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Nothingness Beyond God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Nishida Kitaro

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Carter's "The Nothingness Beyond God" is a beacon that opens up for discovery new possibilities of a meaningful dialogue between Eastern and Western philosophical traditions. Dedicating a chapter to each developmental stage, the book clearly illuminates the evolution of the philosophy of Nishida Kitar . Initiating the inquiry with the concept of pure experience, Carter deftly, yet with eloquent brevity, extricates the essential elements of Nishidan thought from a complex of the philosopher's writings. Carter demonstrates how Nishida never lost sight of his founding concept, pure experience, while he continued to tender increasingly more elucidated refinements that saw the genesis of the Logic of Basho and the concept of Self-Contradictory Identity. The refinement eventually produced a philosophical stance which he called The Dialectical World of "Acting Intuition", and of which this edition offers a substantially expanded exegesis. But Carter does not rest here, he suggests that issues of religion, morality and ethics, in short of value in general, can be, and indeed must be, tied to an understanding of the essential unfolding of the individual, without which, these concepts, lacking a form for expression, would be essentially empty.. In other words, what Carter sees as groundbreaking in Nishida is an insight that offers an ontology that can participate in the resolution of contemporary world issues. Ecology and environmental issues now become deep issues that are inseparable from our own well being. In what has clearly secured itself as a masterpiece of comparative philosophy, its contemporary relevance has additionally advanced the endeavour to bridge the gap between East and West. Yet, one of the more salient features of "The Nothingness Beyond God" is its range of accessibility. It is equally stimulating for the neophyte as well as the seasoned comparativist, in that its accessibility does not come at the expense of scholarly exactness. Well done.

In The Nothingness Beyond God, Robert Carter, from a Western perspective and using a comparative approach, provides a detailed exposition and analysis of the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro, a major Japanese philosopher of the last century. This book represents a significant introduction of Nishida's philosophy to the West, and is considered to be preeminent in the field.

Carter pursues the central theme of 'nothingness' by elaborating on a number of Nishida's major concepts, including `pure experience,' the `logic of Basho' (place), `self-contradictory identity,' `action intuition,' and the relationship between religion, morality, values, ethics, and feeling.

While extremely important, Nishida's works does tend to be rather difficult. Since this particular book is an academic publication intended primarily for an academic audience, it should come as no surprise that some of the material can be challenging. Nevertheless, while expounding a most difficult subject, the book remains highly readable and is full of compelling insights into the Oriental perspective in general, and Japanese philosophy in particular, insights that are accessible to virtually anyone willing to put forth some effort.

As a long-time student of Oriental philosophy, I whole-heartedly recommend Carter's book to those with a similar interest. This is a powerful book which is well written and likely to make a significant contribution to the reader's appreciation of Eastern culture.

For myself, this was a very interesting and informative book. Carter attempts to lay out the philosopy of Nishida Kitaro in a graspable fashion... no easy task... I must say, however, that I was only able to slog through this book because of my own interest in the subject... Carter could have seriously used a good editor, although I expect it must have been difficult to find an editor who was sufficiently ruthless and at the same time sensitive to the difficulty of what Carter was trying to do, let alone wrap his or her brain around the subject... a more closely edited version of this book could have been great... as it is, the stark contrast between the quality and clarity of Thomas Kasulis' forward and the body of the book reflects poorly on Carter.
As I said, however, the book's got a lot of good stuff to offer, and stuff that I have not been able to find elswhere (although I have yet to read the several more English language books on Kitaro that have come out since this)... It has a lot of good stuff to offer IF you can get to it...
The book does, however, have one unexcusable flaw: Chapter Seven. In chapter seven, Carter suddenly shifts from abstract-to-the-the-point-of-being-incomprehensible to "concrete", by relating his discussion to an idealized "Japanese" world in a way that is as... er... bizzare... as it is fanciful. He seems wrapped up in a weird picture-postcard view of "the Japanese" (a term he beats utterly to death) that, for me, utterly undermined the authority of his arguments. By the time he quoted James Clavell's "Shogun" (albiet in a footnote) to illustrate the importance of non-intellectuallized "pure experience" to "the Japanese", I was ready to throw this book in the trash. I didn't, however, and got a lot of good food for thought, or rather, perspectives on thought and non-thought, from it.

I am writing a novel that loosely involves Nishidan philosophy, so I bought this work as a supplement to the original texts. As a broad overview of Nishida's philosophical career, it's a good place to start. Carter doesn't dumb down Nishida's complex philosophy, but does a good job building a foundation and summarizing Nishida's major points. However, there were a few points on which the book fell short. For one, Carter's style is overly repetitive. I can't count the number of times and ways he tried to illustrate how Nishida's philosophy hinges on the acceptance of contradictions. "A is A; and A is not A; therefore, A is A" came up several times, each time with a flurry of illustrations. Already at a scant 177 pages, the book could have benefitted from a careful editor and been reduced to about 100. Secondly, as mentioned below, Carter does seem to dabble in the bad habit of "orientalizing" the Japanese. Too often older academics will make sweeping generalizations about "the East" and "the West" (with bold-faced capitalization) and, worse, "the Japanese mind." As though we were two different species. Blah blah. Aside from this pet peeve of mine, Carter gives a good, thorough and compelling overview of Nishidan philosophy, and I think this book is a great addition to anyone interested in Japanese philosophy, Zen Buddhism, or the Kyoto School.

I'm one "neophyte" who has been stimulated by this subject.
(I'd have to defer to "seasoned comparativists" on whether or not Robert Carter has accurately made the rather incomprehensible philosophy of Nishida comprehensible.)

I had read this book several years ago but I still ocassionally refer to it.
Chapter 3, Self-Contradictory Identity, and Chapter 4, "God and Nothingness" are the parts of the book to which I often refer.
In my opinion, this framework provides a much better tool for analyzing the nature of "God" than mainstream theology and popular arguments for or against the existence of "God."
Theologians would consider a "nothingness" beyond God heresy.
Modern atheists would find no evidence to support either "God" or "nothingness."

However, one should be careful about accepting Carter's Nishida whole-cloth.
Kim Hee-Jin in "Dogen on Meditation and Thinking" notes the criticism of Nishida and the Kyoto School for their tendancy toward cultural and spiritual nationalism (reverse Orientalism).

Nevertheless, they all use "nothingness" (or "nonthinking" ) as a crucial element for balancing and weighing contradictory opposites (Kim cites Dogen's example of the steelyard used to weigh an object against a standard weight hung from a focal point hanging in empty space).
Thus, "nothingness" can be used in a dynamic, dialectical relationship in concrete everyday situations, balancing contradictory concepts rather than trying to eliminate them.