thought . University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1990. ISBN 978-0-8248-1312-3
4. Tekeshi Yasuda, Tada Michitarō: "Iki" no kōzō o yomu . Asahi Sensho, Tōkyō 1979

Web links

• Text edition of the works by Aozora Bunko (Japanese)

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Kuki is the family name, Shūzō the first name.