Tanabe Logic of Species

The Logic of The Species as Dialectics
Author(s): Tanabe Hajime, David Dilworth and Taira Sato

Source: Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 24, No. 3 (1969), pp. 273-288
Published by: Sophia University
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6TRANSLATION
THE LOGIC OF
The Species As Dialectics
by TANABE HAJIME1
Translated by DAVID DILWORTH, with TAIRA SATO
T HE concept of species has become the focus of attention of a part of the

scholarly world ever since I advocated a 'logic of the species' several
years ago. However, I think that there are comparatively few who under-
stand this concept of species in the same sense and from the same motivation
as I do, by having traced back and sympathized with my reasons for considering
a logic of the species in the first place.2
1 The followinog is a complete translation ofsophy as Metanoetics', translated by Takeuchi

chapter one, 'The Logic of the Species as Dialec- Yoshinori A PM A , 7apanese Religions, I967, V, 2,
tics', pp. I-2I of Tanabe Hajime's Shu no ronri no pp. 29-47.
benshbho 0 90 2- 5 (Dialectic of the Logic 2 Concerning the motivation of Tanabe's
of the Species), Akita Press, I946. Tanabe Hajime logic of the species, he wrote in the preface to this
in2-it (i885-i962) wasJapan's foremost modern present work:
philosopher after Nishida Kitara 6W R A& * P The motive of my investigation was to make
(I870-I945), whose disciple he was before estab- a philosophical analysis of the nationalism
lishing his own philosophy through criticism of which was coming to the fore at that time
Nishida. Nishida's mature thought centered [in the late I930s]. In so doing I criticized
around the concept of the 'topos of Nothingness'the individualism which had dominated us
in which he developed an early concept of 'pure in the past. At the same time I denied the
experience' into a generalized Zen metaphysics. totalitarianism which was being erected in
Tanabe's thought was characterized by an inter- place of a simple nationalism. By their mutual
pretation of 'absolute Nothingness' in terms of negation I mediated the former's concept of
Pure Land Buddhism. The following selection is the subjective individual and the latter's
a good example of Tanabe's blending of Pure fundamental concept of race.... I wished to
Land Buddhist and Christian religious categories guarantee, on the one hand, the logical foun-
with Western philosophical concepts, such as dation of the concept of nation by thoroughly
those of Hegel and Kierkegaard. Previous trans- placing it on a moral basis, and to correct, on
lations of Tanabe's thought are found in Tanabe the other, at least as far as possible, the ir-
Hajime, 'Memento Mori', translated by V. H. rational policy of actualism which was then
prominent in Japan. (p. i)
Viglielmo, Philosophical Studies of 7apan, i959, I,
I-I2; Tanabe Hajime, 'Introduction to Philo-
274 Monumenta Nipponica, XXIV, 3
'Species' is generally understood from the standpoint of the logic of classes

to mean only the middle group between 'genus' or whole and 'individual' or
individual subject. It is comprehended within the whole as a synthesis of in-
dividual parts. In human society, it is represented by racial society, which stands
between the totality of mankind and the individual. From the perspective of
cultural history, cultures-which are the universal and common products of
the human race-are imbued with the specificity of the races which are their
creative subjects. Individual geniuses, who directly accomplish specific cultural
breakthroughs, are also limited by the historical period and race to which they
belong. Individual geniuses are formed by experience of the limitations of their
specific environments. But at the same time, they create their own environ-
ments by mediating them. I call that specific environmental limitation by the
name of 'species'.
Therefore, in contradistinction to the cultural subject, which can be called
the totality-qua-individual, a species can be understood as a specificity which
belongs to the substance of culture. 'Species' is usually considered to be universal.
Of course, such a meaning is also implied in the concept of species in my own
case. Since I originally was influenced by Hegel's concept of objective spirit,
it is inevitable that what I term 'species' should have this kind of meaning. But
Hegel's objective spirit in itself signifies the customs, traditions, and laws of a
society. It has both cultural and political content. Consequently, not only is it
a specialization and limitation of the absolute spirit as the universal, it also
contains the power of binding and controlling the subjective spirit of the in-
dividual. In the case of the individual resisting and opposing it, it has the power
and authority to coerce the individual's submission. In the instance of the
individual affirming and developing it through the mediation of absolute spirit,
it has the power and authority to force the individual's spontaneous obedience.
Precisely because of this, it opposes and transcends subjective spirit as 'objective
spirit'. Objective and subjective spirit, which are relative, not only differentiate
the logical universal and particular, but also possess the relation of political
resistance and opposition. Therefore, the absoluteness of absolute spirit, which
can also be called the Divine Spirit, as the mediation of their unity, can be thought
to be grounded in absolute Nothingness (Effi), which is the embodiment of
the divine love of mercv and attonement.3
3 Absolute Nothingness can throughout be of Absolute Compassion, read in terms of the

understood as a generic term for the whole Pure Land doctrine of salvation (enlighten-
metaphysical structure of the Buddhist notion ment) through absolute faith in the infinite*
TRANSLATION. DILWORTH/SATO, 'Logic of the Species ......' 275
If I call this absoluteness a universal totality, it is hardly in a two-dimensional

spatial sense which is the breadth of the denotation as an ordinary logical concept.
For it signifies the infinite penetration of the redeeming power of the divine
love which pardons and takes into itself every resistance and opposition. In
other terms, it signifies an intensive totality in which the absolute unity of
Nothingness, as the power of conversion which causes the individual who has
died through sin to be reborn into a new life through the mediation of repentance
(zange %W),4 returns into itself in conversion by piercing through to the depths
of negation in the eternal moment. In contrast to this, the species as particular,
as the existential mediation of the totality as Nothingness, becomes the ex-
pedient means (hoben t{t) in which individuals transform themselves into
Nothingness, and thereby edify and save each other.
The mediating nature which is the method of 'return from the Pure Land'
(genso tip)5 constitutes the significance of nation and society seen from the
religious standpoint. In this sense, it is neither merely connotative nor merely
denotative, but a mediation through the mutual interdependence of both
(sosoku baikai 1rTh). In the connotative unity of the Nothingness of absolute
spirit, the resistance and opposition between national society and the individual
is absolutely negated and transformed into a mutual mediation. Government
*mercy of Buddha. For further treatment of thisnoetics', mentioned in n. i above.

notion, see Takeuchi Yoshinori, 'Modern Japa- 5 The term genso is well explained in the
nese Philosophy: Tanabe's Philosophy of Meta- following description by Takeuchi Yoshinori,
noetics', Encyclopedia Britannica, I966, vol. I2, 'Tanabe's Philosophy of Metanoetics', p. 96I:
pp. 96I-2; Hans Waldenfels, S.J., 'Absolute Tanabe uses the metaphor of a Bodhisattva
Nothingness: Preliminary Considerations on who makes all his preparations to meet
a Central Notion in the Philosophy of Nishida Buddha-finishes his journey and is about to
Kitara and the Kyoto School', Monumenta Nip- reach the level of Buddha, and now actually
pOnicaa, XXI, 3-4, I966, pp. 354-91. visits him in his room. But he finds that Buddha
4 'Metanoetics' in Tanabe's thought implies is absent from his residence (the room is
a transcendence of noetics, i.e. of speculative void). Then he realizes that Buddha is now
philosophy, by experience of religious conver- in the world to redeem it, so he returns to
sion in practice and faith in Other-power, the the world to cooperate with him. Precisely
central concept of Pure Land Buddhism. The in this return to the world will he finish in
recurring theme of 'death and resurrection' in reverse his journey toward the level of Buddha.
the text is meant to express the same point. For although the only purpose of the Bodhisat-
Concerning zangedo ('meta-noetics'), Tanabe tva is to make himself a Buddha, this is in
wrote in the preface: 'Shinran's teaching of faith fact an unattainable goal in the ordinary
in Other-power was naturally a great motivating sense, since it is a paradoxical aim: Buddha-
influence on me. But, in retrospect, I cannot hood is the state in which all our clinging to
deny that I also was greatly influenced, both things is overcome, and there must be indif-
directly and indirectly, by Christianity...' ference to, or detachment from, even the goal
(p. ii). Cf. 'Introduction to Philosophy as Meta-of becoming Buddha.
MN: XXIV, 3 E
is thus transformed into the founding of a nation as

divine redeeming love for the individual. In other words, the governments of
the kingdom of man become the mediation for the religious foundation of the
kingdom of God.6
Neither the kingdom of God nor political ideals exist apart from this media-
tion. The species is precisely their ground. It is the existential mediation for the
conversion of Nothingness as the totality-qua-individual and the individual-
qua-totality. Unless religion so penetrates the mediating nature of the species
that is the religion of a closed society, it cannot make the individual awaken to
salvation. At the same time, unless it absolutely negates it while confined to this
limitation of species, a religion of the open society, i.e. world religion, cannot
develop. Only in this negative conversion can the individual participate in it
as the mediation of absolute Nothingness, and thus become a witness to salva-
tion in the sense of 'returning from the Pure Land is precisely going to the Pure
Land' (genso soku oso it t 8t).
In contrast to this, the species, as the negation of the individual, is the affirma-
tion of its death and resurrection. This convertibility of negation-qua-affirma-
tion of the individual is the essence of the affirmation-qua-negation of the species
itself. Therefore, the logic of dialectics is nothing other than a logic of the species.
Through conversion in the negation of itself, the species effects negative con-
version of the individual's death and resurrection, and thereby becomes the ex-
istential mediation of the totality as Nothingness.
However, this conversion through negation is unrecognized not only in the
ordinary logic of classes, but also in the logic of culturalism in which the specific
and distinctive nature of culture is regarded as the mediation of universal
mankind. As a mere synthesis of parts which stand between the totality and
the individual, the species is only a phase of the denotative middle. It does not
have the power of conversion which mediates the death and resurrection of the
individual through the negative conversion of itself. In other terms, the signif-
icance of the mediation of Nothingness does not exist therein. Accordingly, the
6 The Japanese term kami no kuni * 0) N is therefore developed into a profound philosophical
here translated 'kingdom of God', but later anthropology in Tanabe's thought. The re-
as 'City of God' in reference to St. Augustine. ligious view of Saint Shinran (II73-I262) iS
At the very end of this chapter it is equated withespecially behind Tanabe's recurring themes of
'Land of Buddha' 4A NX. Tanabe's concept that 'mediation' and 'dialectic'. The terms 'practice
religious salvation, i.e. God's redeeming action, and faith' (gyjshin I-iZ4) also derive from Shin-
occurs only through the mediation of the human ran's chief work, Kyjgyoshinshj (Doctrine, Prac-
community is developed from this point on. The tice, Faith, Evidence).
Pure Land doctrine of Other-power (- t) is
TRANSLATION. DILWORTH/SATO, 'Logic of the Species ..... ' 277
grounding of such a concept of species as the mediation of Nothingness, and

thereby the grounding of the logic of dialectics, cannot be considered in these
terms. Such a concept of species does not have dialectical content. It merely
takes identity as its concept. Even though the notion of species is employed,
or a logic of species is so named, it would not, from my point of view, constitute
a logic of species as the foundation of the logic of dialectics. Nor would it be a
logic of species as a mediation of the negative conversion in death and resurrec-
tion. In other terms, we see that the concept of a logic of species is merely being
used in different senses.
How, then, has this kind of abstract externalization of the logic of species come
about? I think that the reason lies in the fact that there are few persons who
have sympathized with and understood the motives which compelled me to
speculate on the concept of the species. There are at least two aspects to my
motivation for having conceived of this concept.
In the first place, as stated above, the society of a nation, by opposing the
individual, binds and limits him through its authority. In its specific customs and
laws it embodies specificities which can be attested to neither by the appeal to
individual conscience nor in the light of the universal principles of mankind.
Among other things, it has the tendency to liken its relative totality of a merely
national species to the absolute unity of mankind, and of letting the former
usurp the absolute nature of the latter through the negation of the latter. There-
fore, the individual who stands in opposition to it must suffer various kinds of
oppression, and in the extreme case even be deprived of its life. Since the society
of the nation, as an opponent of the individual, is an existence which forcibly
opposes my existence, I could not help considering its reality as something
which I could neither deny nor idealize. It is a dynamic reality which has the
power of opposing and negating my will. It is an objective existence Cobjectum)
whose existence I had to affirm. In short, the species which made me affirm its
essential reality was an entity which thus threatened me.
In the second place, the reason I had to speculate on the concept of the species
did not merely lie in the fact that it was an entity which I might oppose and
resist, and which accordingly might be negated from my point of view as
something which should not exist, despite the fact that it threatened me. On
the contrary, my existence is also grounded in it. It is the ground wherein the
basis of my own life is to be found. If necessary, my existence should be sacrificed
to it. In this sense, the thing which should be negated is my own existence,
and the species is an entity which must be affirmed to the very end. In other
words, the species is not only a reality which tran

In so far as I of myself am converted into the mediat
through the negation of myself, the species also t
opposition to me, and becomes idealized as the med
in absolute Nothingness. The meaning of Hegel's st
is the real' and 'the real is the rational,' as will be
mination as necessity. To neglect that determination becomes the political
principle of maintaining the status quo.
However, the authority of actual laws is hardly established in the relative
standpoint of mere utilitarianism. It must be grounded upon the notions of
relative-qua-absolute, of absolute actuality-qua-ideal, of phenomenon-qua-
reason, which are absolutized by the mediation of absolute Nothingness. This
can be called the rationality or ideality of the species. Thus, the species must
be a two-dimensional existence of 'real-ideal', a concrete dialectical existence.
It is the mediation of the conversion of substance-qua-subject. Without it, we
could not realize absolute Nothingness. The species is not only a logical middle
between totality and individual. It is the mediation of the conversion of being
and Nothingness.
We may thus say that the logic of the species is a substantialization of con-
crete dialectical logic through the fact that logical mediation is simultaneously
an existential mediation. The individual possesses its immediate existential
nature (life) on the basis of the species. Moreover, it is an existence which takes
Nothingness as basic principle, an existence of the resurrection of Nothingness-
qua-being, according to the truth of absolute conversion that 'he who seeks to
save his life will lose it, and he who loses his life (for the sake of God) will save
it.' As the medium for absolute Nothingness it participates in it. And as the media-
tion of the love of absolute-negation-qua-absolute-Compassion, which is the
absolute 'return from the Pure Land' (genso itt) of Nothingness, it of itself is
stirred to perform the action of relative 'return from the Pure Land'. As the
medium for that relative genso, the species is the expedient means of edification
and salvation. It is the expedient means of being-qua-Nothingness over against
the Nothingness-qua-being of the individual. As Nothingness, the absolute is
subject of the conversion in both directions. The fact that it is thoroughly
subject of the conversion of Nothingness as absolute mediation is, on the contrary,
based on the mediation of the species which is the basic principle of being as its
negative moment. Nothingness as Nothingness cannot immediately function
of itself. For that which immediately functions of itself is being, and not Nothing-
TRANSLATION. DILWORTH/SATO, 'Logic of the Species ...... 279
ness. Nothingness performs the function of Nothingness (mu o gyozuru

hA -) only through the mediation of being. This is the reason why absolute
Nothingness is absolute mediation.
The individual mediates this existential nature of the species for Nothingness
through the negative mediation which is Nothingness-qua-being of itself, and
causes this existential nature of the species to be being-qua-Nothingness. The
species, as the mediation of absolute Nothingness, acquires the existential nature
of expedient means. The truth of the 'going to the Pure Land' (oso 114H), which
is the being-qua-Nothingness of the species dialectically, is embodied through
such a foundation of the species. The truth of the 'return from the Pure Land'
(genso !VH), which is Nothingness-qua-being of the individual, is personified
in the Nothingness of the individual mediated by the species. In this sense, both
species and individual always stand in negative opposition, and cause the realiza-
tion of absolute Nothingness only in their mutual conversion. This truth hardly
stops at the merely connotative and two-dimensional spatial relations of the
classifications of pure logic. It is thoroughly related to the political and religious
nature of existence to be realized through death and resurrection in the unity of
conversion by an inward or three-dimensional penetration to the depths of both
opposition and negation of forces, and the transcendence and redemption of the
soul.
Indeed, dialectical logic is both a logic and a denial of logic. For the self-
contradiction of existence, and the convertibility of affirmation-qua-negation,
cannot be expressed, still less described, identically in terms of the logic of
identity which takes the laws of identity and contradiction as fundamental
principles. Existence does not identically correspond to the logic of identity.
They contradict and negate each other as antinomies. The logic of dialectical
logic is not a logic in the sense of a logic of identity. Rather it is the negation
of the logic of identity. It is born as a new logic, mediated through the negation
of logic by existence which negatively opposes the logic of identity. It is converted
into and affirmed as logic in death and resurrection, and thus is inevitably im-
bued with the dialectical sense of negation-qua-affirmation.
Therefore, dialectical logic is the absolute negation of the logic of identity,
which can be called a logic which has not fully realized mediation through nega-
tion, i.e. is a logic of non-mediation.7 In other terms, dialectical logic is a logic
7 Tanabe's criticism of the logic of self- it is a critique of 'self-power' (jiriki b Yi) in

identity and of intuition may be read as a criti-
terms of the Pure Land doctrine of 'other-
que of the thought of Nishida Kitar6. Again, power' (tariki ftt). This critique is developed*
which is dialectical in and through itself. The fact that it is not a logic is the
reason that it is a logic.
Dialectical logic must be paradoxical. Since the negative medium for dialectical
logic is existence, as we have already seen, it must be called a logic of existence.
A mere logic of identity cannot be such. For this logic of identity and existence
stand opposed as antinomies, in the relation of mutual negations. As long as
it is a pure logic of identity, it cannot be called a logic of existence. Logic cannot
be related to existence only by the logical relation of identical connotation.
Existence destroys and transcends this logical relation. Existence takes, not
self-identity, but contradiction, as its structure. Dialectic is established on the
basis of this break through negation, and return through conversion, of logic.
It is the species which joins together existence and logic as the ground of their
conversion through negation.
Therefore the logic of the species is a dialectical logic. The species does not
merely take logical identity as its content. It is the support and ground of the
unity between logic and self-contradictory existence which negates logical
identity, i.e. of the conversion of logic through negation, or the resurrection of
logic through absolute negation.
However, what we must focus attention upon in this instance is the mean-
ing of the phrases 'conversion through absolute negation' and 'return or re-
surrection in the species'. On the surface, these concepts can be understood in
the sense of returning to the basic condition of an original state which was once
lost, and the reappropriation thereof. If we speak concretely concerning logic,
the logic of self-identity is negated and destroyed because of self-contradiction
which stands in opposition to it negatively. Thus these concepts can be consider-
ed to mean that since the negation is itself negated in so-called absolute negation,
logical self-identity is returned through conversion to an identity in the sense
of the 'self-identity of contradiction'. Nevertheless, if the fundamental condi-
tion can be resurrected in its original state as self-identity, dialectical logic would
no longer be a logic of absolute Nothingness, and would cease to be a logic of
absolute negation. It would, on the contrary, be a logic of absolute being, a logic
of absolute affirmation. In other terms, self-contradiction has been subsumed
within a self-identity of a higher order, and has not fallen into mutual destruc-
tion and negation. On the contrary, it can be regarded as a synthesis of the two,
which constructs an even higher unity without destruction.
*jin chapter four, 'Contemplation of the Absolute Nishida', pp. 76-II2, of this same work.
and Practice-Faith: Critique of Plotinus and
TRANSLATION. DILWORTH/SATO, 'Logic of the Species .....' 28I
Plotinus' contemplation of the One was precisely a merging with unity in this
sense. Since at the same time it transcended the negative opposition between
logic and existence, and was a return to the fundamental identity of the two,
it was understood as establishing a transcendental synthesis of logic and existence,
as the intuition of logic's breaking through itself-qua-creation of existence. The
fact that Plato's doctrine of the absolute unity of the many-qua-one, and non-
being-qua-being, which went no further than the self-realization of dialectical
action, became the content of contemplation which transcended dialectics in
Plotinus, was because Plotinus thought that the return and perdurance of this
kind of self-identity was made possible by the transcendent, absolute One.
Nevertheless, if the absolute identity of logic and existence can thus be resurrec-
ted and preserved by transcending the contradiction and opposition of these
two antinomies, the absolute negativity of dialectic would still be transcended,
and its negative opposition subsumed within absolute unity. In this case,
mediation through negation would still lack unity through conversion between
dynamic confrontation and spiritual embrace, and would be reducible to a quiet
contemplation of a two-dimensional connotation. It would not, in other terms,
be that love of 'making a believer attain the merit of Nirvana even while not
stopping the human passions',8 but a contemplation in which sin and evil were
purified and united mysteriously in God.
In contradistinction to Plato having a position analogous to that of the subject
of zange through the Other-power (4tt) of absolute Compassion, Plotinus'
position would be nothing more than a 'mystical intuition' in which the self was
Deified, and God identified with the self. In this latter standpoint, there would
be no conversion in the sense of incessant death and resurrection. There would
only be the abolition of limits, the expansion and strengthening, of the self.
Therefore, the specificity of the species, which becomes mediation for the
definition of the individual, here means only the limit of self-identity. If it tran-
scends it and abolishes that specificity, it would of itself be reducible to the
totality of absolute unity. Negation would merely mean the limit of this absolute
unity. Absolute negation would only mean the abolition of this limitation. Its
resurrection would be a return to the former life; it would merely be a resurrec-
tion of self-identity. Moreover, this kind of expansion and strengthening of the
self-identity of the soul is only possible in the subject of the aesthetic creation
of culture. To the end, the possibility of reducing it to the unity of absolute
8 This text, quoted by Shinran, can be traced Shinshb Shogyj zenshb A ' R (I), p. 3I9.
to Donran CC, Oojjronchb 11 JA i, in the The original text reads: T- Wr M, tI g ix A ;7.
identity by the abolition of the specific limitations of the self can be contem-
plated.
Moreover, the 'return from the Pure Land', in which the self dies to itself and
lives for others by obeying a specific society as its medium in spite of its opposi-
tion to itself, is in this view both unnecessary and impossible. In other terms,
instead of a religious conversion, instead of a conversion of rebirth, there appears
aesthetic imagination as its interpretation, which takes self-identity as its interior
substance. This is the reason why the concept of the 'creation of life' enters upon
the stage instead of that of the spirit's practice and faith (gyoshin i4tM). But in
faith such as expressed by Paul's words 'It is no longer I, but Christ who lives
in me' (Galatians 2:20), iS there really a consciousness of the self-identity of the
old self and the new self? Even if we call this 'the self-identity of absolute con-
tradiction' or 'the continuity of discontinuity', insofar as it is self-identity and
continuity, it still is not the experience of practice and faith through conversion,
but its reflection and interpretation. Or it is nothing but an intuition as the
foundation of that reflection and interpretation. It is the revival in identity,
and the continuity in identity, of the logic of self-identity in the broad sense.
In other terms, it is not a self-consciousness of the very subjectivity of re-
surrection through religious conversion, but, on the contrary, an intellectual
reflection and interpretation of it. The concept of identity employed therein
is not one which belongs to religious experience. It is a concept of the philosophy
of religion and theology. In many cases, it pertains to philosophy which cannot
become religious practice and faith. There is no such thing in true religious prac-
tice and faith. For in the latter there is no self-identity to cause the continuity
of death and resurrection.
The experience of a 'dying life' which one lives 'after having become dead
while living' is hardly a continuity in self-identity of death and life.9 It is a dis-
continuity, a severance. Again, it is a leap, a new life. Here conversion through
negation preserves the unity of Nothingness only because the unity of tran-
scendental conversion of absolute Nothingness, which is the motivating power
of this leap to a new life, mediates the death and resurrection of the self by being
the ground of practice and faith as Other-power. It is absolute Nothingness which
9 This text, also used by Shinran, is a quota- TtA C 9 X( C 9 1A1 -C- 3t \, , 0)IA1_ t 6
tion from the Zen master Shido Bunanzenji X ? M . The translator is indebted to Mr.
X - b O O. Cf. Shid6 bunanzenji shb T A Sato
O Taira for the references of the last two
notes.
#9T1A , Sokushinki z zi i,, Shunjiusha, 1956,
p. 3I. The text, in verse, reads: \ s ' -'
TRANSLATION. DILWORTH/SATO, 'Logic of the Species.....' 283
unifies life and death. It is God. It is not consciousness of being which pertains
to our finite relative being.
Such Nothingness is never the object of immediate intuition. An object of
intuition, insofar as it is such, would not be Nothingness, but rather being.
Therefore, the unity of this Nothingness cannot be contemplated in the sense
of a continuity as self-identity. It must be entirely restricted to being the object
of practice. Herein resides the correctness of Plato's concept of action, in con-
tradistinction to Plotinus' contemplation. The latter takes a mysterious unity
of God and man as a possibility; the former preserves the negative mediation
of man over against God as the unity of absolute Nothingness. The Plotinian
position establishes an intuition of a trans-dialectical identity between God and
man, and attempts to identify God and man. Plato takes the dialectic of absolute
mediation to its logical conclusion. Plato's expression can never be taken as an
affirmation of identity; it always adheres to paradox. Even the famous words of
Paul cited above hardly derived from the standpoint of contemplation. Since
'it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me,' there is only severance and leap.
From the standpoint of action, such severance and leap are realized and paradox-
ically expressed as unified in themselves through the transcendent unity of
absolute Nothingness, which is the mediation of practice and faith through
Other-power.
Religious action, which is an action of the self, is really the negation of the
action of the self. It is the action of Other-power as the action of the Other which
the self cannot become. The self which acts by being stirred to action by it goes
no further than being the mediation of that Other-power. Conversely, the nega-
tion of the action of the self must be the absolute act of Other-power. To act
'as the dead while living' is because of it. Even though we say Oneness of life
and death, or death-qua-life in this instance, this is hardly in the sense of self-
identity. As long as we are finite and relative beings, self-identity, which is
enlightenment through contemplation, is impossible. Such an explanation of it
is nothing more than an arrogance which likens the self to God, usurping the
concept of the unity and return to the same source of God and man. In such a
standpoint, the practical nature of the adventure and risk of faith is neither
necessary nor possible. It is nothing less than a cowardice and disbelief which,
entirely forgetting the finitude and relativity of man, would seek to escape death
which is the negation of man. This is the reason that instead of negation, am-
plification of the self causes it to be proudly satisfied with aesthetic creations.
Since, in contrast to this, negative unity is the unity of Nothingness, it is some-
thing which cannot be the object of intuition, but on

of faith. This latter unity is precisely a dialectical one.
Dialectical unity is thus a unity of absolute Nothingness which is entirely
incompatible with the intuition of self-identity. Since it can only be the object
of practice and faith, as already expressed in the above notions of the 'oneness of
life and death', 'death-qua-life', or 'resurrection through death', their unity must
be thoroughly dialectical. It is inevitable that they do not contain identity of
being in any sense whatever. The statement which expresses the unity must
not be affirmation of identity, but paradox. Such unity is enlightened only in
practice and faith which is stirred to action through pure reliance on Other-
power by the Other-power of absolute Nothingness. Contemplation does not
exist prior to practice. Our intuition of enlightenment is established through the
mediation of faith and practice by the action of Other-power which stirs Us to
action.
The activity which can be compared to God's creation of the world, in which
there is first contemplation and then action which expresses and embodies its
content, is nothing other than an aesthetic viewpoint. Indeed, even in aesthetic
creation it is not true that contemplation precedes creation. This is the reason
why technique is necessary for it. For example, to call 'contemplation' the ex-
perience of a famous archer, who is so thoroughly absorbed in his art that the
arrow leaves the bowstring and flies to the target of itself, would be to neglect
religious action which, truly abandoning the self, puts faith and reliance on
the absolute action of Other-power, since it was prejudiced by action which is
thoroughly attached to the self. Such an experience is in fact a practice which
is far from contemplation.
Religious practice is not exhausted merely by being the activity of creative
life which makes the so-called will of the whole to work to the full by sacrificing
the partial and abstract desires of the self. This kind of experience pertains to
reflection on the results of action. Practice itself means to abandon the self sunk
in the predicament of dissolution and disintegration, which originates in the
self-contradiction of the subject. It means to repent in contradiction itself, to be
obedient to actuality, and to become the mediation for the conversion of the
changes and movements as absolute actuality in the direction which actuality
takes. In the aesthetic instance, in so far as rational thinking prior to action does
not become mediation, the antinomies of reason and the self-breakthrough of it
attained through the mediation of them, cannot be realized. Therefore reflection
concerning the results of action is associated with immediate contemplation.
TRANSLATION. DILWORTH/SAT6, 'Logic of the Species ......' 285
However, actual historical practice belongs to the activity of Other-power. It

is not exhausted by aesthetic creations which are unmediated identities. In
history, a fundamental antinomy ever destroys the identical unity and perfec-
tion of self-power. The abstractions of culturalism consist in neglecting that fact.
The standpoint of identity which would liken the self to God in the above
way is hardly to be admitted in the concrete unity of religious faith mediated by
political practice. Political life takes actual historical creativity as its end. It
breaks through the confines of reason and is converted into practice and faith
in absolute Nothingness. For, having fallen into an impasse by trying to become
the rational medium of scientific cognition and ethical action, it is mediated for
religious faith through the dialectic of absolute criticism which, by going through
and beyond the antinomies of reason, completes this process of the self-disintegra-
tion of reason. In history, there is only the conversion in practice and faith in
Other-power through which the finite and relative, which must completely
negate itself and become the mediation for God, is stirred to practice by Other-
power.
Therefore, every existential determination becomes the mediation for the
realization of Nothingness wherein the self is resurrected through death. It is
hardly supported and hardly perdures as self-identity in its original state. Even
if we say resurrection through death, or 'to be born again', this hardly means to
return to the life prior to death, or to revive that former life. If such were the
case, to live a 'dying life' after 'having become the dead wvhile living' would be
impossible. In order to live this 'dying life' there must be a conversion through
negation in which we forever die and are born again. In other terms, existence,
which is being as the mediation of absolute Nothingness, must be its medium.
In contrast to the individual who lives this kind of resurrected life which is
Nothingness-qua-being, or death-qua-life, the existence with the power to con-
vert, which is being-qua-Nothingness as the mediation for that conversion, is
precisely the species in the sense previously defined. The species is the ground
of immediate life in which the individual must be negated. But it also must be
negated. It is merely the being of the expedient means (hoben tIt) which exists
as the negative mediation for the realization of absolute Nothingness.
Moreover, the practice of conversion which is the Nothingness-qua-being of
the individual is mediated by the species, which is the existence of the expedient
means of this being-qua-Nothingness. It is negated and caused to be resurrected
through death on the foundation of the latter. That this resurrection is not a
return to the former immediate life can also be known from the fact that the
species, which is its ground and source, is conversi

If the individual is not a being to be resurrected thro
united with the absolute, then it would not be necess
species, which is the ground of this kind of conve
merely be a mediation in the sense of a logical mid
to signify such a negative mediation of existence
That is why, for culturalism, the existence of nation
specific as the mediation of the reason that a culture
time has universal validity.
However, if we consider the matter further, a speci
political existence of the nation as the mediation f
such a two-fold nature. That the latter cannot be esta
must be said to be amply expressed by present actu
If we concretely consider human existence from
practice, the nation, as the medium of politics and
have a metaphysical existence in respect to the ind
tion that the individual only attains his concrete e
does not stop at the ethical significance expressed
is inevitably converted into religion through its a
with politics in its concretization, so too this defin
far as the mediation through conversion and politi
of making an abstraction of the practical medium
immediately absolutizing the religious and metaphysi
in Plotinus, would be nothing less than to neglect
practice and faith. It would be an individualistic se
in the transquillity of mystical contemplation. H
Augustine, although he was generally under Ploti
could still not be satisfied with Neo-Platonism.
Augustine had to conceive of the foundation of h
spective of love taught in the Gospels. In the conc
faith, a neglect of the mediation of the species, whic
of political activity, cannot be tolerated. When w
salvation of the individual also becomes impossibl
culminated in Plotinus, could do no more about th
A new period emerged to move with a new religi
thought as its motivating power. In this historical tr
political nature was certainly functioning as nega
TRANSLATION. DILWORTH/SATO, 'Logic of the Species .....' 287
concept of the law would seem to be unintelligible if we entirely prescind from

that theocratic political nature.
Indeed, Christ's own death had its origins in political causality. While law
goes no further than being the mediation of being-qua-Nothingness as the
existence of an expedient means for absolute conversion, it is clear that faith in
His resurrection was enlightenment through faith in the fact that God's absolute
power, which negates law absolutely, transcends it in the saving conversion in
which it accomplishes the resurrection of the Son of God in order to reveal
God's love. It was the truth of the new religion that although politics had the
highest power in this terrestrial human life, it completely yielded its authority
before the love of God. Political values of the terrestrial kingdom were entirely
overturned in the City of God. Without this mediation of national politics, the
concrete nature of Christianity could not have existed. In place of faith in the
living God, the concepts of abstract philosophy would have perdured. They
would have only brought to a small number of sages the satisfaction of their
own self-righteousness. The great majority of men would have had to weep
the tears of the unmitigated tragedy of their homelands subjugated and de-
stroyed.
Political mediation is indispensable for religion. It is clear that the religious
concepts of the City of God or the Land of the Buddha analogically preserve the
political structure of the state. The religious relationships of society of genso
('return from the Pure Land'), in which individuals edify and redeem each other,
would be impossible without the mediation of the political organization of
nation and society which is formed originally in the communities of human life.
Genso is not limited to coming as a result of oso ('going to the Pure Land') which
is the direct saving relation between God and the individual. God's acting upon
the individual is mediated by other redeemed individuals who are leaders of the
same society.
God does not act directly upon the individual. Therefore, genso can be said
to be the prerequisite of oso. This means precisely that salvation of individuals
is accomplished only through the mediation of nation and society which already
exist as communities of individuals. Nation and society are not merely the
relative genso of fellow men. God's saving love of mankind, or absolute Com-
passion, also realizes and reveals itself only through the mediation of existence,
which is essential for the realization of God's absolute Nothingness. To achieve
absolute genso, the divine love and Compassion require the terrestrial state, which
is the highest concrete form of the worldly relativity of human existence, to be
negated by such absolute negation, as its negative med

essential medium of absolute mediation in the twofold se
and negation.

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The Logic of The Species as Dialectics

Author(s): Tanabe Hajime, David Dilworth and Taira Sato

The Species As Dialectics

Translated by DAVID DILWORTH, with TAIRA SATO

T HE concept of species has become the focus of attention of a part of the

1 The followinog is a complete translation ofsophy as Metanoetics', translated by Takeuchi

'Species' is generally understood from the standpoint of the logic of classes

3 Absolute Nothingness can throughout be of Absolute Compassion, read in terms of the

If I call this absoluteness a universal totality, it is hardly in a two-dimensional

*mercy of Buddha. For further treatment of thisnoetics', mentioned in n. i above.

is thus transformed into the founding of a nation as

grounding of such a concept of species as the mediation of Nothingness, and

words, the species is not only a reality which tran

ness. Nothingness performs the function of Nothingness (mu o gyozuru

7 Tanabe's criticism of the logic of self- it is a critique of 'self-power' (jiriki b Yi) in

thing which cannot be the object of intuition, but on

However, actual historical practice belongs to the activity of Other-power. It

species, which is its ground and source, is conversi

concept of the law would seem to be unintelligible if we entirely prescind from

negated by such absolute negation, as its negative med

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