Japan

nationality

Japanese

occupation / innovator as

philosopher

intellectual historian

moral cultural historian

innovator in the field of

Japan studies

Japanese history

Japanese philosophy

Kyoto School of Philosophy

religion

Buddhism

university teacher

scientific organization

Japan Academy

is poised to be the center of a so-called East-Asia bloc within an emerging radically polycentric world order which will have no specific global center, but rather various geographical centers.

In seeing Japan as a pivotal factor in a turn from what he calls the Atlantic to the Pacific period of world history, by virtue of which 'the Pacific has now come on to the stage of world history', he anticipates a shift toward what has since become known as the 'Pacific Rim' which demarcates an increasingly significant arena in geopolitics. This is a case of what he calls 'a tendency toward bloc formation', something based on 'a shared subjectivity [among groups of nations] that takes the world itself as their common foundation' (Dilworth eta!. 1998: 383). So, although Nishitani sees Japan as playing a pivotal role in the formation of a bloc in East-Asia, this is only within a development toward a radically polycentric world order: 'The fact that the world, no longer having a specific center, . . . has come to have various geographical centers constitutes the simplest and, moreover, the most universal impetus for this new world order' (Dilworth et al. 1998: 384).

Keiji Nishitani

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Keiji NishitaniThinkers

Keiji Nishitani