Japanese Worlds

Abstract

In the strict sense of the word, there has been no “aesthetics” in Asia, as has also been the case with “philosophy.” If “aesthetics” in the traditional sense is applied in observing Asian lifeworlds, the phenomena of these worlds are looked at through colored glasses, i.e., in a way of thinking that is alien to them. A gap between interpretation and fact will be inevitable. Such a gap was pointed out when the Japanese thinker KUKI Shūzō (1888–1941) visited martin heidegger in Marburg around 1926. At that time KUKI was writing his book (Iki no kōzō, The structure of “iki,” 1930), which became renowned in Japan, while Heidegger was preparing Sein und Zeit (1927).