Author Description

"The Structure of Detachment offers a finely crafted, reliable, and thoroughly annotated translation of this seminal work of one of modern Japan's most prominent philosophers. Because of its impact on the modern Japanese understanding of traditional culture and character, The Structure of Iki has inspired great interest and debate among scholars examining Kuki's role in the formation of a national aesthetics in the years prior to World War II. The three critical essays that accompany the translation look at various aspects of Kuki, his work, and the historical context that influenced his thinking. Hiroshi Nara first traces Kuki's interest in a philosophy of life through his exposure to Husserl, Heidegger, and Bergson. In the second essay, J. Thomas Rimer compels readers to reexamine The Structure of Iki as a work in the celebrated tradition of zuihitsu (stream-of-consciousness writings) and takes into account French literary influences on Kuki. The philosopher's controversial link with Heidegger is explored by Jon Mark Mikkelsen in the final essay, which concludes that, although Heidegger's view of art is consistent, both historically and conceptually, with his political involvement with fascism, the same cannot be said of Kuki." "The Structure of Detachment: The Aesthetic Vision of Kuki Shuzo at last makes broadly available to English readers one of Japan's major philosophical texts of the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET