*anese philosopher

Hajime Tanabe (田辺 元, Tanabe Hajime, February 3, 1885 – April 29, 1962) was a *anese philosopher of science, particularly of mathematics and physics. In 1947 he became a member of the *an Academy, and in 1950 he received the Order of Cultural Merit.

Tanabe was a key member of what has become known in the West as the Kyoto School, alongside philosophers Kitaro Nishida and Keiji Ni*ani. While the latter philosophers have received recognition in Western academia, Tanabe's writing has received less notice. Nishida, the figure who is considered the originator of this school, was Tanabe's teacher. Philosophers of this school received opprobrium for their perceived active role in the *anese militarist regime. However, their participation in resistance to the political environment has been do*ented widely by James Heisig. Tanabe especially has fallen under scrutiny for his political activities, though scholarship provides some mitigation of the harsher stigma surrounding his career.

Contents

• 1 Biography
• 2 Thought
• 3 Work
  • 3.1 Demonstration of Christianity
• 4 Bibliography
  • 4.1 Primary sources
    • 4.1.1 English translations
  • 4.2 Secondary sources
    • 4.2.1 Books and theses
    • 4.2.2 Articles
  • 4.3 Online links
• 5 References

Biography

Tanabe was born on February 3, 1885 in Tokyo to a household devoted to education. His father, the principal of Kaisei Academy, was a scholar of Confucius, whose teachings may have influenced Tanabe's philosophical and religious thought. Tanabe enrolled at Tokyo Imperial University, first as a mathematics student before moving to literature and philosophy. After graduation, he worked as a lecturer at Tohoku University and taught English at Kaisei Academy.

In 1916, Tanabe translated Henri Poincaré’s La Valeur de la science. In 1918, he received his doctorate from Kyoto Imperial University with a dissertation en*led ‘Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics’ (predecessor to the 1925 book with the same *le).

In 1919, at Nishida’s invitation, Tanabe accepted the position of *ociate professor at Kyoto Imperial University. From 1922 to 23, he studied in Germany — first, under Alois Riehl at the University of Berlin and then under Edmund Husserl at the University of Freiburg. At Freiburg, he befriended the young Martin Heidegger and Oskar Becker. One can recognise the influence of these philosophers in Tanabe.

In September 1923, soon after the Great Kantō Earthquake, the Home Ministry ordered his return, so Tanabe used the little time he had left — about a couple of months — to visit London and Paris, before boarding his return ship at Marseille. He arrived back in *an in 1924.

In 1928, Tanabe translated Max Planck’s 1908 lecture, ‘Die Einheit des physikalischen Weltbildes’ for the Philosophical Essays translation series, which he co-edited, for his publisher Iwanami Shoten. The same series published translations of essays by Bruno Bauch, Adolf Reinach, Wilhelm Windelband, Siegfried Marck, Max Planck, Franz Brentano, Paul Natorp, Nicolai Hartmann, Kazimierz Twardowski, Ernst C*irer, Hermann Cohen, Emil Lask, Victor Brochard, Ernst Troeltsch, Theodor Lipps, Konrad Fiedler, Wincenty Lutosławski, Sergei Rubinstein, Hermann Bonitz, Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, Martin Grabmann, Heinrich Rickert, Alexius Meinong, Karl von Prantl and Wilhelm Dilthey (the series ended before the planned translations of Christoph von Sigwart, Carl Stumpf, Edmund Husserl, Clemens Baeumker, Josiah Royce and Hermann Ebbinghaus were published).

After Nishida's retirement from teaching in 1928, Tanabe succeeded him. Though they began as friends, and shared several philosophical concepts such as the absolute nothing , Tanabe became increasingly critical of Nishida's philosophy. Many of Tanabe's writings after Nishida left the university obliquely attacked the latter's philosophy.

In 1935, Tanabe published his essay ‘The Logic of Species and the World Schema’ wherein he formulated his own ‘logic of species’ for which he became known.

During the *anese expansion and war effort, Tanabe worked with Nishida and others to maintain the right for free academic expression. Though he criticized the National Socialist German Workers' Party-inspired letter of Heidegger, Tanabe himself was caught up in the *anese war effort, and his letters to students going off to war exhibit many of the same terms and ideology used by the reigning military powers. Even more damning are his essays written in defense of *anese racial and state superiority, exploiting his theory of the Logic of Species to herald and abet the militaristic ideology. This proposed dialectic argued that every contradictory opposition is to be mediated by a third term in the same manner a species mediates a genus and an individual.

During the war years, however, Tanabe wrote and published little, perhaps reflecting the moral turmoil that he attests to in his monumental post-war work, Philosophy as Metanoetics. The work is framed as a confession of repentance (metanoia) for his support of the war effort. It purports to show a philosophical way to overcome philosophy itself, which suggests that traditional Western thought contained seeds of the ideological framework that led to World War II.

His activities, and the actions of *an as a whole, haunted Tanabe for the rest of his life. In 1951, he writes:

But as the tensions of World War II grew ever more fierce and with it the regulation of thinking, weak-willed as I was, I found myself unable to resist and could not but yield to some degree to the prevalent mood, which is a shame deeper than I can bear. The already blind militarism had led so many of our graduates precipitously to the battlefields; among the fallen were more than ten from philosophy, for which I feel the height of responsibility and remorse. I can only lower my head and earnestly lament my sin.

He lived for another eleven years after writing these words, dying in 1962 in Kita-Karuizawa, *an.

Thought

As James Heisig and others note, Tanabe and other members of the Kyoto School accepted the Western philosophical tradition stemming from the Greeks. This tradition attempts to explain the meaning of human experience in rational terms. This sets them apart from other Eastern writers who, though thinking about what life means and how best to live a good life, spoke in religious terms.

Although the Kyoto School used Western philosophical terminology and rational exploration, they made these items serve the purpose of presenting a unique vision of reality from within their cultural heritage. Specifically, they could enrich a discussion of the ultimate nature of reality using the experience and thought of various forms of Buddhism like Zen and Pure Land, but embedded in an *ysis that calls upon conceptual tools forged and honed in western philosophy by thinkers ranging from Plato to Descartes to Heidegger.

Tanabe's own contribution to this dialog between Eastern and Western philosophy ultimately sets him apart from the other members of the Kyoto School. His radical critique of philosophical reason and method, while stemming from Immanuel Kant and Søren Kierkegaard, which emerges in his work Philosophy as Metanoetics, easily sets him as a major thinker with a unique position on perennial philosophical questions. Some commentators, for example, suggest that Tanabe's work in metanoetics is a forerunner of deconstruction.

Tanabe engaged with philosophers of Continental philosophy, especially Existentialism. His work is often a dialogue with philosophers like Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Because of his engaging these thinkers, especially the first two, Tanabe's thought has been characterized as Existentialist, though Makoto Ozaki writes that Tanabe preferred the terms "existentialist philosophy of history", "historical existentialism", or "existential metaphysics of history". In his masterpiece, Philosophy as Metanoetics, Tanabe characterized his work as "philosophy that is not a philosophy", foreshadowing various approaches to thinking by deconstructionists.

Like other Existentialists, Tanabe emphasizes the importance of philosophy as being meaning; that is, what humans think about and desire is finding a meaning to life and death. In company with the other members of the Kyoto School, Tanabe believed that the foremost problem facing humans in the modern world is the lack of meaning and its consequent Nihilism. Jean-Paul Sartre, following Kierkegaard in his Concept of Anxiety, was keen to characterize this as Nothingness. Heidegger, as well, appropriated the notion of Nothingness in his later writings.

The Kyoto School philosophers believed that their contribution to this discussion of Nihilism centered on the Buddhist-inspired concept of nothingness, aligned with its correlate Sunyata. Tanabe and Nishida attempted to distinguish their philosophical use of this concept, however, by calling it Absolute Nothingness. This term differentiates it from the Buddhist religious concept of nothingness, as well as underlines the historical aspects of human existence that they believed Buddhism does not capture.

Tanabe disagreed with Nishida and Ni*ani on the meaning of Absolute Nothingness, emphasizing the practical, historical aspect over what he termed the latter's intuitionism. By this, Tanabe hoped to emphasize the working of Nothingness in time, as opposed to an eternal Now. He also wished to center the human experience in action rather than contemplation, since he thought that action embodies a concern for ethics whereas contemplation ultimately disregards this, resulting in a form of Monism, after the mold of Plotinus and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. That is, echoing Kierkegaard's undermining in Philosophical Fragments of systematic philosophy from Plato to Baruch Spinoza to Hegel, Tanabe questions whether there is an aboriginal condition of preexisting awareness that can or must be regained to attain enlightenment.

Tanabe's insistence on this point is not simply philosophical and instead points again to his insistence that the proper mode of human being is action, especially ethics. However, he is critical of the notion of a pre-existing condition of enlightenment because he accepts the Kantian notion of radical evil, wherein humans exhibit an ineluctable propensity to act against their own desires for the good and instead perpetrate evil.

Work

Demonstration of Christianity

Tanabe's "Demonstration of Christianity" presents religion as a cultural en*y in tension with the existential meaning that religion plays in individual lives. Tanabe uses the terms genus to represent the universality of form that all en*ies strive for, contrasting them with the stable, though ossified form they can become as species as social systems.

Tanabe contraposes Christianity and Christ, represented here as the opposition between Paul and Jesus. Jesus, in Tanabe's terms, is a historical being who manifests the action of Absolute Nothingness, or God understood in non-theistic terms. God is beyond all conceptuality and human thinking, which can only occur in terms of self-iden*y, or Being. God becomes, as manifested in human actions, though God can never be reduced to being, or self-iden*y.

For Tanabe, humans have the potential to realize comp*ionate divinity, Nothingness, through continual death and resurrection, by way of seeing their nothingness. Tanabe believes that the Christian Incarnation narrative is important for explaining the nature of reality, since he believed Absolute Nothingness becoming human exemplifies the true nature of the divine, as well as exemplar to realization of human being in relationship to divinity. Jesus signifies this process in a most pure form, thereby setting an example for others to follow.

Ultimately, Tanabe chooses philosophy over religion, since the latter tends toward socialization and domestication of the original impulse of the religious action. Philosophy, understood as metanoetics, always remains open to questions and the possibility self-delusion in the form of radical evil. Therefore, Tanabe's statement is a philosophy of religion.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Collected Works 15 vols. (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, 1963-64) .

Monographs

• Modern Natural Science (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, November 1915), reprinted in CW2:1-154.

• Outline of Science (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, September 1918), reprinted in CW2:155-360.

• Kant’s Teleology (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, October 1924), reprinted in CW3:1-72.

• Investigations into the Philosophy of Mathematics (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, May 1925), reprinted in CW2:361-662.

• Hegel’s Philosophy and the Dialectic (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, January 1932), reprinted in CW3:73-370.

• General Philosophy (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, December 1933), reprinted in CW3:371-522.

• The Two Sides to Natural Science Education (Tokyo: Monbushō , March 1937), reprinted in CW5:141-92.

• Between Philosophy and Science (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, November 1939), reprinted in CW5:193-328.

• My View of the Philosophy of Shōbōgenzō (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, May 1939), reprinted in CW5:443-94.

• Historical Reality (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, June 1940), reprinted in CW8:117-70.

• Philosophy as a Way to Repentance: Metanoetics (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, April 1946), reprinted in CW9:1-270.

• Urgent Matters for Political Philosophy (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, June 1946), reprinted in CW8:323-96.

• Dialectic of the Logic of Species (Tokyo: Akitaya, November 1947), reprinted in CW7:251-372.

• Existence, Love and Practice (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, December 1947), reprinted in CW9:271-492.

• Demonstration of Christianity (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, June 1948), reprinted in CW10:1-270.

• Fundamental Problems of Philosophy (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, March 1949), reprinted in CW11:1-132.

• Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Appendix 1: Philosophy of History and Political Philosophy (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, September 1949), reprinted in CW11:133-282.

• Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Appendix 2: Philosophy of Science and Epistemology (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, April 1950), reprinted in CW11:283-426.

• Valéry’s Aesthetics (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, March 1951), reprinted in CW13:1-162.

• Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Appendix 3: Philosophy of Religion and Ethics (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, April 1952), reprinted in CW11:427-632.

• A Historicist Further Development of Mathematics (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, November 1954), reprinted in CW12:211-332.

• Proposition of a New Methodology for Theoretical Physics (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, May 1955), reprinted in CW12:335-68.

• Dialectic of the Theory of Relativity (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, October 1955), reprinted in CW12:369-402.

• A Memorandum on Mallarmé (Tokyo: Chi*a Shobō, August 1961), reprinted in CW13:199-302.

Essays

CW1: Early Essays

• ‘On Thetic Judgements’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 283, September 1910), reprinted in CW1:1-10.

A reworking of Tanabe’s graduation essay from 1908.

• ‘The Significance of Descriptions in the Epistemology of Physics: A Critique of Kirchhoff and Mach’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 319, September 1913), reprinted in CW1:11-26.

On the descriptivism of Kirchhoff and Mach.

• ‘The Limits of Logicism in Epistemology: A Critique of the Marburg and Freiburg Schools’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 324, February 1914), reprinted in CW1:27-62.

• ‘The Natural Sciences versus the Social and Cultural Sciences’ (Shinri Kenkyū, Nos. 38-40, February-April 1915), reprinted in CW1:63-94.

DOI: 10.4992/jjpsy1912.7.316, 10.4992/jjpsy1912.7.421, 10.4992/jjpsy1912.7.534

• ‘On Universals’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, No. 5, May 1916), reprinted in CW1:95-118.

• ‘Moral Freedom’ (Shichō, Vol. 1, Nos. 3-4, July-August 1917), reprinted in CW1:119-40.

• ‘The Theory of Time’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, No. 17, August 1917), reprinted in CW1:141-72.

• ‘The Problem of Philosophical Knowledge in German Idealism’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, Nos. 23-4, February-March 1918), reprinted in CW1:173-226.

• ‘The World of Infinity’ (Shichō, Vol. 2, No. 5, August 1918), reprinted in CW1:227-34.

• ‘A Request for Dr. Sōda’s Thoughts on the Logic of Individual Causality’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, No. 30, October 1918), reprinted in CW1:235-44.

• ‘On Kant’s Theory of Freedom’ (Shichō, Vol. 2, No. 9, October 1918), reprinted in CW1:245-54.

• ‘The Significance of Leibniz’s Philosophy (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, No. 32, November 1918), reprinted in CW1:255-84.

• ‘The Meaning of the Word ‘Truth’’ (Shichō, Vol. 3, January 1919), reprinted in CW1:285-96.

• ‘On Consciousness as Such’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 387, May 1919), reprinted in CW1:297-324.

On Kant’s notion of »Bewußtsein überhaupt«.

• ‘The Problem of the Subject of Knowledge’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, Nos. 44-47, 1919-21), reprinted in CW1:325-412.

• ‘On Historical Knowledge’ (Shirin, Vol. 7, No. 1, January 1922), reprinted in CW1:413-22.

DOI: 10.14989/shirin_7_33

• ‘The Concept of Culture’ (Kaizō, March 1922), reprinted in CW1:423-48.

• ‘The Infinite Continuity of Existence’ (Shisō, No. 6, March 1922), reprinted in CW1:449-72.

CW4: Early to Middle Essays

• ‘The Relationship Between Intuition and Thought in the Transcendental Deduction’ (Shisō, No. 30, April 1924), reprinted in CW4:1-16.

• ‘A New Turn in Phenomenology: Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Life’ (Shisō, No. 36, October 1924), reprinted in CW4:17-34.

• ‘Epistemology and Phenomenology’ (Kōza, Nos. 24-25, January-February 1925), reprinted in CW4:35-72.

• ‘Intuitive Knowledge and the Thing in Itself’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, Nos. 109 and 112 and 128, April and July 1925 and November 1926), reprinted in CW4:73-140.

Intuitive knowledge as in Spinoza’s scientia intuitiva.

• ‘Lask’s Logic’ (Shisō, No. 40, October 1925), reprinted in CW4:141-60.

• ‘Reflection’ (Festschrift for Tokunō Bun , Iwanami Shoten, June 1925), reprinted in CW4:161-206.

• ‘On Circular Reasoning in the Critical Method’ (Shisō, No. 64, February 1927), reprinted in CW4:207-30.

• ‘On the Concept of Sensation’ (Shinrigaku Kenkyū, Vol. 2, No. 3, June 1927) reprinted in CW4:231-40.

DOI: 10.4992/jjpsy.2.439

• ‘Knowledge of the Past in the Study of History’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, No. 142, January 1928), reprinted in CW4:241-56.

• ‘The Role of Concepts in the Historical Knowledge’ (Shirin, Vol. 13, No. 2, April 1928), reprinted in CW4:257-70.

DOI: 10.14989/shirin_13_181

• ‘The Location of Evidence’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 500, October 1928), reprinted in CW4:271-86.

• ‘On Confucian Ontology’ (Festschrift for Takase Takejirō , Iwanami Shoten, November 1928), reprinted in CW4:287-302.

• ‘A Request for Professor Nishida’s Thoughts’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, No. 170, May 1930), reprinted in CW4:303-28.

• ‘Synthesis and Transcendence’ (Festschrift for Tomonaga Sanjūrō , Iwanami Shoten, April 1931), reprinted in CW4:329-54.

• ‘The Standpoint of Anthropology’ (Risō, No. 27, October 1931), reprinted in CW4:355-82.

• ‘Dialectic of Individual Essence’ (Spinoza and Hegel , Iwanami Shoten, July 1932), reprinted in CW4:383-416.

CW5: Middle Essays

• ‘The Way to Philosophy’ , reprinted in CW5:1-20.

• ‘The Relationship Between Mathematics and Philosophy’ , reprinted in CW5:21-58.

• ‘The Relationship Between Religion and Culture: On the Debate Between Barth and Brunner’ (Shisō, No. 153, October 1934), reprinted in CW5:59-80.

• ‘On Humanism’ , reprinted in CW5:81-92.

• ‘The Development of Mathematics in the History of Thought’ , reprinted in CW5:93-140.

• ‘Science as Morality’ , reprinted in CW5:329-84.

• ‘Logic from Kant to Hegel’ , reprinted in CW5:385-404.

• ‘Physics and Philosophy’ , reprinted in CW5:405-44.

CW6: Essays on the Logic of Species, Vol. 1

• ‘From the Time Schema to the World Schema’ , reprinted in CW6:1-50.

• ‘The Logic of Social Existence’ (1934-5), reprinted in CW6:51-168

• ‘The Logic of Species and the World Schema’ , reprinted in CW6:169-264.

• ‘The Third Stage of Ontology’ , reprinted in CW6:265-98.

• ‘The Social Ontological Structure of Logic’ , reprinted in CW6:299-396.

• ‘Response to Criticisms of the Logic of Species’ , reprinted in CW6:397-446.

• ‘Clarification of the Meaning of the Logic of Species’ (1937), reprinted in CW6:447-522.

CW7: Essays on the Logic of Species, Vol. 2

• ‘The Limits of Existentialist Philosophy’ (1938), reprinted in CW7:1-24.

• ‘The Logic of National Existence’ (1939), reprinted in CW7:25-100.

• ‘Eternity, History, Action’ (1940), reprinted in CW7:101-70.

• ‘Ethics and Logic’ (1940), reprinted in CW7:171-210.

• ‘The Development of the Concept of Existence’ (1941), reprinted in CW7:211-51.

CW8: Occasional Essays

• ‘Philosophy of Crisis or Crisis of Philosophy?’ , reprinted in CW8:1-10.

• ‘Response to Minoda’s and Matsuda’s Criticisms’ , reprinted in CW8:11-32.

• ‘The Meaning of Historical Study’ , reprinted in CW8:33-92.

• ‘The Expansion of Scientism’ , reprinted in CW8:93-104.

• ‘My View on the Principle Underlying the Direction of *an’s Cultural Policy Towards China’ , reprinted in CW8:105-70.

• ‘The Direction of Philosophy’ , reprinted in CW8:171-200.

• ‘The Morality of the State’ , reprinted in CW8:201-20.

• ‘The Way of Patriotic Thinking’ , reprinted in CW8:221-42.

• ‘Life and Death’ , reprinted in CW8:243-62.

• ‘The Limits of Culture’ , reprinted in CW8:263-306.

• ‘The Establishment of Democracy in *an’ , reprinted in CW8:307-22.

• ‘The Standpoint of the Absolute Nothing and the Materialist Dialectic’ (1946), reprinted in CW8:397-410.

• ‘The Present Task of the Intellectual Cl*es’ , reprinted in CW8:411-42.

• ‘A Theoretical Solution to Cl* Warfare’ (written in March 1948, unpublished), reprinted in CW8:443-62.

CW10

• ‘Christianity, Marxism and *anese Buddhism’ (Tenbō, No. 21, September 1947), reprinted in CW10:271-324.

CW12: Essays in the Philosophy of Science (1948-50)

• ‘Localised and Microscopic: Characteristics of Contemporary Thought’ (Tenbō, No. 35, November 1948), reprinted in CW12:1-58.

• ‘Dialectic of Cl*ical Mechanics’ (Kiso Kagaku, No. 2, April 1949), reprinted in CW12:59-131

• ‘Science, Philosophy and Religion’ (Chi*a Shobō Tetsugaku Kōza, Vol. 4, March 1950), reprinted in CW12:132-210.

CW13: Late and Posthumous Essays

• ‘Memento Mori’ (Shinano Kyōiku, No. 858, May 1958), reprinted in CW13:163-76.

• ‘My Interpretation of the Chan Preface’ (Shūkyō to Bunka, a Festschrift for D. T. Suzuki, October 1960), reprinted in CW13:177-98.

• ‘Philosophy, Poetry and Religion: Heidegger, Rilke, Hölderlin’ (begun in 1953, unfinished), reprinted in CW13:305-524.

• ‘Ontology of Life or Dialectic of Death?’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, No. 483, November 1962), reprinted in CW13:525-80.

CW14: Miscellanea, Vol. 1

• ‘Theodor Lipps, Bewusstsein und Gegenstände’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 285, November 1910), reprinted in CW14:3-10.

• ‘Wilhelm Jerusalem, Der kritische Idealismus und die reine Logik’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 292-3, June-July 1911), reprinted in CW14:11-32.

• ‘The Problem of Relativity’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 302, April 1912), reprinted in CW14:33-48.

• ‘Kant and the Natural Sciences’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 306, August 1912), reprinted in CW14:49-60.

• ‘Émile Boutroux, De l’idée de loi naturelle dans la science et la philosophie contemporaines’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 307-9, September-November 1912), reprinted in CW14:61-104.

• ‘Kuwaki Ayao, ‘The Problem of Knowledge in Physics’’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 310, December 1912), reprinted in CW14:105-13.

• ‘Max Planck, ‘Die Einheit des physkalischen Weltbildes’’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 313-5, March-May 1913), reprinted in CW14:114-39.

• ‘Natorp’s Criticisms of the Principle of Relativity’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 318, August 1913), reprinted in CW14:140-52.

• ‘Henri Poincaré, ‘L'espace et le temps’’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 322, December 1913), reprinted in CW14:153-64.

• ‘Kuwaki’s Essay on the Method of Physics’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 325, March 1914), reprinted in CW14:165-8.

• ‘On the Existence of Mathematical Objects: Reading Medicus’ Essay’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 331, September 1914), reprinted in CW14:169-92.

The essay in question is Fritz Medicus, ‘Bemerkungen zum Problem der Existenz mathematischer Gegenstände’, Kant-Studien, 19:1-19.

• ‘Preface to the Third Edition of Modern Natural Science’ (December 1915), reprinted in CW14:193.

• ‘Translator’s Preface to Poincaré, La valeur de la science’ (May 1916), reprinted in CW14:194-5.

• ‘Reading Dr. Sōda’s Problems in the Philosophy of Economics’ (Tetsugaku Kenkyū, No. 26, May 1918), reprinted in CW14:196-202.

• ‘A Remark on P*ages Quoted in Kihira’s Essay’ (Tetsugaku Z*hi, No. 391, September 1919), reprinted in CW14:203-4.

• ‘Translator’s Preface to Planck, ‘Die Einheit des physkalischen Weltbildes’’ (July 1927), reprinted in CW14:205-6.

• ‘On the So-Called Cl* Aspect of Science’ (Kaizō, Vol. 12, No. 1, January 1930), reprinted in CW14:207-21.

• ‘The Significance of the New Physics’ World Picture’ (Iwanami Kōza: Butsurigaku Oyobi Kagaku, October 1930), reprinted in CW14:222-38.

• ‘Re-Examining the Foundations of Mathematics: On Konno’s Essay’ (Kagaku, Vol. 4, No. 8, August 1934), reprinted in CW14:239-45.

• ‘Inayaga Shōkichi, The Foundational Concepts of Modern Mathematics, Vol. 1’ (Kagaku, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1945), reprinted in CW14:246-9

• ‘Oskar Becker, Die Grundlagen der Mathematik in geschichtlicher Entwicklung’ (Kagaku Kisoron Kenkyū, Vol. 1, No. 3, March 1955; DOI: 10.4288/kisoron1954.1.3_145), reprinted in CW14:250-2.

• ‘The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences’ , reprinted in CW14:253-83.

• ‘On Scientific Thinking’ , reprinted in CW14:284-314.

CW15: Miscellanea, Vol. 2

• ‘Lecture on Idealism’ , reprinted in CW15:3-34.

• ‘Lecture on the Development of Phenomenology’ , reprinted in CW15:35-154.

• ‘Lecture on the Meaning of Dialectic’ , reprinted in CW15:155-234.

• ‘Lecture on Philosophy’ , reprinted in CW15:235-48.

• ‘Lecture on Philosophical Thinking’ , reprinted in CW15:249-86.

• ‘Special Lecture at Kita-Karuizawa (May 1-3 and October 1-3, 1953), reprinted in CW15:287-420.

• Entries in the Dictionary of Philosophy (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1922), reprinted in CW15:421-67.

Archimedes’ axiom ; Körper α ; *ysis situs ; Ether ; Energetic view of nature ; Principle of conservation of energy ; Action at a distance ; Entropy ; Extensive quality ; *ysis ; *ytical geometry ; Critique of science ; Reversible phenomenon ; Function ; Mechanical view of nature ; Geometry ; Pseudo-spherical space ; Description ; Descriptive school ; Cardinal number ; Series ; Spherical space ; Limit ; Grenzpunkt ; Method of limit ; Grenzelement ; Ortzeit ; Imaginary number ; Modern geometry ; Space curvature ; Contingency ; Group ; Principle of permanence of formal laws ; Metrical geometry ; Atomic theory ; Ausdehnungslehre ; Theory of probability ; Postulate ; Axiom ; Axiomatic ; Coordinates ; Theory of economy of thought ; Dimension ; Quaternions ; Self-representation system ; Natural science ; Naturwissenschaftlich ; Natural number ; Gedankenexperiment ; Real number ; M* ; Projection ; Projective geometry ; Ordinal number ; Number ; Mathematics ; Mathematical ; Mathematical induction ; Mathematical formalism ; Mathematical realism ; Mathematical nominalism ; Realm/Corpus of numbers ; Number continuum ; Arithmetisation ; Welt ; Integral ; Integer ; Absolute space ; Absolute time ; Schnitt ; Explanation ; Exact sciences ; Prime number ; Theory of quanta ; Algebraic number ; Field of force ; Transcendental number ; Transfinite aggregate ; Transfinite number ; Electromagnetic view of nature ; Set of points ; Electron theory ; Punktmannigfaltigkeit ; Point transformation ; Statistical mechanics ; *geneity ; Isotropy ; Intensive quan*y ; First law of thermodynamics ; Second law of thermodynamics ; Physical theory of light ; Differential ; Differential coefficient ; Infinitesimal method ; Differential equation ; Non-Euclidean geometry ; To represent ; Irreversible phenomenon ; Complex number ; Negative number ; Principle of conservation of matter ; Fourth state of matter ; Disintegration of matter ; Physics ; Physical ; Invariant ; Mathesis universalis ; Fraction ; Transformation ; Variable ; Parabolic space ; Elements at infinity ; Infinity ; Irrational number ; Euclidean geometry ; Rational number ; Dynamics/Mechanics ; Riemann-Helmholtz geometry ; Fluxion ; Quan*y ; Continuity ; Lobachevsky-Bolyai geometry ; Logistic/Algebra of logic ; Vector *ysis

• Entries in the Dictionary of Pedagogy (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1936), reprinted in CW15:468-74.

Philosophy of mathematics ; Methodology

English translations

Early Works (1910–1919)

• "The Logic of the Species as Dialectics," trans. David Dilworth and Taira Sato, in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 24, No. 3 (1969): 273–88.

• "Kant's Theory of Freedom," trans. Takeshi Morisato with Cody Staton in "An Essay on Kant’s Theory of Freedom from the Early Works of Tanabe Hajime" in Comparative and Continental Philosophy, vol. 5 (2013): 150–156.

• "On the Universal," trans. Takeshi Morisato with Timothy Burns, in "Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Deductive Reasoning: The Relation of the Universal and the Particular in Early Works of Tanabe Hajime" in Comparative and Continental Philosophy, vol. 5 (2013): 124–149.

Middle Work (1920–1930)

• "Requesting the Guidance of Professor Nishida," trans., Richard Stone and Takeshi Morisato, Asian philosophical Texts: Exploring Hidden Sources, eds., Roman Pasca and Takeshi Morisato, 281–308. Milan: Mimesis, 2020.

Logic of Species (1931–1945)

• (Forthcoming) "The Social Ontological Structure of the Logic," Tanabe Hajime and the Kyoto School: Self, World, and Knowledge. London: Bloomsbury, 2021.

Later Works (1946–1962)

• Philosophy as Metanoetics, trans. Takeuchi Yoshinori, Valdo Viglielmo, and James W. Heisig, University of California Press, 1987.

• "Demonstration of Christianity", in Introduction to the philosophy of Tanabe: According to the English translation of the seventh chapter of the demonstratio of Christianity, trans. Makoto Ozaki, Rodopi Bv Editions, 1990.

Secondary sources

Books and theses

• Adams, Robert William, "The feasibility of the philosophical in early Taishô *an: Nishida Kitarô and Tanabe Hajime." PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1991.
• Dilworth, David A. and Valdo H. Viglielmo (translators and editors); with Agustin Jacinto Zavala, Sourcebook for modern *anese philosophy:: selected do*ents, Westport, Conn.:: Greenwood Press, 1998.
• Fredericks, James L., "Alterity in the thought of Tanabe Hajime and Karl Rahner." PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1988.
• Heisig, James W., Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School, Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture, University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
• Morisato, Takeshi, Faith and Reason in Continental and *anese Philosophy: Reading Tanabe Hajime and William Desmond, London: Bloomsbury, 2019.
• Ozaki, Makoto, Individuum, Society, Humankind: The Triadic Logic of Species According to Hajime Tanabe (Brill's *anese Studies Library), Brill Academic Publishers (April 2001), ISBN:90-04-12118-8, ISBN:978-90-04-12118-8.
• Pattison, George, Agnosis: Theology in the Void, Palgrave Macmillan (February 1997), ISBN:0-312-16206-5. ISBN:978-0-312-16206-1.
• Unno, Taitetsu, and James W. Heisig (Editor), The Religious Philosophy of Tanabe Hajime: The Metanoetic Imperative (Nanzan Studies in Religion and Culture), Asian Humanities Press (June 1990), ISBN:0-89581-872-8, ISBN:978-0-89581-872-0 .

Articles

• Cestari, Matteo, "Between Emptiness and Absolute Nothingness: Reflections on Negation in Nishida and Buddhism."
• Ruiz, F. Perez, "Philosophy in Present-day *an," in Monumenta Nipponica Vol. 24, No. 1/2 (1969), pp.:137–168.
• Heisig, James W., "Tanabe's Logic of the Specific and the Critique of the Global Village," in Eastern Buddhist, Autumn95, Vol. 28 Issue 2, p198.
• Sakai, Naoki, "SUBJECT AND SUBSTRATUM:: ON *ANESE IMPERIAL NATIONALISM," in Cultural Studies; Jul2000, Vol. 14 Issue 3/4, p462-530 (AN 4052788)
• Viglielmo, V. H., "An Introduction to Tanabe Hajime's Existence, Love, and Praxis" in Wandel zwischen den Welten: Festschrift für Johannes Laube, (Peter Lang, 2003) pp.:781–797.
• Waldenfels, Hans, "Absolute Nothingness. Preliminary Considerations on a Central Notion in the Philosophy of Nishida Kitaro and the Kyoto School," in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 21, No. 3/4 (1966), 354–391.
• Williams, David, "In defence of the Kyoto School: reflections on philosophy, the Pacific War and the making of a post-White world," in *an Forum, Sep2000, Vol. 12 Issue 2, 143–156.

Online links

• Bracken, Joseph, "Absolute Nothingness and The Divine Matrix"
• Buri, Fritz, "Hajime Tanabe, Philosophy of repentance and Dialectic of Death," in The Buddha-Christ as the Lord of the True Self: The Religious Philosophy of the Kyoto School, trns. by Harold H. Oliver, Mercer University Press, 1997, pp.:65–94.
• Driscoll, Mark, "Apoco-elliptic Thought in Modern *anese Philosophy"
• Hajime, Tanabe, Jitsuzon to ai to jissen (Existence, Love, and Praxis) , (from vol. 9, Complete Works of Tanabe Hajime), Tokyo, Chi*a Shobô, 1963. A partial translation by V. H. Viglielmo , for which the Preface, Chapter One, and translator's introductory essay are published in “An Introduction to Tanabe Hajime’s Existence, Love, and Praxis." in Wandel zwischen den Welten: Festschrift für Johannes Laube, Peter Lang, 2003.
• Mierzejewska, Anna, "The Buddhist Inspiration of The Concept of Faith in The Philosophy of Hajime Tanabe," in SILVA IAPONICARUM, FASC. VI・第六号, WINTER ・冬 2005, pp.:18–37.
• Odin, Steve, "Hajime Tanabe," in The Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism, pp.:114–117.
• Ozaki, Makoto, "On Tanabe's Logic of Species," in ΠΑΔΕΙΑ: Comparative Philosophy.
• Takahane, Yosuke, "Absolute Nothingness and Metanoetics,".
• Wattles, Jeffrey, "Dialectic and Religious Experience in Tanabe Hajime's Philosophy as Metanoetics"
• ———. Philosophy and Spiritual Experience: The case of a *anese Shin Buddhist
• Yata, Ryosho. "An Examination of the Historical Development of the Concept of Two Aspects of Deep Belief, Part 1".

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