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20The Religious Philosophy of the Kyoto School: An OverviewJapanese Journal of Religious Studies 17 (1): 51-81. 1990.
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Review of: Robert E. Carter, Encounter with Enlightenment: A Study of Japanese Ethics (review)Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 30 (1-2): 157-159. 2003.
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11Review of: Chai-Shin Yu, Early Buddhism and Christianity: A Comparative Study of the Founders’ Authority, the Community, and the Discipline (review)Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 9 (4): 320-322. 1982.
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24The 2004 Meeting of the Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesBuddhist-Christian Studies 25 (1): 153-153. 2005.
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Review of: Marcello Ghilardi, na logica del vedere. Estetica ed etica nel pensiero di Nishida Kitarō (review)Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37 (1): 175-178. 2010.
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7Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy Vol. 1 (edited book)Nanzan Institute for Religion & Culture. 2006.Thirteen scholars gather together to discuss current issues in Japanese philosophy, critically examine its ongoing dialogue with Western philosophy, and open new questions for future research.
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28The Heart of Buddhism: In Search of the Timeless Spirit of Primitive BuddhismPhilosophy East and West 35 (2): 221-223. 1985.
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9Review of: Minoru Kiyota, Gedatsukai: Its Theory and Practice (review)Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 9 (4): 316-318. 1982.
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14Review of: Ueda Shizuteru, Nishida Kitarō: Ningen no shōgai to iu koto; Keiken to jikaku: Nishida Tetsugaku no “basho” o motomete (review)Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24 (1-2): 197-202. 1997.
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73Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, and the Question of NationalismPhilosophy East and West 47 (3): 439. 1997.
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11Nishida Kitaro (edited book)University of California Press. 1991.In recent years several books by major figures in Japan's modern philosophical tradition have appeared in English, exciting readers by their explorations of the borderlands between philosophy and religion. What has been wanting, however, is a book in a Western language to elucidate the life and thought of Nishida Kitaro, Japan's first philosopher of world stature and the originator of what has come to be called the Kyoto School. No one is more qualified to write such a book than Nishitani Keiji,…Read more
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21In Memoriam: Jan Van Bragt (1928–2007)Buddhist-Christian Studies 28 141-144. 2008.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Memoriam: Jan Van Bragt (1928–2007)James W. HeisigEarly on the morning of Easter Thursday, April 12, 2007, Jan Van Bragt passed away quietly at the age of seventy-eight.1 During the previous year his health had begun to deteriorate, until in the final days of 2006 he was obliged to leave Kyoto and take up residence with his religious congregation in Himeji. On February 21, he was hospitalized with lung cancer and was operated on s…Read more
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10Book Review: Robert Wilkinson, Nishida and Western Philosophy (review)Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37 (1): 178-182. 2010.
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61Much Ado About Nothingness: Essays on Nishida and TanabeChisokudo Publications. 2015.Much Ado About Nothingness brings together 14 essays on Nishida Kitaro and Tanabe Hajime by one of the leading scholars of twentieth-century Japanese philosophy. With Nishidaâs âlogic of placeâ and Tanabeâs âlogic of the specificâ providing a continuity to the whole, the author writes from a conviction that âthe overriding challenge for those doing philosophy in the key of the Kyoto School, with their sights set squarely on self-awareness like Nishida and Tanabe before them, is to …Read more
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Editors' IntroductionIn James W. Heisig & Rein Raud (eds.), Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy: Japanese Philosophy Abroad, Nanzan Institute For Religion & Culture. 2010.
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Nishida’s Deodorized Basho and the Scent of Zeami’s FlowerIn James W. Heisig & Rein Raud (eds.), Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy: Japanese Philosophy Abroad, Nanzan Institute For Religion & Culture. pp. 247-273. 2010.
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158Japanese Philosophy: A SourcebookUniversity of Hawaiʻi Press. 2011.This is a set of essays and translations that covers comprehensively all of Japanese philosophy.
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13Filosofi Del NullaChisokudo Publications. 2007.Traduzione italiana a cura di Enrico Fongaro, Carlo Saviani e Tiziano Tosolini. Il volume presenta il pensiero delle tre principali figure della cosiddetta âscuola di Kyotoâ, Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime e Nishitani Keiji, mostrando come questa originale corrente del pensiero giapponese del Novecento costituisca per la filosofia tradizionale una sfida ad oltrepassare i suoi confini occidentali.
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25An Inquiry into the Good and Nishida’s Missing BashoComparative and Continental Philosophy 4 (2). 2012.In December 2010 Kyoto University hosted a symposium honoring the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Nishida Kitarō’s An Inquiry into the Good. The following is an English version of a talk delivered on that occasion. In it I have tried to argue against the widely held view that this maiden work contains the germ of Nishida’s mature philosophy, and at the same time to suggest that an early strain of ambiguity regarding the notion of the will points to a neglect of the natural world in h…Read more
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7Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto SchoolUniversity of Hawaii Press. 2001.The past twenty years have seen the publication of numerous translations and commentaries on the principal philosophers of the Kyoto School, but so far no general overview and evaluation of their thought has been available, either in Japanese or in Western languages. James Heisig, a longstanding participant in these efforts, has filled that gap with Philosophers of Nothingness. In this extensive study, the ideas of Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime, and Nishitani Keiji are presented both as a consis…Read more
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Editors''' IntroductionIn Heisig James W. & Uehara Mayuko (eds.), Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy: Origins and Possibilities, Nanzan Institute For Religion & Culture. pp. 1-8. 2008.
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9Book Review: Early Buddhism and Christianity: A comparative study of the founders' authority, the community, and the discipline by Chai-Shin Yu (review)Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 9 320-322. 1982.
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Predgovor bosanskom prijevoduIn Kahteran Nevad & W. Heisig James (eds.), Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy 5: Nove Granice Japanske Filozofije, Nanzan Institute For Religion & Culture. 2009.
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42Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesBuddhist-Christian Studies 24 (1): 235-235. 2004.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesJames W. HeisigThe Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies held its twenty-second annual conference this year, organized around the theme "Body, Place, and East-West Exchange." The meetings were held at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, 22-24 July 2003, with main presentations by Honda Masaaki ("From Body to Place"), Kawanami Akira ("The Body and the Pure Land"), and Hanao…Read more
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41Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy: Japanese Philosophy Abroad (edited book)Nanzan Institute for Religion & Culture. 2004.The twelfth bi-annual symposium of the Nanzan Institute took up the problem of the philosophical tradition of Japan and how it has fared abroad. There were two principal foci of the meetings: the history and future prospects of the study and teaching of Japanese philosophy outside of Japan, and the preparation of a Sourcebook of Japanese Philosophy aimed at providing a solid anthology of Japanese philospohical resources from the earliest times up to the present. To address these two questions, 1…Read more
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211An Apology for Philosophical TransgressionsEuropean Journal of Japanese Philosophy 2 43-67. 2017.The essay that follows is, in substance, a lecture delivered in Brussels on 7 December 2016 to the 2nd International Conference of the European Network of Japanese Philosophy. In it I argue that the strategy of qualifying nothingness as an “absolute,” which was adopted by Kyoto School thinkers as a way to come to grips with fundamental problems of Western philosophy, is inherently ambiguous and ultimately weakens the notion of nothingness itself. In its place, a proposal is made to define nothin…Read more
Cambridge University
PhD, 1973
Areas of Specialization
Philosophical Traditions |
Philosophy, Misc |
Other Academic Areas |
Religious Studies |
Psychology |
Areas of Interest
Philosophical Traditions |
Philosophy, Misc |
Other Academic Areas |
Religious Studies |
Psychology |