Yuko Ishihara

Intercultural Phenomenology explores the nature of reality by engaging in a cross-cultural dialogue between two of the most influential philosophical traditions of the 20th century. Drawing on ideas from phenomenology, Japanese philosophy and Zen Buddhism, it follows the philosophers who changed their perception of the world by choosing to suspend judgement. Guided by this philosophical method known as the "epoché", or suspension of judgment in ancient Greek, it is an introduction to the philosophy and practice of letting objects in the world speak for themselves.

When we reflect on our experience, our attention shifts from the objects of our experience towards the experience of the objects. This shift of attention can be understood in at least the following three ways: (1) an instance of introspection where a physical self is attending to its own experience, (2) an instance of psychological reflection where a psychological self is attending to its own experience in a phenomenological manner, or (3) an instance of transcendental- phenomenological reflection where a transcendental-phenomenological self is attending to its own experience. Misunderstandings of phenomenology often revolve around conflating phenomenological reflection with introspection or understanding it merely as a kind of psychological reflection. Such misunderstandings are detrimental not only to phenomenology alone, but also to the interdisciplinary study of experience insofar as they hinder productive exchange between disciplines. This paper presents a metareflection by a philosopher and a scientist on the nature of reflection understood as a shift of attention. We introduce a new formalism of the phenomenological method of ‘bracketing’, known as the phenomenological epoché, that will help clarify the aforementioned differences and prevent making logical mistakes that may arise from the ambiguity of the concept of reflection. The formalism delineates a layered model defining structural constraints on the language inherent to each discipline, with physics at the ground level, psychological phenomenology on the level above that, and transcendental phenomenology at the top. Our model, together with the notations we introduce, further illustrates how translations between the disciplines are possible and what kind of precautions one must take when undertaking them. Finally, we discuss potential implications of the model by highlighting important analogies between science and philosophy.

In this essay I present the philosophy of Nishida Kitarō, the father of the Kyoto School tradition, as an alternative version of transcendental philosophy. While following the steps of Kant and Husserl in important ways, Nishida attempts to take the transcendental approach even further, finally leaving us with a different view of reality that is neither realist nor idealist, but, rather, radically realist. I call this radical transcendental position, “awakened realism”. Due to word limitations, I can only set the stage for further discussion on what kind of implication this may have for transcendental philosophy. But if I succeed in making my presentation clear enough, it should naturally ignite discussion on how far we can radicalize transcendental philosophy without making it into something else.

In this paper, I argue that later Nishida's analysis of self-awareness (jikaku) provides a new perspective on the nature of self-awareness as understood in the philosophical literature today. I argue that the contemporary literature deals with two kinds of self-awareness; the higher-order theory understands self-awareness to be an objectified awareness and the phenomenological tradition generally understands self-awareness to be, at least primarily, a non-objectified awareness. In light of this, I first give an account of Nishida's ?acting-intuition? with reference to the ?historical body.? Then I argue that later Nishida's analysis of self-awareness depicts the inadequacy of the two kinds of self-awareness as both being stuck in the subject-object dichotomy which, according to Nishida, is but one mode of experience, namely the mode of difference. Nishida provides an account that ultimately foregrounds the experiential mode of unity that negates any sense of differentiation between the subject and object