Raji C. Steineck

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Raji C. Steineck (actually Christian Carl Ludwig Steineck ; * 1966 ) is a German Japanologist and philosopher .

Life

Steineck studied Japanese studies, philosophy and musicology at the University of Bonn and graduated in 1993 with a Magister Artium. In 1999 he obtained his doctorate there in philosophy. During and after his doctoral studies, he worked as a freelance IT consultant. After completing his doctorate, he held teaching positions at the Universities of Bonn and Frankfurt am Main . In 2001/02 he was a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) visiting researcher at the University of Kyoto . From 2002 to 2006 he worked as a research assistant on the "Bioethical Conflicts in Japan" project of the Research Center for Modern Japan at the University of Bonn, which was funded by the German Research Foundation. In 2006 he received his habilitation in Bonn. In 2007 he represented the professorship for the history of culture and ideas in Japan at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main . Steineck has been associate professor for philological and cultural Japanese studies at the University of Zurich since 2008, and since 2014 full professor . From 2012 to 2018 he was chairman of the Society for Japanese Research (GJF) together with Katja Schmidtpott . He is also President of the International Society for the Study of Time (ISST).

Steineck learned fighting techniques (Kikōdō, modern variant of Taijiquan ) in Japan in 1997 , which he developed together with two other trainers and offered as Longdao Kung Fu in Bonn.

He has published as Raji C. Steineck since 2011 , previously as Christian Steineck .

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1. Mysticism and Zen Buddhism / Dōgen research

In his book Basic Structures of Mystical Thinking , Steineck tries to prove that the correspondences between the mystical teachings of different religions can be explained by the logical consequences of common basic assumptions. In doing so, he opposes the thesis that they are based directly on a unified mystical experience or are proof of the truth of mystical teachings. To prove this, he compares texts by Christian mystics ( Meister Eckhart , Nicolaus Cusanus , Jakob Böhme ) and Zen Buddhist masters ( Huangbo , Bankei , Dōgen ). All share the idea that ordinary reality is carried by a “perfect reality” (a perfect, perfect reality) to which in principle every person can gain access: “The mystical 'truth' [...] is often realized in a 'Unity', characterized by lack of distance and immediacy, to something that occurs in this relationship with the authority of the absolutely valuable. Religiously and ideologically neutral, this non-representationally conceived 'something' could be called 'perfect reality'. "For the mystics, the awareness of unity with this perfect reality is the highest goal of human existence.

In the main part of the work, Steineck analyzes in detail how the examined authors describe this perfect reality and the access to it. He also goes into the differences between them and shows how the concept of perfect reality affects the interpretation of traditional dogmas of the respective religions. He shows that, as a consequence of their basic assumption, the mystics are led to relativize or reinterpret core elements of traditional religion such as the creation story or the role of Jesus in Christianity or the karma concept and central rules of behavior in Buddhism. This leads either to breaks in their thinking or to conflicts with the respective traditions and their established institutions. It is precisely at these points that the peculiarities of the respective mystical thinkers develop.

In the final chapter, Steineck works out the logical connection between the common elements of the mystical teachings. He also draws the conclusion that there can be no such thing as “pure mysticism” because the idea of ​​perfect reality excludes certainty. According to Steineck, mystical thinking is therefore dependent on the fact that it can take up already-finished ideas of the world and incorporate them into its own teaching.

A review on the basic structures of mystical thinking emphasizes that “the author works very closely on the original texts of the various mystics”, which makes “his argumentation very enriching and convincing”, but criticizes: “The answers to the questions asked at the beginning are short and abstract. "

Following the basic structures of mystical thought , Steineck published various translations ( Genjōkōan , Busshō , Sokushin zebutsu , Shinjin gakudō ) and analyzes of the writings of the Japanese Zen monk Dōgen . He initially focused on the philosophical interpretation of his works and presented Dōgen as the representative of a rational worldview. In particular, he discussed the philosophical potential of Dōgen's statements on body and soul. Later he turned more to the contextualization of Dōgens writings and made z. B. out the ritual aspect of Zen meditation, the dōgen with enlightenment . Further studies deal with the genres and the practical use of the texts written by Dōgen and those present in his monastery, or with the concept of authorship that is visible in his work.

2. Technology and bioethics

From 2002 to 2006, Steineck was a member of the DFG research group “Cross-Cultural Bioethics”. During this time, various reports and analyzes on bioethical discussions in Japan were made. The focus was on the criticism of the concept of brain death as well as the examination of body concepts in Japanese bioethics, which Steineck used to discuss philosophical-anthropological problems.

As a result, he pleads for a pluralism of body views that takes into account the method with which the respective concept of the body is obtained. In his opinion, the tracing back of bodily phenomena to organic-material processes is necessary and legitimate for medicine, but must not be exaggerated to the extent that only the organic is considered real. With every intervention on the human body, its symbolic dimension must be taken into account.

Steineck considers the concept of brain death to be untenable and argues that the clinically dead brain should not be considered dead. In his opinion, this means that organ removal from the brain-dead requires the prior consent of the donor.

In addition to bioethical issues, Steineck also deals with technical ethical issues. In a contribution on the ethics of nuclear power, he analyzes this technology on the basis of Günter Ropohl's technical-ethical model with a view to its temporal dimensions. He comes to the conclusion that, given the length of time that nuclear facilities have to be monitored and maintained, there are no human individuals or social organizations who could take responsibility for them. The use of nuclear technology is therefore “organized irresponsibility” from the outset and massive damage to people and the environment is the normal case to be expected.

3. Critique of the symbolic forms

Both Steineck's work on mysticism and his investigations into the conception of the body in dōgen and the body concepts in bioethics are influenced by Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms . In his Critique of Symbolic Forms I: Symbolic Form and Function , he then announces their “critical further development” in dealing with Japanese sources and theories . In the volume in question, however, he only begins to take stock of the essential contents, strengths and weaknesses of Cassirer's theory. In the words of one review, he argues "convincingly for the necessary material fixation of all thoughts in symbols."

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Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Second individualized GND data set , German National Library , accessed on March 13, 2012.
  2. ↑ Short biography , website of the JSPS Bonn Office, accessed on March 13, 2012.
  3. ↑ gjf.de , GJF website, accessed on November 5, 2013.
  4. ↑ studyoftime.org , ISST website, accessed on November 5, 2013.
  5. ↑ Die Trainer , website of the Longdao Kung Fu Association for Martial Arts eV, accessed on October 31, 2015.
  6. ↑ Basic structures of mystical thinking. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, pp. 17-18.
  7. ↑ Basic structures of mystical thinking. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, pp. 259–267.
  8. ↑ Basic structures of mystical thinking. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, p. 259.
  9. ↑ Thomas Wagner: When mysticism and reason collide. In: Publik-Forum. 7/2001, p. 67.
  10. ↑ Body and Heart at Dōgen: Annotated translations and theoretical reconstruction. Academia Verlag, St. Augustin 2003, pp. 157-167.
  11. ^ Rituals in the formation of the Sōtō school. In: Hōrin: Comparative Studies on Japanese Culture. 15, 2008, pp. 277-293; Raji C. Steineck: Enlightened Authorship: The Case of Dōgen Kigen. In: Christian Schwermann, Raji C. Steineck (Ed.): That Wonderful Composite Called Author: Authorship in East Asian Literatures from the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-90-04-27941-4 , pp. 195-219.
  12. ↑ The body in Japanese bioethics, with a discussion of Merleau-Ponty's body theory in the light of bioethical problems. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2007, pp. 257–262.
  13. ↑ Is brain death a cross-cultural criterion for death? Japanese perspectives. In: N. Biller-Andorno, P. Schaber, A. Schulz-Baldes: Are there universal bioethics? Mentis, Paderborn 2008, ISBN 978-3-89785-313-3 , pp. 119-134.
  14. ^ Nuclear power: a techno-ethical perspective. In: Thomas B Bohn, Thomas Feldhoff, Lisette Gebhardt, Arndt Graf: The Impact of Disaster: Social and Cultural Approaches to Fukushima and Chernobyl. EB-Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86893-166-2 , pp. 25-49.
  15. ^ Paulus Kaufmann: Review of Critique of Symbolic Forms I. In: Der Blaue Reiter. 36, 2014, p. 111.
personal data
SURNAME Steineck, Raji C.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Steineck, Raji Christian; Steineck, Christian; Steineck, Christian Carl Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Japanologist and bioethicist
DATE OF BIRTH 1966