Shizuteru Ueda

Shizuteru Ueda

Shizuteru Ueda ( Japanese 上 田 閑 照 , Ueda Shizuteru ; born January 17, 1926 in Tokyo Prefecture ; † June 28, 2019 in Uji ) was a Japanese philosopher .

life and work

Shizuteru Ueda, son of a Shingon priest, studied with Nishitani Keiji at the University of Kyoto and from 1959 to 1963 with Friedrich Heiler and Ernst Benz at the University of Marburg , where he wrote a dissertation on the mystical anthropology of Meister Eckhart and their confrontation with mysticism of Zen Buddhism doctorate. In 1964 Ueda became professor of German language and literature at the University of Kyoto, and in 1977 he was given the chair of philosophy and religion there . After his retirement at Kyoto University in 1989, Ueda was visiting professor at Hanazono University , the only university of the Rinzai-shū , not far from the Myōshin-ji temple in Kyoto. As a representative of the third generation of the Kyoto School , he continued the legacy of Nishida Kitarōs .

“In Ueda's thinking, lived religiosity and philosophical analysis are interwoven. Based on the ox pictures of Zen Buddhism and the theory of the place of Nishida Kitarō, he finds a phenomenology of the 'double being-in-the-world'. Nothing and self and reality stand there in playful alternation; the 'self as not-self' proves to be the point of reference from which an understanding of the lifeworld can begin. "

- Döll 2005, blurb

He died in Uji on June 28, 2019 at the age of 93.

Publications in German (selection)

• The birth of God in the soul and the breakthrough to Godhead. The mystical anthropology of Meister Eckhart and its confrontation with the mysticism of Zen Buddhism. Mohn, Gütersloh 1965
• The nothing and the self in Buddhist thought. To the west-east comparison of the self-image of humans. Publishing house for law and society, Basel 1974
• The upward movement and the downward movement. Zen Buddhism in comparison with Meister Eckhart. In: Eranos Jahrbuch 50 (1981) pp. 223-272.
• The Zen Buddhist experience of the true beauty. In: Eranos Jahrbuch 53 (1984) pp. 197-240.
• Being - Nothing - World Responsibility in Zen Buddhism. In: Raimundo Panikkar , Walter Strolz (Ed.): The responsibility of humans for a habitable world in Christianity , Hinduism and Buddhism . Freiburg i. Br. 1985, ISBN 3-451-20533-5 , pp. 37-58.
• The place of man in the Nō game. In Eranos Jahrbuch 56 (1988) pp. 69-103.
• The absolute nothing in Zen, with Eckhart and Nietzsche . In: Ryōsuke Ōhashi (ed.): The philosophy of the Kyôto school. K. Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1990, ISBN 3-495-47694-6 , pp. 471-502. (There p. 538-540 bibliography of the writings and translations of Ueda in western language)
• Who and what am i On the phenomenology of the self in Zen Buddhism. K. Alber, Freiburg / Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-495-48435-7 .

literature

• D. Steen: Breakthrough into nothing. The comparison between Meister Eckhart and Zen Buddhism in Shizutera Ueda. Diploma thesis University of Münster 1990
• Steffen Döll: So why look? Introducing the thought of Ueda Shizuteru. Iudicium, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89129-794-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 上 田 閑 照 氏 死去 ＝ 京都 大 名誉 教授 、 ９３ 歳. In: jiji.com. Jiji Press , July 10, 2019, accessed July 12, 2019 (Japanese).