Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-hvd4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-20T17:12:22.128Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Japanese Philosophers on Plato's Ideas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2023

Noburu Notomi
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although Plato studies occupy an important place in academia, the empiricist stance in considering reality, the modern epistemology of the self-identical ego, the devaluation of the image and imagination, and the restrictions on philosophy within academic research sometimes cause us to lose sight of the essence of Plato's texts and thought when analysing them. Discussing Plato from a Japanese perspective, this paper will introduce three Japanese thinkers, Sakabe Megumi, Izutsu Toshihiko, and Ino-ue Tadashi, who have critically examined modern Western philosophy from their own philosophical backgrounds and provided valuable suggestions. Taking into account the arguments of these Japanese thinkers, this paper emphasizes the notions of separation, purification, and transcendence as core concepts of Plato's philosophy.

Type
Paper
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 93: Expanding Horizons , May 2023 , pp. 55 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This paper was presented online for The London Lectures 2021: Expanding Horizons, the Royal Institute of Philosophy, 25 November 2021. I thank Julian Baggini for the kind invitation and valuable discussion. The names of the Japanese authors are given in the order of family name first and then given name.

References

Fine, Gail, Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).Google Scholar
Ino-ue, Tadashi, Challenge from Konkyo (根拠よりの挑戦), (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1974).Google Scholar
Ino-ue, Tadashi, Carving of Philosophy 1: Beyond Sex and Death (哲学の刻み１、性と死を超えるもの), (Kyoto: Hozo-kan, 1985).Google Scholar
Izutsu, Toshihiko, Mystic Philosophy: A Study on Greek Philosophy (神秘哲学ギリシアの部), (Tokyo: Hikari-no-shobo, 1949; reprinted, Tokyo: Iwanami, 2019).Google Scholar
Izutsu, Toshihiko, Consciousness and Essence: Toward the Spiritual Orient (意識と本質 精神的東洋を索めて), (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1983; reprinted, 1991).Google Scholar
Matsunaga, Yuji, Knowing and Not-Knowing: Prelude to the Study of Plato's Philosophy (知と不知—プラトン哲学研究序説) (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Notomi, Noburu, ‘Socrates in the Phaedo’, in Boys-Stones, George, Murr, Dimitri El, and Gill, Christopher (eds.), The Platonic Art of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 51–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Notomi, Noburu, ‘The Platonic Idea of Ideal and its Reception in East Asia’, in Boudouris, Konstantine, Dimitracopoulos, Costas, and Protopapadakis, Evangelos (eds.), Selected Papers from the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Philosophy as Inquiry and Way of Life (Charlottesville, Virginia: Philosophy Documentation Center, 2015), 137–147.Google Scholar
Notomi, Noburu, ‘Freedom and the State in Plato's Politeia (Republic): Reconsidering the Concept of ‘Politeia’’, Japan Studies in Classical Antiquity, 3 (2017), 57–68.Google Scholar
Notomi, Noburu, ‘The Soul and Forms in Plato's Phaedo’, in Cornelli, Gabriele, Robinson, Thomas M., and Bravo, Francisco (eds.), Plato's Phaedo: Selected Papers from the Eleventh Symposium Platonicum (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2018), 288–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Notomi, Noburu, ‘How Modern Japanese People Read Plato's Politeia’, in Liebersohn, Yosef Z., Glucker, John, and Ludlam, Ivor (eds.), Plato and His Legacy (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021), 219–232.Google Scholar
Sakabe, Megumi, Hermeneutics of the Mask (仮面の解釈学) (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1976).Google Scholar