Kuki Shūzō and the Idea of Metempsychosis : Recontextualizing Kuki's Lecture on Time in the Intellectual Milieu Between the Two World Wars

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  • 九鬼周造と輪廻の思想 : 《時間》に関する九鬼の講話を戦間期思潮の文脈の中で再考する
  • Kuki Shuzo and the Idea of Metempsychosis : Recontextualizing Kuki's Lecture on Time in the Intellectual Milieu Between the Two World Wars

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Abstract

Shortly before his departure from Europe, Kuki Shūzō held two public conferences at the Pontigny gathering of philosophers in 1928. One of the themes he addressed in one of them was the “Oriental” notion of time. It was not until recently, however, that the meaning of this presentation, which was given in French, was seriously taken into account by philosophy scholars in Japan. 　This paper will first show the significance of the idea of “metempsychosis” in modern intellectual history between 1890 and 1930, and then focus on how Kuki presented it. In closing, this paper will consider the relevance of Kuki’s proposal from a fresh perspective. His reflections shed light on the metaphysical relevance of the idea of metempsychosis. Despite its basic incompatibility with Christian doctrine, the idea of metempsychosis opens up to us a new insight into the spiritual dimension of the world. 　Far from being a simple case of superstition, the idea of metempsychosis may suggest a rational way of radically redefining individuality and multiplicity in subject-formation, which Kuki was aiming to do on the fringes of theosophical thought in the global context of the late 1920s. The paper has no pretention to be a philosophical treatise or a philological study of Kuki Shūzō’s philosophy. Rather than demonstrating any linear connections with theosophy, it tentatively circumnavigates and maps, searching for a potential intellectual web concocted around the idea of “metempsychosis.”

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