Knowra Hajime Tanabe Hajime Tanabe Hajime Tanabe (1885–1962) was a Japanese philosopher of the Kyoto School. His philosophy of metanoetics centers on repentance, mediation, and transformation through religious faith.
Kyoto School : A Japanese philosophical movement associated with Kyoto University and dialogue between Western philosophy and Asian thought. Tanabe belonged to this movement and developed his work in conversation with its central questions.
Absolute mediation : A philosophical account of how opposed positions are related through a mediating ground that transforms them. Tanabe used mediation to challenge the idea that the self can reach truth through its own power.
Marburg School : A German neo-Kantian philosophical movement associated with Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp. Tanabe studied in Marburg, where neo-Kantian thought shaped his early philosophical formation.
Nishida philosophy : The philosophical system of Nishida Kitarō, centered on pure experience, the absolute nothing, and the logic of place. Tanabe challenged Nishida’s account of the absolute for insufficiently recognizing mediation and historical negativity.
Metanoetics : Tanabe’s philosophy of repentance, in which human reasoning reaches its limits and transformation comes through religious faith. This is the name Tanabe gave to the mature philosophy most closely associated with him.
Self-negation : The relinquishing or negation of an established self or position as part of a transformative process. For Tanabe, recognizing reason’s failure requires the self to relinquish claims to autonomous mastery.
Hermann Cohen : A German neo-Kantian philosopher whose work emphasized the methods and foundations of scientific knowledge. Cohen’s Marburg philosophy formed part of the intellectual setting Tanabe encountered during his studies.
Neo-Kantianism : A late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century revival of Kantian philosophy focused on knowledge, science, and values. Tanabe’s later thought moves beyond the confidence in reason and method that marked his early neo-Kantian formation.
Nishida Kitarō : A Japanese philosopher whose work on experience, place, and the absolute helped establish the Kyoto School. Tanabe studied with Nishida and later criticized the foundations of his philosophy.
Repentance : A recognition of wrongdoing or failure that turns a person toward a changed orientation or way of life. Tanabe treats repentance as an existential break that opens a way beyond self-sufficient reason.
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