Clear all
Work #1610 · Middle-to-late

From the Acting to the Seeing

Nishida Kitarō
1927 · Japanese
Philosophical essay collection · Kyoto School / Japanese Buddhist phenomenology

Nishida's 1927 'From the Acting to the Seeing' — turn to the logic of place (basho)

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute From the Acting to the Seeing (Middle-to-late)
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Emergent
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Relational
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Non-local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Emergent
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Immediate
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Both
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Impersonal
Observer · Moral Authority Reason
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Emergent
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Reversible
Information · Ontological Status Relational
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

From the Acting to the Seeing

1927 publication. Nishida was 57 and had been Professor of Philosophy at Kyoto Imperial University since 1910.

Space

From the Acting to the Seeing

Kyoto Imperial University — the institutional centre of the Kyoto School of philosophy. The intellectual space is the encounter of Japanese-Buddhist philosophical traditions with German-philosophical modernism.

Matter

From the Acting to the Seeing

Six-essay collection. Form is essayistic-philosophical: each essay develops one stage of the basho framework.

Observer

From the Acting to the Seeing

Middle-to-late Nishida. The observer-philosopher is at the height of his constructive philosophical work, between the early 'Inquiry into the Good' (1911) and the late writings on the dialectical world (1930s-1940s).

Energy

From the Acting to the Seeing

Late-developmental energies. The book inaugurates the philosophical framework — the logic of place — that would structure all subsequent Kyoto-School philosophy.

Information

From the Acting to the Seeing

Single essay collection. The 'Basho' essay is the central informational structure; the other essays apply and develop its framework.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

From the Acting to the Seeing

Mature turn to the logic of place — Nishida's most influential conceptual move. The basho framework has been continuously developed in subsequent Kyoto-School philosophy (Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keiji, Ueda Shizuteru), engaged comparatively with Western phenomenology (Tanabe's encounter with Heidegger; Nishitani's with Eckhart), and applied in contemporary religious-philosophical scholarship.