An Inquiry into the Good. Part II, Chapters 4–7 / Translation from Japanese, Introductory Article and Commentaries by S. V. Kapranov

This publication presents the Ukrainian translation of chapters 4–7 of the second part of the work "Zen-no Kenkyu" ("The Study of the Good") by Nishida Kitaro – a prominent Japanese philosopher of the 20th century, the founder of modern Japanese philosophy. In these chapters, Nishida continues to analyze the concept of reality, starting from the concept of pure experience, which was introduced and explained in detail in the first part of the book. The fourth chapter is called "True Reality Always Has the Same Form". In it, Nishida examines how the diversity of the empirical world emerges from a single reality in which there is no opposition between subject and object, in which knowledge, feelings and will are inseparable. He proves that this happens in the following form: the unmanifest one divides itself and thus unfolds until it reaches perfection. The fifth chapter is called "The Fundamental Form of True Reality". In it, the author proceeds from the idea that, if all things arise by opposing each other, then at the basis of this must lie "a certain unifying factor", one and the same as the basis of our thinking and of the phenomena of the cosmos. According to Nishida, "the fundamental form of reality is such that reality is one and at the same time multiple, there are many realities and at the same time they are one". In addition, reality must necessarily have a systemic and dynamic nature. The sixth chapter is called "One Reality". In it, Nishida finds out what the unity of various phenomena is based on. In particular, he claims that time is only "a form that organizes the content of our experience", and therefore, "at the core of consciousness lies some immutable essence that is transcendental to time". The philosopher also believes that there is an unchangeable principle in the cosmos, thanks to which all things arise. It is not subject to either matter or spirit. The seventh chapter is called "The Separation and Unfolding of Reality". Here Nishida seeks an answer to the question of how a single reality gives rise to various opposites – subject and object, spiritual and material, active and passive, conscious and unconscious, phenomenon and noumenon.