The Philosophy of Miki Kiyoshi

Abstract

Miki Kiyoshi tried to grasp the continuities and discontinuities between nature and humanity, and between nature and culture, but it is not enough. If we were to make Miki’s conception into an abstract logic it would probably be a logic similar to Nishida’s “absolutely contradictory self-identity” [絶対矛盾的自己同一], but unlike Nishida Miki’s particular strength lay in drawing a logic out of an analysis of concrete phenomena. Miki needed to clarify the logic of discontinuity and continuity in the midst of concretely analyzing the difference and commonality between the forms of nature and the forms of human culture, and between the technology of nature and the technology of human beings, but he stopped mid-way.

Translated from the Japanese by Robert Chapeskie and revised by John W. M. Krummel.