Shūzō Kuki

Kuki was the fourth child of Baron Kuki Ryūichi (九鬼 隆一) a high bureaucrat in the Meiji Ministry for Culture and Education (Monbushō). Since it appears that Kuki's mother, Hatsu, was already pregnant when she fell in love with Okakura Kakuzō (岡倉 覚三), otherwise known as Okakura Tenshin (岡倉 天心), a protégé of her husband's (a notable patron of the arts), the rumour that Okakura was Kuki's father would appear to be groundless. It is true, however, that Shūzō as a child, after his mother had separated and then divorced his father, thought of Okakura, who often visited, as his real father, and later certainly hailed him as his spiritual father. From Okakura, he gained much of his fascination for aesthetics and perhaps foreign languages, as indeed his fascination with the peculiar cultural codes of the pleasure quarters of Japan owes something to the fact that his mother had once been a geisha.

At age 23 in 1911 (Meiji 44), Kuki converted to Catholicism; and he was baptized in Tokyo as Franciscus Assisiensis Kuki Shūzō. The idealism and introspection implied by this decision were early evidence of issues which would have resonance in the characteristic mindset of the mature man.[1]

A graduate in philosophy of Tokyo Imperial University, Kuki spent eight years in Europe to polish his knowledge of languages and deepen his already significant studies of contemporary Western thought. At the University of Heidelberg, he studied under the neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert, and he engaged Eugen Herrigel as a tutor.[2] At the University of Paris, he was impressed by the work of Henri Bergson, whom he came to know personally; and he engaged the young Jean-Paul Sartre as a French tutor.[3] It is little known outside Japan that Kuki influenced Jean-Paul Sartre to develop an interest in Heidegger's philosophy.[4]

At the University of Freiburg, Kuki studied phenomenology under Edmund Husserl; and he first met Martin Heidegger in Husserl's home. He moved to the University of Marburg for Heidegger's 1927/1928 winter semester lectures on the phenomenological interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (published as volume 25 in the Heidegger Gesamtausgabe), and for Heidegger's seminar "Schelling's Essay on the Essence of Human Freedom."[3] The following semester (Summer, 1928) he attended Heidegger's lecture on logic in the light of Leibniz (HGA 26) and his seminar on Aristotle's Physics.[5] Fellow students during these years in Europe were Tetsurō Watsuji and Kiyoshi Miki.

Shortly after Kuki's return to Japan, he wrote and published his masterpiece, The Structure of "Iki" (1930). In this work he undertakes to make a phenomenological analysis of iki, a variety of chic culture current among the fashionable set in Edo in the Tokugawa period, and asserted that it constituted one of the essential values of Japanese culture.

Kuki took up a teaching post at Kyoto University, then a prominent center for conservative cultural values and thinking. His early lectures focused on Descartes and Bergson. In the context of a faculty with a primarily Germanic philosophical background, his lectures offered a somewhat different perspective based on the work of French philosophers.

He became an Associate Professor in 1933 (Shōwa 8); and in that same year, he published the first book length study of Martin Heidegger to appear in Japanese.[6] In this context, it is noteworthy that the German philosopher explicitly referenced a conversation "between a Japanese and an inquirer" [7] in On the Way to Language (Aus einem Gespräch von der Sprache).[8] Also, Heidegger expressed a desire to have written the preface to the German translation of The Structure of "Iki"[9]

At the University of Kyoto, Kuki was elevated to Professor of Philosophy in March 1934 (Shōwa 10).[6] The next year, he published The Problem of Contingency, also known as The Problem of the Accidental.[10] This work was developed from his personal experiences in Europe and the influences of Heidegger. As a single Japanese man within an encompassing "white" or non-Japanese society, he considered the extent to which he became a being who lacked necessity.[4] His Kyoto University lectures on Heidegger, Man and Existence, were published in 1939.[11]

From the mid-thirties, while Japan drifted towards totalitarianism and the war in China dragged on, Kuki seemed not to be much disturbed by the growth of fascism.[12]

In 1941, Kuki died prematurely from consequences following an attack of peritonitis.[13] His manuscripts are now kept in the Konan University Library.

• 1930 The Structure of "Iki" (「いき」の構造,, "Iki" no kōzō)
• 1933 The Philosophy of Heidegger (ハイデッガーの哲学,, Haideggā no tetsugaku)
• 1935 The Problem of Contingency (偶然性の問題,, Gūzensei no mondai)
• 1939 Man and Existence (人間と実存,, Ningen to jitsuzon)
• 1941 An Essay on the Fine Arts (文芸論,, Bungeiron)

Kuki's complete works in twelve volumes, the Kuki Shuzo zenshu (abbreviated KSZ in scholarly publications that reference the collection), are published by the Japanese company Iwanami Shoten:[14][15]

• Volume One:「いき」の構造 "Iki" no kozo, "The Structure of Iki".

  This volume also contains:

  • Glauben und Wissen ("Beliefs and Knowledge", Kuki's thesis written during his time at the University of Tokyo on the subject of faith and knowledge in European medieval philosophy)
  • Propos sur le temps ("On Time", which contains two lectures that Kuki delivered at Pontigny in August 1928: La notion du temps et la reprise sur le temps en orient and L'expression de l'infini dans l'art japonais)
  • Choses japonaises ("Japanese Things", a series of short essays which the editors surmise were written during Kuki's stay in Paris, including "Bergson au Japon" and "À la manière d'Hérodote").[16][17]

• Volume Two: 偶然性の問題 Guzensei no mondai, "The Problem of Contingency"
• Volume Three: 人間と実存 Ningen to jitsuzon, "Man and Existence"
• Volume Four: 文芸論 Bungeiron, "Theory of the Arts"
• Volume Five: をりにふれて　押韻論 Ori ni furete, oin-ron, contains "Theory of Rhyme"
• Volume Six: 西洋近世哲学史稿(上) Seiyo kinsei tetsugaku-shi ko 1/2, "History of Early Modern Western Philosophy, First Part"
• Volume Seven: 西洋近世哲学史稿(下) Seiyo kinsei tetsugaku-shi ko 2/2, "History of Early Modern Western Philosophy, Second Part"
• Volume Eight: 現代フランス哲学講義 Gendai Furansu tetsugaku kogi, "Lecture: Modern French Philosophy"
• Volume Nine: 講義 現代哲学・講演 現代哲学の動向 Kogi gendai tetsugaku, Koen gendai tetsugaku no doko, "Lecture: Modern Philosophy" and "Speech: The Trend of Modern Philosophy"
• Volume Ten: 講義 ハイデッガーの現象学的存在論 Kogi haideggā no genshō-gaku-teki sonzai-ron, "Lecture: The Phenomenological Ontology of Heidegger"
• Volume Eleven: 講義 文学概論・講義 偶然性 Kogi bungaku gairon, Kogi guzen-sei, "Lectures: Outline of Literature" and "Lecture: Accidentality".

  The lectures entitled Outline of Literature were delivered by Kuki at the University of Tokyo in 1933.[18] Among them is the lecture Guzen (Contingency) which is translated in Marra, 2011.

• Volume Twelve: 資料篇 Shiryo-hen, Documents

• 九鬼 周造 (Kuki Shūzō) at www.aozora.gr.jp (in Japanese)
• 九鬼周造 (Kuki Shūzō) at www.isis.ne.jp (in Japanese)