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Concretizing an Ethics of Emptiness

The Succeeding Volumes of Watsuji Tetsurô’s Ethics

Anton Luis SEVILLA

Department of Japanese Studies

School of Cultural and Social Studies

The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Japan

*This is a pre-publication version of the article published in

Asian Philosophy 24.1 (2014) pp. 82-101

Abstract Watsuji Tetsurô’s Ethics is one of the most important works in Japanese ethi-

cal thought. But scholarly research in English has largely focused on the first of three

volumes of Ethics, leaving the latter two oft-neglected. In order to balance out the views

of Watsuji’s ethics, this paper focuses on the contributions of the second and third vol-

umes of Ethics. These volumes are essential for any concrete understanding of

Watsuji’s “ethics of emptiness.” The second volume develops the ideas of the first, par-

ticularly how the dual-structure (individuality and communality) is concretely realized

through the various stages of ethical organization (family, local community, economy,

nation, and state). The third volume develops the notions of space and time from the

first volume into a theory of climate (fûdo) and history. By analyzing these, we can un-

derstand Watsuji’s system as a whole and clarify Watsuji’s unique contribution ethical

theory.

Keywords Watsuji, ethics, organization, climate, history

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1 Introduction

Watsuji Tetsurô is a giant in the field of modern Japanese philosophy, and the biggest

figure in the field of ethics. With the translation of his Climate and Culture: A Philo-

sophical Study in 1961, he has slowly gained scholarly attention in the English speaking

world. The translation of Watsuji Tetsurô’s Rinrigaku (the first of three volumes of Eth-

ics translated by Yamamoto Seisaku and Robert Carter) in 1996 made his systematic

ethics available. And the past decade has seen a boom in research on Watsuji with the

publication of two translations, three books, and more than a dozen scholarly publica-

tions featuring Watsuji.

There have been a lot of interesting, if not masterful studies on the system pre-

sented in the first volume of Ethics, but many tend to neglect the concretization and

threshing out that can only be found in a closer reading of the second and third volumes

of Ethics, which unfortunately remain untranslated. Certainly some scholars have dis-

cussed these succeeding volumes,1 but I think there is much to be gained from the ele-

mentary task of demonstrating the systematic wholeness of the three volumes of Ethics

and elaborating on the content of the two untranslated volumes.

In response to this need, I wish to focus on exploring the second and third vol-

umes of Ethics. I will begin with a review of Watsuji’s first volume of Ethics, and the

key ideas therein—the dual-structure of human existence, ethics of absolute negativity,

1 William LaFleur’s an “An Ethics of As-Is: State and Society in the Rinrigaku of Watsuji Tetsu-

rô” (1994) insightfully tackles the second volume of Ethics but is very brief and focuses primarily on the

idea of the state. Bernard Bernier’s “Transcendence of the State in Watsuji’s Ethics” (2008) is a concise

critique but not an in-depth examination of the second volume. Tani Toru’s “Watsuji Tetsurô: Beyond

Individuality, This Side of Totality” (2002) presents the best summary of Watsuji’s ethics, but touches on

the latter volumes only in very broad strokes. As such, brilliant critiques like that of Sakai Naoki in

Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism may be lost on non-Japanese readers

who barely know the contents of the oft-maligned second volume of Ethics and the oft-ignored third vol-

ume.

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and space-time. I will then show how the second volume develops the ideas of the first,

particularly by demonstrating how the dual negative structure manifests concretely

through the various stages of ethical organization (family, local community, economy,

nation, and state). Finally, I will show how the third volume develops the notions of

space and time from the first volume into a theory of climate (fûdo) as concretized spa-

tiality, and history as concretized temporality. Throughout this discussion, I will argue

that the second and third volumes are essential in order to have any concrete under-

standing of the ethical theory Watsuji presents in the first. But also, the succeeding vol-

umes develop as well as complicate the key ideas of his work. Through these I will ex-

amine both the possibilities and the limitations of Watsuji’s ethical thought.

2 Ethics I (1937)

The first volume picks up from where he left off in his preparatory work, Ethics as the

Study of Ningen (Ningen no gaku toshite no rinrigaku, 1934). He takes the hermeneutic

method he had previously described, a method that aims to understand (verstehen) hu-

man existence (ningen sonzai) through its concrete expressions, in a way that sheds light

on both the way ningen is what it is and also how it ought to be.

Through this hermeneutics, Watsuji demonstrates that human existence has a

dual-structure of both individuality and totality: On one hand, human existence (con-

sciousness, emotional life, activity) is always relational, and the individual is always

determined by the relationships and communities the individual is part of—totality (zen-

taisei). On the other hand, totalities cannot exist without the existence, participation, and

commitment of individuals—individuality (kojinsei). What we see here is that both

sides of the dual-structure are “empty,” (kû) lacking in self-existence and dependent on

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its “other.” In turn, this emptiness is part of what Watsuji terms as a “negative dual-

structure” (hiteiteki nijûkôzô): Individuality can only exist through individualization—

the active negation of totality that realizes individuality. In the same way, totality can

only exist through commitment, in which individuality is negated to realize the collec-

tive. Thus he arrives at the fundamental law of ethics: Ningen sonzai must realize itself

through continuous double-negation, negating totality to realize individuality and negat-

ing individuality to realize totality.

This abstract movement of double-negation takes place in concrete space and

time. Watsuji speaks of space as “subjective extendedness”—the field of interaction of

embodied subjectivities reaching out to each other through objective space and its lived

networks (transportation, communication, terrain, etc.). Time is thus temporal extend-

edness, wherein people act, shaped by pre-existing relationships (the past) and shaping

possible relationships (the future). Putting together the ideas of individuality-totality and

space-time, Watsuji ends the first volume with an analysis of ethical actions as truthful

actions in response to the trust of the other, a view which seeks to unify my own per-

sonal moral responsibility to the communal bonds of trust, a union carried out in rela-

tional space-time.

In this summary we see that while the first volume of ethics is filled with in-

sights, it also leaves a lot of questions. Concretely, what does it mean to negate totality

and individuality continuously in relational space and time? It is for this that an analysis

of the second and third volumes becomes essential.

3 Ethics II (1942, 1946)

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The second volume of Ethics came around five years after the first, in a very different

context. Shortly before its publication, the attack on Pearl Harbor had just recently been

carried out, which set into motion the Pacific theatre of the Second World War. Kaneko

Takezô (in the commentary of Watsuji Tetsurô Zenshû vol. 11, heretofore WTZ) points

out that it is necessary to keep this historical context in mind particularly as one reads

the second volume. As a result of these historical pressures, Watsuji had to subject this

volume to considerable revision after the war. (The post-war revised version was pub-

lished in 1946.)

In this volume, Watsuji attempts to concretize his discussion on the dual-

structure of ningen, which had been theoretically analyzed in the first volume. First, he

details the principle of the concrete development of the negative relationship of private

and public existence, and second, shows how this unfolds in families, local communities,

economies, cultural communities, and nation-states.

3.1 The Dialectic of Private and Public Existence

The key concept of the entire second volume is jinrin, which is Watsuji’s translation for

Hegel’s term Sittlichkeit (ethical life), which refers to ethics as it is lived in an inter-

human manner, as distinct from Moralität, which is merely private, individual ethics.

He devotes the second volume to analyzing ethical (or sittliche) organizations (jinrinteki

soshiki). But before he can discuss the family, local communities, etc., he needs to clari-

fy the dialectic between the private individual and public organizations.

Watsuji begins by arguing against the existence of an essentially private (that is,

singular and undisclosable) self:

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A singular existence in which others are absolutely incapable of participating does

not exist anywhere. The view that asserts that being that includes death is this sort of

a [singular existence] is false. The other can participate even in death. …Rather,

death must be said to be the most public phenomenon in which everyone can partic-

ipate. (pp. 332-333)2

This is clearly a critique of Martin Heidegger’s idea of authentic self, but also puts dis-

tance between Watsuji and his senior Nishida Kitarô’s view of the self as “absolutely

other” (zettai ta).3 This also forces us to re-think the meaning of the equiprimordiality of

individuality and totality that is often taken for granted in readings of the first volume.

While no totality can exist without the existence and participation of its members, these

members are not absolutely individual like a singularity, but rather they are parts, mem-

bers that have no existence separate from the whole.

Rather than an essential solitude, privacy is refusal of the participation of others.

While privacy can manifest negatively in isolating an individual, this refusal functions

positively in every stage of inter-human ethical organization. For instance, the family is

exclusive in that non-family members cannot enter into this relationship. A state differ-

entiates itself from other states. Each level of community closes itself off to higher lev-

els of organization and other groups (pp. 333-334). As such, privacy is no more than an

aspect or function of a collective, by which it establishes itself and its boundaries. He

expresses this and its relation to the flow of his discussion as follows:

It is clear that private existence is a mode of collective existence as [its] state of pri-

vation (ketsujotai). Collective existence realizes (jitsugen suru) itself through private

existence. If that is the case, then we can trace the various stages of the realization of

collective existence by tracing the various stages of private existence.” (p. 334)

2 The translations are the author’s own. The paginations refer to the Japanese original work.

3 This can be found in Nishida’s “I and Thou” (Watashi to nanji) which oddly Watsuji had re-

cently praised in his Ethics as the Study of Ningen. (See WTZ 9, p. 129.)

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What we see here is a dialectic of private and public existence. Private existence realiz-

es public existence by negating itself. But the public formed by this negation is private

with respect to higher levels of organization and thus a finite totality, which must be ne-

gated further to form higher levels of organization. This dialectic is thus manifest in the

stages of families, local communities, economic systems, cultural communities, and na-

tion-states.

3.2 The Family

Watsuji (pp. 335-337) begins his discussion of the family with the couple (husband and

wife), which for him is the smallest self-sustaining unit of human existence. The couple

is characterized by two demands: one for total participation, and one for total exclusivi-

ty. Total giving of self in body and mind allows the couple to completely transcend

themselves and become one person, but this is made possible only by excluding others

from this relationship. It is this very privacy surrounding the couple that allows the pri-

vacy between them to dissolve.4

What we see here is an expression of the dialectical relationship of individuality

and totality. The individuality of husband and wife must be negated in order for them to

fuse in total participation in each other’s existence. But at the same time, this negation

of individuality is a negation of totality in negating the participation of others outside

the couple. It is within this finite totality that the virtues of marital life—fidelity, chasti-

ty, and marital harmony—can be expressed.5

4 Watsuji discusses this extensively in pp. 350-370.

5 Watsuji (p. 379) sees the relationship of husband and wife as a complementary relationship

akin to the theory of yin and yang. The husband is in charge of matters like labor and defense, and the

wife is in charge of emotional support. This sort of view is usually viewed as sexist. But it is important to

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Watsuji’s discussion of the family progesses to the the three-person relationship

of father-mother-child, which further sublates the privacy of the couple to form a higher

level of public existence (pp. 387-389), to the relationship of siblings, where the privacy

of several three-person relationships is sublated for a relationship between the siblings.

This relationship is mediated by the shared love between the children and their parents,

which in turn mediates the love that they have for each other (pp. 403-405).

The key idea we pick up from Watsuji here, which will continue throughout the

other levels of ethical organization, is the importance of mediation. Relationships are

mediated. The husband-wife relation is mediated by none other than everything—every

aspect of the inner and outer life of each. The relationship of each pair in a three-person

relationship is mediated by the third. The relationship of siblings is mediated primarily

by a shared love for their parents, but also other shared cultural elements. And the rela-

tionship of relatives with each other is mediated by shared life events that bind them to

each other. But mediating elements are concrete and finite; therefore, they unify those

who share it while excluding those who do not. Thus the dialectic of private and public

existence always involves negating what is private (un-shared media) in order to partic-

ipate in a public via a shared medium, which is in turn still private if seen vis-à-vis larg-

er spheres of publicness. We can see this in the local community, economy, cultural

community, and state as well.6

see this within the context of Watsuji’s time, and also merely in accord with Hegel’s idea of gender roles

in Elements of the Philosophy of Right and Nishida’s suggestions in An Inquiry to the Good. But a more

important criticism is that this view shows that Watsuji tends to see differences within relationships as

complementary—differences that can be harmonized within a schematized whole. There is thus a lack of

a sense of conflict, antagonism, or even agonism in differences (a point LaFleur criticizes as well). And a

lack of a system of discourse makes transcending pre-established role differences difficult.

6 The idea of mediated finite totalities is also in stark contrast with Nishida’s view of the direct

relationship between I and Thou that never becomes a “totality” and is mediated only by absolute noth-

ingness.

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3.3 The Local Community

The local/regional community sublates the privacy of the family’s blood-ties and sexual

intimacy in order to raise it to a higher level of publicness. This level of ethical organi-

zation is mediated by the land people share and the labor they carry out upon it (pp.

445-450, 452-457). However, despite having transcended the blood-ties and sexual ties

of the family, the local community is still exclusive: people share a way of life and

hence this shared way of life excludes those who belong to other localities and do not

share in this way of life (pp. 460-461).

The ethical virtues in this level of human organization are becoming a full-

fledged member of society (ichinin mae ni naru), fraternité (hakuai), and consideration

(kokorozukai). I find the third virtue particularly interesting, because it is an attitude of

restraining one’s private impulses (favoritism toward one’s family, egoistic interests,

one’s private willfulness) in a public situation, and through an attitude focused on com-

mon interests, making space for the concerns of other members of the local community,

while at the same time taking care not to intrude on the privacy of others (pp. 462-468).

This virtue shows another facet of the dialectic of private and public existence which

Watsuji is clarifying for the first time: private existence is both negated but at the same

time preserved in a higher level of public existence. As such the sublation (Aufhebung,

shiyô) of the family includes both the senses of elevare and abolere in its superseding,

as well as conservare in the respect shown toward it.7 While Watsuji has yet to make it

clear at this point of the discussion, he will eventually point out in his discussion of the

state that every level of private existence is maintained while it is superseded.

7 I draw much inspiration from Kaelin (2012, pp. 39-41).

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3.4 The Economic System

Watsuji’s view of economics is important because it is his key point of difference with

Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right. While Hegel viewed civil society as an

intermediate position between the family and the state, where civil society is an egotistic

“system of desires” where the individual pursues his own interests, Watsuji (pp. 469-

471) begins his view of economics by refuting the very idea of homo economicus—an

individual who acts aiming only toward the fulfillment of his own desires. While mod-

ern economics begins with this presupposition and reduces production and trade rela-

tions to the pursuit of utility, Watsuji (pp. 481-484) does not think that this shows the

real story of the human relations behind economic activity.

For a more insightful view into the humanness of economic relations, Watsuji

relies almost entirely on the work of the anthropologist Malinowski, particularly Argo-

nauts of the Western Pacific (1922). What Watsuji (pp. 471-481) finds in the primitive

economics of the Trobriand people on the Kiriwina Islands (near Papua New Guinea) is

the essence of a relational economics—building human bonds through products, both

within a community and beyond. As such, labor is not merely for oneself, but in one’s

caring for one’s family. But not only that, labor is not merely for compensation but is

essentially a service for a potential other (the customer), and like a gift, this gift is re-

paid (with money, in the case of modern economics). Watsuji (pp. 485-486) thus sees

products as a medium for mutual service between producers and consumers and not

merely a mutual using of the other for one’s own ends.

However, while Watsuji thinks that this relational essence of economics is still

present in the modern world, he does see a great danger in economic life, as the modern

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view of economics becomes more and more the actual reality. People are beginning to

see relationships and ethics as a mere means to utility, and every act willed by man is

somehow reduced to man’s selfish interests.8 But in this critique, what he calls for is not

an abolition of the modern economic system but a restoration of its essential relational

task.

Unlike local communities or nation-states, economies are not so much static

communities as they are flows of human relations that have the potential to connect hu-

man beings in both inhuman and human ways. This view of ethics will become central

in the third volume of Ethics.

3.5 Cultural Community

The sharing of products in economic systems paves the way for the sharing of culture

across multiple localities. Watsuji indicates four domains of culture—language, art,

scholarship, and religion—each expressing and mediating the togetherness of a finite

nation in a particular way.

Language is the most essential domain of culture, whose “communification” is

part of art, scholarship, and religion as well. Watsuji (p. 528-532) begins by pointing to

us that in our interactions with others, we already have a mutual understanding that we

share with them. Language is merely an expression of this mutual understanding, which

can be seen in cases where communication is more subtle—finishing each other’s sen-

8 Watsuji sees utilitarianism as complicit here, and he singles out Jeremy Bentham as an example

of this (pp. 491-503). Watsuji bitterly criticizes the coopting of ethics using his take on Max Scheler’s

Das Ressentiment im Aufbau des Moralen and Ferdinand Tönnies’ theory of Gemeinschaft und Ges-

selschaft (pp. 503-514).

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tences, leaving things half-said, or leaving things unsaid altogether.9 But this mutual

understanding has a restricted range, and for Watsuji (pp. 532-555), it is language that

forms the limits of an ethnic nation and divides one nation from another, in a manner

that not even translation or multi-linguality can overcome. Language thus expresses and

mediates the finite whole of a nation and demarcates it from other nations.

Similarly, Watsuji (p. 540-549) views art as something that expresses the form-

less form, the emptiness that is the core principle of shared existence. It expresses the

very absolute totality that grounds community, and can thus move people and become

an enduring emblem of a spiritual community—a classic like Homer’s poems. But yet

again, despite being expressive of a universally human principle, art is limited to an eth-

nos by its language and style and is hence finite and culturally specific.

Scholarship (gakumon) is the systematic and methodic pursuit of knowledge,

which reflects the sociality of cognition—all learning and noesis is in relation to the no-

esis of other people in society and history (pp. 449-551). Interestingly, Watsuji

acknowledges the critical and creative power of individuals most clearly in scholarship,

because the individual does not merely participate in shared knowledge but contributes

something novel to it through his/her own critical thinking (p. 551).

Last, Watsuji (pp. 559-560) grasps religion as part of culture, seeing the individ-

ual’s direct relationship with the absolute as a form of cultural production, and manifest

in cultural products that are finite and shared in a finite community. But religion plays a

special role in that it is a direct, self-conscious return to the absolute that is the origin

and telos of human existence (p. 560). However, it is important to note that for Watsuji,

9 This again points out that the individual is merely part of a whole, and unlike Jacques Derrida

and Emmanuel Levinas, there is no focus on the act of saying as a frustrated attempt to reach out to the

singular other.

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while the absolute is universal, the relationship with the absolute has a finite and thus

particular form. Hence, as with any facet of culture, there is no such thing as universal

religion, and Watsuji warns us of the danger of absolutizing religion as no more than an

attempt to forcibly impose as absolute something that is merely particular (pp. 559,

561).10

As we have seen above, language, art, scholarship, and religion all express and

mediate the togetherness of people across local communities. Watsuji calls those who

share in culture as simply “friends” (yûjin). Friends, by sharing in the way they see the

world, form a spiritual community that transcends filial and regional ties. But despite its

inclusivity, culture is still limited by a shared landmass and climate, in which a particu-

lar culture can spread and have a shared relevance. As such, culture is now divided into

nation-states, and is restricted to their communities of shared land and language (pp.

582-584).

For Watsuji, the spiritual community is the most inclusive possible mediated

community, and it is only within the possibility for entering this community that one

can be seen as a person (p. 588-589). He takes up the old formulation of the person as

zoon logon echon and points out that only one who can speak what I can acknowledge

to be language, that is, a member of my linguistic/cultural community, can be a person

to me (p. 588-590). He points out the proof in the system of slavery: When the Ameri-

cans first instituted human rights, it never occurred to them that it was in direct contra-

diction with their practice of slavery, simply because they did not see black people as

human (WTZ 11, pp. 417-418). Watsuji is by no means condoning slavery and colonial

10 Watsuji also discusses this extensively in his treatise on Zen Master Dôgen. See Watsuji’s first

chapter in Purifying Zen, Watsuji Tetsurô’s Shamon Dôgen.

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practices—he criticizes these things heavily. But he argues that people of another ethnos

can only be persons if we allow them to be persons in their own ethnos. He thus pro-

motes a mutual respect of separate cultures and denies the possibility of a universal cul-

ture of humanity.

3.6 The State

His view on cultural particularity carries over to his discussion of state, where he insists

that a completely inclusive community of all humankind has never existed—and perhaps

never will, for absolute totality shows itself only through finite relative totalities. As

such, a community of humankind must be one that brings nations together while main-

taining their difference (WTZ 10, pp. 592-593).

Watsuji sees the state as the highest possible Gemeinschaft, where all private ex-

istence has been transcended and only the public remains (p. 594). He thus affords the

state the highest role among ethical organizations:

While bestowing upon each community from the family to the cultural community

its [proper] place (tokoro o ataeru), the state becomes self-conscious of and secures

their hierarchical order (dankaiteki chitsujo), i.e. the developmental connection of

the ethical organization that runs through each of these stages. The state is a self-

conscious and comprehensive sittliche organization of this sort. (p. 595, emphases

Watsuji’s)

As we can see from this definition, Watsuji (pp. 597-600) sees the state as comprehen-

sive in that it includes all sub-groups—the church (or churches), economies, etc.—

within itself, as opposed to the idea that the state is only one particular part of society

with specific functions, as is found in Watsuji’s view of a Gesellschaft state.

This comprehensive state thus secures the order amongst these levels within it

through the force of law that emanates from the sacredness (shinseisei) of living totality.

But of course, that is not to say that it is purely a spiritual principle—the force of law

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needs physical power, and military might (pp. 600-604). With this spiritual and material

force, the state maintains its sovereignty, ruling all stages beneath it but ruled by no oth-

er higher totality (p. 605).

While the basic role of the state and its sovereignty are consistent throughout the

wartime version and the post-war revised version, the view toward democracy and in-

ternational relations was altered greatly. Watsuji criticizes the separation of the nation

(the cultural Gemeinschaft) and the state (the political apparatus), arguing that these two

should be one, but the process of conquest and secularization result in governance that

does not come from the totality of the spiritual community. In the war-time version,

Watsuji sees democracy as an attempt to return to this original rule of the totality, but an

attempt that fails because each ballot only represents private interests, and the private

rule of a tyrant is only replaced by the private selves of the majority—mob rule (WTZ

11, pp. 420-424). But the post-war version is much more forgiving of democracy, but he

sees the majority as merely a functional, rational totality rather than a substantial totality

as in the true unity of nation and state (WTZ 10, pp. 609-613).

As for international relations, Watsuji’s arguments were completely re-written.

Originally, he began by criticizing how a state exceeds its own bounds through colonial

activities. He sharply rebuked wars fought for the sake of advancing national interests as

a form of national egotism (WTZ 11, pp. 430-431). Because of the need to defend from

colonial aggression, he advocates just war as an ethical duty, and criticizes the inability

to defend oneself as a form of moral weakness (WTZ 10, pp. 617-620). Given his nega-

tive view of the League of Nations as a mere cover for American and British interests,

he sees the state as accountable not to any international body but only to the principle of

absolute totality and world history (WTZ 11, pp. 431-433).

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However, in the post-war version, Watsuji removes his criticism of the colonial

activities of the western powers, and while continuing his critique of the League of Na-

tions, he adds a glowing appraisal of the United Nations, seeing it as a functional totali-

ty that holds all nations together, and sees this rational order as the pinnacle of ethical

organization that prevents the global order from degenerating into a mere profit-

centered totality (WTZ 10, pp. 613-617).

He ends his discussion of the state by pointing out the duties of the citizen to the

state. Watsuji stresses the importance of absolute obedience (especially in times of war),

and the special ethical demands placed on civil servants. He also gives his support to the

imperial rescript on education, and in line with this describes justice as “each citizen

finding his/her place,” and benevolent rule (jinsei) as guaranteeing this “justice” for the

people (pp. 620-624).

Recapitulation

In the second volume of Ethics, Watsuji concretizes his discussion of how the dual-

negative structure of ningen sonzai plays out in human ethical organizations. He shows

how privacy exists as a privation of the public, and how in the negation of private exist-

ence to raise it to a higher level of publicness, the private existence still remains (it is

not eradicated but sublated), and at the same time this higher level of publicness is ex-

clusive and thus private relative to more public totalities. Furthermore, it is this very ex-

clusivity of a totality that allows the privacy of its constituents to be sublated.

As such, we see here that Watsuji is performing a subtle “double-negation.” On

one hand, he is clearly ideologically opposed to the idea of singularity and the “irreduc-

ibly other.” For him, there is no such thing as absolute individuality. But while he

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would seem to be placing his focus on absolute totality at the expense of absolute indi-

viduality, in truth he heavily negates absolute totality as well: Absolute totality can only

be manifest via finite totalities that still bear a sense of exclusion within them. There is

no concrete totality without exclusion, and absolute totality thus exists as an unrealized

idea, in tension with the reality of finite and exclusive totalities.

The dialectic of private and public existence (or individuality and totality) and

its resulting finite totalities is closely tied to the idea of mediation. Relations are con-

cretely mediated, and this mediation has a double-function of including those who share

in it and excluding those who do not. Thus the couple is mediated by the entire being of

both members, the family by blood and sexual relations, the local community by land

and labor, the economic system by products, and the cultural community by shared lan-

guage, religion, sensibility, and knowledge. And all these groups are finite, exclusive,

and particular. Finally, this finite whole is realized, and its order preserved by a com-

prehensive, sovereign nation-state.

In this way, the second volume is systematically continuous with the first vol-

ume. But there is an important discontinuity here: While the second volume greatly clar-

ifies the idea of negating the individual to realize totality through each of the levels of

ethical organization, it does not sufficiently clarify the idea of negating totality to realize

the individual. This other half of the movement of double-negation is essential to the

first volume, but seems to disappear in the second, with the exception of the idea of

“conserving” and “respecting” private relationships that are subsumed within the totality.

Furthermore, the second volume raises new problems. How might relationships

between distinct cultures take place given they seem impossible to mediate (given

Watsuji’s view of insurmountable cultural difference)? These particular problems in the

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second problem seem to be very consistent with the image of an ethical system buckling

under the various pressures of the war, as Kaneko Takezô suggests. As such, we look to

the third, post-war volume to see these problems answered.11

4 Ethics III (1949)

The final volume of Ethics came out some seven years after the second volume. Japan

had lost the war and was generally engulfed by a somber mood, and political pressures

on the academe remained intense. Watsuji (WTZ 11, p. 1) had to heavily revise the sec-

ond volume, and had a very hard time writing the third, having to throw away a few

drafts as he struggled to compose his thoughts. But he was eventually able to come up

with a workable manuscript which he published shortly before retiring from Tokyo

University.

In this volume, Watsuji attempts to concretize the idea of space and time as they

were taken up in the first volume. From the idea of time he derives history, and from

space he derives climate (fûdo), thus showing structurally how space and time are lived

by human communities. This also gives him an opportunity to fully reflect on the war

and correct some imbalances in his discussion in the second volume. Let us examine

Watsuji’s discussion of these points.

11 This volume begs for a close parallel reading with Hegel’s The Elements of Philosophy of

Right. While this is not the place for a full length comparison of the two thinkers, I must point out the

following. First, the dialectic of individuality and totality is shared by both thinkers, but while Hegel sep-

arates it into various spheres (totality and altruism in the family, individuality and egoism in civil society),

Watsuji sees it as operating in every sphere from the family to society to the state. Second, Watsuji refus-

es the idea of a primarily egoistic sphere of human life (civil society) which thus seems to deny him a

“training ground” where individuals can learn to differentiate from totality. (This is part of the above

problem of overlooking the negation of totality to realize individuality.) This leads him to a situation

where the individual is not strong enough to contribute to society creatively—a problem he is forced to

address in the next volume of Ethics.

19

4.1 The Historicity of Human Existence

Watsuji begins his discussion by linking together the discussion in volume one on time,

with that of volume two on ethical organizations. Time, as a movement from established

relationships toward possible relationships, is concretely realized in the various levels of

ethical organization. In every level of ethical organization, a particular past (shared ex-

periences) determines a finite totality and guides it to a particular ought that is realized

in a future specific to that totality (WTZ 11, pp. 5-14).

However, the past is made of an infinite number of relationships and shared

events, and the future has an infinite number of possibilities. Can this dense mesh of

occurrences even be called history? Watsuji writes:

However, the self-conscious activity of ningen does not end idly before the over-

flowing depth of actuality. No matter how rich the past may be, it consists in facts

that are already disclosed, and it is possible to arrange and unify these. The future is

infinitely rich as well, but by grasping the ought by [its] fundamental principles, that

reality can be regulated. The former attempt results in ‘history’, and the latter at-

tempt in ‘the way (michi)’. (pp.15-16)

Hence the transition from the actuality of temporal existence to history and the way of

ningen sonzai requires the organization and unification, that is, the grasping of the un-

graspable that characterizes sonzai. For Watsuji, this unification is only possible via the

unity of ethical organizations itself—that is, the state as the ethical organization that or-

ganizes ethical organizations in a self-conscious manner. The state orients the counting

of years and bestirs the will to preserve a common past, thus giving birth to recording

and transmitting—two activities essential for history (pp. 21-27).

His view of history is thus strictly tied to the nation-state, as it discovers itself in

relation to other nations—in the experience of difference, the wonder of cultural ex-

change, and the of course, conflict and war (pp. 27-34).

20

Philosophy of History. With the crusades and the wars across Europe, historical

consciousness spreads beyond a handful of nations and becomes a true world history.

This also makes possible the self-consciousness of history via the philosophy of history.

With reference to other philosophers of history like Giambattista Vico, Johann Gottfried

von Herder, and Immanuel Kant, Watsuji attempts to clarify his own philosophy of his-

tory. He begins with a definition of history as follows:

History is that in which a unified human community that forms a state becomes self-

conscious of its self-unity (jiko no tôitsu) in an international stage, and expresses the

key contents of the past that stipulate the particular individuality of this unified col-

lective existence, in an objective and public form, that is, a collective consciousness

in which anyone can participate.” (pp. 41-42)

This history is shared amongst members of the community, and it comes to shape peo-

ple in a normative way. But that does not mean that people are confined to the traditions

of the past. Rather, for Watsuji, history needs to be constantly reinterpreted in the

changing present, and this reinterpretation is a free creation of the future. As such, the

past does not merely exist in itself, but it depends on how it is grasped. And it is only

the past as it is grasped that shapes collective existence (pp. 42-43).

What founds the interpretation of the past? For Watsuji, the importance of a par-

ticular event is dependent on the role it plays in realizing cultural values (pp. 44-45). As

such, history is not value-free but is driven by the values of the community (and the his-

toriographer).12

This is where we see Watsuji defend his idea that the unity of history

comes from the unity of ethical organizations—if we had no values to unify a nation, we

would not even know which events would count as history.

12 This idea is again curiously similar to Windelband’s (1921).

21

Next, Watsuji examines the principle that drives history. Like Kant, he locates

this principle in the realization of freedom. But he introduces the idea that freedom is

realized according to the dual-structure of ningen:

One who takes the standpoint of individual liberation (kaihô) should be able to self-

lessly serve, and one who takes the standpoint of devoted service should be able to

resolutely negate totality. Otherwise, freedom falls into simple bestial self-

indulgence or servility. (p. 59, emphases Watsuji’s)

Watsuji (pp. 60-62) points out that only via negating totality can there be freedom; only

through the rebellion against totality can there be progress in history—be it in morality,

the state, the academe, art, or religion. Through this rebellion, individuals are able to

achieve self-consciousness, and creatively intuit the form of how totality should be and

lead it there. But this rebellion is not just a willful act of a selfish individual, but a self-

less service to the totality. The idea of how the totality ought to be does not come from

the isolated individual, but rather is in the will of totality itself, albeit obscure and un-

conscious, that is then realized and brought into consciousness by the individual. As

such, Watsuji steers a course between individualist and collectivist history, and suggests

that history moves by the power of the totality, in a way that can only precipitate

through individuals, and as such history moves by the dual-structure of ningen (pp. 61-

64).

In this philosophy of history, toward what does history “develop,” and to what

end do individual freedom and service contribute? Watsuji (p.68) asserts that there has

never been a living totality of humankind whether before or after the historical period,

and as such humankind is not a unity but “a space for conflict and war between nations

and states.” But this space is one that moves toward unification, and Watsuji words this

very carefully:

22

The ideal finally arose in history that we should form humankind into one communi-

ty with no divisions of nation or state, and in so doing realize the law of ningen

sonzai at the level of humankind (jinruiteki ni). This is the ideal of the unity of hu-

mankind. In this ideal, humankind can be said to have become self-conscious of its

essence, that is that the same law of ningen sonzai makes humankind into what it is

[humankind].

This self-consciousness is a product of the history of humankind, but at the same

time it can be said to be the self-consciousness of the meaning of the history of hu-

mankind. (p. 68)

Watsuji thus shows a very confusing and conflicted view of the ideal of one community

of humankind: It does not exist, and it is a foolish univeralism to think that it does. But

it is an ideal, a not-yet that history strives toward and derives its meaning from.

The road to realizing this ideal often goes by way of war, and the rise of empires

both realizes this ideal by spreading culture over a vast region. But at the same time, by

oppressing other nations, it betrays this ideal. Thus the collapse of empires also realizes

the same ideal of history (pp. 69-72). What Watsuji shows here is that while the age of

empires played an important role in history, the end goal of history is not a mono-

cultural whole but rather a unified humankind that respects the individual differences of

nations, while allowing them to freely and autonomously relate with other nations and

learn from each other (pp. 72-73). He surmises that perhaps the UN—a venue for the

self-limitation of the sovereignty of many nation-states, rather than a global sovereign—

will play a crucial role in realizing this ideal (p. 74).

The Importance of a Philosophy of History in Japan. Having sketched his phi-

losophy of history, Watsuji (pp. 82-83) speaks from the depths of the suffering in post-

war Japan, writing that while it is difficult to see the sense of meaning in a period filled

with anguish, it is this darkness that makes people hunger for the light. What makes a

period important is not what it accomplishes, but how much self-consciousness it awak-

23

ens. But for Watsuji, it takes a prophet (yogensha) to attain self-consciousness in a dark

time, for without a prophet, an age of despair is damned. It is here where Watsuji does

something he has never done before—he addresses the reader in second person:

You, don’t you want that? If you do, then you, get up, on your own. With the power

of just one person, you can save the eternal significance of [this] age from shame

and disgrace. (p. 83)

For so long as there is self-consciousness of the past, historical progress becomes possi-

ble (p. 86).

In the discussion of history, we see the importance of individuality restored from

its enfeeblement in the second volume of Ethics, back to its former glory in the first

volume—if not even beyond that. Progress in history depends on the individual and its

self-consciousness. As such, individuality does not exist merely to propagate the totality

as it is in itself or to passively submit to the whole, but to actively create and re-create

totality.13

4.2 The Climaticity of Human Existence

As history is a concrete expression of time, climate (fûdo) is a concrete expression of

space. This section of the third volume of Ethics takes much from another very popular

work of Watsuji entitled Fûdo, which is available in English as Climate and Culture: A

Philosophical Study, translated by Geoffrey Bownas. As this was the very first book by

Watsuji translated into English and is far more famous than his Ethics in English speak-

ing circles, I will keep my discussion of this section brief.

13 It has been suggested to me that perhaps this is view might not value individuality as much as

it seems to. Not everyone can be a “prophet.” While I agree, with this criticism, the last line is worth not-

ing: “You can save the eternal significance of this age from shame and disgrace.” This second person

address perhaps points out the possibility of each person to play this prophetic role.

24

Like temporality, Watsuji (pp. 93-110) shows how spatiality is concretized in

ethical organizations. Each level of ethical organization is mediated by the sites in

which they take place—the home, the town, the cultural sites, and of course each na-

tional territory. The state has a particularly important role in that just like with time, the

self-consciousness of the state is necessary in order to unify the countless number of

spaces that influence the various levels of ethical organization in the realization of a

climatic whole (p. 111).

He extensively discusses the history and philosophy of geography (Herder, He-

gel, Alexander von Humboldt, Lucien Febvre, Paul Vidal de la Blache), but he criticizes

the tendency of these thinkers to ignore the ethical organizations that dwell upon the

land as well as the aspect of time and history in geography. This shows Watsuji’s con-

stant commitment to seeing climate and geography in relation to ningen sonzai as sub-

jective practical connections in space and time (pp. 151-152). There is no such thing as

nature separate from ningen, nor ningen separate from climate and geography: Commu-

nities struggle with and shape their environment, and individuals in their relationships

with others are shaped by their environment as well (pp. 153-155).

Watsuji ends with a scheme of classification that points out the different types of

climate and its effects on the communities within. His discussion is similar to his previ-

ous book, Climate and Culture. He retains the three original climate types—monsoon,

desert, meadow—and adds two more: American, and steppe (pp. 167-168).

Watsuji describes monsoon peoples as submissive and receptive, in response to

the generosity but occasional savagery of nature (pp. 169-175). Desert peoples are

shaped by their struggle with nature to be both submissive to the will of the totality and

warlike (pp. 175-179). In the meadow, where nature submits to man’s will, people grow

25

a balance of activity and passivity, are spontaneous, and rational (pp. 179-183). The

Americas are characterized by a wrestling with untamed nature in colonies, hence re-

sults in a blend of monsoon and desert characteristics, where people are receptive but in

a warlike way, where war and struggle is characterized by reason, inventiveness, and

technology (pp. 183-186). Finally, people in the steppes are shaped by their attempt to

be one with the endless expanse of the savannah, and are characterized by a mix of te-

naciousness and submissiveness that is warlike in retreat (pp. 187-191).

4.3 The Unity of Historicity and Climaticity as National Existence

History and climate do not exist separately. As ningen sonzai unfolds in lived space and

time and develops into ethical organizations, the rise of the state makes possible the re-

alization of space and time as climate and history. This realization leads to a kind of ex-

istence Watsuji calls “national sonzai,” which is the existence of ningen in a manner

that is self-conscious of itself as only-here and only-now, that is, climatically and histor-

ically particular (pp. 191-192).

Watsuji deeply values this national particularity, because he claims that this par-

ticularity is the only possible expression of the universal structure of ningen. And just

like a sense of “having a vocation” is only possible if there is individuality, a sense of an

eternal significance is only possible for a nation because it is climatically and historical-

ly particular (pp. 192-193).

However, while historical and climatic particularity gives nations certain strong

points, it also gives people weaknesses that may show in the face of the challenges of

history. For instance, Watsuji criticizes the lack of rationality in Japan. As such, it is

necessary to try to address these weaknesses by realizing one’s national character, see-

26

ing where the problems lie, desiring to change, and slowly collectively creating a new

culture. This task is what Watsuji calls “the ought of nations (kokumin no tôi)” (pp. 193-

195).

However, we come across a stumbling block here. People tend to cling to their

national character, especially when confronted by cultures different from one’s own. He

strongly argues that particularity is not to be respected for particularity’s sake, but only

for how it realizes the universal ethical path. And this realization requires confronting

one’s limits and growing as a culture as well. But at the same time, Watsuji warns of the

danger that in the conflict of nations, other nations will impose their ethical norms on

other nations and he warns that each nation must be able to grow from within, for each

country has its own way of growing in order to realize the universal path (pp. 195-197).

What then is this “universal path” that nations have to be able to grow and over-

come their own limitations towards? To make the long story short, history follows the

same movement of double-negation, by which absolute totality/negativity returns to it-

self through individuals via the process of negation. Watsuji sees history as beginning

with primitive human beings who were very homogenous. But with the development of

humankind across history and varying climates in the various parts of the world, people

gradually become different, and this difference becomes a source of conflict with others.

But this conflict is also a means for people to become aware of themselves as different.

As such, if nations do not stubbornly cling to their identities and absolutize their par-

ticularity, this can be an opportunity for nations to respect other nations, to learn from

them, and to exist in harmony with them (pp.198-203). In other words, the original ho-

mogeneity of humankind is negated in the differentiation of history that allows nations

27

to become self-conscious, but this national particularity must be negated in a way that it

is sublated, that is, maintained but synthesized in a world of unity-in-difference.14

4.4 The Problem of the National Ought

Watsuji sees history as the movement toward one world (hitotsu no sekai), but this telos

has requirements that it poses toward nations both intra-nationally and inter-nationally

(pp. 345-346).

The Intra-National Ought. Within a nation, there are two main ethical tasks: The

first is the formation of a national ethical organization—that is, to be able to form a tru-

ly ethical state that orders and protects the various ethical organizations beneath it. It is

within this state and the sub-organizations within it that people practice their particular

form of morality.15

In trying to realize this, many nations will realize that they need to

reform their very culture or social structure, which leads to the second task: that of real-

izing one’s national character and its limits in order to overcome it (pp. 347-349).16

The Inter-National Ought. Between nations, what is necessary is the formation

of one world. Ever since the first epoch, people have been trying to realize this unity

through military, all the way up to the colonialism and world wars of Watsuji’s time.

But Watsuji points out that military might is always defeated by military might, and im-

perialism is not capable of unifying the world. Rather:

14 In order to substantiate this claim that history moves toward unity-in-difference, Watsuji pro-

vides his commentary on a brief history of the world in about 140 pages. But allow me to skip this in or-

der to focus on Watsuji’s systematic content.

15 Similarly to his essays on national morals, he argues that while virtues are culturally relative,

nobody actually aims to merely produce particular moralities, but rather strive to realize universal ethics,

but as a consequence of climatic and historical particularity, necessarily arrive at a particular morality.

16 He takes up Japan as a particular example, criticizing family relations, economic and political

viewpoints, cultural issues, and so on, and suggesting necessary reforms.

28

“The One World,” as an ethical organization amongst all nations (kokumin), needs

to be constructed not through military might, but through reason (dôri). (p. 401)

But this inter-national sittliche organization is not a global democracy, which is logisti-

cally impossible for Watsuji. Rather, he thinks that what is necessary is organized ethi-

cal states that relate with each other through an apparatus like the League of Nations or

the United Nations. This demands is a certain abandonment of the idea of sovereignty

altogether, where nation-states cede their sovereignty and with their general will gener-

ate a global sovereignty. As such, sovereignty is suspended between individual nation-

states and the international organization (pp. 402-403).

The first step toward this is a rational and self-aware formation of global eco-

nomics. This globalization is not one of unregulated capitalist competition, but rather

economic relations of mutual service and benefit that takes advantage of climatic speci-

ficity in order to create sustainable systems where different nations can exchange goods

with each other (pp. 403-405). But additionally, it requires the formation of a global cul-

ture. But this global culture is not a homogenous culture imposed on all nations—an

impossible and impoverishing attempt. Rather, it is the formation of an international

culture that is overlaid on national culture and appropriated to it—particularity on the

inside, but cosmopolitan unity on the outside. Watsuji positively evaluates English and

the American way in forming this global culture (pp. 405-407).

With this sort of international economics and culture, it will then be possible for

nations to still respect each other’s particularity, and cultivate their own natural culture,

without falling into the fallacy of thinking that “being unique means being better” or

falling into the error of closing up one’s country (sakoku) like Japan did (pp. 408-414).

Recapitulation

29

In the final volume of Ethics, Watsuji showed how space and time are concretely lived

as climate and history. The flow of time is organized through the unity of ethical organ-

izations, particularly through the state and its values. In Watsuji’s view of history we

also saw the importance of individuality: It is only through self-conscious, free individ-

uals that the form of how totality ought to be can be realized. History thus develops

through the dual-structure of freedom: creative freedom from the actuality of totality

which at the same time realizes totality beyond individuality.

On the other hand, space is concretely lived as climate (fûdo). Like history, na-

tions only realize their climatic character in contrast to other nations. This is a key con-

tribution of the third volume to the dialectic of private and public existence—what

might be termed “self-realization of identity through difference”—wherein the self-

awareness of finite totality is only possible in realizing what one doesn’t share with

those outside the totality, which allows for a realization of what one does share with

those within one’s community.

Both climate and history shape nations in particular ways, thus leading to unique

national existence. History can thus be seen as a playing out of double-negation on the

scale of nations and humankind—as humankind differentiates into various nation-states,

it becomes possible for people to gain self-awareness of their national particularity. But

it also raises the challenge to be able to synthesize these particularities for an interna-

tional system of mutual respect and cooperation.

There is clear continuity between the third volume and the other two. With the

first volume, the continuity of the idea of double-negation is clearer here than it is in the

second volume. The concretization of space-time from the first volume also goes by

way of the idea of sittliche organizations, thus tying together the three volumes. How-

30

ever, there is a clear shift in attitude vis-à-vis the solutions required to realize ethics on

the level of nations and global culture, and in the third volume Watsuji is at his most

optimistic as to the possibilities of inter-national unity.

But has Watsuji really solved the problem of how to create ethical relations

globally, despite insurmountable cultural differences? Here his answer is not very well

put together. On one hand, he suggests that the relationship of culturally particular na-

tions can be mediated first by economic relations, and second by a cosmopolitan culture

that is overlaid on top of national culture rather than replacing it altogether. But this has

several problems. First, relations would be purely inter-national rather than trans-

national, and there is little room for direct relationships across cultural barriers, as well

as no workable theory for multiculturalism.17

Second, if self-awareness is only possible

in contradistinction to the outsider/other, who is the outsider of a global community?

This is a complex issue that would require an entire paper to address. But let me

suggest two possibilities. First, I think his view of the relationship of national morality

to universal morality is essential though downplayed: While all morality is manifest in a

historico-climatically particular manner as national morality, it constantly aims at some-

thing universal. As such, there is a possibility for a direct relationship between individu-

als across cultures on the basis of universal morality. This relationship is mediated by

nothing, that is, the abstract principle of self-emptying of absolute totality.18

It is thus, in

a sense, immediate. Second, the logic of “self-realization of identity via difference” can

perhaps shift from being spatial (those inside vs those outside the community) to being

17 This is a large part of the critique of Watsuji by Sakai Naoki (1997).

18 See WTZ 11, p.432.

31

temporal (history prior to the unity of one world). But these solutions will need exten-

sive development, and I leave that to others, or perhaps another paper.

5 Conclusion: Concretizing an Ethics of Emptiness

For many, Watsuji’s first volume of Ethics stood out as a radical interpretation of the

individuality and communality of human beings and the tensions and struggles involved

therein. The discourse of emptiness (kû) and the strong Buddhist flavor coupled with the

strongly Heideggerian lines of argumentation lent itself to a very “relational existential-

ist” reading with very strong spiritualistic overtones. This is not mistaken. But if human

existence truly does have a dual-structure, then the private act of self-realization and

self-emptying automatically transcends the realm of private morality into the complexi-

ties of socio-political life, and things get much more complicated. Sociology, anthropol-

ogy, economics, and political science have a very tense relationship with ethical theory

and with good reason—social structures, culture, and institutions further complicate the

already difficult aspects of individual morality. But Watsuji’s ethics necessarily crosses

over into these fields, muddying itself, and sometimes spreading itself too thin. But be-

yond that, in this “third epoch” of great global change, any socio-politically aware eth-

ics has to tangle with a realm that is shrouded from the light of practical reason—history.

How can one speak boldly about universal ethics, of double-negation and the self-

conscious self-return of absolute emptiness, when one leaves the serenity of private mo-

rality into the complexities of society, of states and inter-national conflict, all the way

into the heartless shifting of the sands in human history?

But it was precisely this breadth that Watsuji was aiming at when he first penned

his Ethics. The very introduction of the first volume showed that he was already aware

32

that the abstract notion of the self-return of absolute emptiness would have to be concre-

tized in ethical organizations as well as in history. As such, the true genius, the true

struggle, and the true tragedy of Watsuji’s ethics of emptiness can only be seen and un-

derstood in light of this concreteness.

33

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