Collaborativity and Solidarity as a Returning to the World in Hajime Tanabe’s Philosophy

Abstract

This paper explores Tanabe’s thoughts on collaborativity and solidarity as a dimension of nothingness in so far as they are possible from the perspective of the non-self (empty-self or empty subject) or the continuous death of the self, which is called metanoia and, as a way of thinking, metanoetics. For Tanabe, the continuity of metanoia allows for a historical form of existence that makes possible another mode of being in the world indicated by solidarity and collaborativity, also known as “returning to the world” (gensō, in Japanese). From the absolute nothingness, as a consequence, a kind of interstice with other societies and cultures opens up.