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Artistic Detachment in Japan and the West

A r t i s t i c D e t a c h m e n t

i n J a p a n a n d t h e W e s t

Psychic Distance in Comparative Aesthetics

STEVE ODIN

AUniversity of Hawai‘i PressHonolulu

2001 University of Hawai‘i Press

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Artistic detachment in Japan and the west : pyschic distancein comparative aesthetics / Steve Odin.

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v

Con t e n t s

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction Artistic Detachment as an Intercultural Theme 1

Part One Artistic Detachment East and West1 Artistic Detachment in Western Aesthetics 27

2 Artistic Detachment in Japanese Aesthetics 99

3 An East-West Phenomenology of the AestheticAttitude 170

Part Two Psychic Distance in Literature East and West4 Psychic Distance in Modern Western Literature 199

5 Psychic Distance in Modern Japanese Literature 214

Glossary 281

References 283

Index of Names 291

vii

Ackn ow l e d gm en t s

I wrote this book as a 1994–1995Fulbright scholar at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. I would espe-cially like to thank Professor Tanaka Hideyoshi from the AestheticsDepartment as well as Professors Noe Keiichi, Ano Fumio, and Nu-mata Hiroyuki at Tohoku University for their encouragement. Manyideas in this volume have been developed over fifteen years of teach-ing courses on Japanese and comparative aesthetics at the Universityof Hawai‘i. Among my colleagues in the UH Department of Philos-ophy, I would especially like to thank Professor Arindam Chakrabharti,who has been a great source of information for this work. Among grad-uate students in our Philosophy Department, I would like to thankBrad Parks for his careful reading of my manuscript. Other colleaguesat the University of Hawai‘i have been profoundly instrumental inthe development of this project, especially Takie Sugiyama Lebra andValdo H. Viglielmo. Indeed, Professor Viglielmo’s dual expertise inmodern Japanese philosophy and modern Japanese literature has guidedthe direction of this work. I would like to express my indebtedness toProfessor Steven Heine, as well, for his valuable comments on thismanuscript. Finally, Robert C. Neville, my philosophy adviser at boththe undergraduate and graduate levels, has made an important contri-bution to the present work and his insights are cited in the followingpages.

1

I n t r o du c t i o n

Artistic Detachment as an Intercultural Theme

This book takes up the notion of artistic detachment, orpsychic distance, as an intercultural motif for East-West comparativeaesthetics. Specifically we will examine the notion of beauty as a func-tion of psychic distance in Western and Japanese aesthetics, includingboth the philosophical and the literary traditions. On the Western sideI underscore the notion of artistic detachment that developed from therevolution in aesthetics initiated by Kant’s much celebrated (as wellas much criticized) idea of beauty as a function of disinterested con-templation. On the Eastern side I highlight the Japanese notion ofbeauty as hidden depths apprehended through artistic detachment, aconcept developed both in traditional Zen aestheticism and its refor-mulation in the Kyoto school of modern Japanese philosophy. Insofaras representative philosophers in the Kyoto school adopt an East-Westcomparative framework rooted in a Japanese Buddhist metaphysics ofnothingness, they set forth a theory of disinterested aesthetic contem-plation that synthesizes elements from both the Kantian and Zen Bud-dhist traditions. Furthermore, I endeavor to clarify how artistic detach-ment has been developed as a central motif in “portrait-of-the-artist”novels in Japanese and Western traditions of literary aestheticism.Portrait-of-the-artist novels in both traditions articulate a detachmenttheory of art in which beauty is a function of an act of disinterestedcontemplation. Moreover, the artistic detachment motif is related toplot and character development insofar as the protagonist is typicallya young artist who cultivates heightened aesthetic consciousnessthrough disinterested contemplation to the point of extreme alienation.Furthermore, artistic detachment is built into the structure of an im-partial narrative that records satori-like epiphanies, or haiku momentsof sudden illumination, whereby the hidden depths of ordinary eventsare disclosed through acts of disinterested contemplation. Ultimatelythe goal of portrait-of-the-artist novels in both Japanese and Westernliterature is transmutation of life into art through psychic distance.

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Yet a fundamental tension emerges in such novels between whathas been called the Ivory Tower and the Sacred Fount representingthe oppositional Apollonian/Dionysian impulses of detachment ver-sus sympathy, distance versus involvement, disinterestedness versusparticipation.

Critical objections to theories of artistic detachment and variousresponses to them are another vital matter of consideration in thisproject. It is often held that disinterested contemplation of the beau-tiful is to be regarded as an escapist view whereby art is a sedativeinducing a spirit of renunciation—an attitude variously labeled asnihilism, pessimism, negativism, resignationism, voidism, or quietism.Mystical theories of disinterested contemplation, so it is said, repre-sent a nihilistic view that undermines this-worldly existence by locat-ing the source of value in an otherworldly life. Again, detachmenttheories of art are criticized for mind/body dualism: whereas an onto-logical primacy of mind is the source of disinterested contemplationrepresenting enlightenment, the body is the source of all desires, feel-ings, passions, and attachments designating ignorance. Another criti-cism leveled against the Kantian view of disinterested contemplationis that by locating art in an autonomous sphere distinct from moralityand religion it declines into a shallow aestheticism which emphasizesbeauty to the neglect of moral action, religious salvation, and socialtransformation. Feminist critiques level the charge of a gender biasholding that disinterestedness is a male perspective associated with“masculine” ideals of the disembodied mind as the higher spiritualfaculty—whereas interests, attachments, desires, passions, and feelingsare associated with “feminine” ideals of the physical body as the lowermaterial aspect of human existence. From the standpoint of an ideologycritique of power relations, disinterestedness has been undermined asan aristocratic, elitist, and exclusivistic doctrine because it restricts thenotion of beauty to members of a privileged class able to cultivaterefined taste in beauty through development of artistic detachment ina program of aesthetic education. One notable scholar agrees that psy-chic distancing is indeed a vital factor in aesthetic experience, but shecriticizes the idea that it is a function of the subject’s mental attitude:the distance or otherness of a work of art, she contends, is a functionof its symbolic character. Others argue that the notion of artisticdetachment characterized by an aesthetic attitude with a special modeof attention or state of consciousness is a “myth” that cannot be veri-fied but is a phantom condition with no ontological status. While onescholar affirms the central role of psychic distance as a factor in aes-

Introduct ion — 3

thetic experience, he nonetheless criticizes the “landscape model”according to which the landscape is presented by framing devices asan already finished picture with a fixed perspective and due distance.

Regarding the Asian side of this work, some have criticized theKantian interpretation of beauty in Japan. Thus the Japanese sense ofbeauty is now exposed as an “aesthetics of reclusion” wherein ideals ofbeauty rooted in detached contemplation are based on an ideologycritique according to which the repressed and exiled take up opposi-tion to the ruling class under the subterfuge of poetic composition.One of the most central debates in traditional Japanese aesthetics isfound in the works of Mootori Norinaga, who argues that the Zenideal of beauty as a function of detached contemplation represents theBuddhist concept of perfection as becoming “inhuman” through non-attachment to feelings, whereas the original Shinto religion of Japanvalues above all else those human feelings that move the heart-mind(kokoro) to spontaneous overflow of deep emotions. From this it shouldbe clear that the idea of beauty as a function of disinterested con-templation has had strong criticisms leveled against it from bothWestern and Eastern scholars of aesthetics. Nevertheless, I shall en-deavor to show that there are compelling rejoinders to each and everyone of these critical objections to aesthetic theories of disinterestedcontemplation.

Anticipating at least some of the conclusions presented in this work,I argue that beauty is not just the fixed and given property of anobject but requires an “aesthetic attitude” of disinterested contempla-tion. Against various criticisms leveled against aesthetic attitude the-ories, I must emphasize that artistic detachment is not exclusive of itsopposite, namely, interest, feeling, desire, sympathy, or passion. Unlikerenunciation, which rejects both desires and their objects, artistic de-tachment neither accepts nor rejects desires but instead objectifies andobserves them. Again, disinterested contemplation of beauty does notmean that one is “uninterested” in the object. It simply means thatone enjoys beauty for its own sake apart from concerns for self-interest.Whereas “uninterested” means bored, “disinterested” means impartial.The attitude of artistic detachment is not an anaesthesia, apatheia, in-difference, or insensitivity but a heightened state of embodied inter-sensory awareness that maximizes both clear observation and affectivefeeling. For this reason cultivation of an aesthetic attitude of artisticdetachment is widely regarded as the prerequisite of the connoisseurwho fully enjoys the exquisite refined sensations of immediate experi-ence. Furthermore, the aesthetic attitude includes both a negative or

4 — Introduct ion

inhibitory phase of detachment and a positive or creative phase ofimaginative reconstruction. A complete description of the aestheticattitude of artistic contemplation therefore includes not only elementsof disinterestedness, distancing, or detachment but also intense emo-tional sympathy and creative imagination. Thus the perception ofbeauty as hidden depths requires an aesthetic attitude including atleast three interactive aspects—detachment, feeling, and imagination—unified in an act of psychic integration.

Phenomenology of the Aesthetic Attitude

In the final chapter of Part One, I develop a phenomenology of theaesthetic attitude. One aim here is to articulate a unified metatheoret-ical framework in order to illuminate the aesthetic attitude of psychicdistance as developed in Eastern and Western traditions. Another aim,however, is to present a defense of aesthetic attitude theories from theirvarious critics. Essentially I argue that the notion whereby perceptionof beauty involves an aesthetic attitude is itself required by the keyphenomenological doctrine of intentionality, or noesis → noema corre-lation, according to which aesthetic experience, like all experience, re-quires a twofold analysis of both what is seen (noematic content) aswell as how it is seen (noetic attitude).

By phenomenology I refer to the philosophical method establishedby Edmund Husserl, which aims not to explain but to describephenomena just as they appear to consciousness. Husserlian phenom-enology traces part of its lineage back to Kant’s revolution in philos-ophy: namely, the doctrine of transcendental idealism, according towhich objects of perception are not simply fixed or given but areconstituted by “acts” of consciousness. In Kant’s epoch-making trea-tise on aesthetic experience titled The Critique of Judgement (1790),beauty is no longer just a fixed property of the object—for instance,its harmony, unity, or symmetry—but is now something posited bymental acts of a constitutive subject. For Kant perception of beautythus requires an aesthetic attitude that constitutes the aesthetic object.The central feature of this aesthetic attitude is that it is “disinterested”or, as it were, detached from all liking and disliking rooted in selfishconcern for personal gain or loss. Moreover, the aesthetic attitude con-stitutive of beauty has both a negative or inhibitory phase character-ized by disinterestedness and a positive or constructive phase throughreconstitution by free play of imagination.

Husserlian phenomenology begins with the act of epoché, or “brack-

Introduct ion — 5

eting,” of sedimented theories, understood as a “neutralization” ofmental positings, or a “suspension” of judgment, which neither affirmsnor denies the existence or nonexistence of phenomena but just ob-serves and describes them as they appear to consciousness in their pre-reflective presence. The idea of an “aesthetic attitude” is explicated byphenomenological discourse based on the key doctrine of “intention-ality,” or noesis → noema correlation, whereupon the noematic contentof beauty requires an account of the noetic act by which the formercomes to presence. A phenomenological aesthetic based on the inten-tionality thesis of noetic → noematic correspondence thus holds thatbeauty is constituted not only by what is seen (the noema) but also byhow it is seen (the noesis). As Husserl himself points out, the phenom-enological attitude of epoché is a functional equivalent of the aestheticattitude insofar as both represent the neutral perspective of a disinter-ested onlooker. In the phenomenological aesthetics of Heidegger,an equivalent to epoché is to be found in Gelassenheit, or “letting-be.”For Heidegger, Gelassenheit is the noetic act that corresponds to thenoematic content of aesthetic experience as the beauty of original truth(Gk.: aletheia) in which phenomena radiate into unhiddenness throughthe surrounding horizon of openness, presence, and nonconcealment.

It is this insight that aesthetic experience requires a description ofboth noematic content and its correlate noetic acts of positing whichmakes phenomenology a suitable framework for elucidating “aestheticattitude” theories of beauty in art and nature. Phenomenological anal-ysis requires a shift from the “natural attitude” of already sedimentedinterpretations in the noetic context to the openness of the “phenom-enological attitude,” which in its negative phase requires epoché orsuspension of judgement and in its positive phase requires “fantasyvariation” in creative imagination—thereby to disclose (open up) phe-nomena in their multiplicity, possibility, and variety. Insofar as thephenomenological attitude has both a negative phase of epoché as neu-tralization of sedimentations and a positive phase of fantasy variation,therefore, it elucidates the two major aspects of an aesthetic attitudedirected to the contemplation of beauty: its inhibitory aspect of dis-interested attention and its resulting constructive aspect of free playin imagination.

A Brief History of Psychic Distance

The renowned literary critic Wayne C. Booth has remarked: “A historyshould be written of the concept of aesthetic distance. One element in

6 — Introduct ion

such a history would be the growing knowledge, early in the century,of oriental literature” (1981:122n.; italics added). It is remarkable thatalthough the idea of aesthetic distance has come to occupy a centralplace in Western philosophy of art in the wake of Kant’s notion ofbeauty as a function of disinterested contemplation, there is no singlework developing a comprehensive treatment of this concept. It thusgoes without saying that no work articulates the notion of aestheticdistance in both the Western and Eastern traditions. Hence one of theaims of this book is to provide a historical survey of the concept ofaesthetic distance in terms of its Western and Eastern formulations.Although on the Eastern side this work focuses on the concept of aes-thetic distance in the Japanese tradition, I outline its development inother Asian traditions. On the Western side, following the revolutionin aesthetics triggered by Kant’s Critique of Judgement in 1790, therewas a paradigm shift in the concept of beauty from an emphasis onthe constituted object to the mental attitude of the constitutive sub-ject. After Kant many leading theorists in philosophy and literaturehave held that perception of beauty requires cultivation of an aestheticattitude of artistic detachment or its various equivalents, such as psy-chic distance, disinterested contemplation, isolation through framing,recollection in tranquility, alienation effect, dehumanization of art, andequilibrium in synaesthesis. Jerome Stolnitz argues that the Kantianidea of beauty as disinterested pleasure is the key notion of modernaesthetics, but he points out that “ ‘disinterestedness’ is a fairly recentidea [which] does not occur at all in the thought of antiquity, themedieval period, and the Renaissance” (1961a:131). Eastern theoriesof beauty, however, have underscored the aesthetic attitude of dis-interested contemplation from ancient times.

Western Models

Under such designations as “artistic detachment,” “aesthetic contem-plation,” “psychic distance,” “dehumanized art,” “intransitive atten-tion,” “tranquil recollection,” “alienation effect,” “resignation,” “stasis,”“will-less-ness,” “isolation,” “framing,” “equilibrium,” “synaesthesis,”“objectification,” “symbolization,” and “letting-be,” the Kantian ideaof beauty grounded in a disinterested attitude has come to occupy acentral place in modern aesthetic theory. The idea that beauty re-quires a mental attitude, psychological state, or mode of attentionwhich is “disinterested” has been held in common by many philoso-phers of art, literary critics, and aestheticians of very different persua-

Introduct ion — 7

sions, thinkers whose views on other issues are widely divergent. Adetachment theory of art and beauty grounded upon the disinterestedattitude is to be found, for example, in Shaftesbury, Moritz, Kant,Goethe, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Bergson, Ortega y Gasset,Wordsworth, Bullough, Stolnitz, I. A. Richards, Ingarden, Polanyi,Santayana, C. I. Lewis, Prall, Münsterberg, Langer, Beardsley, and otheraestheticians—to mention just a few of the preeminent thinkers inthis tradition. Moreover, the Kantian theory of aesthetic disinterest-edness has been restated by the tradition of recent British analyticphilosophy by thinkers like G. E. Moore, Peter Strawson, and StuartHampshire. The Kantian principle of disinterestedness has been devel-oped in the Western literary tradition by writers in the French, British,and American movements of aestheticism such as Gustave Flaubert,Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and James Joyce. It has beensaid that the concept of disinterestedness represents a significant excep-tion to the near chaotic divergence in opinion among aestheticians.Indeed, disinterestedness has emerged as perhaps the single most influ-ential notion in twentieth-century aesthetics.

One of the foremost proponents of aesthetic disinterestedness inthe twentieth century has been Jerome Stolnitz. In his essay “On theOrigins of ‘Aesthetic Disinterestedness’,” Stolnitz summarizes thecentral role occupied by the concept of disinterested perception inmodern aesthetic theory:

We cannot understand modern aesthetic theory unless we understandthe concept of “disinterestedness.” If any one belief is the common property of modern thought, it is that a certain mode of attention is indispensable to and distinctive of the perception of beautiful things. . . . And yet, as these things are measured, “disinterestedness” is afairly recent idea. Either it does not occur at all in the thought of antiquity, the medieval period, and the Renaissance, or if it does, as in Thomas, the allusion is cursory and undeveloped. [1961a:131]

As indicated in the foregoing passage, not only has the notion of dis-interestedness become a central motif in modern aesthetics; it is also awatershed between the “old” and “new” approaches to aesthetic theory.According to Stolnitz, the principle of disinterestedness is nowhere tobe found in ancient, classical, and medieval aesthetics, wherein beautywas equated with the attribute of an object as a “harmony” or “sym-metry.” In the modern period, however, there was a paradigm shift toan emphasis on a disinterested, distanced, or detached attitude as thepsychological basis of aesthetic experience. That is to say, while the

8 — Introduct ion

old approach in aesthetics equated beauty with harmony and regardedit as a property of the object, the new approach focuses instead on themental attitude of the subject. Or more accurately stated: the modernapproach describes beauty in terms of a correlation between the aes-thetically valuable quality of the object and the contemplative atti-tude of psychic distance adopted by the subject. By this view, certainrequirements of disinterest, detachment, or distance must be satisfiedin the consciousness of a spectator as a precondition for an aestheticexperience. Beauty is not just to be understood as a quality inherentin the aesthetic object, therefore, since it also depends on the attitudeof the beholder. The experience of beauty is constituted not only bythe thing that is seen but also how it is seen. It is only with this con-cept of “disinterestedness” that the aesthetic now becomes a distinc-tive mode of experience. Stolnitz refers to this paradigm shift as “aCopernican Revolution in aesthetics—whether an object is beautifulor sublime depends upon the experience of the spectator” (1961a:138). Stolnitz further maintains that following this revolution, “thesubject matter of aesthetics is taken to be the experience of disinter-ested perception and the nature and value of its objects” (1961b:99).

Stolnitz (1961a; 1961b) contends that the foundation for thenotion of disinterestedness was first established by Lord Shaftesbury(1671–1713) and the British empiricists holding the view that thereis a special faculty of “taste.” Yet it was only after Immanuel Kant(1724–1804) that the idea became widespread in modern aesthetictheory. Generally speaking, Kant’s contribution was his attempt toovercome relativism by establishing normative grounds for univer-sality in human judgement, including cognitive, moral, and aestheticjudgements. Kant’s effort to establish normative grounds for uni-versal validity claims of cognitive, ethical, and aesthetic judgementsin science, morality, and art is based on his transcendental idealismwhereby experience is “constituted” by acts of human consciousness.In his first critique of pure reason, objectivity in cognitive judgementwas established through a priori categories of the understanding thatconstitute the manifold of sensation; in his second critique of ethicalconduct, objectivity in moral judgement was established through cate-gorical imperatives of duty posited by self-legislative reason throughthe principle of universalizability; in his third critique, it is nowargued that objectivity in aesthetic judgements is achieved through themental attitude of disinterestedness. It is the disinterested attitude ofcontemplation that makes possible impartial and universally validaesthetic judgements in matters of taste in the beautiful. Thus in his

Introduct ion — 9

Critique of Judgement (1952), first published in 1790, Kant explaineddelight in beauty as a satisfaction that is “disinterested” (interesselos),understood as a “consciousness of detachment from all interest” (§6:51).Moreover, for Kant the mental attitude constitutive of aesthetic expe-rience involves both a negative or inhibitory phase of detachment aswell as a positive or creative phase that he characterizes as the “freeplay” (§89) of productive imagination and other faculties.

In the wake of Kant came a proliferation of theories of artisticdetachment in the tradition of German romantic idealism runningthrough Goethe, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Heidegger. The icono-clastic thinker Nietzsche, always philosophizing with a hammer towardthe end of shattering all absolutes, criticized what he regarded to be anihilistic tendency in this Kantian idea of disinterestedness, espe-cially as found in Schopenhauer’s pessimistic teaching of resignationfrom life. According to Nietzsche’s Dionysian aesthetics of rapture, artis not a sedative that pacifies the will and leads to renunciation of lifebut a stimulant functioning as the countermovement to nihilism whichresults in total affirmation of life with total ecstasy. Yet according toHeidegger, Kant’s theory of aesthetic disinterestedness, rightly under-stood, is not nihilistic but instead supports Nietzsche’s own Dionysianconcept of beauty as overflowing and superabundant rapture or ecstasythat completely affirms existence in the world. Heidegger reformulatesKant’s theory of disinterested contemplation through his own existen-tial-hermeneutical phenomenology according to which beauty is orig-inal truth as an event of ontological disclosure whereby a phenomenonstands out through ecstasy into the surrounding horizon of openness,unhiddenness, and nonconcealment by means of the nonfocal aestheticattitude of Gelassenheit or “letting-be” as releasement toward things andopenness to the mystery of being.

This Kantian aesthetics based on the disinterested attitude requiredfor the perception of beauty was psychologized by Edward Bulloughthrough the notion of “distancing.” What had previously been termeddisinterestedness or detachment is for Bullough a psychological actwhereby one contemplates an event objectively through “insertion ofpsychic Distance.” He sets forth psychic distance as the fundamen-tal aesthetic principle and an essential factor in all beauty and art.Bullough defines psychic distance in nonutilitarian terms as an act of“putting the phenomenon . . . out of gear with our practical, actualself” (1977:95). For Bullough, a degree of psychic distance is neces-sary to the artist and spectator as well as the professional critic andthus becomes a fundamental component in both the creation and

10 — Introduct ion

appreciation of beauty in art. It is only when there is a “loss of Dis-tance” through extremes of underdistancing or overdistancing that anevent ceases to be aesthetic.

The Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset develops a theory ofaesthetic disinterestedness in terms of what he calls the “dehumaniza-tion of art.” He gives a phenomenological description of a tragic eventinvolving the death of a great man that reveals the various possibledegrees of psychic distancing in a manner reminiscent of Bullough.For Ortega, the goal is to achieve maximum distance from life result-ing in the complete removal of the human element in art, that is, whathe otherwise calls “dehumanized art.” Three British writers, I. A.Richards, C. K. Ogden, and James Wood, have together developedtheir own theory of artistic detachment under the name of “synaes-thesis.” For these thinkers the aesthetic experience is syn-aestheticexperience. The term “synaesthesis” denotes a state of tranquil reposeachieved not by the simplification and exclusion of sense impulsesbut instead by their balance, harmony, and equilibrium. The aestheticexperience of synaesthesis is further said to be wholly disinterested,detached, and impersonal. By this view the attitude of disinterestedcontemplation is not a condition of anaesthesia, which numbs thesenses, but the heightened intersensory awareness of synaesthesia.Hugo Münsterberg, I. A. Richards, and Michael Polanyi have allreformulated the Kantian principle of aesthetic disinterestness interms of an “isolation” theory of art wherein detachment from per-sonal emotions is achieved by isolating an object inside the borders ofa “frame.”

Like Peirce, James, Dewey, Mead, Whitehead, Pepper, and othersin the tradition of American philosophy, C. I. Lewis argues that beautyis the pervasive “aesthetic quality” spreading throughout events asdirectly felt in immediate experience. But whereas the other Ameri-can philosophers focus primarily on the role of feeling, emotion, pre-hension, or sympathy, Lewis adopts a Kantian position and arguesthat a mental attitude of distinterested contemplation is a precondi-tion for an intuition of pervasive aesthetic quality. Lewis is himselfinfluenced by David W. Prall, who likewise argues that the pervasiveaesthetic quality of events requires an attitude of disinterested con-templation for its enjoyment. Like Dewey, Lewis, and other Americanphilosophers Susanne K. Langer describes beauty as the immediatelyfelt pervasive quality of an artwork. Morever, she agrees with Bulloughthat psychic distance is a factor in aesthetic experience. Yet unlikeLewis, she does not regard distance as a function of an aesthetic atti-

Introduct ion — 11

tude but sees it instead as a function of the symbolic nature of art. Itis the symbol that gives an artwork its distance, or “otherness,” andthus accounts for the response of contemplative detachment. In thiscontext Langer develops Whitehead’s idea of art as a “lure for feeling”that suspends ordinary aims and invites prolonged contemplation ofpervasive aesthetic quality.

The American philosopher Monroe C. Beardsley attempts to workout a comprehensive notion of beauty through five criteria of aestheticexperience: object directedness, felt freedom, detached effect, active dis-covery, and wholeness. And as we shall see, this key idea of beauty asrooted in disinterested contemplation was itself taken up as the centraltheme in portrait-of-the-artist novels in the literary tradition of Goethe,Flaubert, Pater, Wilde, James, Joyce, and many others. Thus a plethoraof theories of artistic detachment flourished in the Western philosoph-ical tradition following the revolution in aesthetics established by Kant—namely, the view that whether an object is beautiful or sublimedepends on the mental attitude of the spectator.

The Japanese Model

When Jerome Stolnitz argues that the concept of disinterestedness “isnowhere to be found in classical and medieval aesthetics” (1961b:100), he is only considering the history of aesthetic theory in theWest. For what is now referred to as “aesthetic attitude” theory basedon such notions as disinterest, detachment, and distance has been sys-tematically articulated with great depth by various Asian theories ofbeauty, especially medieval Japanese yûgen aesthetics. The need for amulticultural East-West comparative account of psychic distance as afactor in aesthetic experience is indicated by Wayne C. Booth in hisclassic work on literary criticism titled The Rhetoric of Fiction. In thisbook he points out the renewal of interest in detachment theories ofart and comments on “the modern rediscovery of ‘aesthetic distance’ ”(1961:121). Booth describes the ideal of aesthetic distance in thedetached or disinterested authorial perspective of the modern novel asa device to achieve objectivity—or, in synonymous terms, imperson-ality, neutrality, impartiality, and impassability (p. 67). For Booth thiseffort to achieve objectivity, neutrality, and impartiality in authorialperspective through disinterested reporting of events reaches its zenithin such novelists as Gustave Flaubert in French literature, Henry Jamesin American literature, and James Joyce in English literature (p. 67–86). Booth also makes passing reference to the philosophical develop-


ments of aesthetic distance by such thinkers as José Ortega y Gassetand Edward Bullough (p. 119–122). In this context Booth remarksthat a history of the concept of aesthetic distance should be written—including both Western and Eastern traditions (p. 122n.). From theEastern side Booth then cites Donald Keene’s description of Japanesebunraku (puppet) theater, as developed by the eighteenth-centurydramatist Chikamatsu, as well as the achievement of unrealistic “alien-ation effects” (A-effects) in Brecht’s epic theater, which is itself ex-plicitly patterned on certain effects in the Chinese theater (p. 122n.).Both the bunraku plays of Japanese theater and the Beijing opera ofChinese theater produce alienation effects by “framing” devices thatmaximize aesthetic distance and thereby discourage emotional in-volvement in the dramatic performance. Similarly, in Feeling and FormSusanne K. Langer (1953:324–325) underscores the function of whatBullough calls psychic distance in the aesthetics of drama, citingBrecht’s idea of the alienation effect in Western theater as well as itscounterparts in Chinese, Japanese, and Indian theater.

Hence at least one function of this book is to provide an East-Westhistory of the concept of aesthetic distance, including its developmentthrough both philosophical and literary sources. On the Western side,I trace the evolution of the concept of artistic detachment as high-lighted through such notions as”disinterestedness” (Kant), “resigna-tion” (Goethe), “detached contemplation” (Schopenhauer), epoché or“neutralization” (Husserl), Gelassenheit or “letting-be” (Heidegger),“alienation effect” (Brecht), “tranquil recollection of emotions” (Words-worth), “detached curiosity” (Henry James), “luminous stasis of estheticpleasure” (Joyce), “psychic distance” (Bullough), “dehumanization ofart” (Ortega y Gasset), “isolation by framing” (Münsterberg, Polanyi),“synaesthesis” (I. A. Richards), and “symbolization” (Langer). On theEastern side it is Japan that has articulated the most explicit and sys-tematic views of beauty as requiring a disinterested aesthetic attitudeboth in classical and modern periods, both in philosophical and literarytraditions. Moreover, it is the tradition of modern Japanese philosophyand literature that has endeavored to present notions of artistic detach-ment based on an East-West synthesis. At the same time it must besaid that important concepts of artistic detachment have emerged fromother Asian traditions. Thus we turn now to a brief overview of artisticdetachment in Japanese aesthetics along with a brief consideration ofthe Indian and Chinese traditions. In such a manner I hope to establisha universalized East-West transcultural paradigm of artistic detach-ment wherein beauty is comprehended as a function of an aesthetic


attitude of disinterested contemplation through insertion of psychicdistance.

Psychic Distance in Indian Aesthetics. One of the most extraordinaryaesthetic doctrines, East or West, ancient or modern, is the classicalIndian rasa doctrine of beauty culminating in the tenth-century writ-ings of Abhinavagupta. From the transcultural standpoint of East-West comparative aesthetics, the rasa theory represents, if not the first,certainly one of the earliest theories of artistic detachment. In Abhina-vagupta’s Dhvanyâloka Locana (“Light on Suggestion,” 1990), a doc-trine of artistic detachment is explicitly and systematically formulatedin terms of the concept of ùântarasa—“peaceful beauty” or the “aes-thetic experience of tranquility.” For Abhinavagupta, the aestheticdelight of rasa is where the supreme “bliss” (Skt. ânanda) of the abso-lute as sat-cit-ânanda (existence-consciousness-bliss) is realized throughthe physically embodied sensuous beauty of imaginative art and liter-ature. He often compares it to the soma, or sacred herbal beverage, usedin ancient Vedic rituals to induce the ecstatic trance states of samadhiwherein one enjoys the ultimate bliss of the absolute.

The salient features of Abhinavagupta’s rasa theory of artistic detach-ment as presented in this text might be summed up as follows: Rasa(flavor) is “aesthetic taste” as the delight of beauty (1990:611). In imag-inative poetry and art, the beauty of rasa is not imparted through directstatement but always through “suggestion” (Skt. dhvani) (pp. 81 and105–107). Although traditional Indian criticism recognizes eight basicrasas or aesthetic emotions that arise through poetic suggestion, thereis also a ninth: ùântarasa, the rasa of peace (pp. 16 and 110). Since therasa of peace leads to “liberation” (moksa), it is the most important rasa(p. 525). Furthermore, “detachment” (vairâgya) is identified as thebasic state of ùântarasa (pp. 479, 490, 691). Abhinavagupta (pp. 690–693) holds that the literary archetype of ùântarasa is the epic Mahâbhâ-rata, especially the section known as Bhagavad Gita, which as a doc-trine teaches liberation (moksa) through detachment (vairagya) andwhich as a literary work of art expresses tranquil beauty (ùântarasa)through the mechanisms of suggestion (dhvani) and reverberation(vyañjanâ).

Although the word “rasa” literally means “taste,” “savor,” “flavor,”“relish,” and other terms connected to gustatory metaphors, in theframework of Abhinavagupta it came to specify “beauty” or “aestheticexperience.” In his Dhvanyâloka Locana (1990:16, 110), the eightfundamental rasas or “flavors” recognized by classical Indian literary


criticism are enumerated as follows: the erotic, the comic, the tragic,the heroic, the furious, the fearsome, the gruesome, and the wondrous.To these the ninth-century Kashmiri thinker Ânanda adds a ninth:the rasa of peace, calm, or tranquility (ùânta) (1990:16). While Ânandawas the first to establish the existence of ùântarasa as a distinctive moodwith its own aesthetic quality, he does not accord it any privilegedstatus. Ânanda (1990:530) holds that the most important rasa is in facterotic love (ùrngârarasa). Abhinavagupta, in contrast, holds that theprincipal rasa is ùântarasa, the rasa of peace, not only because it is theultimate mode of aesthetic delight but also because it culminates inthe religious experience of moksa: liberation. In Abhinavagupta’s words:“Suffice it to say that as the rasa of peace leads to moksa, which is thehighest aim of man, it is the most important of all the rasas” (1990:525). Abhinavagupta clarifies that the rasa of peace is itself the ulti-mate dimension of the other eight kinds of rasa. The rasa of peace isthe common source and goal of all the other rasas and as such is a pre-condition for their enjoyment. He states: “The peaceful (ùânta) is thebasic nature common to all the rasas” (p. 521). To illustrate this pointhe cites the words of Bharata: “The emotions arise from peace, eachfrom its peculiar cause, and when the cause has ceased, they melt backinto peace” (p. 521). Hence the aesthetic experience of all the otherrasas is ultimately rooted in the immovable tranquility of ùântarasa.

Tracing the origins of the notion of ùântarasa in classical Indianaesthetics, Masson and Patwardhan (1985:36) cite an important pas-sage from an ancient text (Visnudharmottarapurâna) that proclaims: “OKing, they say that ùânta [peace] arises from vairâgya [detachment]”(1985:36). Likewise, Abhinavagupta (1990:479, 490, 691) and Ânanda(1990:478) both explicitly identify the “basic emotion” (sthâyibhâva)of ùântarasa as vairâgya: detachment. Hence the aesthetic delight ofùântarasa or peaceful beauty is itself the function of an underlying psy-chological act of disinterested contemplation characterized by detach-ment from emotional reactions of craving and aversion.

To understand Abhinavagupta’s aesthetic attitude of detachedcontemplation by means of which the aesthetic delight of rasa is ap-prendend, it is necessary to discuss his notion of sâdhâranikarana—generalization, universalization, or deindividuation. According to Ab-hinavagupta, each rasa is the relishing of a generalized emotion that isneither subjective nor objective but completely transpersonal in char-acter. When particular feelings are deindividuated through the uni-versalization process into generalized emotions of rasa, they cannot besimply located either in the subject or in the object but become trans-


personalized pervasive aesthetic qualities, beyond spatial-temporaldetermination, which are situated nowhere and belong to no one.

Dineth Mathur summarizes how “detachment” operates in the uni-versalization process whereby personal feelings are transfigured intothe generalized emotions of rasa as the pervasive aesthetic quality of asituation:

Aesthetic experience of rasa is a state of pure joy which depends on our intuitive capacity to perceive the dominant emotional quality of the total situation presented by the dramatist. In such an experience private personal feelings are suspended and detached from the particular time and place of actual occurrences and are elevated to the plane of univer-salized human emotions. [1981:226]

Another work, Comparative Aesthetics: East and West by Angraj Chau-dhary, relates the deindividualizing process (sâdhâranikarana) ofAbhinavagupta’s rasa theory to Edward Bullough’s idea of “psychicdistance” as a factor in beauty and art:

Abhinavagupta, who flourished in the 10th Cent. A. D., explains with a great amount of clarity and profundity the concept of psychic distance. His theory of psychic distance hinges on the single concept of the de-individuation of the aesthetic object. Whether this object is an emotion in a drama or a sensuous form as associated with a painting, it is de-individualized. . . . Psychic distance, therefore, is achieved in a work of art by de-individualizing all emotions, characters and situations. [1991:49]

He adds that the aesthetic delight of rasa, which is no less than arevelation of the ânanda or “bliss” of the absolute, is a disinterestedpleasure arising from the contemplation of deindividualized or univer-salized emotions that belong to no individual person but to con-sciousness in general.

Psychic Distance in Chinese Aesthetics. The ideal of nonattachment is acentral notion in the philosophical traditions of China, including theancient text titled I Ching (Book of Changes), along with later philo-sophical traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Hexagram20 named “contemplation” (küan) in the I Ching; chung or “equanim-ity” in the Doctrine of the Mean (Chung-yung) of Confucianism; wu-hsinor “no-mind” in the Platform Sutra of Chan Buddhism; wu-wei or“letting-be” of the Tao Te Ching of Taoism—all might be cited asprototypes of detached contemplation in Chinese thought. While theidea of nonattachment in the sense of artistic detachment is often


implicit in the classical Chinese texts, it is rarely thematized in anysystematic way. A somewhat more explicit theory of artistic detach-ment is to be found in the writings of Wang Kuo-wei, however, gen-erally recognized as the foremost original thinker in modern Chineseaesthetics. Wang formulates his theory of disinterested contemplationbased on an East-West synthesis and from this perspective endeavorsto illuminate the traditional Chinese sense of beauty.

As the most ancient book of China, if not the world, the I Ching(Book of Changes) became the reservoir of archetypal images for theChinese poetic imagination through its famous sixty-four hexagramswhile at the same time functioning as a central text for later Confucian,Taoist, and Buddhist traditions. Hexagram 20 can be regarded as asymbol of detached observation in all its forms, including artisticdetachment. The Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist commentaries onthe I Ching interpret the meaning of hexagram 20 in various ways;but taken altogether, they generally express the meaning of küan asrepresenting a calm, tranquil, spontaneous, and detached contempla-tion of nature as a creative aesthetic process of perpetual change andtransformation.

The concept of detached observation is again expressed in terms of“equilibrium” (chung) in one of the four classics of Confucianism: theDoctrine of the Mean. A celebrated passage from this work reads:

Before the feelings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy are aroused it is called equilibrium (chung, centrality, mean). When these feelings are aroused and each and all attain due measure and degree, it is called harmony. Equilibrium is the great foundation of the world, and harmony its universal path. When equilibrium and harmony are realized to the highest degree, heaven and earth will attain their proper order and all things will flourish. [Chan 1963:98]

While the notion of equanimity (Ch. chung) is a major source for doc-trines of “detached contemplation” in East Asia, it is only an implicitnotion of artistic detachment whereby beauty is understood as a func-tion of disinterested contemplation through insertion of psychic dis-tance. Indeed, based on his interpretation of this passage from the Doc-trine of the Mean, the famous literary critic and sinologist I. A. Richards(1922) has articulated a highly original concept of aesthetic experi-ence through psychic distance in terms of his notion of “synaesthesis,”understood as an equilibrium, balance, and harmony of diverse senseimpulses.


In the Taoist philosophy expounded by Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu,the most celebrated idea of detached observation, or disinterested con-templation, is that of wu-wei—variously translated as nonaction, not-doing, naturalness, spontaneity, laissez-faire, and noninterference orletting-be. Wu-wei is a diverse concept functioning at multiple levelsof discourse including the religious, ethical, political, and aestheticdimensions of Taoism. In chapter sixteen of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzudescribes wu-wei as a contemplative mode of awareness that opens upthe bottomless empty void of nonbeing. For Taoism wu-wei is also thebasis for moral conduct through spontaneous natural acts in harmonywith tao whereas it is held that the Confucian ethical principle of li, or“ritual action,” is artificial rule-governed behavior which arises onlywhen there is a decline of tao. Moreover, in Taoist political philosophythe art of rulership is based on wu-wei in its meaning as noninterferenceor laissez-faire. Through wu-wei one eliminates all conscious striving inorder to become spontaneous and responsive to tao in the unimpededflow of nature as a creative aesthetic process of perpetual change andtransformation. In the general context of its use in the arts, the Taoistconcept of wu-wei can be understood to represent the calm detachedattitude for contemplation of tranquil beauty as the void of darkmystery in art and nature.

The Platform Sutra attributed to Hui-neng (638–713), the legendarysixth patriarch of Chan/Zen Buddhism in China, describes the imme-diate experience of liberation in sudden enlightenment through “no-mind” (Ch. wu-hsin) in its three aspects as “no-thought” (wu-nien), “no-abiding” (wu-chu), and “no-form” (wu-hsian)—all of which representvarious aspects of the mind of “no-attachment” (wu-chao), the emp-tied nonattached mind of nonclinging, noncraving, and nongrasping.But in the Japanese tradition of Zen/Chan Buddhism the doctrine ofno-mind (J. mushin) became explicitly and systematically applied tothe aesthetic experience of beauty in art and nature. As we shall see,D. T. Suzuki elucidates Hui-neng’s philosophy of nonattachment inThe Zen Doctrine of No-Mind: The Significance of the Sutra of Hui-Neng(1949a). In other works such as Zen and Japanese Culture he applies theZen/Chan doctrine of no-mind in its sense as nonattachment to thevarious arts and crafts of Japan, now explaining it as the aesthetic atti-tude of artistic detachment underlying the traditional Japanese senseof beauty.

We have seen that hexagram 20 titled “contemplation” (küan) in theI Ching tradition, “equilibrium” (chung) in Confucianism, “letting-be”


(wu-wei) in Taoism, and “no-mind/no-thought” (wu-hsin/wu-nien) inChan Buddhism all represent paradigmatic expressions of detachedaesthetic contemplation in Chinese culture. It can be said that overallthese concepts refer to detached observation in a very general way andinclude the notion of artistic detachment only implicitly. A moreexplicit theory of artistic detachment is to be found in the writings ofWang Kuo-wei (1877–1927). His major treatise on Chinese aestheticsis available in English translation with commentary in a volume titledWang Kuo-Wei’s Jen-chien Tz’u-hua: A Study in Chinese Literary Criticism(1977) by Adele Austin Rickett. In Jen-chien Tz’u-hua (Poetic Reflec-tions in the Human World), Wang points out that there are two aes-thetic worlds in the experience of beauty: the “world of no-self,” or the“impersonal state” (wu-wo chih ching), and the “world of having self,”or the “personal state” (yu-wo chih ching) (Rickett 1977:14–15, 26, 40–41). Again, for Wang the world of wu-wo (no-self) is the state of “self-detachment” whereas the world of yu-wo (having self) is the state of“self-attachment.” According to Wang the traditional Chinese senseof the beautiful (yu-mei) is to be understood as representing wu-wo chihching, the world of no-self, the impersonal state, or the aesthetic atti-tude of self-detachment.

For Wang the world of self-detachment is the major concern inTaoist and Chinese Buddhist arts, while the world of self-attachmentis the concern of Confucian and Western arts. Whereas the world ofself-detachment at the heart of Taoist and Buddhist aesthetics is relatedto the “beauty of grace” (yo mei), the world of self-attachment is relatedto the “beauty of vigor” (chuang mei). In terms of the yin/yang (dark/light, feminine/masculine, negative/positive, void/solid) polarity ofChinese thought based on the I Ching, Wang interprets both conven-tional Western art and Chinese Confucian art as expressing the vigor-ous beauty of yang, whereas the Taoist and Chinese Buddhist arts aresaid to express the graceful and mysterious beauty of yin. Wang saysthat yang-based arts produced in a state of self-attachment express theagency of human will, personal feeling, and rationality of self. Theyin-based arts produced from the impersonal state of self-detachment,by contrast, express the self in harmony with nature, which is devoidof personal emotion and human will. Furthermore, he describes self-attachment as “making the world” and self-detachment as “present-ing the world.” The Taoist and Buddhist landscape paintings of theSung dynasty and nature poems of the Tang dynasty depicting insub-stantial mountains receding into the mysterious darkness of thebottomless void and partly concealed with an atmospheric haze of mist


are examples of Chinese art expressing the graceful, dark, and myste-rious beauty of yin in the impersonal state of self-detachment.

Rickett (1977:13) clarifies how Wang’s idea of the beautiful (yu-mei) as an “impersonal state” or “world of no-self” (wu-wo chih ching) isstrongly influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer’s theory of artistic detach-ment. Describing Schopenhauer’s influence on Wang’s aesthetics ofself-detachment, Rickett writes: “The beautiful, then, is somethingthat can cause a man to forget his personal interest and play with itwithout tiring, at peace with himself. It is a state of pure joy uncom-plicated by any pull or stress of worldly cares or desires” (1977:13).She adds that Wang’s theory also has strong “Taoist overtones” (1977:15). Wang Kuo-Wei’s poetics describing how the graceful beauty ofyin or dark mystery is rooted in the attitude of self-detachment, under-stood as the impersonal state of no-self (wu-wo chih ching), thus repre-sents an original East-West synthesis that combines Taoist notions ofletting-be (wu-wei), nondesire (wu-yu), and self-forgetting meditation(zuo wang) with Schopenhauer’s resignation theory of artistic detach-ment, which aims to achieve emancipation from worldly sufferingthrough the Kantian disinterested will-less contemplation of beauty—thus to realize salvation in the holy peace of nirvana.

Psychic Distance in Japanese Aesthetics. Chapter 2 of this work analyzesthe traditional Japanese sense of beauty as a function of an aestheticattitude of disinterested contemplation through insertion of psychicdistance. Traditional aesthetic ideals in the Japanese canons of taste—such as aware (melancholy beauty), miyabi (gracefulness), yûgen (pro-found mystery), ma (negative space), wabi (rustic beauty), sabi (sim-plicity), fûryû (windblown elegance), iki (chic), and shibumi (elegantrestraint)—all contain an element of detached resignation. The de-tached contemplation of beauty as a means to enlightenment was cen-tral in the Japanese Buddhist religio-aesthetic tradition of geidò: thetao (or way) of art. This emphasis on artistic detachment in Japanesegeidò can be traced back to its origins in what Misaki Gisen (1972)calls the “shikan aesthetic consciousness” (shikan bi-ishiki) of the lateHeian and early Kamakura priesthood: The shikan aesthetic-conscious-ness of Japanese poetics signifies a turning point characterized by theshift in emphasis from the aesthetic object to the act of aesthetic con-templation by which that object is itself constituted. The shikan (Ch.chih-küan) practice of Japanese Tendai (Ch. T’ien-t’ai) Buddhism isitself rooted in the early Buddhist samatha-vipassanâ or “tranquilityand insight” meditation described by Buddha in his “Great Discourse


on Mindfulness” (Pali: Mahasatipathana-sutta), wherein liberation fromsuffering is attained through “attention” (sati), the detached observa-tion of impermanent nonsubstantial phenomena with “equanimity”(upekkha), or meditative equipoise between craving and aversion. The“shikan aesthetic consciousness” developed through Tendai shikanmeditation practice cultivated a tranquil attitude of calm detachmentfree of mental perturbation. Through Tendai shikan meditation thepriest gained insight into the “middle truth” (chûtai) between the twoills of eternalism and nihilism: though all phenomena are empty ofeternal being from the standpoint of the truth of emptiness (kûtai),they are not nihilistic nothingness, since they also have a provisionaltruth (ketai) as impermanent and nonsubstantial events arising bymeans of dependent coorigination (engi).

It was this Tendai practice of shikan meditation supported by thephilosophy of the middle way based on the “three truths” (santai) thatled to a deepening of Japanese aestheticism whereby beauty wasaffirmed and art was recognized as a path leading to Buddhahood.The detached contemplation of “shikan aesthetic consciousness” wasexplicitly developed as a precondition for an experience of the tran-quil beauty of yûgen in the waka poetics of Chòmei, Shunzei, and Teikain the early Kamakura period. Moreover, the “shikan aesthetic con-sciousness” of Tendai Buddhism, inherited by Zen and other sects inthe Kamakura period, had a profound influence on such famous priestsas Ippen, Kòben, Dògen, and Musò. Scholars of Dògen (1200–1253)have described his phenomenology of zazen as directed to realizationof genjòkòan: the “presence of things as they are” in being-time ofimpermanence-Buddha-nature. The noematic content of genjòkòan, orprereflective presencing, is correlated with the noetic attitude of“without-thinking” (hishiryò) as meditative equipoise between affir-mative judgements of “thinking” (shiryò) and negative judgements of“not-thinking” (fushiryò). The application to aesthetics is indicated bythe view of haiku poetry as an expression of events of genjòkòan throughthe noetic attitude of without-thinking. Moreover, others have explic-itly related the content of Dògen’s zazen as genjòkòan, or “presence ofthings as they are,” to the aesthetic value of yûgen, profound mystery.This tradition came to fruition during the medieval period of Japa-nese history in Zeami’s theory of riken no ken, “the seeing of detachedperception,” which is the aesthetic satori-consciousness required forthe experience of beauty as yûgen or “mysterious darkness” on the partof both the actor and the audience of a nò drama. Zeami explicitly dis-tinguishes “the seeing of detached perception” (riken no ken) from “ego


perception” (gaken). While riken no ken is an objective, selfless, and de-tached mode of seeing, gaken is a subjective, self-centered, and attachedmode of seeing. Hence it is shown that Zeami’s artistic detachmenttheory of riken no ken, which in turn is rooted in the Kamakura-period“shikan aesthetic consciousness” underlying traditional Japanese geidò(the tao of art), in fact predates by many centuries the shift in Westernaesthetics initiated by Kant’s Critique of Judgement (1790), the recog-nition that an object is beautiful or sublime depending on the mentalattitude of the beholder.

The concept of artistic detachment has been further developed bythinkers related to the Kyoto school of modern Japanese philosophyincluding Nishida Kitarò, Nishitani Keiji, Hisamatasu Shin’ichi, D. T.Suzuki, and Kuki Shûzò. Here I wish to clarify the Kyoto school’s Zenmetaphysics of nothingness and its underlying Buddhist psychologyof nonattachment as the overall framework in which the doctrine ofaesthetic detachment is formulated. As crystallized by Nishitani Keiji,the Zen metaphysics of nothingness includes a threefold process ofself-emptying that moves from the eternalistic standpoint of “being”characterized by attachment to the ego and its objects of perception,to the nihilistic standpoint of “relative nothingness” characterized byattachment to nothingness itself, to the middle way standpoint of“emptiness,” or “absolute nothingness,” characterized by total “non-attachment” ( J. mushûjaku) to either being or nonbeing. Nishida Kitaròrelates Kant’s notion of the beautiful as a pleasure that is “disinterested”(interesselos) to the traditional Japanese sense of beauty, which he definesin terms of the Zen ideal of muga (Skt. anâtman), “selflessness.” His stu-dent Hisamatsu Shin’ichi (1889–1980) considers the similarities anddifferences between “disinterestedness” ( J. mukanshin) in Zen Buddhistaesthetics and the “disinterestedness” (Ger. interesselos) of Kant and Ger-man idealism. He furthermore establishes “detachment” (datsuzoku) asan essential factor in all Zen art. Hisamatsu then proceeds to analyzethe factor of detachment in famous works of Zen literature and art,including paradigmatic examples of ink painting, calligraphy, flowerarrangements, landscape gardening, architecture, interior decorat-ing, nò drama, ceramics, poetry, and the tea ceremony. For Hisamatsu,the detachment and tranquility characterizing Zen art ultimatelyspring from the boundless creative depths of the formless self of abso-lute nothingness.

D. T. Suzuki holds that the key teaching of the Platform Sutra attrib-uted to the legendary sixth patriarch Hui-neng is the Zen doctrineof mushin, “no-mind,” which sums up the principles of no-thought


(munen), no-abiding (mujû), and no-form (musò), all of which denotethe mind of nonattachment. He then argues that the psychologicalstate of no-mind is where Zen and the arts merge. He shows how theidea of mushin, or no-mind, represents the tranquil, unconscious,spontaneous, and detached mind at the basis of Zen satori (enlighten-ment) and its creative expression in the arts of traditional Japaneseculture, including the military art of swordsmanship as well as finearts such as poetry, painting, and drama. For Suzuki the aesthetic idealsof yûgen, wabi, sabi, and fûryû, as well as the traditional Japanese artisticand literary forms that strive to embody these ideals, are all to be ana-lyzed as a function of no-mind. Hence Suzuki’s writings bring to lighthow the state of no-mind represents the aesthetic attitude of artisticdetachment in the tradition of Japanese Buddhist literature and art.

In contrast to the austere Zen Buddhist orientation of Nishida,Hisamatsu, Suzuki, and Nishitani is the theory of artistic detach-ment formulated by Kuki Shûzò (1888–1941), who studied underthe direct tutelage of Husserl and Heidegger in Germany as well asBergson in France. Kuki makes Buddhist detachment an essentialfactor in the structure of iki (chic)—an aesthetic ideal that emerged inthe amorous bordello society of the “floating world” (ukiyo) in Edo-period Japan. According to Kuki, the aesthetic value of iki has a three-fold structure of “coquettishness” (bitai), “pride” (ikuji), and “resigna-tion” (akirame). While the sexual passion of bitai is embodied by theamorous geisha and the prideful valor of ikuji is grounded in the pathof bushidò or way of the samurai warrior, the detached resignation ofakirame is rooted in the religious mysticism of Zen Buddhism. As clari-fied by Peter Dale’s relentless if not overzealous critique of nihonjinrontheories concerning the “myth of Japanese uniqueness” (1986:76),Kuki’s doctrine of artistic detachment is not something peculiar toJapan. In fact it incorporates the view of French decadent aestheticismas formulated by Baudelaire and d’Aurevilly: iki is equivalent to chic(fashion), while bitai corresponds to coquetterie (seductiveness), ikuji tovanité (valor), and akirame to désintéressement (disinterestedness). Just asfor Kuki it is the Zen Buddhist attitude of akirame or detached resig-nation that sublimates the pride of ikuji and the eroticism of bitai intothe aesthetic ideal of iki, so for Baudelaire, d’Aurevilly, and otherFrench decadents it is the Kantian attitude of désintéressement, or “dis-interestedness,” that elevates the coquetterie and vanité into the aestheticideal of chic. Furthermore, just as in the tradition of French decadentaestheticism the connoisseur searches for exquisite, highly refined, plea-surable sensations through a disinterested contemplation of beauty in


everyday life, so in Kuki’s view the tsûjin (connoisseur) endeavors torealize the ideal beauty of iki, or chic (fashion), through objective per-ception of beauty in everyday life from the standpoint of an objective,universal, and calm perspective, which is itself rooted in the attitudeof disinterested contemplation.

The notion of aesthetic distance is a recurrent motif in modern Japa-nese fiction as well. Medieval poetic ideals like aware (sad beauty) andyûgen (profound mystery) have been appropriated into the tradition oftwentieth-century Japanese literary aestheticism in the creative fictionof modern novelists such as Mori Ògai, Natsume Sòseki, KawabataYasunari, Mishima Yukio, and Tanizaki Junichirò. All of these authorshave written novels in which the protagonist has a series of satori-likeepiphanies or haiku moments characterized as visions of yûgen wherebyethereal phenomena gradually fade into the surrounding void of mys-tery and darkness. In accord with the phenomenological doctrine ofaesthetics taken up in the present volume, however, beauty is consti-tuted not only by what is seen at the noematic pole but also how it isseen at the noetic pole. This means that the experience of beauty asyûgen (profound mystery) at the noematic pole must be supplementedby a description of the noetic act that corresponds to it.

The two giants of modern Japanese literature during the Meijiperiod (1868–1912) are Mori Ògai (1862–1922) and Natsume Sòseki(1867–1916). In those works classified by J. T. Rimer as “self-portraitsof the artist” dating from 1909 to 1915 (see Mori Ògai 1994a:v), Ògaidevelops his theory of aesthetic distance in terms of the “resignation”(teinen, akirame) of the disinterested “onlooker” (bòkansha). The struc-tural pattern of stories written during this early and middle period ofhis career is essentially the tension between giri (social obligation) andninjò (human feeling)—or, as it were, between the detached resignationof teinen and that of romantic love. Ògai’s detached-onlooker mentalitycombines Goethe’s attitude of resignation (Entsagung) with the tra-ditional Japanese Buddhist aesthetics of akirame, “detached resig-nation.” Natsume Sòseki’s novel titled Grass Pillow (Kusamakura,1906) thematizes artistic detachment and the conflict between dis-tance and involvement as well as the problem of over-distancing todehumaniza-tion. In this work he combines Japanese and British lit-erary movements of aestheticism in order to show the process bywhich a poet achieves psychic distance from life. Like Walter Pater’sMarius the Epicurean, Henry James’ Roderick Hudson, Oscar Wilde’sPortrait of Dorian Gray, James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a YoungMan, and other classic works of creative fiction in the tradition of


British aestheticism, Natsume Sòseki’s Grass Pillow is a portrait-of-the-artist novel.

Grass Pillow concerns an artist-poet from Tokyo who undertakes ahaiku journey into the solitude of nature for the purpose of realizingZen enlightenment through the exercise of hininjò: “detachment fromhuman emotions.” The term Sòseki uses for artistic detachment, hininjò,can also be translated as “nonhuman,” in the sense of transcendingordinary human feelings, thus suggesting the “dehumanization of art”as later formulated by Ortega y Gasset in the West. In Sòseki’s novel,hininjò functions as the mental attitude that discloses yûgen as theethereal atmospheric beauty of “darkness and mystery” so prized intraditional Japanese canons of taste. By adopting the dehumanizedstandpoint of hininjò he endeavors to metamorphose all he sees into amoment in a sumie painting, a haiku poem, or a nò drama—therebyimaginatively transforming Life into Art via insertion of psychic dis-tance. Sòseki’s notion of hininjò thus fully appropriates the “shikanaesthetic consciousness” underlying the traditional Japanese Buddhistreligion of beauty known as geidò —the tao of art. In his letters andessays on literary criticism Sòseki develops the theoretical dimensionsof hininjò and formulates a sliding scale of “degrees of distance” in away similar to Bullough’s doctrine of psychic distance.

A recent Japanese work titled The Picture Scroll of Kusamakura andthe World of Sòseki (Sòseki sekai to Kusamakura-e, 1987) by KawaguchiHisao presents the picture scroll by Matsuoka Eikyû depicting thescenes of ideal beauty through the artistic detachment from humanemotions (hininjò) in Sòseki’s Grass Pillow. Sòseki’s use of literary imag-ination to illuminate the act of emotional detachment (hininjò), alongwith his critical essays, letters, and the picture scroll based on GrassPillow, illustrate the creative process of aesthetic distancing from lifefor both artist and spectator. Like other portrait-of-the-artist novels,however, Sòseki’s Grass Pillow thematizes the struggle between detach-ment and human feeling as well as the problem of overdistancing,which can lead to dehumanization. It describes how the poet mustbe both Artist and Citizen having both detachment from humanity(hininjò) and sympathy (aware)—or, as it were, both distance from lifesymbolized by the Ivory Tower and participation in life symbolizedby the Sacred Fount.

Part One

Artistic Detachment East and West

27

Chapt e r 1

Artistic Detachment in Western Aesthetics

The use of “disinterestedness” or “disinterested contem-plation” to describe aesthetic perception first became widespread afterImmanuel Kant, who spoke of delight in beauty as that which satisfies“without interest” (ohne Interesse). But in an important series of papersJerome Stolnitz traces the principle of disinterestedness back to whathe claims is its origin in the work of the Third Earl of Shaftesbury(1671–1713). Stolnitz argues that disinterestedness is largely an inno-vation of seventeenth-century British empiricism and is nowhere tobe found in classical or medieval aesthetics. Although the idea of dis-interestedness became a staple concept for empirically oriented Englishwriters on aesthetic “taste” during the Enlightenment—men likeDavid Hume, Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Archibald Alison, andFrancis Hutcheson—it is Lord Shaftesbury who is credited with hav-ing first articulated the idea. As Stolnitz asserts: “It is Shaftesbury whoclaims the distinction of being the first thinker to bring the phenom-enon of disinterestedness to light and analyzing it” (1961b:100).

Origins in Shaftesbury and British Empiricism

According to Stolnitz, Shaftesbury’s principle of aesthetic disinterest-edness constitutes a major shift in the history of aesthetics from em-phasis on beauty as a property of the object to that of an attitude ofthe subject. Contrasting the classical and medieval theories of beautyas “harmony” and the modern view holding that beauty requires aspecial attitude that is “disinterested,” Stolnitz (1961b:111) writes:

28 — Artis t i c Detachment East and West

The identification of beauty and harmony, which is ubiquitious in Greek and Renaissance thought, is the old way of thinking. Shaftesbury, by introducing the concept of “disinterestedness,” creates a new centre of gravity in aesthetic theory.

According to Stolnitz, then, Shaftesbury’s principle of disinterestednesssignifies a major shift in the history of aesthetics: “Shaftesbury’s theory[of disinterestedness] is a watershed in the history of aesthetics” (p.111). Stolnitz adds that the tension between the “old” and “new” ap-proaches arises in defining the field of the aesthetic. If one defines thebeautiful as a harmony that abides in certain objects as its indwellingproperty, then the field of the aesthetic will be far narrower than if itincludes all objects of disinterested perception. The notion of disinter-estedness is a broader and more inclusive conception of the aesthetic,Stolnitz says, while the equation of beauty with harmony is far moreexclusive and aristocratic (p. 111). Hence if “aesthetic object” means“object of disinterested perception” as held by Shaftesbury, thennothing is a priori debarred, since it now becomes an empirical ques-tion whether the aesthetic attitude is aroused and sustained by anyparticular object. For some this has come to mean that any objectwhatsoever can become aesthetic when seen from the standpoint of adisinterested attitude.

Stolnitz (1961a:138) further clarifies that in the writings of Shaftes-bury and other British empiricists the principle of disinterestednessoriginally referred to a special mode of perception that was “object-centered” as opposed to “subject-centered”:

In its origins, the term [disinterested] has to do with the notion of the self. As the opposite of “interestedness,” it is equivalent in meaning to “non-selfishness.” When Shaftesbury used “disinterested” to denote perception of a thing “for its own sake,” the salient antithesis became that between “object-centered” and “self-centered.”

In its original meaning as established by Shaftesbury, Stolnitz pointsout, the idea of disinterested perception was based on a concept of self.While the notion of disinterestedness has the moral connotation ofbeing “unselfish,” or “nonselfish,” Stolnitz adds that in its wider senseit designates an experience which is essentially selfless or impersonalas opposed to self-centered and egocentric: “ ‘Impersonal’ or ‘selfless’are now much closer to the mark than is ‘unselfish’ ” (p. 138). Hence asa doctrine of self it can be said that while interested perception is sub-jective, self-centered, and egocentric, disinterested perception is objec-tive, selfless, and impersonal.

Western Aesthe t i c s — 29

Shaftesbury’s principle of disinterestedness originally emerged as apolemic against egoism in ethics and instrumentalism in religion. Inparticular, Shaftesbury opposed the disinterested attitude with thenotion of “enlightened self-interest” defended by Thomas Hobbes(1588–1679). In his work Characteristics, Shaftesbury (1900:I, 317)identifies “interest” with self-interest, as when he speaks of “interested orself-love.” Here he opposes the notion of disinterestedness to Hobbesianethics, which argues that all actions are selfishly motivated by “enlight-ened self-interest.” Shaftesbury also speaks of “the disinterested loveof God,” which he in turn opposes to “[serving] God . . . for interestmerely” (II, 55). He adds that when one loves God disinterestedly,one loves God simply for God’s own sake (II, 55) because of “the ex-cellence of the object” (II, 56). While in these assertions disinterestedperception is related only to ethical and religious concerns, in certainother passages Shaftesbury presents an aesthetic application of theprinciple of disinterestedness. In one section of Characteristics, Shaftes-bury clearly distinguishes between what he calls “interested regard” (I,296) and the attitude of disinterested aesthetic contemplation:

Imagine then . . . if being taken with the beauty of the ocean, whichyou see yonder at a distance, it should come into your head to seek how to command it, and, like some mighty admiral, ride master of the sea, would not the fancy be a little absurd? . . . Let who will call it theirs . . . you will own the enjoyment of this kind to be very differentfrom that which should naturally follow from the contemplation ofthe ocean’s beauty. [II, 126–127]

Here Shaftesbury refers the principle of disinterestedness neither toGod nor to moral action but to an object of beauty. In this case he em-phasizes that the enjoyment of beauty is completely separate from thedesire of possession or practical utility. Furthermore, in this passagehe illustrates the notion of disinterested aesthetic contemplation versusthat of interested regard by means of reference to the ocean’s beauty.Thus Shaftesbury, at least to some extent, anticipates Edward Bullough’s(1977) famous example of the “fog at sea” wherein he illustrates hisprinciple of psychic distance as an essential factor in art and beauty.

It is sometimes held that Shaftesbury’s use of disinterestedness inaesthetics is only an adjunct to his doctrines of religion and ethics. Butas Stolnitz points out, Shaftesbury’s ethical theory is nearly indistin-guishable from an aesthetic theory. So that in its broader aspect, theprinciple of disinterestedness is not so much ethical as axiological (value-centric) in scope. Many of Shaftesbury’s assertions tend to support this


view—as when he writes that moral virtue is itself “no other than thelove of order and beauty” (1900:I, 279). Stolnitz (1961a:133) perhapsbest summarizes the basis of Shaftesbury’s principle of disinterested-ness when he writes that although the historical occasion for this ideawas the fight against egoism and the vocabulary was nonaesthetic, onthe whole the general direction of Shaftesbury’s thought was towardthe aesthetic. In the final analysis, Shaftesbury’s principle of disinter-estedness is both aesthetic and axiological, whether it is applied to thecontemplation of God, moral conduct, or an object of beauty, to theextent that it signifies regard for something for its own sake withoutany concern for self-interest or practical utility.

Disinterested Contemplation in German Aesthetics

Credit must be given to Jerome Stolnitz for his valuable research intothe origins of the disinterested attitude in the writings of Lord Shaftes-bury, along with other writers in the tradition of British empiricism.Nonetheless, we must agree with the literary critic M. H. Abrams whenhe points out that Shaftesbury introduced the concept of disinterest-edness “only as ancillary to his ethical and religious philosophy” (1981:91). It was left to Shaftesbury’s successors in Germany, Abrams con-tinues, to specialize the concept in order “specifically to differenti-ate aesthetic experience from religious and moral as well as practicalexperience.” After Immanuel Kant proposed his celebrated definitionof beauty as a “disinterested pleasure” with universal validity, thenotion of disinterestedness came to be widely accepted as the firstprinciple in the canons of taste that emerged in nineteenth-centuryGerman idealism. The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe(1749–1832), a contemporary of Kant who made the concept of “res-ignation” (Entsagung) central to his own poetics, elegantly summarizedthe ideal of beauty as a delight that is disinterested:

The stars not coveted by usDelight us with their splendor.

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) made Kant’s idea of disinterested ap-preciation of beauty a key element in the process of aesthetic educationand the achievement of human freedom. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) elevated the Kantian notion of disinterestedness into an actof detached will-less aesthetic contemplation that gave momentarysalvation from the tragic suffering of worldly existence and thereby


brought one near to the Buddhistic state of nirvana or tranquilityachieved by the religious saint through complete renunciation oflife. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) would then launch a criticalattack against the notion of aesthetic disinterestedness as formulatedespecially by Schopenhauer in his effort to overcome the problem of“nihilism,” arguing instead for a Dionysian concept of beauty as rap-ture or ecstasy that completely affirms existence in the world andregards art not as a sedative but as a stimulant to life—the distinctivecountermovement to nihilism. In the twentieth century, Martin Hei-degger brings the story full circle when he defends Kant’s theory ofaesthetic disinterestedness from its misinterpretations by Nietzscheand Schopenhauer. Heidegger then articulates his own artistic detach-ment theory in terms of his notion of Gelassenheit, or letting-be, an atti-tude of openness whereby there is ontological disclosure of things intheir beauty of original truth as aletheia, unhiddenness. But before weundertake a survey of these fascinating developments in the history ofartistic detachment in Germany, it is necessary to consider the workof Karl Philipp Moritz, a little-known German thinker who was actu-ally the first to clearly articulate the notion of beauty as disinterestedpleasure.

Moritz: The Original Formulation

Although the notion of beauty as a delight that is “disinterested”(interesselos) was firmly established in Western aesthetics by the Germanphilosopher Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgement, the idea didnot originate with him. Since Kant provides no textual references inhis analysis of aesthetic judgements as disinterested, there has beenmuch speculation about who might have influenced Kant most onthis point. Stolnitz (1961a) traces the origins of aesthetic disinterest-edness to the seminal writings of Lord Shaftesbury and other Britishempiricists. In that Kant was well read in the English writers of thisperiod, he was most likely influenced by them, at least to some extent,in his formulation of disinterestedness as an aesthetic principle.

Yet the immediate source of Kant’s notion of aesthetic disinterest-edness has now almost certainly been revealed in an important articleby Martha Woodmansee (1984): “The Interests in Disinterestedness:Karl Philipp Moritz and the Emergence of the Theory of AestheticAutonomy in Eighteenth-Century Germany.” Woodmansee acknowl-edges the research of Stolnitz showing how, centuries prior to Kant,the concept of disinterestedness had already been imported into the


arts by Shaftesbury in his essays collected in Characteristics (1711).Woodmansee (1984:31, n. 14) shares the view of M. H. Abrams, how-ever, who asserts that Shaftesbury introduced the concept only as anadjunct to his ethical and religious philosophy. The idea of disinter-estedness, she contends, was used to establish the autonomy of art, inorder to distinguish aesthetic experience from religious, moral, andpractical experience, only after it was transported to Germany. Butcontrary to widespread belief, it was not Kant who first introduced theidea of disinterestedness into German idealist aesthetics. For as Wood-mansee (1984:23) points out, in 1785, five years before the publi-cation of Kant’s Critique of Judgement, an obscure figure in the historyof aesthetics named Karl Philipp Moritz (1756–1793) gave the firstuniquivocal and systematic expression to the principle of aestheticdisinterestedness in a brief essay titled “Attempt at Combining AllBeautiful Arts and Sciences Based on Their Self-Sufficiency” (“Versucheiner Vereinigung aller schönen Künste und Wissenschaften unter demBegriff des in sich selbst Vollendeten”), which appeared in an influen-tial German periodical called the Berlinische Monatschrift.

There can be little doubt that Moritz’s essay came to Kant’s atten-tion, for Kant published regularly in the Berlinische Monatschrift, andin fact the March 1785 issue of this journal in which Moritz’s essayappeared contained one of Kant’s own articles. In this essay Moritzcriticizes the prevailing instrumentalist theory of art and argues insteadon behalf of an autonomous art object that is to be appreciated disin-terestedly. Moritz holds that works of art are “self-sufficient totalities”produced only to be contemplated “for their own sake”—that is to say,with a disinterested pleasure in their beauty apart from all concern fortheir practical utility or external purpose. Like the moral philosophersin Germany during this period, Moritz uses the terms “unselfish”(uneigennützig) and “disinterested” (uninteressiert) interchangeably todenote the absence of any selfish ulterior motives or interests, denotedby the English term “disinterested.” Moritz thus states:

In contemplating the beautiful object . . . I roll the purpose back into the object itself: I regard it as something which is completed, not in me,but in itself, which therefore constitutes a whole in itself, and pleasesme for its own sake. . . . Thus the beautiful object affords a higher and more disinterested pleasure than the merely useful object. [Cited in Woodmansee 1984:23]

In the autobiographical novel Anton Reiser, the first volume of whichappeared in the same year as the essay in question, Moritz describes


the ultimate state of spiritual communion as a “disinterested love ofGod,” an abandonment of self that culminates in a tranquil and bliss-ful “state of nothingness.” He writes:

[They] . . . are concerned for the most part with that . . . total abandon-ment of the self and entry into a blissful state of nothingness, with that complete extermination of all so-called self-ness or self-love, and a totally disinterested love of God, in which not the merest spark of self-lovemay mingle, if it is to be pure; and out of this there arises in the enda perfect, blissful tranquility which is the highest goal of all these strivings. [Cited in Woodmansee 1984:32; italics added]

As Woodmansee clarifies, it is precisely this description of the highestlevel of religious experience—the blissful state of selflessness or noth-ingness attained through a disinterested contemplation of God—thatMoritz transported almost verbatim into his theory of art and beauty,whereupon it came to characterize what we now term the aesthetic atti-tude. For as Moritz asserts, the highest level of aesthetic experience islikewise a state of blissful self-forgetfulness attained through the dis-interested contemplation of beauty in art. In Moritz’s words:

As the beautiful object completely captivates our attention, it diverts our attention momentarily from ourselves, with the effect that we seem to lose ourselves in the beautiful object; and precisely this loss, this forget-fulness of ourselves, is the highest stage of pure and disinterested pleasure which beauty grants us. [Cited in Woodmansee 1984:32–33; italics added]

Hence insofar as aesthetic experience is made analogous to religiousexperience—a tranquil and blissful state of selflessness or nothing-ness achieved through an act of disinterested contemplation—Wood-mansee characterizes Moritz’s theory of disinterested pleasure in thebeauty of art as that of a “displaced theology” (1984:33). Finally, toanticipate the comparative thesis of this book, it should be noted howthe explanation of beauty as the function of an aesthetic attitude ofdisinterested contemplation, the fusion of subject with object, self-forgetfulness and ego transcendence occurring through the rapt atten-tion of disinterested aesthetic contemplation, the analogy betweenthe disinterested mystical contemplation in religion and the disinter-ested aesthetic contemplation of beauty in art, and the description ofaesthetic-religious experience as a selfless, tranquil, and blissful stateof nothingness articulated by Moritz in the West—all are character-istic elements to be found in those Eastern theories of artistic detach-ment formulated in the tradition of Japanese Buddhist aesthetics.


When one considers the extent to which the notion of beauty asdisinterested pleasure has influenced the history of not only Germanaesthetic idealism but the whole of modern aesthetics in the West, itis unfortunate that Karl Philipp Moritz has received so little recogni-tion for his achievement as the one who first articulated this conceptin a fully explicit and systematic manner. Yet Moritz’s ideas on the dis-interested contemplation of beauty were nonetheless destined to playa central if not dominant role in the history of modern aesthetics aswell as literary and art criticism, at least insofar as they came to bereformulated by the genius of Immanuel Kant.

Kant: The Theory Canonized

If the theory of aesthetic disinterestedness had its ambiguous originsin the writings of Shaftesbury and was later given explicit formu-lation by Karl Philipp Moritz, it was finally canonized by ImmanuelKant (1724–1804) in his monumental Critique of Judgement (Kritik derUrteilskraft, 1790). Whereas Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason analyzes thecognitive faculty in its capacity for knowledge, and his Critique of Prac-tical Reason investigates the categorical imperatives of duty prescribedby the self-legislative practical reason of autonomous moral agents,his Critique of Judgement is an inquiry into the aesthetic judgement oftaste in beauty and the sublime. Kant’s Critique of Judgement, like hisother critiques, is articulated within a complex architectonic frame-work. Of greatest importance for our present study are Book I: Analyticof the Beautiful and Book II: Analytic of the Sublime, both of whichcome in Part One, “Critique of Aesthetic Judgement.”

Kant divides his Analytic of the Beautiful into four moments, whichrespectively consider judgements of taste in terms of four categories:Quality, Quantity, Relation, and Modality. He argues that delight inthe beautiful must in its Quality be shown to be “independent of allinterest,” in its Quantity “universally valid,” in its Relation “subjectivefinality,” and in its Modality “necessary.” The core of his argument isset down in the first moment: the moment of Quality. It is here, inthe first moment, that Kant defines beauty in terms of a delightwhich is said to be “disinterested” (interesselos) or “without interest”(ohne Interesse). Kant begins the first moment with a claim: “The judge-ment of taste is aesthetic” (§1:41). He explains that a determinationof the beautiful by a judgement of taste is not a function of under-standing, which refers the representation (Vorstellung) of it to the objectwith a view to cognition, but is instead a function of imagination,


which refers the representation of it to the subject and its feeling ofpleasure or displeasure. Accordingly, a judgement of taste in the beau-tiful is not cognitive, and hence not logical, but purely aesthetic, whichmeans that it is one whose determining ground must be subjective(§1:41). In contrast to cognitive judgements wherein the faculties arerestricted, in the aesthetic judgment there is a liberation of the facul-ties in a “free play” of imagination, understanding, and feeling.Through his clear distinction between “cognitive judgements” basedon logical categories of the understanding and “aesthetic judgements”grounded in subjective feeling and the free play of imagination, Kantthereby came to establish the field of aesthetics as an autonomoussphere, a separate branch of philosophy, with its own aims, principlesand methods.

Having established the autonomy of aesthetic judgements, Kantgoes on to the next claim: “The delight which determines the judge-ment of taste is independent of all interest” (§2:42). What does Kantmean when he says that a judgement of taste regards its object with“disinterest”? What does he mean by “disinterested pleasure” or “dis-interested delight”? To begin with, we must dispel the misunder-standing which often arises upon encountering the term “disinterested”for the first time—that it denotes being uninterested in something. Kanthimself attempts to clarify this matter when he writes: “A judgementupon an object of our delight may be wholly disinterested but withalvery interesting, i.e., it relies on no interest, but it produces one” (§2:43,n. 1). By “disinterested,” he of course does not mean that an aestheticjudgement of taste is uninterested in its object, or that it is bored withthe topic, but rather that it is devoid of self-interest or, as it were, free ofall concern for personal advantage and disadvantage or gain and loss.Kant commences his explanation of what he means by “disinterested”with a definition of “interest.” He writes: “The delight which we con-nect with the representation of the real existence of an object is calledinterest. Such a delight, therefore, always involves a reference to thefaculty of desire” (§2:42). He later goes on to assert: “All interest pre-supposes a want, or calls one forth” (§5:49). From this it can be seenthat Kant establishes two criteria for “disinterestedness”: first, an in-difference to the real existence of the object; and second, that of notinvolving any desire or want. Elsewhere he makes it clear that thesetwo criteria are identical since to want something and to desire itsreal existence are the same (§4:48). His polemic here is that underly-ing the experience of the beautiful is a “free play” of imagination andunderstanding. This harmonious free play of faculties produces plea-


sure, and this pleasure is “disinterested” because it is cut off from thereal existence of objects—and hence from interest.

In the first moment Kant then proceeds to distinguish betweenthree kinds of delight: the agreeable, the good, and the beauti-ful. Here he is primarily concerned to demonstrate that while plea-sure in the agreeable and the good are “interested,” pleasure in thebeautiful is alone truly “disinterested.” Establishing the differentiabetween these three modes of delight, he writes: “The agreeable is whatGRATIFIES a man; the beautiful what simply PLEASES him; the goodwhat is ESTEEMED (approved), i.e., that on which he sets an objec-tive worth” (§5:49). According to Kant, the “agreeable,” defined asthat which the senses find pleasing in sensation, and the “good,”understood as that which is good for something (useful) and pleasesonly as a means, are both always coupled with interest. Hence boththe agreeable and the good involve a reference to the faculty of desire(§5:48). In contrast, says Kant, an aesthetic judgement of taste in thebeautiful can have no interest as its determining ground. Thus heconcludes: “Of all these three kinds of delight, that of taste in thebeautiful may be said to be the one and only disinterested and freedelight; for, with it, no interest, whether of sense or reason, extortsapproval” (§5:49). Kant then proceeds to formulate his celebrateddefinition of beauty as an object of delight that is disinterested. InKant’s words: “Taste is the faculty of estimating an object or a mode ofrepresentation by means of a delight or aversion apart from any interest.The object of such a delight is called beautiful” (§5:50).

Thus when Kant asserts that an aesthetic judgement of taste is “apartfrom any interest,” he means that one appreciates an object of beautyfor its own sake without reference to its reality or to the external endsof its utility and morality. In other words: the disinterested pleasureone takes in the beauty of an object has no concern for personal sen-sory gratification as is the case of delight in what is agreeable, nor doesit have any interest in the practical usefulness of something as is thecase of delight in what is good. Yet he further clarifies other attributesof the disinterested attitude characterizing aesthetic judgements oftaste. To begin with, the disinterested attitude is said to be contem-plative (§5:48). As he writes elsewhere, an aesthetic judgement oftaste “combines delight or aversion immediately with the bare contem-plation of the object irrespective of its use or of any end” (§22:87).Moreover, this act of disinterested aesthetic contemplation is describedas being completely detached—or as he states at one point, it isattended by a “consciousness of detachment from all interest” (§6:51).


Again, the disinterested attitude characterizing aesthetic judgementsof taste in the beautiful is said to be impartial, unbiased, and indif-ferent. He asserts: “Every interest vitiates the judgement of taste androbs it of its impartiality” (§13:64). And elsewhere:

Every one must allow that a judgement on the beautiful which is tinged with the slightest interest is very partial and not a pure judgement of taste. One must . . . preserve complete indifference in this respect, in order to play the part of judge in matters of taste. This proposition, which is of utmost importance, cannot be better explained than by con-trasting the pure disinterested delight which appears in the judgementof taste with that allied to an interest. [§2:43–44]

While Book I of Kant’s third critique examines aesthetic judgementsof taste in “the beautiful” (das Schöne), Book II is an inquiry into aes-thetic judgements on “the sublime” (das Erhabene). At the outset heasserts that the beautiful and the sublime agree on the point of pleas-ing on their own account (§23:90). They differ, however, in that whilebeauty is characterized by form and limitation, the sublime is charac-terized by formlessness or the limitlessness of that which is devoid ofform. In Kant’s words:

The beautiful in nature is a question of the form of the object, andthis consists in limitation, whereas the sublime is to be found in an object even devoid of form, so far as it immediately involves, or else byits presence provokes, a representation of limitlessness. [§23:90]

When Kant speaks of “the formless that may belong to what we callSublime” (§23:90), he refers to the indeterminate feelings of infinityand boundlessness evoked by the greatness of nature as an immeasur-able whole in contrast to the determinate feelings connected with theform, and hence the finite boundedness, of objects judged as beau-tiful. Nonetheless, Kant emphasizes that delight in the sublime, likedelight in the beautiful, is a kind of aesthetic judgement. And as akind of aesthetic judgement, delight in the sublime, like delight inthe beautiful, must in its Quality be apart from any interest. Kanttherefore writes:

For, the judgement being one of the aesthetic reflective judgement,the delight in the sublime, just like that in the beautiful, must in its Quantity be shown to be univerally valid, in its Quality independentof interest, in its Relation subjective finality, and the latter, in itsModality, necessary. [§24:93]


Hence, like an aesthetic judgement on the beautiful, an aestheticjudgement on the sublime requires as its precondition a certain mentalattitude on the part of the subject: an attitude that is completely dis-interested. For this reason Kant emphasizes that delight in the sub-lime is to be found in an “attitude of mind” (§23:93). He further states:“This makes it evident that true sublimity must be sought only in themind of the judging Subject, and not in the Object of nature” (§26:104). And again: “Sublimity, therefore, does not reside in any of thethings of nature, but only in our own mind” (§28:114). On this basis,then, Kant goes on to argue for a transcendental idealist positionwhereby the determining ground of the sublime, like that of thebeautiful, is to be located in the mind of the subject and not just aproperty in the object.

Just as Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is said to have inaugurated arevolution in metaphysics and epistemology, and his Critique of Prac-tical Reason is described as having effected a similar revolution in ethics,so his Critique of Judgement should likewise be understood as havinglaunched a shift in the field of aesthetics: namely, that whether anobject is beautiful or sublime depends on the mental attitude of thebeholder. And as we have seen, Kant specifies that this mental attitudepresupposed by an aesthetic judgement of taste is one that is disinter-ested. For this reason the various theories of artistic detachment, aes-thetic disinterestedness, and psychic distance that emerged in the wakeof Kant’s revolution in aesthetics have come to be known as “aestheticattitude” theories. Kant’s paradigm change in aesthetics had the effectof shifting from a position of realism, which understands beauty assomething only inherent in the object, to an idealist (or, as it were,transcendental idealist) position that underscores the contribution ofthe mind in aesthetic experience. From the perspective of a transcen-dental idealist theory of aesthetics, human consciousness is not simplya passive recipient: to some extent it actively constitutes an object ofbeauty through various noetic operations of the mind. In accordancewith the principles of his transcendental idealism, Kant argues that anobject cannot be beautiful and an experience cannot be aesthetic unlesscertain mental conditions are satisfied. It is in this context that Kantcame to establish the disinterested attitude as a necessary conditionfor the possibility of aesthetic experience. Generally speaking, then,Kant’s revolution in aesthetics locates the determining ground ofbeauty and the sublime in the mind of the subject and not in theobject of nature. For many, Kant’s aesthetic reversal carries with it thesignificant implication that any object whatsoever can be seen as beau-


tiful if only it is contemplated from the standpoint of a disinterestedattitude. It should further be emphasized that Kant outlines both thenegative and the positive dimensions of the aesthetic attitude. Whereasthe negative or inhibitory aspect of the aesthetic attitude is definedthrough its disinterested character as detached from personal desires,the positive aspect is defined through its creative aspect as the harmo-nious “free play” (§89) of imagination.

Kant’s “aesthetic attitude” theory is not to be understood as a formof relativism, subjectivism, skepticism, pessimism, or nihilism; it is nota sophistic position which simply declares that “beauty is in the eye ofthe beholder.” On the contrary, the intention of the second momentin Kant’s Critique of Judgement is to demonstrate the universal validityof aesthetic judgements (§50–57). Kant thus begins the secondmoment with a remarkable claim: “The beautiful is that which, apartfrom concepts, is represented as the Object of a UNIVERSAL delight”(§50). He adds that the definition of the beautiful as an object ofuniversal delight is itself deducible from the foregoing definition of itas an object of delight apart from any interest. For acccording to Kant,where anyone is conscious that his delight in an object is with himindependent of interest, it is inevitable that he should look on theobject as one containing a ground of delight for all men (§50). Whenwe judge an object beautiful, we speak as if beauty were a property,though in actuality the judgement is subjective, since it relates theobject with aesthetic satisfaction. Yet insofar as this aesthetic satisfac-tion is said to be disinterested—that is to say, completely impartial,unbiased, and free of prejudice—it does not depend on any individualpreferences but is instead an object demanding a similar delight fromall persons and, on that account, valid for everyone. At this point, how-ever, Kant clearly distinguishes between the objective universal validityof logical judgements as opposed to the subjective universal validityof aesthetic judgements. Since an aesthetic judgement of taste is afunction of subjective feeling and imagination in a free play of facul-ties, so as to be liberated from all constraint by concepts, it cannot claimthe “objective universal validity” of a logical judgement grounded inthe understanding but may nonetheless be said to have a “subjectiveuniversal validity” (§55). Kant here introduces a special term for thepeculiar universality of aesthetic judgements: “Gemeingültigkeit,” mean-ing “common validity” or “general validity” (§54). Again, the “com-mon validity” of a disinterested aesthetic judgement is grounded notin objective concepts but in subjective feelings of pleasure and dis-pleasure. This is summarized by Kant when he writes:


The result is that the judgement of taste, with its attendant consciousness of detachment from all interest, must involve a claim to validity for allmen, and must do so apart from universality attached to Objects, i.e., there must be coupled with it a claim to subjective universality. [§51; italics added]

Hence, in this way, Kant proposes a brilliant solution to demonstratehow aesthetic judgements can be subjective on the one hand and makeclaim to universality on the other. For although aesthetic judgementsare grounded in subjective feeling and the free play of imaginationwithout determination by a concept of the understanding, since theyare at the same time disinterested—or, as it were, accompanied by a“consciousness of detachment from all interest”—they are also said to havea subjective universal validity that is presupposed by everyone.

Schiller: Disinterested Contemplation and Aesthetic Education

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) is best remembered for his work Onthe Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters (1954). The aestheticphilosophy Schiller developed in this book was immediately adoptedas the artistic banner of an eminent group of writers who contributedto a German literary journal called The Graces—a group that includedsuch luminaries as Goethe, Herder, Kant, Fichte, the Humboldts, theSchlegels, and Jacobi. Schiller posed a question that had not beenasked so profoundly since Plato: What is the ultimate role of art inhuman life, society, education, and culture?

Schiller’s answer in these letters is that humanity must pass throughthe aesthetic condition, from the merely physical, in order to reach therational or moral. That is to say: sensuous self must become aestheticself before he can become moral and intellectual self. Hence Schillerasserts that the beautiful “paves the way for mankind to a transitionfrom sensation to thought” (Letter 19:92). And again: “ThroughBeauty the sensuous man is led to form and to thought” (Letter 8:87).Schiller goes on to say that humanity therefore must “follow the pathof aesthetics, since it is through Beauty that we arrive at Freedom”(Letter 2:27). For this reason he states: “Beauty must be exhibited as anecessary condition of humanity” (Letter 10:59). Schiller describes thisintermediary role of art and beauty as a bridge from the physical tothe rational stages with his Kantian theory of the “play impulse,” whichhe also calls the “play of imagination,” “aesthetic play,” and the“aesthetic creative impulse.” According to this view we have a dualnature with two opposing drives or impulses: the “sensuous impulse”


(Stofftrieb), which binds us to nature, and the “form impulse” (Form-trieb), the urge toward the rational freedom of our moral self. But thereis also an impulse that harmonizes both the sensuous and the formimpulses in a synthesis in which each is overcome by being lifted to ahigher plane (aufgehoben), thereby restoring the unity of human nature.This third impulse is what Schiller calls the “play impulse” (Spieltrieb).While the object of the sense impulse is said to be life and that of theform impulse is shape, the object of the play impulse, conceived as ageneral notion, can therefore be called “living shape,” a concept thatdenotes all aesthetic qualities of phenomena—or, in a word, what iscalled beauty (Letter 15:76).

It is in this context that Schiller puts forth his teaching of disinter-ested aesthetic contemplation. According to Schiller, it is the free playof detached contemplation or disinterested appreciation of beauty inart that brings about a revolution in human character and thus leadsone from the physical to the moral freedom of rational existence. Hewrites: “When therefore we discover traces of a disinterested free appre-ciation of pure appearance, we can infer some such revolution of hisnature and the real beginnings in him of humanity” (Letter 27:132).According to Schiller, the disinterested contemplation of beauty inart has a relaxing or calming effect on the senses, finally resulting in acomplete freedom of detachment from all human emotions, passions,and attachments. He therefore asserts that “the inevitable effect of theBeautiful is freedom from passions” (Letter 22:106). Elsewhere hedescribes how detached contemplation establishes a distance from life:

Contemplation (reflection) is Man’s first free relation to the universe which surrounds him. If desire directly apprehends its object, contempla-tion thrusts its object into the distance, thereby turning it into its true and inalienable possession and thus securing it from passion. [Letter 25:120]

While affective feeling, desire, and emotion bring the subject intorelation with the object, it is the act of disinterested contemplation thatinserts distance between the self and its affects in the production of aes-thetic experience. For Schiller, then, it is “distance from life” achievedthough detached observation or disinterested contemplation of anobject which is itself a precondition for the aesthetic experience ofbeauty, thus anticipating the notion of psychic distance developed byEdward Bullough.

Schiller recognized the significance of Kant’s aesthetics for a phi-losophy of education. The revolution initiated by Kant’s aesthetics


was a shift away from an emphasis on beauty as the property of har-mony or symmetry in the object to an artistic attitude of the subjectin an act of disinterested contemplation. It is precisely because theexperience of beauty requires a constitutive act by the subject thataesthetic experience indicates the need for an educational process of“cultivation” (Bildung). For Schiller, then, it is the cultivation of anaesthetic attitude of detached contemplation and free play of imagi-nation that constitutes the basis for what he calls the “aesthetic edu-cation of man.”

Schopenhauer: Salvation Through Detached Contemplation

Kant’s notion of aesthetic disinterestedness was enthusiastically adoptedinto the philosophy of art and beauty formulated by Arthur Schopen-hauer (1788–1860). Schopenhauer’s philosophy of art represents thefirst major development of Kant’s doctrine of disinterested aestheticcontemplation. Yet there is a fundamentally different orientation intheir respective theories of aesthetic disinterestedness. Kant’s approachto the problem of disinterestedness is essentially logical and functionsas the precondition for universality or intersubjective validity claimsin judgements of taste. Schopenhauer is concerned more with the psy-chological state of consciousness in aesthetic contemplation whereupon heelevates the disinterested character of aesthetic experience as a manifes-tation of genius and as conducive to a state of personal blessedness aris-ing by means of an emancipation of intellect from the attachments ofdesire or will. Moreover, Schopenhauer develops his theory of aestheticdisinterestedness in the context of a metaphysical system that, althoughinspired by Kantian philosophy, is at the same time quite differentfrom it. Kant had argued that behind the phenomenal world of appear-ances lies a noumenal world of reality: the “thing in itself.” Schopen-hauer’s innovation was to suggest that the Kantian thing in itself is infact an irrational impulse: “the will to live.” The phenomenal world isregarded as an “objectification” of the will, so that the physical bodyis itself an objectification of desires, whereupon the throat is an objec-tification of thirst, the abdomen an objectification of hunger, the repro-ductive organs an objectification of lust. Moreover, from his readingof Indian Buddhist philosophy Schopenhauer derived the view thatthe will expresses itself in ceaseless desire which results in sufferingborn of craving and attachment. On this basis Schopenhauer developedhis nihilistic philosophical orientation that regards life as inherentlyevil. It is in the context of this pessimistic worldview that Schopen-


hauer articulates his theory of aesthetic disinterestedness. Art exists asa means of escape from the tyranny of will and the tragic suffering ofexistence in the world. The detached contemplation of beauty in artand nature, however, offers just a temporary escape from the misery ofexistence; permanent deliverance comes only through a Buddhisticrenunciation of desire and selfhood in nirvana. Even if the scholar ofBuddhism complains that Buddha proclaims the middle way betweennihilism and eternalism and is thus wholly distorted by the pessi-mism of Schopenhauer, it is instructive to see how early Indian Bud-dhism was first comprehended by a leading philosopher in the West.

According to Schopenhauer a thing is beautiful only insofar as it isthe object of disinterested aesthetic contemplation: “For the beautywith which those objects present themselves rests precisely on thepure objectivity, i.e., disinterestedness, of their perception. . . . Everythingis beautiful only so long as it does not concern us” (1958:II, 374; italicsadded). In this context, Schopenhauer illustrates the attitude of dis-interested aesthetic contemplation with those often cited lines fromGoethe:

The stars not coveted by usDelight us with their splendor.

In a clear statement of his idea of beauty as an object of detached aes-thetic contemplation, Schopenhauer writes:

By calling an object beautiful, we thereby assert that it is an object ofour aesthetic contemplation, and this implies two different things. On the one hand, the sight of the thing makes us objective, that is tosay, in contemplating it we are no longer conscious of ourselves as individuals, but as pure, will-less subjects of knowing. On the other hand, we recognize in the object not an individual thing, but an Idea. [1958:I, 209]

One of the key sources for Schopenhauer’s idea of disinterestedcontemplation is to be found in his theory of tragedy, especially thetragic dramas of ancient Greece and Shakespearean theater. In Westernphilosophy of art there have emerged several important views ontragic art, including Aristotle’s idea that the function of tragic dramais “catharsis,” the discharge of fear and pity. The next great theory oftragic art was that of Schopenhauer, who argues that the function oftragic art is to teach renunciation through detached contemplation bydisclosing the pain of transitory existence. Nietzsche overturns thisnihilistic view by arguing that tragic art leads not to nihilistic renun-


ciation but to Dionysian affirmation of life as innocence of becomingin both its creative and destructive aspects. Hegel finds the essence oftragedy in the dialectical clash between two half-truths. Among theseleading views of tragedy, it is especially Schopenhauer’s resignationismthat most concerns our study of artistic detachment. Schopenhauermaintains that in tragedy the terrible side of life is presented to us: thesuffering and lamentation of humankind, the dominion of chance anderror, the fall of the righteous, the triumph of the wicked, the sufferinginherent in universal flux. At the sight of tragedy we turn away fromlife, renounce the world, and become detached from phenomenal exis-tence, finally leading to the point of complete resignation. Tragedy thusbrings one to adopt the objective, selfless, and disinterested standpointof the artist, an uninvolved spectator who only contemplates the beautyof things as a will-less subject. He writes:

Our pleasure in the tragedy belongs not to the feeling of the beautiful, but to that of the sublime; it is, in fact, the highest degree of this feeling. For, just as at the sight of the sublime in nature we turn away fromthe interest of the will . . . so in the tragic catastrophe we turn awayfrom the will-to-live itself. . . . What gives to everything tragic, what-ever the form in which it appears, the characteristic tendency to the sublime, is the dawning of the knowlege that the world and life can afford us no true satisfaction, and are therefore not worth our attach-ment to them. In this the tragic spirit consists; accordingly, it leads to resignation. [1958:II, 433–434]

According to Schopenhauer, then, the value of tragedy is that it teachesdetached resignation in the sublime quietude of disinterested aestheticcontemplation.

From the standpoint of comparative aesthetics, Schopenhauer’s phi-losophy of artistic detachment represents the first great synthesis ofKantian and Indian theories of detached contemplation, including boththe Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Although Hegel incorporated theIndian tradition into his global history of philosophy, he understoodHinduism as an abstract monistic theory of the One, which like theworldviews of Parmenides, Spinoza, and Judaism, all alike had to betranscended by the Christian dialectical understanding of reality as atrinitarian process of separation and return. Schopenhauer was the firstmajor Western philosopher to really identify with the position of Hin-duism and Buddhism—at least according to his understanding of thesereligious philosophies based on the German translation of works avail-


able within his lifetime. For Schopenhauer the message of the Vedas,Upanishads, and Gita was the teaching of contemplative detachment,resignation, and renunciation. Above all else Schopenhauer embracedthe teachings of Buddha that focused on nirvana as a selfless or will-less state of tranquility detached from all desires and passions. Schopen-hauer understood Buddhism to represent a pessimistic worldviewteaching renunciation and detachment as the way to escape the painof existence. He regarded art, especially tragic art, as a sedative whichlike an anesthetic drug numbs the observer to the pain of existenceand leads to tranquility. Yet the detached contemplation of beauty intragic art is only a temporary repose. For Schopenhauer, early Bud-dhism teaches that the goal of detached contemplation is therefore noless than moksa or emancipation: the total extinction of all desires in thepeace of nirvana.

Heidegger: Aesthetic Disinterestedness

The Kantian aesthetics of detached contemplation as well as the Hus-serlian phenomenological tradition both culminate in the writings ofMartin Heidegger, perhaps the most influential philosopher in thetwentieth century. Here I will endeavor to clarify that Heidegger’s ideaof beauty as openness or ontological disclosure, apprehended throughGelassenheit or letting-be, stands in the German tradition of aestheticdisinterestedness running through Moritz, Kant, Goethe, Schiller,Schopenhauer, and others. On the other side, Heidegger is profoundlyinfluenced by the ecstatic Dionysian aesthetics of rapture developed byNietzsche, who is the among the very strongest critics of Kant. Justas Nietzsche himself never tires of ridiculing Kant’s objectivist idea ofa priori knowledge by arguing that there are no facts but only inter-pretations, and just as he undermines Kant’s universalist ethics basedon the categorical imperatives of duty through his overturning of slavemorality with a master morality beyond good and evil, so he is relent-less in attacking Kant’s notion of beauty as disinterested delight as thebasis of subjective universal validity claims in the arts. For Nietzscheit seems that Kant’s notion of beauty as disinterested is Apollonianwhereas he himself favors the Dionysian mode of beauty as ecstasy orrapture. Yet Heidegger explicates how the doctrines formulated byKant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche are unified by his own idea ofbeauty as unconcealedness through letting-be. In The Will to Power asArt (1979), Heidegger defends Kant’s theory of aesthetic disinterest-


edness against the criticism of Nietzsche by claiming that the latter isitself based on the misinterpretation of Kant by Schopenhauer. Hei-degger goes on to bring the Kantian position into accord with his ownframework wherein the beauty of things presencing in primordialtruth as unconcealedness is apprehended by letting-be of Gelassenheit—a disinterested attitude of openness leading to an event of ontolog-ical disclosure. For Heidegger the passion, ecstasy, rapture, and inten-sity of emotion represented by Nietzsche’s Dionysian impulse is itselffully engaged by the calm and tranquil artistic detachment of Kant’sdisinterested attitude representing the Apollonian impulse.

In Heidegger’s hermeneutical phenomenology, the disinterestedaesthetic attitude of Kant is represented by what he calls Gelassenheit,the “letting-be” whereby things radiate into appearance as nonconceal-ing presence so as to stand out through ekstasis into the openness, clear-ing, or nothingness of being. For Heidegger it signifies a direct con-tinuation of Husserl’s phenomenological standpoint whereby throughthe act of epoché (suspension of judgement) one returns “to the thingsthemselves” in their aboriginal presencing. Gelassenheit is called “medi-tative thinking,” which reveals things in their original truth (aletheia)as openness, unhiddenness, or nonconcealment, in opposition to “calcu-lative thinking,” which instead shows things in their derivative orpropositional truth as correspondence between concepts and facts. InHeidegger’s hermeneutical aesthetics, meditative thinking or Gelassen-heit opens up an empty space or clearing in being to enable theprimordial truth of things to become manifest. Gelassenheit is the medi-tative stance of responsive openness that allows one to be released intothe opening of nothingness where things radiate into beauty asnonconcealment.

In his essay titled “Phenomenology and the Later Heidegger,” DonIhde clarifies the manner in which Heidegger’s later thought repre-sents a continuation of Husserlian descriptive-constitutive phenome-nology. Ihde emphasizes that the basis of phenomenological methodis the concept of intentionality—that is, directedness, referentiality,or consciousness of—which involves the correlation a priori betweennoesis/noema, cogito/cogitatum, or act/content (1974:21). Phenome-nology describes not only the terminus of the intentional relation—the noema or content pole of experience—but also the noesis or act poleby which the former is itself constituted by mental operations includ-ing cognition, imagination, and memory. Husserl describes the in-variant structure of the perceptual field at the noematic pole in terms


of its holistic core/horizon, focus/field, or figure/ground gestalt con-texture wherein the object clearly discriminated in the foregroundfocus of attention is always encircled by a dimly apprehended horizonin the background. He further describes the noetic pole in terms ofthe mental acts that constitute the noematic content of experience.Through sedimentation we habitually constitute the perceptual fieldso that objects in the foreground are dominant and the horizon inthe background is recessive. With the phenomenological techniqueof “fantasy variation” in imagination, however, one deconstructs thesedimented focal object and reconstitutes the perceptual field by agestalt switch from foreground to background. Ihde’s thesis is that“the later Heidegger is doing a radical phenomenological descriptionof horizons-phenomena” (1974:20). Heidegger describes the noematiccontent of experience as the “region of openness” that is itself boundby the nothing as its ultimate parameter (1974:22). The region ofopenness contains an inner horizon of latent alternative profiles sig-nifying the multiplicity, variety, and possiblity of divergent per-spectives by which an object may be constituted and reconstituted.The region of openness is also the horizon of disclosure wherein thefocal object comes to presence in its primordial truth (aletheia) asnonconcealment.

Heidegger’s phenomenology describes not only the horizon of open-ness at the noematic pole but also the act of intentionality (noesis →noema correlation) by which it is constituted at the noetic pole. AsIhde explains, the noetic act that intends the horizon of open-ness encircling phenomena is described by Heidegger as Gelassenheitor “letting-be” at the noetic pole. Gelassenheit is a nonfocal exercisewhereby one becomes detached from already sedimented focal objectsand is released into the openness of being at the outermost peripheryof the visual field. For Ihde the idea of Gelassenheit permits a “noeticreversal”—that is, a gestalt switch from figure to ground, or a radicalshift of attention from the being of things in the foreground to thehorizon of openness/nothingness in the background. In a remarkablepassage, Ihde writes:

In Husserlian terms, the noematic description must be supplementedby a noetic analysis of the “act” which “intends” the world terminus.If now the “noema” is this strange horizon-phenomenon of the Open-ness of Region, what is the “noesis” which correlates with it? Again, Gelassenheit seems almost too simple to be true—the noesis is charac-


terized by terms which contrast it to any form of direct, central orfocal concern. . . . Thus Heidegger characterizes the noesis as not-willing (nicht-Wollen), releasement or letting be (Gelassenheit), and waiting (warten). [1974:24]

Heidegger’s essay “The Origin of the Work of Art” develops hishermeneutical/existential-phenomenological aesthetics in terms ofthe noesis/noema intentionality structure of beauty wherein Gelassenheitor letting-be is the act of noetic reversal corresponding to the noematichorizon of openness wherein all phenomena emerge into presence, un-hiddenness, and nonconcealment. In this essay he defines the work ofart: “Art breaks open an open place, in whose openness everything isother than usual” (1977:184). Again: “Art then is the becoming andhappening of truth . . . the opening up of the open region, and thelighting of beings” (1977:183–184). Heidegger subsumes the artsunder the classification of “poetry” (Gk. poesis) in its widest sense andthen defines poetry in hermeneutical terms as an act of ontological dis-closure/openness where beings are revealed in their primordial truthas unhiddenness: “If all art is in essence poetry, then the arts of archi-tecture, painting, sculpture, and music must be traced back to poesy.. . . Poetry is the saying of the unconcealedness of beings” (1977:184–185). Thus in another definition he states: “Art, as the setting-into-work of truth, is poetry” (1977:186). He describes the horizon ofopenness surrounding all focal objects revealed by the ontologicaldisclosure of poesis as saying the unconcealedness of things in worksof art: “In the midst of beings as a whole an open place occcurs. Thereis a lighting. . . . This open center is therefore not surrounded bybeings; rather, the lighting center itself encircles all that is, as doesthe nothing, which we scarcely know” (1977:175).

Heidegger’s “Origin of the Work of Art” describes not only themysterious horizon of openness/nothingness that surrounds all beingsat the noematic pole but also the act of Gelassenheit or letting-be as thenonfocal exercise of artistic detachment whereby one is released intoopenness of being at the noetic pole:

To this end, however, only one element is needful . . . to leave the thing to rest in its own self, for instance, in its thing-being. What seems easier than to let a thing be just the being that it is? Or does this turn out to be the most difficult of tasks, particularly if such an intention—to let a being be as it is—represents the opposite of the indifference that simply turns its back upon the being. [1977:161]


In this passage Heidegger clarifies that an aesthetic attitude of Gelassen-heit or letting-be is required to apprehend the prereflective presence ofa thing in its simple beauty as it stands into the horizon of openness/nothingness. Furthermore, he emphasizes that the aesthetic attitudeof “letting-be” represents the opposite of the indifference that simplyturns its back on beings. This same point is made in Heidegger’s “Onthe Essence of Truth”:

To let something be has here the negative sense of letting it alone, of renouncing it, of indifference and even neglect. However, the phrase required now—to let beings be—does not refer to neglect and indif-ference but rather the opposite. To let be is to engage oneself withbeings. . . . To let be—that is, to let beings be as the beings whichthey are—means to engage oneself with the open region and its open-ness into which every being comes to stand. . . . Western thinkingin its beginning conceived this open region as alèthea, the unconcealed. [1977:127]

The stance of letting-be at the noetic pole is therefore not indifference,renunciation, or neglect but a positive aesthetic attitude that engagesthe place of openness at the noematic pole wherein all things are dis-closed or opened up in the beauty of primordial truth as aletheia: uncon-cealment. In Heidegger’s hermeneutical phenomenology of aestheticexperience, the letting-be of Gelassenheit is an affirmative act of onto-logical disclosure whereby particular beings in their prereflective pres-ence come to stand forth through rapture of ekstasis into the opennessof being. Heidegger’s positive reformulation of Kant’s disinterestedaesthetic attitude through the notion of Gelassenheit or letting-be thuscorrects Schopenhauer’s nihilistic understanding of the concept as in-difference or renunciation while at the same time bringing it into agree-ment with Nietzsche’s ecstatic Dionysian affirmation of life throughaesthetic experience as rapture.

Hans-Georg Gadamer further develops Heidegger’s hermeneuticphenomenology into a doctrine of aesthetic experience as ontolog-ical disclosure that includes elements of artistic detachment and self-forgetfulness. In a passage from Truth and Method, Gadamer asserts: “Tothe ecstatic self-forgetfulness of the spectator there corresponds hiscontinuity with himself. . . . The absolute moment in which a specta-tor stands is at once self-forgetfulness and reconciliation with self.That which detaches him from everything also gives him back thewhole of his being” (1986:1131). This profound statement makes


clear that artistic detachment is not privation but an act whichrecovers the totality of self and phenomena in an event of ontologicaldisclosure.

Psychic Distance in Contemporary Aesthetics

Bullough: Psychic Distance

The most famous detachment theory of art in the twentieth century isthe doctrine of “psychic distance” proposed by British psychologistEdward Bullough in his justly acclaimed paper, “ ‘Psychical Distance’as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle” (1977). Bullough shiftsthe notion of distance from the physical to the psychic plane, therebytransforming it from a rule for poets (to distance their theme eitherin space or time) into a psychological statement about the quality ofremoteness that objects assume in an aesthetic relation. One probablesource for Bullough’s idea of psychic distance as a factor in beauty is astatement from chapter seven of Edmund Burke’s Enquiry into the Originof Our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful (1756): “When danger orpain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and aresimply terrible; but at certain distances and with certain modificationsthey may be, and they are delightful, as we every day experience.”Another likely source of influence for Bullough’s theory of aestheticdistance is the work of Friedrich Schiller. To repeat the words of Schillerfrom On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters: “If desiredirectly apprehends its object, contemplation thrusts its object intothe distance . . . thus securing it from passion” (Letter 25:120). ForBullough, as for Schiller, the pedagogical context of this notion is ofgreat significance in that it underscores how increased artistic sensi-bility through control of psychic distance is something to be learned,cultivated, and refined through a developmental process of aestheticeducation.

With his notion of psychic distance, Bullough reformulated in psy-chologized terms the Kantian idea of disinterested contemplation as aprecondition for aesthetic experience. More than any other writer itwas Bullough who clarified that a specifiable aesthetic attitude was re-quired in order to apprehend the beautiful and that this attitude ischaracterized by a psychological act of distancing. Furthermore, heallowed for a broad range of aesthetic response with his image of asliding scale of distance. With his notion of degrees of distance, Bulloughclarified that a fundamental problem of aesthetics was that of over-


distancing and underdistancing. His vivid examples such as the “fogat sea” went far toward crystallizing the notion of aesthetic distance.Altogether it was due largely to Bullough’s essay that the notion ofpsychic distance came to be widely regarded as an indispensable factorin art, beauty, and aesthetic experience.

Bullough says that an aesthetic experience results from “the insertionof Distance” (1977:94). He adds: “This Distance appears to lie betweenour own self and its affections.” In other words, distance lies betweenour self and such objects as are the sources of these affective emotions.The insertion of distance into an experience is further said to constitutea “special mental attitude” (p. 94). Psychic distance is an aesthetic atti-tude in which things are seen “objectively” and appreciated “for theirown sake” (p. 95). Bullough describes his admittedly metaphoricalnotion of psychic distance as one of “putting the phenomenon, so tospeak, out of gear with our practical, actual self,” thereby allowing itto “stand outside the context of our personal needs and ends” (p. 95).Hence, like Kant’s notion of aesthetic disinterestedness, the idea ofpsychic distance is completely nonutilitarian. Moreover, Bulloughrefers to psychic distance as “the much needed criterion of the beautifulas distinct from the merely agreeable” (p. 96). Kant had argued thatwhile pleasure in the agreeable as sense gratification is always boundto self-interest, pleasure in the beautiful is always “apart from interest.”Similarly, Bullough asserts that whereas the agreeable is nondistanced,beauty in the widest sense of aesthetic value is impossible without theinsertion of distance (p. 118). On this basis he goes on to suggest thatpsychic distance is such an essential factor in all art and beauty that itis in fact the basic principle of aesthetics. Artists, critics, and audiencesmust insert psychic distance into an event in order to elevate it intoan aesthetic experience. Thus at the conclusion of his essay he writes:“Distance becomes one of the distinguishing features of the ‘aestheticconsciousness’ . . . which, as I said at the outset, leads in its most preg-nant and most fully developed form, both appreciatively and produc-tively, to Art” (p. 130).

Bullough illustrates the notion of psychic distance with his well-known example of “fog at sea.” For most people, being a passenger ona ship in a dense fog at sea would be an unpleasant experience apt toproduce feelings of acute fear and anxiety over invisible dangers. Never-theless, a fog at sea can also be a source of intense relish and enjoy-ment. In the latter case, one must observe the fog at sea in a purelyobjective manner, suspending all “practical interest,” in order to see itwith the “unconcern of a mere spectator.” If one directs attention to


the features “objectively” constituting the phenomenon—the veilsurrounding you with an opaqueness as of transparent milk, the blur-ring of the outline of things, the creamy smoothness of the water—the event assumes a quality of remoteness that transforms it into anoccasion of aesthetic delight. Hence Bullough argues that by puttingthe phenomenon of a fog at sea out of gear with our practical aims andinterests, there is an “insertion of distance” or, as it were, a “trans-formation by distance.” He concludes that the example of fog at seaillumines the dual aspects of psychic distance: the negative, inhibitoryaspect, which discards the practical side of things along with ourpractical attitude toward them, and the positive aspect, the creation ofaesthetic experience through the inhibitory action of distance (p. 95).

Bullough further argues that there are two ways of losing distance:either to “underdistance” or to “overdistance” (p. 100). Underdistanc-ing is said to be the commonest failing of the subject; an excess ofdistancing is a common failure of art. Hence Bullough’s theory allowsfor what he calls “variability of Distance” (p. 102) or “degrees of Dis-tance” (p. 121). It is this image of a sliding scale of degrees of distancethat allows for such a wide range of aesthetic responses in Bullough’stheory. He illustrates the problem of underdistancing on the part of aspectator by reference to a man who believes he has cause to be jealousabout his wife and happens to witness a theatrical performance ofShakespeare’s Othello (p. 99). By a sudden reversal of perspective hewill no longer see Othello apparently betrayed by Desdemona: insteadhe will see himself in an analogous situation with his own wife. Thisreversal of perspective is said to be the consequence of a loss of dis-tance. To the extent that the spectator fails to insert psychic distance,there is a proportionate loss of the aesthetic attitude. In contrast tothe underdistanced or even nondistanced standpoint of the jealousspectator watching Othello, professional art critics make a bad audi-ence if they become overdistanced by noting only the technical detailsof the play. Criticism in art therefore requires a rhythmic interchangebetween the practical to the distanced attitude and vice versa. Thesame qualification applies to the creative artist. The artist involved inthe creation of beauty expresses personal feelings and emotions but“only on condition of a detachment from the experience” (p. 99). Hencethe spectator, the critic, and the artist each must insert distance be-tween the aesthetic object and their personal feelings. Since distanceadmits naturally of degrees, however, it differs not only according tothe nature of the aesthetic object, which may impose a greater orsmaller degree of distance, but varies also according to the individual’s


capacity for maintaining a greater or lesser degree. The insertion ofpsychic distance may therefore be said to be variable—both accordingto the distancing power of the individual and according to the characterof the aesthetic object (p. 100).

For Bullough the idea of degree or variability of distance is closelyrelated to what he calls the “antinomy of distance.” An aesthetic expe-rience does not require that all personal feelings, desires, and emo-tions be completely removed. Artist and spectator alike can enjoy per-sonal feelings providing they are balanced by the insertion of psychicdistance. Bullough argues that herein lies his preference for the word“distance” compared with such terms as “objectivity” and “detach-ment,” since they are inflexible terms exclusive of their opposites (p.100). According to Bullough, the tension between personal feelingsand the distanced attitude in an aesthetic experience points to a para-dox of art: “the antinomy of Distance” (p. 98). He argues that the aimof all art, both in appreciation and in production, is this antinomy ofDistance defined as “the utmost decrease of Distance without its dis-appearance” (p. 100).

Ortega y Gasset: The Dehumanization of Art

One of the more radical theories of artistic detachment in the twentiethcentury is to be found in The Dehumanization of Art (1948) by theSpanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset. Melvin Rader (1960:392–393) locates Ortega y Gasset’s key notion of the “dehumanization ofart” in the tradition of Kant’s theory of aesthetic disinterestedness andBullough’s doctrine of psychic distance. Ortega y Gasset, like Bullough,formulates a doctrine whereby the artist observes an event from thestandpoint of a purely aesthetic attitude by inserting “distance” intolife. As a work of art becomes more stylized and unrealistic, its dis-tance correspondingly increases. As the attitude of the artist becomesmore impersonal, the degree of distance again increases proportion-ately. But unlike Bullough’s antinomy of distance, understood as “theutmost decrease of Distance without its disappearance,” Ortega yGasset argues that the goal of modern abstract art is a maximum degreeof distance. Indeed, for Ortega y Gasset the aim of modern abstractart is high distancing to the extreme point of dehumanization—inother words, a complete removal of all human feeling, sympathy, andattachment in art.

In a section of The Dehumanization of Art titled “A Few Drops ofPhenomenology,” Ortega y Gasset gives an illuminating phenomeno-


logical account of the successive degrees of distancing inserted intothe tragic event of a great man’s death as witnessed from varyingperspectives, including those of his wife, a doctor, a reporter, and apainter (1948:13–18). He argues that the clearest way of distinguish-ing these four points of view is by measuring them in terms of “theemotional distance between each person and the event they all wit-ness” (p. 14). Concerning the first perspective, that of the wife, hewrites: “For the wife of the dying man the distance shrinks to almostnothing” (p. 14). In this case, her soul is so tortured by the death ofher husband that there is almost a total loss of distance from theevent. The perspective of the medical doctor who arrives on the sceneis “several degrees removed” (p. 14). Although the doctor is involvedwith the event, it is in a professional capacity that provides him witha stronger degree of distance than that of the wife, but not to the extentthat all human interest and feeling have been removed. The perspectiveof the newspaper reporter inserts even more distance into the man’sdeath: “When we now put ourselves in the place of the reporter werealize that we have traveled a long distance away from the tragicevent” (p. 15). The reporter is so aloof from the event that that almostall human interest and feeling are now absent. The perspective of thepainter is that of a disinterested bystander who is completely unin-volved with the event: “The painter, in fine, completely unconcerned,does nothing but keep his eyes open. . . . In the painter we find a maxi-mum of distance and a minimum of feeling intervention” (p. 16).Ortega y Gasset concludes by stating that the uninvolved painter whoobserves the event with a maximum of distance appears “inhuman”(p. 17). He then goes on to defend this “inhuman” attitude of thepainter, however, arguing that the level of complete dehumanizationachieved by extreme distancing from life represents the very higheststandpoint of art in modern civilization. Hence, for Ortega y Gasset,the dehumanization of art is not an overdistancing from life, since thegoal of art is no less than the realization of “absolute distance” (p. 26).

Vivas: Intransitive Attention

Eliseo Vivas proposes that aesthetic experience can be most clearly elu-cidated in terms of the psychological act of attention. In his best-knownformulation he writes: “An aesthetic experience is an experience of raptattention which involves the intransitive apprehension of an object’simmanent meanings in their full presentational immediacy” (1966:408). Moreover, he describes the aesthetic experience as one of “in-


transitive attention” and, again, as “an intense experience of attention”wherein “the self disappears” (p. 411). Like Edward Bullough, Vivasmaintains that aesthetic experience requires a certain “mental attitude”—a special mode of attention, as it were. In aesthetic experience, atten-tion is shifted away from self and is focused solely upon the object ofbeauty and its intrinsic values.

According to Vivas, while ordinarily attention is transitive and rest-less unless somehow controlled, the aesthetic experience is character-ized by a heightened state of attention that he calls “rapt attention,”“intense attention,” or “intransitive attention.” The key word in Vivas’formulation is “intransitive,” which he defines as signifying that atten-tion is aesthetic when it is so controlled by the object that it does notfly away from it to meanings not present immanently in the object(p. 408). In contrast, other modes of attention discover in objects notimmanent but referential meanings—that is is to say, meanings whichcarry us beyond the object to other objects or meanings not present init (p. 409). Yet he also holds that there are specifiable characteristicsof an aesthetic object which elicit attention and make it intransitive: achange, strength, striking quality, definiteness of form, as well as unityin variety, theme, thematic variation, emphasis, and evolution accord-ing to a rhythmic pattern (p. 410). For Vivas, then, while aestheticexperience is to be conceived as a state of rapt, intense, and intransi-tive attention, the generic traits of aesthetic objects are factors whichfacilitate that attention while retaining it within the object.

Ingarden: Practical, Cognitive, and Aesthetic Attitudes

Roman Ingarden (1893–1970), a Polish philosopher who studied phe-nomenology under Husserl, gives a splendid account of distancingthrough the aesthetic attitude in The Cognition of the Literary Work ofArt. This book presents Ingarden’s conception of the literary work as astratified, multilayered, and polyphonic object whose existence dependson the intentional acts of author and reader but is not identical withthose acts. Ingarden distinguishes the “aesthetic” from the “practical”and “cognitive” attitudes operating when the reader interacts with aliterary text or other art object:

Above all, it is necessary to characterize the two attitudes of the reader which are here being contrasted . . . (a) the purely cognitive or “investi-gating” attitude and (b) the “aesthetic” attitude. Both are distinguished from the “practical” attitude. . . . [1973:172–173]


He then describes the various levels of hermeneutic interaction thatcan occur between the subject and the art object in order to illustratethese three attitudes along with the radical shift that occurs in chang-ing from the natural to the aesthetic attitude. The practical attitude isillustrated by someone who purchases a picture in order to hang it ona wall. He assumes a cognitive attitude when he makes an effort to gainknowledge of the properties of the painting he has purchased. But athird attitude of aesthetic contemplation is also possible:

Finally, when he reposes on a sofa, is sunk in “contemplation,” and attempts to view the work in its totality in its artistic form, only then does he assume the “aesthetic” attitude and, in the fulfillment of the “aesthetic experience,” discover the picture in its full individuality and also in the value belonging to it which has been brought to appearance. [1973:173]

Ingarden follows the Kantian tradition to the extent that he em-phasizes how the aesthetic attitude is nonutilitarian in that it is a “con-templative” state distinct from analytic and practical attitudes. Hisanalysis thus underscores the psychological shift from the practicalto the aesthetic attitude. Ingarden asserts: “This transition from thepractical to the aesthetic attitude is perhaps the most thoroughgoingchange in man’s psychological attitude” (1973:196). Moreover, inaccord with the Kantian and phenomenological traditions, he main-tains that the aesthetic attitude requires a total lack of interest for thefactual existence or nonexistence of an art object:

The original emotion produces in us a radical change in attitude,namely, from the natural attitude of active life to the specifically aes-thetic attitude. . . . It has the result that one passes from the attitude which focuses on facts in the real world . . . to an attitude whichfocuses on intuitive qualitative formations and the achievement of a direct contact with them. [1973:195]

In accord with Husserlian phenomenological method there is a shiftfrom the “natural attitude” of already sedimented views to the “phe-nomenological (= aesthetic) attitude,” starting with the epoché or sus-pension of all affirmative and negative judgements regarding theexistence or nonexistence of a phenomenon. He then clarifies that inshifting from the natural attitude with its practical and aesthetic inter-ests to the aesthetic attitude with its disinterested perspective, oneassumes complete indifference for the “real existence” of a thing so asto become contemplatively absorbed in its aesthetic qualities for itsown sake with no ulterior motive:


For, as a result of the original emotion, we are focused not on the fact of the real existence of these or those qualities but on these qualities them-selves. . . . Their factual appearance in a real object as its determination becomes a matter of indifference for us. [1973:195]

Furthermore, in several places Ingarden clearly states that a process ofpsychological distancing occurs in the aesthetic attitude: “The dis-tanced surveying of various parts of the work permits the surveyor toassess their role in relation to certain other selected details of the work”(p. 248). He also speaks of “a certain distance, once again in a metaphor-ical sense, between the object of cognition and the subject of cogni-tion” (p. 281). Hence as in Bullough’s theory of psychic distance,Ingarden holds that the distancing which occurs in the aesthetic atti-tude is not spatial or temporal but psychological as an act of distanc-ing to be inserted between the reader and the art object—in this case,the literary text.

For Ingarden, then, the appreciation of beauty involves a disinter-ested aesthetic attitude wherein a kind of detached contemplationoccurs through insertion of distance. Generally speaking, Ingarden’stheory is continuous with the Husserlian phenomenological move-ment tracing back to Kant wherein beauty is not just the quality of aconstituted object (noema) but requires a disinterested aesthetic atti-tude on the side of the constitutive subject (noesis). For Ingarden, asfor Kant and the phenomenologists, aesthetic objects are not simplyfixed or given but are to some extent constituted through noetic actsof intentional consciousness. A phenomenological description of anyexperience, including the aesthetic experience of beauty, therefore re-quires an account of the twofold noetic/noematic or act/content struc-ture of intentionality—not only a description of the noema or objectivecontent pole but also the noesis or subjective act pole, which itself con-stitutes how the noematic content comes to appearance. In Husserlianterms, a methodological “bracketing” (epoché) or suspension of judge-ment is needed to put a phenomenon “out of gear” with all practicaland cognitive interests. Unlike Kant and the German phenomenolog-ical tradition, Ingarden does not understand the aesthetic attitude inthe framework of transcendental idealism but instead develops it in thecontext of a thoroughgoing realism. Experience of beauty in a literarywork of art begins, not in the aesthetic attitude, but in the natural atti-tude with its practical and cognitive interests. As the preceding cita-tions make clear, there is first a passive response to an aesthetic qualityin the object that imposes itself on us from without and then subse-


quently arouses an “original emotion” (1973:195). This original emo-tion, elicited by an aesthetically valuable gestalt quality, then pro-duces a shift from the natural attitude to the aesthetic attitude. At thispoint the passive response to aesthetic quality is followed by variouscreative acts of intentional consciousness that noetically constitute theart object. He writes:

But we must not for this reason suppose that the aesthetic experience is a purely passive, inactive, and uncreative “contemplation” of a quality . . . which is in this respect opposed to “active” practical life. On the contrary, an aesthetic experience constitutes a phase of a very active, intensive, and creative human life. [1973:196]

Ingarden’s contribution is to have provided a typology of the variouspossible attitudes that clearly distinguishes the practical and cogni-tive from the aesthetic attitude. He presents a descriptive profile ofthe radical shift that occurs from the natural to the aesthetic attitudeand offers concrete illustrations of the process. His account of the aes-thetic experience is continuous with the Kantian tradition, not onlybecause it emphasizes that a special “attitude” is required in order toappreciate beauty, but also because of the way this attitude is charac-terized. For Ingarden the aesthetic attitude is characterized by contem-plative absorption in a quality for its own sake, disengagement frompractical concerns, indifference to real existence, and psychological dis-tance from the art object. Yet Ingarden’s account is “realistic” in thatthe aesthetic attitude is initiated by a passive response to a quality inthe external object which then causes a shift from the natural attitudewith its practical and cognitive interests to the distanced contempla-tion of the aesthetic attitude. Hence while the aesthetic attitude consti-tutes the work of art through a variety of noetic/noematic intentionaloperations, it must first be aroused from without by contact with aquality in the object itself.

I. A. Richards et al.: Synaesthesis

In The Foundations of Aesthetics (1922) the well-known literary criticI. A. Richards together with C. K. Ogden and J. Wood developed adetachment theory of art in terms of a doctrine of synaesthesis. Thesethree British thinkers claim that synaesthesis is an “explanation of theaesthetic experience described by many of the greatest and most sensi-tive artists and critics of the past” and “may be regarded as the theoryof Beauty par excellence” (1922:7). They define their key principle of syn-


aesthesis as the equilibrium and harmony of diverse sense impulsesproduced by a work of art, resulting in the simultaneous perception ofcolors, sounds, flavors, scents, and other sensations that altogetherfunction to induce a total aesthetic effect. Their understanding of syn-aesthesia as an “equilibrium of impulses” is on the Western side influ-enced by the Kantian aesthetics of Friedrich Schiller, who is quoted assaying: “The only aesthetic repose is that in which stimulation result-ing in impulse or movement is checked. . . . This is tension, equilib-rium, or balance of forces, which is thus seen to be a general conditionof all aesthetic experience” (p. 86).

On the Eastern side they credit the synaesthetic notion of beauty tothe Confucian theory of “equilibrium” (Ch. chung). Hence at the veryoutset of a chapter called “Synaesthesis” they cite a passage from aChinese classic, Doctrine of the Mean (Chung-yung), which Richards, asinologist and Confucian scholar, translates as “The Doctrine of Equi-librium and Harmony,” part of which reads:

When anger, sorrow, joy, pleasure are in being but are not manifested, the mind may be said to be in a state of Equilibrium; when the feelings are stirred and cooperate in due degree the mind may be said to be in a state of Harmony. Equilibrium is the great principle. [Cited by Richards et al. 1922:14–15]

Moreover, in an effort to find a single term that expresses both theequilibrium and harmony of sense impulses in aesthetic experience,Richards finds inadequate such words as “ecstasy,” “nirvana,” “sublima-tion,” or “at-oneness with nature” and instead elects the term “synaes-thesis” (p. 75). Thus he writes: “As descriptive of an aesthetic state inwhich impulses are experienced together, the word Synaesthesis . . .conveniently covers both equilibrium and harmony (pp. 75–76).Richards further argues that in the psychological state of equipoiseproduced by a work of art there is no tendency to action but only acalm repose (p. 76). He adds that works of art producing action arenot “beautiful” but “stimulative” (p. 77). The function of beauty in awork of art is not to excite the emotions but to pacify them, resultingin the tranquil state of equanimity. Thus he writes: “It is in this stateof equanimity and freedom of spirit . . . that a genuine work of artshould leave us (p. 84).

At this point, Richards et al. clarify that the experience of synaes-thesis in which all the sense impulses are simultaneously engaged to-gether in equilibrium and harmony itself requires a special mode ofrapt attention: an aesthetic attitude of detached tranquility, free of all


concern for practical actions, which is at once both disinterested andimpersonal in nature. The wholly disinterested character of synaestheticperception is clearly described by the authors as follows:

As we realise beauty we become more fully ourselves the more our impulses are engaged. . . . Our interest is not canalised in one direction rather than another. It becomes ready instead to take any direction we choose. This is the explanation of that detachment so often mentioned in artistic experience. We become impersonal and disinterested. [p. 78]

Hence for Richards, Ogden, and Wood, aesthetic experience is alwayssynaesthetic experience. Moreover, the experience of synaesthesis isitself analyzed as a function of disinterestedness. As such, the disin-terested aesthetic attitude is a necessary precondition for the synaes-thetic perception of beauty. In such a manner, then, the principle ofsynaesthesis clarifies the essential act/content structure of aestheticexperience—including both the nature of beauty as embodied multi-sensory awareness having equilibrium and harmony of diverse senseimpulses along with the aesthetic attitude of disinterested contempla-tion required for its apprehension.

Strawson et al: British Analytic Philosophy

In twentieth-century theories of art and beauty the Kantian principleof aesthetic disinterestedness has been restated in the tradition of Britishanalytic philosophy by thinkers like G. E. Moore, Peter Strawson, andStuart Hampshire. Generally speaking the analytic tradition has beeninfluenced by Kant’s epistemological critique of metaphysics, whichargues that metaphysical notions based on an illicit extension ofthe categories beyond the “bounds of sense” are meaningless. Again,British analytic philosophers have been attracted to Kant’s universalistethics based on categorical imperatives of duty prescribed by self-legislative rationality of autonomous moral agents. Furthermore, ana-lytic philosophers like Strawson have adopted a Kantian aestheticsbased on the idea of a non-rule-governed faculty of taste groundedin an attitude of disinterestedness. In his essay titled “Aesthetic Ap-praisal and Works of Art,” Strawson (1974:187) explains the impossi-bility of any general rules for art by defining our appreciation of art astotally devoid of any “interest in anything it can or should do, or thatwe can do with it, not even an interest in specific responses (say, excite-


ment or stupefaction) which it will produce in us.” Hence for Strawson,as for Kant, beauty is a function of disinterested pleasure, so that theaesthetic signifies an autonomous domain which is free of all prag-matic, utilitarian, and problem-solving concerns.

Bergson: Detachment, Creative Evolution, and Artistic Intuition

The French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) has formulatedan innovative detachment theory of art based on the principle of aes-thetic disinterestedness in the context of developing his well-knowndoctrines of intuition, temporality, duration, vital life impulse, andcreative evolution. Bergson is especially renowned for his concept ofintuition as formulated in his Introduction to Metaphysics (1903). In thiswork he defines intuition as “the kind of intellectual sympathy bywhich one places oneself within an object in order to coincide withwhat is unique in it and consequently inexpressible” (1949:23). It isthrough intuition that one can grasp the élan vital, or vital life force,in the duration of an ever-flowing stream of creative evolution. Berg-son’s idea of the élan vital is a reformulation of Schopenhauer’s vitalisticnotion of reality as pure will signifying the Kantian thing-in-itself.According to Bergson, reason stands outside its object, is mediated bysymbols, and produces a knowledge that is relative to a perspectivewhereas intuition enters into the heart of its object, dispenses withsymbols, and therefore produces a knowledge that is absolute. Whenapplied to external objects, the intellectual sympathy of intuitiondirectly coincides with the immediately felt unique qualities of things,just as when it is applied to the self it enters into the “duration” (durée)or temporal continuum of the living present so as to immediately graspthe dynamic and insubstantial stream of élan vital in the ever-changingflux of creative evolution. Bergson’s idea of intuition then becomesthe epistemological foundation for both his philosophy of art and hisreligious mysticism. In Time and Free Will, Bergson develops his con-cept of artistic intuition in terms of what he calls “aesthetic feelings”or “feelings of the beautiful.” He writes: “The feeling of the beautifulis no specific feeling, but . . . every feeling experienced by us willassume an aesthetic character, provided that it has been suggested, andnot caused” (1989:16–17).

But it is in Bergson’s Creative Evolution that he develops an explicittheory of aesthetic disinterestedness. In this work Bergson (1983:7)describes human evolution in aesthetic terms stating that analogous


to the process of artistic creation we are like artisans creating and re-creating ourselves continually. In the process of creative evolutiondriven by the élan vital, the biological instincts are transformed intothe intellectual sympathy of intuition. He defines intuition as “instinctthat has become disinterested, self-conscious, capable of reflecting uponits object and of enlarging it indefinitely” (p. 176; italics added). Headds that it is the “aesthetic faculty” of an artist which proves the pos-sibility of this kind of direct and immediate knowledge through thedisinterested intuition of beauty. This accords with Bergson’s state-ments in another work, Laughter, where he again describes the emer-gence of a creative genius who possesses calm detachment of artisticintuition, so that on rare occasions “nature raises up souls that aremore detached from life.” For Bergson, as the élan vital unfolds in thetemporal becoming of creative evolution, the animal instincts becomeincreasingly detached, disinterested, distanced, and self-conscious tothe point that they develop into intuition—not only the intellectualsympathy which serves as the basis for cognitive knowledge but alsothe creative artistic intuition of beauty in aesthetic experience and themystical intuition of the divine in religious experience. Intuition isSchopenhauer’s voluntaristic will become self-conscious through evo-lution as a machine for the production of gods as the vital life currentbecomes introspective and aware of itself. The process of creative evo-lution thus culminates in a metamorphosis of biological instincts intoa heightened faculty whereby the artist vibrates in perfect accord withnature through the detached sympathy of aesthetic intuition.

Münsterberg: Isolation by Framing

Hugo Münsterberg (1863–1916) taught in the Department of Phi-losophy at Harvard University during that period called the “goldenage” of American philosophy: his colleagues included William James,Josiah Royce, and George Santayana. Münsterberg formulates an “iso-lation” theory of art that recognizes the detachment of the aestheticattitude from all practical considerations or personal interests. In termsof its general features, Münsterberg’s isolation theory of art resemblesmany of the other artistic detachment theories considered thus far—including the disinterested attitude theories of art developed by Kant,Schopenhauer, and Schiller in German idealist aesthetics as well asBullough’s psychic distance theory of art and Ortega y Gasset’s de-humanization theory of art in twentieth-century aesthetics. The main


emphasis in Münsterberg’s theory is his fundamental distinction be-tween the “isolation” of immediate aesthetic experience versus the“connection” of rational scientific analysis. In Münsterberg’s words:“Connection is science, but the work of art is isolation; more than that,isolation is beauty” (1960:438). According to this view the primaryfunction of art is that of isolation:

Philosophy . . . has shown that all scientific knowledge leads us away from the real object, giving us merely its connections; that if we want the real object, we must separate it from all its connections, must grasp it in its complete isolation; and that it is the function of art to bring about this isolation and to show us the object in its immediate truth. [p. 442]

Münsterberg clarifies the isolation of art as follows: “If you reallywant the thing itself, there is only one way to get it; you must sepa-rate it from everything else, you must disconnect it . . . for the objectit means complete isolation; for the subject it means complete reposein the object . . . and that is, finally, merely another name for the enjoy-ment of beauty” (p. 438). Hence the isolation of art has a dual effect:manifesting the beauty of the object while at the same time inducinga state of repose in the subject: “To isolate the object for the mindmeans to make it beautiful, for it fills the mind without an idea ofanything else . . . and this complete repose, where the objective impres-sion becomes for us an ultimate end in itself, is the only possible con-tent of the true experience of beauty” (p. 438). He adds that this stateof repose, which is also the ultimate goal of religion and philosophy,is achieved through the contemplation of beauty in the isolation ofart: “Religion and philosophy seek this rest of the mind, this repose ofour existence in the contemplation of the eternal totality. The lover ofbeauty seeks it in the contemplation of the single object; he isolates itfrom the world and by that act of isolation . . . it brings a final rest tothe mind of the subject” (p. 441).

Münsterberg goes on to describe how an artwork isolates an objectthrough the borders of its frame: “The landscape which the paintergives us on the canvas is separated from the world by its frame; theroads in that landscape do not lead anywhere outside of the frame”(1960:442). The function of art is to isolate an object within a “frame,”thereby to abstract it from all connections with other things locatedoutside the frame. Summarizing the isolation of art with a frame,Münsterberg writes: “The real work of art . . . holds our mind to theobject itself, its way leads nowhere and its frame ends its world. And


so we may say: to isolate an object for our mind; to show the object asit really is; to give us repose in the object; to make the object beautiful—are only four different expressions of the same fact” (p. 439).

It can now be seen how the Kantian idea of beauty as disinterestedpleasure has been reformulated by Münsterberg in terms of an isola-tion theory of art. It is through the isolation of a thing by a frame thatthe detachment of art is achieved—thereby to give repose in the sub-ject while at the same time disclosing the intrinsic value of the object.By the isolation of an object through framing in a work of art it nowbecomes detached from everyday life so that its beauty can be appreci-ated in itself without personal interest or practical consideration for itsconnections to other things outside the frame. The Kantian basis ofMünsterberg’s doctrine of art as isolation is further to be seen in hisattempt to establish the normative grounds for universal validityclaims both for cognitive judgements of connection in science and foraesthetic judgements of isolation through framing in art:

Both science and art, knowledge and beauty, are independent of indi-vidual, personal desires. . . . Both make a general claim; they are not meant as individual decisions, they demand an over-individual value; that which is knowledge for one is taken to be knowledge for all; that which is declared beautiful by one is assumed to appear beautiful toall. Knowledge and beauty are thus postulates: you ought to connectthe things of the world in this way if you want knowledge, and you ought to isolate the things of the world in that way if you wantbeauty. [1960:439]

Hence for Münsterberg, as for Kant, aesthetic judgements of the beau-tiful in matters of taste are not relative determinations. Instead theymake their own general claim to universal validity insofar as they areisolated or detached from personal interest.

Lewis: Disinterested Contemplation of Aesthetic Qualities

In the second generation of American pragmatism, an explicit Kantiantheory of aesthetic disinterestedness was set forth by Clarence IrvingLewis (1883–1964). C. I. Lewis received his Ph.D. degree from Har-vard University in 1910, where he studied in the Department ofPhilosophy under William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana,Hugo Münsterberg, and other leading thinkers from the golden ageof classical American philosophy. But a distinguishing feature of Lewis’system of thought is his effort to combine American pragmatism with


the philosophy of Kant. Hence like other American pragmatists hedefines beauty as the directly felt “pervasive aesthetic quality” per-meating consummatory events while also taking up the Kantian posi-tion that experience of beauty requires an aesthetic attitude of dis-interested contemplation. Following the architectonic framework ofKant’s three critiques, Lewis attempts to establish the grounds forobjectivity, universality, and impartiality in human judgements, in-cluding cognitive, moral, and aesthetic judgements. His first book,Mind and the World-Order, develops a pragmatic theory of knowledgethat Lewis himself terms “conceptual pragmatism” (1956:xi). In hisKantian epistemology, human knowledge is described as a construc-tive act that synthesizes the formal and material or conceptual andempirical aspects of experience so that the directly apprehended“quality” given in immediate experience is then interpreted throughthe application of a concept. Moreover, in The Ground and Nature of theRight (1955), Lewis articulates a Kantian universalist ethics whereinmoral rightness depends on the agent’s conformity to categoricalimperatives or universally valid ethical principles of right decision.Likewise, in his theory of valuation he works out a Kantian theoryof the beautiful in terms of an aesthetic attitude of disinterestedcontemplation.

Although Lewis briefly outlines his aesthetics and theory of valuesin an appendix to Mind and the World-Order, his Kantian theory of“aesthetic disinterestedness” is found especially in a later work titledAn Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (1946). Like the Americanphilosophers Charles S. Peirce, John Dewey, A. N. Whitehead, andStephen C. Pepper, Lewis develops a concept of value as the immedi-ately felt “aesthetic quality” pervading all events. For Lewis, value is aterm “used exclusively in the sense of a value-quality” (1946:393).Moreover, he states that value quality is a dimensionlike mode that ispervasive of all immediate experience: “All experience is esthetic inthe broad sense of being presentation of some quality-complex in whichvalue or disvalue is directly findable” (p. 439). Generally speaking,these American philosophers have underscored the role of feeling,prehension, or emotional sympathy in the direct intuition of pervasiveaesthetic quality while neglecting or even rejecting the function ofartistic detachment as insertion of psychic distance from emotion.There is a failure to grasp the aesthetic attitude as an act of detachedsympathy—or, as stated by Wordsworth, an intense emotion recol-lected in tranquility. Whitehead approaches this insight when at theend of Adventures of Ideas he unfolds his process theory of self-creative,


aesthetic, and novel quantum events characterized by tragic beautyenjoyed in a mental state of transpersonal peace.

But among the American philosophers it is especially C. I. Lewiswho underscores the view that a certain attitude is required for thedirect apprehension of pervasive aesthetic quality while further specify-ing that this aesthetic attitude is to be defined in terms of a Kantianidea of disinterestedness. Lewis writes in An Analysis of Knowledge andValuation: “Esthetic apprehension requires to be thus disinterested inorder to be just, and to be free of sentimentalism and the patheticfallacy” (p. 441). He adds that the aesthetic attitude “requires to bedisinterested, impersonal and contemplative” (p. 441). Similar to EliseoVivas’ (1966:408) idea of the aesthetic attitude as “intransitive atten-tion,” Lewis further describes the aesthetic attitude of disinterestedcontemplation as an act of undistracted attention whereby phenomenaare directly apprehended in their qualitative immediacy: “The estheticattitude is, thus, only the attitude of undistracted attention” (1946:444). For Lewis, the disinterested attitude of contemplation is there-fore the differentia that marks off aesthetic experience from othermodes of human experience:

In the broadest sense, the esthetic might be marked off simply by refer-ence to this esthetic attitude of disinterested interest in the presented [quality]. . . . The directly apprehended is esthetic when we pause upon it; contemplate the quality of what is given in and for itself. [p. 443]

His concept of the beautiful as an apprehension of pervasive aestheticquality through disinterested contemplation is summed up when heasserts: “Only those values are distinctively esthetic which are residentin the quality of something as presented . . . and by that pause of con-templative regard which suspends the active interests of further pur-poses” (p. 454). According to Lewis, then, the intrinsic value of beautyin both nature and art is to be understood as the directly felt pervasiveaesthetic quality of events as given in immediate experience. Yet atthe same time this apprehension of quality requires an aesthetic atti-tude of undistracted attention that Lewis, following Kant, describesas an act of disinterested contemplation.

Polanyi: Artistic Detachment Through Framing

Michael Polanyi was a chemist who has become best known for his con-tributions to the philosophy of science. Above all he is recognized forhis epistemological critique of scientific “objectivity” or “detachment”


as articulated in such works as Personal Knowledge (1958) and Knowingand Being (1969). But in another work titled Meaning (1975), Polanyidevelops a theory of creative imagination in perception that unifiesboth science and the humanities in a single coherent framework basedon the concept of “tacit knowledge.” He argues that while the ideal of“detached observation” in science is a myth, it nevertheless plays acentral role in the aesthetic experience. In this context he develops an“isolation” theory of art wherein detachment from life is acquiredthrough framing devices in poetry, literature, and the arts.

According to Polanyi, it is commonly assumed that “science, in itsperfect state, is imagination-free—a work of pure detachment andobjectivity” (1975:64). In opposition to this view he argues that “per-sonal participation and imagination are essentially involved in scienceas well as in the humanities” (p. 65). Both the acts of scientific dis-covery and artistic creativity are rooted in a common source—namely,a free act of creative imagination that tacitly integrates otherwisechaotic elements into a unified experience with a holistic focal sub-sidiary or figure/ground gestalt structure. In the sciences, each act oftacit knowing involves the triadic relation of subsidiary elements inthe background field, the focal target, and a personal knower whosynthesizes focal and subsidiary elements into a new meaningful wholethrough an act of imaginative integration (p. 64). Polanyi writes: “Letus proceed with a critique of the exact sciences in order to displacequite generally the current ideal of detached observation by a concep-tion of personal knowledge” (p. 29). Polanyi thereby rejects the scientificideal of pure objectivity through detached observation for a model ofinvolvement, engagement, and participation through personal knowl-edge. Summing up his critique of scientific detachment, he asserts:“Its method is not that of detachment but rather that of involve-ment. . . . Thus the ideal of pure objectivity in knowing and in sciencehas been shown to be a myth” (p. 63).

Although Polanyi rejects the notion of scientific detachment as afallacy, he affirms the notion of artistic detachment. In this context hedevelops an isolation theory of art whereby detachment from the per-sonal interests and emotional involvements of life are achieved by iso-lating an object within the artificial borders of a frame: “These artifi-cial patterns are . . . what isolate works of art from the shapeless flowof both personal existence and public life. They make works of artsomething detached” (1975:101). Polanyi’s view at once shares muchin common with Hugo Münsterberg’s detachment theory of art as iso-lation in a frame. But Polanyi credits his isolation theory of artistic


detachment through framing to the influence of I. A. Richards. AsPolanyi explains:

In poetry this necessary detachment from a particular personality is furthered by the artificiality of the “frame” into which the poem is cast. I. A. Richards points this out to us: “Through its very appearance of artificiality meter produces in the highest degree the ‘frame’ effect, iso-lating the poetic experience from the accidents and irrelevancies of everyday existence.” [p. 85]

Extending his idea of aesthetic detachment through the frame effectfrom poetry to the other arts, he states: “In painting and drama thebasic techniques and instrumental material used by these arts detachthem quite definitely from the course of our normal experiences” (p.117). The frame of a painting, the stagecraft of a play, the meter of apoem—all are mentioned as framing mechanisms producing the iso-lation and detachment enjoyed by a work of art (p. 150).

Polanyi goes on to clarify his isolation theory of artistic detachmentbased on the concept of framing in terms of the Kantian idea of aes-thetic disinterestedness. He asserts that artistic detachment and isola-tion produced by the poetic frame effect are “something of what Kantmeant when he defined the aesthetic appreciation of art as a disinter-ested pleasure” (1975:87). Moreover, the detachment realized by a workof art through the artifice of framing is itself the basis for its claim touniversal validity:

When the artificial frame of a work of art, integrated to its prose content, establishes a detached work of art, it also sets forth a claim that itsvalue is universally valid. . . . All art is intensely personal and strictly detached; and it must, as we said, claim universal validity for the per-sonal self-set standards which it obeys. [p. 102]

Polanyi’s assertion is clearly a restatement of the Kantian theory thataesthetic judgements are not relative but make claim to universal valid-ity to the extent that they are detached or disinterested. The Kantianbasis of Polanyi’s aesthetics is to be seen in his theory of art as isolationthrough a “frame” whereby an object becomes detached from life so asto be admirable in itself without regard for personal interests or prac-tical consideration of things beyond the frame. Moreover, he assertsthat the detachment produced by the frame effect in art and literatureprovides the normative grounds for universal validity claims in aestheticjudgements of taste.


Critiques of Aesthetic Disinterestedness

Here I would like to take up some of the major criticisms that havebeen leveled against the notion of an aesthetic attitude of disinterestedcontemplation and consider some counterarguments in its defense. Webegin with an examination of Nietzsche’s charge that Kant’s ideaof beauty as disinterested pleasure represents nihilism (whereby artis a sedative leading to resignation) and absolutism or universalism(whereby the disinterested attitude is said to provide a basis for uni-versally valid judgements of taste). We then turn to a considerationof J. Wolff’s ideological critique against the elitism and exclusivismof artistic detachment theories: since appreciation of beauty requirescultivation of a special attitude of disinterestedness, it is restricted toa privileged minority class and thus is held to be aristocratic in char-acter. Next comes an analysis of Carolyn Korsmeyer’s feminist critiqueleveled against psychic distance theories of art: the feminist critiqueclaims that these theories involve a strong gender bias which privilegesaesthetic experience by insertion of distance associated with higher“masculine” senses (sight and hearing), rooted in cognition, over non-distanced physical pleasures associated with lower “feminine” senses(taste, touch, and scent) rooted in the physical body with its sensuousdesires, passions, and interests. Next we consider John Dewey’s criti-que of artistic detachment theories: Dewey argues that enjoyment ofpervasive aesthetic quality requires, not an attitude of disinterestedcontemplation by an uninvolved spectator, but participation, engage-ment, and sympathy. After Dewey we turn to an exposition of SusanneK. Langer’s critique of psychic distance theories of beauty. Like Dewey,Prall, C. I. Lewis, and many other American philosophers, Langeragrees that beauty is an immediately felt pervasive aesthetic quality ofevents and goes on to show how this concept has parallels in Japaneseand Indian aesthetics. Unlike Dewey, she recognizes distancing as avital element of aesthetic experience, especially drama. She criticizesthe psychological emphasis on cultivating a disinterested attitude,however, proposing instead that the distance or “otherness” of art is afunction of its symbolic character. Next comes an analysis of GeorgeDickie’s criticism of the “myth of psychic distance,” which holds thatthe aesthetic attitude of psychic distance is a phantom state with noontological status. We conclude this survey with Allen Carlson. Accord-ing to Carlson, one of the major paradigms for the aesthetic experienceof nature through insertion of psychic distance is the “landscape,” or


“scenery,” model of beauty. While Carlson affirms the significance ofan aesthetic attitude of psychic distance, he nonetheless criticizes thelandscape model wherein nature is reduced through framing devicesto a finished picture with a fixed perspective and due distance.

Nietzsche’s Critique of Kant (and Heidegger’s Response)

Among the first to criticize Kant’s notion of beauty as disinterestedpleasure was Nietzsche. At one level of analysis, Nietzsche’s criticismof Kant can be understood in terms of the issue of universalism versusrelativism. According to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, universal valid-ity claims in knowledge are to be accounted for by a priori categoriesthat order the manifold sensations combined in a synthesis of imagi-nation. Likewise the Critique of Practical Reason establishes normativegrounds for universal validity claims in ethics through categoricalimperatives (absolute commands) of duty requiring that the rule bywhich one acts can be generalized into a universal law by self-legislativereason. In his Critique of Judgement, Kant elucidates the basis for uni-versal validity claims in aesthetic judgements regarding matters oftaste through an attitude of disinterested contemplation. Against theuniversalism of Kant, Nietzsche propounds a version of relativism, orwhat he terms perspectivism, so that in epistemology there is no uni-versal knowledge but only interpretations of interpretations; in ethicsthere are no universal moral laws but only ethical relativism deter-mined by the superabundant will to power of the overman beyondgood and evil; while in aesthetics there are no universally valid judge-ments of taste in the beautiful but only Dionysian affirmations ofbeauty as ecstasy or rapture. Nietzsche’s transvaluation of all values,therefore, uses the philosophical sledgehammer to shatter all absolutenotions of truth, goodness, and beauty into a play of interpretive forces.

Nietzsche’s critique of Kant can be understood, as well, in terms ofthe problem of overcoming nihilism. For Nietzsche, the Kantiantheory of beauty as disinterested pleasure that was later adopted bySchopenhauer is just a proclamation of nihilism, pessimism, and world-negationism. In contrast to this Apollonian idea of art as a sedative,Nietzsche instead proposes his own Dionysian view whereby art is thestimulant to life, beauty is the distinctive countermovement to nihil-ism, and nature is justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon. Whereasfor Schopenhauer tragic drama leads to a Kantian attitude of disinter-ested contemplation, Nietzsche argues that it leads to superabundantoverfullness of life through Dionysian affirmation and Yes-saying. As


Nietzsche writes in On the Genealogy of Morals: “Schopenhauer makesuse of the Kantian version of the aesthetic problem—although hequite certainly did not view it with Kantian eyes” (1986:134). Defin-ing Kant’s view of beauty as disinterested pleasure, Nietzsche goes onto state: “ ‘That is beautiful,’ Kant said, ‘which pleases us withoutinterest.’ Without interest! . . . When our aestheticians never wary ofmaintaining, in favour of Kant, that under the spell of beauty one canview even undraped female statues ‘without interest,’ we may, to besure, laugh a little at their expense” (p. 135). Nietzsche continues:

And here we come back to Schopenhauer, who stood much closer to the arts than Kant did and yet failed to emerge from the spell of the Kantian definition. Why was that? . . . Of few things does Schopenhauer speak with so much certainty as he does of the effect of aesthetic contemplation: he says of it that it operates precisely against sexual “interestedness.” . . . He never wearied of glorifying this liberation from the “will” as the great merit and utility of the aesthetic condition. [p. 135]

Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer, like his critique of Buddhism,is a polemic directed against the nihilism represented by an Apollo-nian ideal of beauty as disinterested in favor of the life-affirmingDionysian ideal of beauty as ecstatic. Stephen Batchelor (1994:264)asserts:

Nietzsche strongly identified with the pre-Socratic figure of Dionysos, the archetypal celebrant of will. Those calm Apollonian teachers who taught renunciation and detachment were no more than “preachers of death,” among whom Nietzsche included the Buddha. . . . Buddhist dispassion was swept away in the same breath as Schopenhauerian pessimism, and in their place stood an entirely new and superior kindof human being: the Übermensch.

In The Will to Power as Art (1979), which is the first of his series onNietzsche, Heidegger reinterprets Kant’s theory of aesthetic disinter-estedness while bringing it into accord with his own framework. Inchapter fifteen of this work titled “Kant’s Doctrine of the Beautiful,”for example, Heidegger attempts to defend Kant’s definition of beautyas “disinterested delight” against Nietzsche’s critique, arguing thatthe latter’s understanding of Kant is based on a misinterpretation ofSchopenhauer. Heidegger explains that one can acquire an under-standing of Nietzsche’s statements about beauty from a study ofSchopenhauer’s aesthetic views, insofar as in his definition of the beau-tiful Nietzsche thinks by way of opposition and therefore of reversal.Yet the procedure is dangerous in this case since Schopenhauer has


misinterpreted Kant’s theory of beauty in such a manner as to seri-ously alter its original meaning. In Heidegger’s words: “The mis-understanding [by Nietzsche] of Kant’s aesthetics involves an asser-tion by Kant concerning the beautiful. Kant’s definition is developedin sections 2–5 of The Critique of Judgement . . . delight, in which thebeautiful opens itself up to us as beautiful, is in Kant’s words ‘devoidof all interest’ ” (1979:108). Heidegger continues:

Aesthetic behavior, i.e., our comportment toward the beautiful, is “delight devoid of all interest.” According to the common notion, dis-interestedness is indifference toward a thing or person: we invest nothing of our will in relation to that thing or person. If the relation to the beautiful is defined as “disinterested,” then, according to Schopenhauer, the aesthetic state is one in which the will is put out of commision andall striving brought to a standstill; it is pure repose, simply wanting nothing more, sheer apathetic drift.

Heidegger then considers Nietzsche’s polemics against the Kantiantheory of aesthetic disinterestedness: “And Nietzsche? He says thatthe aesthetic state is rapture. That is manifestly the opposite of all ‘dis-interested delight’ and is therefore at the same time the keenest oppo-sition to Kant’s definition of our comportment toward the beautiful”(1979:108). In this context Heidegger directly cites Nietzsche’s criti-cism of Kant’s notion of beauty: “With that in mind we understand thefollowing observation by Nietzsche: ‘Since Kant, all talk of beauty. . . has been smudged and besmirched by the concept devoid of interest’ ”(p. 108). Again he quotes Nietzsche as saying: “Such ‘getting rid ofinterest and the ego’ is nonsense” (p. 112). But Heidegger maintainsthat Nietzsche’s relentless criticism of beauty defined as an egolessattitude of disinterested pleasure is in fact not a reaction against Kant’sown ideas but is based instead on Schopenhauer’s nihilistic misinter-pretation of Kantian aesthetics.

According to Heidegger, Kant’s theory of aesthetic disinterested-ness, rightly understood, is not nihilistic but instead supports Nietz-sche’s own Dionysian concept of beauty as rapture or ecstasy thatcompletely affirms existence. He thus goes on to formulate a positiveinterpretation of Kant’s understanding of beauty that dispels thenihilistic understanding of Schopenhauer and brings it into harmonywith the Dionysian wisdom of Nietzsche. By Heidegger’s interpreta-tion, the aesthetic disinterestedness of Kant is not mere indifferencetoward something whereby the will is put out of commission; rather,it means that “in order to find something beautiful, we must let what


encounters us, purely as it is in itself, come before us in its own statureand worth” (1979:109). Moreover, our comportment toward the beau-tiful as “devoid of interest” means “unconstrained favoring” (p. 109).Schopenhauer’s misinterpretation fails to see that now, for the firsttime, the object comes to the fore as pure object and that such comingforward into appearance is the beautiful. He concludes: “The word‘beautiful’ means appearing in the radiance of such coming to the fore”(p. 110). In this way, Heidegger brings Kant’s Apollonian idea ofbeauty as disinterested delight into conformity with Nietzsche’s Diony-sian concept of the beautiful—along with his own aesthetic doctrineof beauty as an event of ontological disclosure whereby things radiateinto original truth of unconcealedness through an attitude of opennessthat he terms Gelassenheit: letting-be.

Wolff: The Elitism of Aesthetic Disinterestedness

In Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art, J. Wolff (1981b) charges that “aes-thetic attitude” theories based on notions such as disinterested con-templation, artistic detachment, or psychic distance are elitist, exclu-sivistic, and aristocratic. Lynda Stone (1989) develops this thesis evenfurther by arguing that the elitism implicit in disinterested attitudetheories is an obstacle to any progressive educational program includ-ing that of aesthetic education. The polemic here is that since aestheticexperience requires a highly disciplined attitude, or mode of attention,it is the special privilege of an elite and is thus incapable of being hadby all. But as a counterargument it should be pointed out that Schiller’sOn the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters takes the diametri-cally opposite view: the cultivation of an aesthetic attitude character-ized by disinterested contemplation and free play of imagination,Schiller holds, is itself the basis of aesthetic education. Thus while theaesthetic attitude requires cultivation through an education process,this in no way indicates an aristocratic exclusivism or elitism in thatall are free to cultivate the aesthetic attitude.

The charge that this Kantian notion of disinterestedness is aristo-cratic, exclusivistic, and elitist is without question applicable to itsreformulation by José Ortega y Gasset in The Dehumanization of Art.Ortega y Gasset, as noted earlier, defends detachment in modern art.For him, modern abstract painting is a highly stylized art form thatdistances to the extent that it altogether eliminates human elementsof feeling, emotion, and sympathy, resulting in what he calls “de-humanized art.” He adds: “From a sociological point of view the char-


acteristic feature of the new art is . . . that it divides the public intothe two classes of those who understand it and those who do not”(1948:6). While modern “dehumanized” art is the “art of the privi-leged aristocracy,” the masses are incapable of “receiving the sacramentof art, blind and dumb to beauty” (p. 6). Ortega y Gasset welcomesthe new art as a harbinger of the coming time when society estab-lishes two distinct classes: the inferior masses on the one side and thesuperior ruling aristocracy on the other. He therefore writes: “A timemust come in which society, from politics to art, reorganizes itself intotwo orders or ranks: the illustrious and the vulgar” (p. 7).

Not all theories of aesthetic disinterestedness, however, are elitistas held by Wolff. On the contrary, Jerome Stolnitz (1961b), the lead-ing advocate of artistic disinterestedness in modern aesthetics, main-tains that the older Greek and Renaissance theory which attributesbeauty to the object is in fact the more aristocratic notion since it re-stricts the class of aesthetic objects to those in which the attribute ofbeauty inheres (p. 111). If beauty is equated with the property of “har-mony,” for instance, as was done in most ancient, classical, and medi-eval theories, only certain privileged objects may be regarded as beau-tiful inasmuch as they are harmonious, symmetrical, proportionate,balanced, and the like. If we follow this line of reasoning, the notionof disinterestedness is a much wider and more inclusive conception ofthe aesthetic than that which equates beauty with harmony since nowanything can become an object of beauty to the extent that it is re-garded with an attitude of detachment. In Stolnitz’s words:

If it [aesthetic theory] embraces only certain things or certain proper-ties of things, then the field will be far narrower than if it includesall objects of disinterested perception. “Disinterestedness” is, as I suggested earlier, biased towards a catholic and inclusive conceptionof the aesthetic; “harmony” is considerably more exclusive and aristocratic.” [p. 111; italics added]

To illustrate how the disinterested attitude can be understood as non-aristocratic, let us consider Van Gogh’s famous painting of a peasantwoman’s shoes as described by Heidegger in “Origins of the Work ofArt.” From the standpoint of an aristocratic elitism, nothing could beless aesthetic than this picture of worn-out peasant shoes covered withmud. If beauty is understood just as an attribute (harmony, symmetry,proportion, and the like) of objects, then an old woman’s shoes wouldnot be an appropriate subject for great art. But if observed with an


attitude of artistic detachment, then even the shoes of a peasant radiateinto an epiphany of truth and beauty. Through Gelassenheit or letting-be, there is an openness toward things whereby they come to presencein an event of ontological disclosure such that now the soiled old shoesof a peasant are uncovered in the beauty of original truth as aletheia:nonconcealment.

Korsmeyer: A Feminist Critique

Another criticism leveled against the notion of aesthetic distance comesfrom the feminist charge that such a doctrine entails a gender biaswhich privileges “masculine” over “feminine” sides of artistic experi-ence. At the risk of violating current demands for political correct-ness, in this case one should not concede gender bias as groundsfor undermining detachment theories of art. The feminist critiqueof artistic detachment theories is developed with special clarity byCarolyn Korsmeyer (1990) in her article “Gender Bias in Aesthetics.”According to Korsmeyer a gender bias—that is to say, a masculine bias—is operative in any aesthetic theory based on a notion of disinterested,detached, or distanced attention (1990:45–47). By “gender bias” or“masculine bias” she refers to a systematic way of framing aesthetictheory that appears to be neutral with respect to gender but uponanalysis is discovered to rely on concepts that are conceived as apply-ing primarily if not exclusively to males. The argument she proceedsto construct depends upon now familiar analyses of how “feminine”and “masculine” concepts are associated with philosophical structures.In epistemology, the paradigmatic rational animal is male whereas thefemale is emotional. With respect to the traditional “mind/body” prob-lem she points out that while the “mind” is associated with the mascu-line, the “body” is associated with the feminine side of things. More-over, while the “cognitive” senses of sight and sound are associatedwith the higher mental abilities of the male, the “bodily” senses oftouch, taste, and smell are associated with the earthiness of the female.Korsmeyer argues that this line of reasoning leads to a parallel structurein aesthetic theory that again reveals a masculine gender bias. Whenit comes to aesthetic theory, the masculine senses of sight and soundare privileged over the feminine senses of touch, taste, and smell forthe reason that they appear less intimate with the body and are more“distant” from our physical existence. This kind of distance is alsoused in order to differentiate “aesthetic senses” from “bodily senses.”


While the bodily senses can offer sensuous pleasure, it is only the dis-tanced objects of hearing and sight that provide for aesthetic delightin the beautiful.

According to Korsmeyer, the hidden agenda underlying male-centered theories of aesthetic disinterestedness is that of establishingmaximum distance from the interests, desires, feelings and attachmentsof the physical body for purposes of maintaining dominance and con-trol. Aesthetic appreciation so construed distinguishes pleasures of thebodily senses from more distanceable pleasures that may be enjoyed freefrom desire. The notion that one appreciates aesthetically only whendisengaged from practical, moral, or emotional interests becomes theresult of an urgent need to wrench apart the apprehension of beautyfrom the desire to possess the beautiful object. But in opposition tothis view she maintains that feminist criticism has brought to lighthow an element of desire, especially erotic desire, is functioning in allmodes of perception. In Korsmeyer’s words (1990:46):

Although the concept of disinterested or “distanced” attention is on the wane, for years theories of the aesthetic were based upon the idea that purely aesthetic perception or attention is free from interest, desire, or any moral or practical concern. . . . But feminist analyses have built a convincing case against this position, arguing that interest, most power-fully in the form of desire, lurks within all perception, including hearing and (especially) vision.

How are we to evaluate the validity of Korsmeyer’s charge that amasculine gender bias underlies the doctrine of aesthetic disinterest-edness? While her feminist critique raises important philosophicalquestions and serves as a corrective to certain versions of the theory, itdoes not undermine the doctrine of aesthetic disinterestedness as for-mulated by some of its leading proponents. Let us begin by examiningEdward Bullough’s classic theory according to which psychic distanceis regarded as an essential factor in the experience of beauty. Bullough(1977:118) points out a traditional distinction between the [physical]“lower senses” of taste, touch, and scent and the [mental] “highersenses” of sight and hearing. The so-called lower senses are related tophysical experience of “the agreeable” defined as nondistanced plea-sure, while beauty in the widest sense of aesthetic value is impossiblewithout the insertion of distance (p. 118). He further asserts: “Sightand hearing have always been the ‘aesthetic senses’ par excellence” (p.118). Bullough then discusses those who reject the lower senses: theymediate only agreeable sensations, he says, but are incapable of con-


veying aesthetic experience. But he then goes on to repudiate thisview: “Though true normally, this rigid distinction is theoreticallyunfair to the senses, and in practice often false” (p. 119). Bulloughadmits that the senses of sight and hearing do lend themselves moreeasily to aesthetic experience through insertion of distance than dothe “lower senses” of touch, taste, and smell: “It is undoubtedly verydifficult to reach an aesthetic appreciation through the lower senses,because the materialness of their action, their proximity and bodilyconnection are great obstacles to their distancing” (p. 119). Yet he alsostates that one can insert psychic distance into any of the sense modes,including those of touch, taste, and smell, thereby resulting in whathe calls “the transition from the merely agreeable to the beautiful bymeans of Distance” (p. 119). Hence while Bullough does recognizesuch distinctions between body and mind, higher and lower senses, orsensuous versus aesthetic pleasure, he nonetheless contends that theseare by no means rigid distinctions so that all senses can provide forenjoyment of beauty through transformation by distance.

Korsmeyer’s feminist critique of Bullough’s theory is illuminatinginsofar as it brings into focus how the latter still clings to the ideathat objects of the lower senses are not easily distanced because of theirclose bodily connection. Moreover she clarifies the masculine genderbias that might underlie this view. The idea is that while the objectsof the higher “cognitive” senses of sight and hearing, supposedly rootedin the masculine nature, are easier to distance and therefore functionas the primary means for appreciating beauty, the objects of the lower“bodily” senses rooted in the feminine nature cannot be distanced ade-quately or only with great difficulty and are therefore capable merelyof producing hedonic sensual pleasure as opposed to genuine aestheticdelight.

The theory of aesthetic disinterestedness is not so easily overturned,however, at least in its formulation by I. A. Richards, C. K. Ogden,and J. Wood in The Foundations of Aesthetics (1922). In this work theauthors propose that the principle underlying all aesthetic experienceis that of “synaesthesis.” That is to say, aesthetic perception is alwayssyn-aesthetic perception. And as they define the term, synaesthesis isprecisely a togetherness of the multivariate sense modes—or, as it were,an experience of beauty wherein the diverse senses of sight, hearing,touch, taste, and smell are all activated at the same time to produce atotal aesthetic effect whose emergent unity is beyond the combinationof its elements. In other words: Synaesthesis is a function of the wholeorganism, both mind and body together, with all the senses operating


simultaneously and in accord. Synaesthesis is therefore intersensoryexperience resulting from a profound “unity of the senses”—an inter-fusion of multivariate sensations in an embodied sensorium of cross-modal perception. In the experience of synaesthesis there is an equi-librium and harmony between all sense modes such that no sensationis conferred primacy over any others. But the precondition for a syn-aesthetic experience of beauty is a state of attention described as beingdetached, impersonal, and disinterested. In elucidating the structureof synaesthetic perception the authors write: “This is the explanationof that detachment so often mentioned in artistic experience. We be-come impersonal or disinterested” (p. 78). Hence while achieving equi-librium of sense impulses in synaesthesis requires a special aestheticattitude that is detached, distanced, or disinterested, it in no way en-tails any gender bias that privileges “masculine” senses of sight andhearing over “feminine” senses of touch, taste, and smell.

Dewey’s Critique Aesthetic Disinterest in American Pragmatism

Art as Experience by John Dewey (1859–1952) is widely regarded as themost valuable work on aesthetics written in English during the twen-tieth century. In chapter eleven, “The Human Contribution,” he dis-cusses the psychological elements of aesthetic experience. It is in thiscontext that Dewey sets forth his polemic against the idea of “aes-thetic contemplation” along with similar psychologized concepts likethose of “equilibrium,” “disinterestedness,” “detachment,” and “psy-chic distance.” He makes his critical remarks against Kant’s theory ofaesthetic disinterestedness and related notions in the course of devel-oping his own highly original concept of beauty as directly felt “per-vasive aesthetic quality” in nature and art.

Dewey begins his critique by questioning the use of the term “con-templation” to describe the nature of aesthetic experience:

At first sight, contemplation appears to be about as inept a term as could be to denote the excited and passionate absorption that often accompa-nies experience of a drama, a poem, or a painting. Attentive observation is certainly one essential factor in all genuine perception including the esthetic. But how does it happen that this factor is reduced to the bare act of contemplation? [1980:252]

Dewey traces the idea of aesthetic contemplation back to the psycho-logical approach to beauty in Kant’s Critique of Judgement. He writesthat after Kant’s theory of contemplation, “the psychological road was


opened leading to the ivory tower of ‘Beauty’ remote from all desire,action, and stir of emotion” (p. 253). He expresses a similar objectionto the term “equilibrium”: “It may suggest a balance so calm andsedate as to exclude rapture by an absorbing object” (p. 257). Hencenot unlike Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer, Dewey emphasizesthat beauty in art or nature is not a sedative leading to anaesthesia buta stimulant to life which induces rapture and ecstasy—in Dewey’swords, the consummatory experience of “seizure.” Dewey’s critiqueof aesthetic contemplation is then extended to other closely relatednotions as follows: “The ideas of disinterestedness, detachment and‘psychical distance,’ of which much has been made in recent esthetictheory, are to be understood in the same way as contemplation” (p.257). Taking each of these notions in turn, Dewey argues that all ofthem, including disinterestedness, detachment, and distance, indicatean aloofness from passionate emotion instead of fullness of participa-tion, which is itself essential to both the creation and appreciation ofbeauty. In Dewey’s words:

“Detachment” is a negative name for something extremely positive. There is no severance of self, no holding of it aloof, but fullness of participation. . . . The phrase “psychical distance” has been employedto indicate much the same fact. . . . Distance is a name for a partici-pation so intimate and balanced that no particular impulse acts tomake a person withdraw. . . . Disinterestedness, detachment, psy-chical distance, all express ideas that apply to raw primitive desire and impulse, but are irrelevant to the matter of experience artistically organized. [p. 258]

Dewey then criticizes all of these artistic detachment theories on thebasis that they eliminate desire from aesthetic experience. His objectionto this point is stated in the following often quoted passage: “Notabsence of desire and thought but their thorough incorporation intothe perceptual experience characterizes esthetic experience” (p. 254).

In response to Dewey’s critique, it should first be noted that somescholars think he exaggerates the difference between theories ofaesthetic disinterestedness and his own philosophy of art. Monroe C.Beardsley (1966:340) comments on Dewey’s criticism of artistic de-tachment as formulated in chapter eleven of Art as Experience:

There are . . . extremely penetrating criticisms of alternative character-izations of aesthetic experience—as “contemplation,” “equilibrium,” “disinterestedness,” “detachment.” Throughout this discussion, I have the impression that Dewey is over-emphasizing his difference from the


others; that he is over-anxious to avoid associating with any of those terms, because in each case there is a misleading implication.

In order to assess the full significance of Dewey’s critique it is neces-sary to consider the relation of his aesthetic theory to the wider frame-work of his philosophical system as a whole. Ultimately his objectionsto such notions as contemplation, equilibrium, detachment, disinter-estedness, or distance in aesthetic theory can only be understood inthe context of his general concept of experience. As implied by thevery title of his work, Art as Experience, the notions of art and experi-ence are inseparable for Dewey. For this reason he asserts that in orderto comprehend aesthetic experience, the philosopher must first under-stand what experience itself is (1980:274). He further maintains thatno test reveals the one-sidedness of a philosophy so surely as its treat-ment of art and aesthetic experience (p. 274). For Dewey, detachmenttheories of art, like other aesthetic theories, are too one-sided in thatthey fail to give an adequate view of experience in its concreteness andqualitative immediacy. While some aesthetic theories emphasize therole of the subject, others emphasize the role of the object. Still otherstry to explain the aesthetic experience by a single element like sen-sation, emotion, reason, or imagination. Moreover, various aesthetictheories interpret art as make-believe, as play, as imitation, as expres-sion, as revelation, and so forth. Yet in Dewey’s view all of these theo-ries are rooted in an attenuated concept of experience.

For Dewey, experience is always to be conceived as a “situation,”“context,” or “event” that arises through a dynamic process of naturein which an organism interacts with its social and physical environ-ment (1980:246). Each organism/environment situation is conceivedas a contextual field of relationships which is itself unified by a single,pervasive aesthetic quality that makes it whole and stamps it withintrinsic value. Against the background of his concept of experiencehe raises this problem: Where is the locus of aesthetic quality? Dewey’sanswer is that aesthetic quality is not to be located either in the sub-ject or in the object since it in fact pervades the whole organism/envi-ronment situation and is present in both subject and object, both mindand matter, at once. As Dewey writes in his work on naturalistic meta-physics titled Experience and Nature: “The qualities never were ‘in’ theorganism; they always were qualities of interactions in which bothextra-organic things and organisms partake. . . . They are as much qual-ities of the things engaged as of the organism” (p. 259). Hence forDewey the aesthetic qualities of experience are also the aesthetic qual-


ities of nature. Furthermore, pervasive aesthetic qualities fundingimmediate experience are said to be directly “felt,” “enjoyed,” or “had”prior to being “known” through conceptual analysis. These immedi-ately felt aesthetic qualities permeating focus/field situations of expe-rience are not static or substantial but are instead described as arisingthrough a process of dynamic interactions between an organism andits environment so as to be momentary, perishable, and evanescent—valuable and precious to the degree that they are fragile and precarious.

With regard to his polemic against psychological art theories basedon such ideas as contemplation, equilibrium, detachment, disinterest-edness, distance, or any other notion emphasizing the “human contri-bution” to aesthetic experience, Dewey turns his critical remarkstoward systems of idealism, especially the Kantian variety of tran-scendental idealism. He rejects the view of transcendental idealismwhereby beauty is not regarded as something that is in the object butis instead noetically constituted by mental operations performed bythe subject. He also opposes subjectivistic theories of the kind pro-pounded in The Sense of Beauty by George Santayana in which thebeautiful is defined as “objectified pleasure.” By “objectification” San-tayana means the projection of our mental states into phenomenalobjects through a process of empathy. Pleasure is transformed intobeauty whenever aesthetic value is unconsciously imputed to the objectcontemplated by projective transference. That is to say, for Santayanabeauty is pleasure regarded as if it were the quality of a thing. In repu-diation of the subjectivism underlying this kind of aesthetic theory,Dewey writes: “Extreme instances of separation of organism and theworld are not infrequent in esthetic philosophy. Such a separation liesbehind the idea that esthetic quality does not belong to objects asobjects but is projected into them by mind. It is the source of thedefinition of beauty as ‘objectified pleasure’ instead of as pleasure inthe object” (1980:248).

Dewey further criticizes theories of aesthetic disinterestedness insofaras they underscore the strictly nonutilitarian basis of art and beauty.Disinterested aesthetic contemplation appreciates an object of beautyfor its own sake—apart from any interest in its practical usefulness.To apprehend something disinterestedly in the usual sense thereforemeans to regard it as an end in itself and not a means. But for Dewey,the theory of disinterested aesthetic contemplation is deeply mistakenin separating “beauty” and “utility” as if they formed a rigid antithesis.In this context he questions the “opposition of objects of beauty anduse.” There is no reason, he says, why the “practical” should stand


opposed to the aesthetic properties that belong to a work of art(1980:260). He points out that there are many beautiful things—art-works, utensils, temples, cities—that have a practical utility as wellas aesthetic quality (p. 260). In a statement that bears relevance to theuse of ceramic bowls in the Japanese tea ceremony, Dewey adds: “Asfar as the one who uses the utensil is concerned, I do not see why indrinking tea from a cup he is necessarily stopped from enjoying itsshape and the delicacy of its material” (p. 261). According to Dewey,theories of artistic detachment that separate objects of beauty andobjects of use are part of the general error which he calls the compart-mentalization of aesthetic experience—the “museum conception of art”whereby “art is relegated to the museum and gallery” (p. 6). It isthrough compartmentalization that art becomes the “beauty parlor ofcivilization” (p. 344).

Dewey attempts to overcome the artificial dualism whereby art isisolated from the rest of social life by challenging the distinctionbetween objects of beauty and objects of use presupposed by theoriesof aesthetic disinterestedness. His solution to the false dichotomy ofbeauty and utility is worked out in terms of what he calls the “ends-means continuum.” According to Dewey’s instrumentalism, creativeartistic process is a continuum in which aesthetic quality functionsboth as an ends and a means so as to be instrumental and consummatoryat the same time. The ends-means continuum requires a division ofvalue into three kinds: aesthetic quality, ends-in-view, and consum-matory experience. Few modern philosophers have clarified the aes-thetic experience of qualitative immediacy as much as John Dewey.But in Dewey’s pragmatic or instrumental theory of inquiry it isnot enough to enjoy the directly felt aesthetic qualities pervading theorganism/environment situations of experience as immediate values,since these qualities can also function normatively to control an artisticprocess throughout its duration until it culminates in a consumma-tory experience. An ends-means continuum is a process whereby theends are at all times present in the means as an end-in-view. In Experi-ence and Nature, Dewey writes: “It is self-contradictory to suppose thatwhen a fulfillment possesses immediate value, its means of attainmentdo not. . . . Means-consequences constitute a single undivided situa-tion” (1958:397). Through “valuation” (appraisal or judgement inmatters concerning values) one determines the values one wishes toobtain and the conditions necessary to acquire them. One then imagi-natively frames an end-in-view that functions as a value possibility ornorm to guide one’s experience until the value is realized in a con-


summation. As ends-in-view, aesthetic qualities function as normsthat regulate action; such controlled activity is “art.” When this con-trolled activity or art process realizes its ideal, there is a culminationof experience in a consummatory terminus. A “consummation” is theintense enjoyment of a realized aesthetic quality (art product) that hasbeen operant all throughout one’s regulated activity (art process) as anorm or end-in-view. Hence in an art process, the art product ispresent throughout as the imagined or projected end-in-view.

From the standpoint of Dewey’s instrumental or pragmatic frame-work, then, the aesthetic qualities pervading immediate experiencefunction not only as an end in itself but also as a means to somethingelse. It therefore makes no sense to abstract quality from the dynamicends-means continuum and overemphasize the appreciation of beautyapart from its practical utility. For Dewey there is a rhythmic processthat moves from enjoyment of immediately felt aesthetic qualities toends-in-view to consummatory experience and back again to theenjoyment of qualitative immediacy. Historically it must be recognizedthat theories of aesthetic disinterestedness emerged in opposition todoctrines of utilitarianism. Dewey has endeavored to formulate abalanced framework wherein immediately felt aesthetic qualities per-vading experience are not only enjoyed for their own sake but are em-ployed normatively as ends-in-view issuing in the rapture of consum-matory experience at the terminus of the artistic process.

Dewey’s emphasis on immediately felt aesthetic qualities pervad-ing the organism/environment situations of experience provides forenjoyment of things in themselves as bearers of intrinsic value. Yet atthe same time he rejects the false dichotomy of beauty and use adoptedby artistic detachment theories so that aesthetic quality is simulta-neously an ends and a means. When an object of beauty is regardedboth as instrumental and consummatory, a dynamic ends-means con-tinuum is established wherein experience is transformed into art andall life becomes funded by aesthetic quality. Hence from the stand-point of Dewey’s instrumentalist philosophy of art, beauty must func-tion not only as immediate aesthetic qualities but also as ends-in-viewand consummatory values. Any theory of aesthetic disinterestednessmust allow for all three kinds of values to operate within a dynamicends-means continuum. Moreover, a theory of aesthetic disinterested-ness must not be wed to a transcendental idealism that locates aes-thetic quality in the mind of the subject and not in the object. Rather,the theory of aesthetic disinterestedness must be rooted in an organismicdoctrine of experience that predicates aesthetic pervasive quality nei-


ther on subjects nor on objects but on “organism/environment” situa-tions, or context-dependent events, which includes them both.

In Pragmatist Aesthetics, Richard Schusterman argues that in recentyears American pragmatist aesthetics has been strongly underminedby British analytic philosophy while showing how the latter is itselfcontinuous with the Kantian tradition of aesthetics based on the ideaof beauty as disinterested pleasure free of pragmatic concerns. Follow-ing Richard Rorty he suggests that the epistemological and meta-physical conflict between analysis and pragmatism reflects a moreancient quarrel between Kant and Hegel that in turn can be extendedinto aesthetics. Various critics have likened Dewey’s thought to Croce’sneo-Hegelian philosophy of art, which was itself the focus of the Britishanalytic critique of idealist aesthetics. British analytic philosophy ishostile to Hegelian themes of holism, organicism, and historicist anti-foundationalism, which are central to the American pragmatism ofDewey. Explaining the influence of Kant’s notion of aesthetic disin-terestedness on British analytic philosophy, Schusterman writes: “TheKantian notion of disinterestedness finds expression in much analyticphilosophy of art and presents a . . . contrast to pragmatist aesthetics”(1992:8).

Schusterman (pp. 7–9) demonstrates the continuity between Britishanalytic aesthetics and Kant’s notion of beauty as disinterested plea-sure with textual citations from Peter Strawson, G. E. Moore, StuartHampshire, and others. He maintains that this strategy, a carryover of“art for art’s sake,” was to protect the autonomy of art from unfaircompetition with ruthlessly dominant utilitarian thinking. For fearthat art could not compete in terms of instrumental value, the aes-thetic would represent a separate realm of freedom where art would befree from use, function, and problem solving. According to Schuster-man, Kant’s theory of beauty as disinterested pleasure depends on anaccount of aesthetic judgement that presupposes special cultural con-ditioning and class privilege (p. 8). He regards Kant’s idea of aes-thetic disinterest as an elitist, aristocratic, and class-based theory thatmaintains the status quo. Schusterman criticizes Kant as follows:

This rigid posture of lofty disinterestedness reflects the interest of a narrow and professionalized philosophical conservatism which is either happy to reinforce the status quo by representing it in philosophical definition, or is simply too timid and effete to risk dirtying its hands in the messy struggle over the shaping of art and culture. More dangerously, the fetishism of disinterested neutrality obscures the fact that philos-ophy’s ultimate aim is to benefit human life. [p. 45]


In support of Dewey’s critique of Kantian disinterestedness, Schuster-man writes that “in advocating a fully embodied aesthetic and reject-ing Kantian disinterestedness, Dewey is right in tune with Nietzsche’srecognition of the ‘physiology of esthetics’ and its ‘excitement ofinterest’ ” (p. 10). Schusterman undermines the Kantian theory ofdisinterestedness as a disembodied aesthetic in favor of Dewey’s prag-matism, which instead adopts an embodied aesthetics like Nietzscheand Merleau-Ponty. He further supports the position of Dewey’s prag-matic aesthetics (p. 144) that art is at once instrumentally valuableand a satisfying end in itself.

But instead of setting Dewey against Kant, one might adopt thestrategy of C. I. Lewis, who formulates a coherent theory of valuationthat integrates an aesthetics of immediately felt pervasive quality,derived from American pragmatism, with an aesthetic attitude theoryof disinterested contemplation derived from Kant. In Mind and theWorld-Order (1929) and An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (1946),Lewis formulates a doctrine of intrinsic values as the pervasive aes-thetic quality of events in the tradition of American philosophy run-ning through Peirce, James, Dewey, Mead, Whitehead, and Pepper.Lewis writes: “The word ‘value’ is here used exclusively in the sense ofa value-quality” (p. 393). The summum bonum or ultimate good oflife must be an “experience having its self-justifying quality as aes-thetic” (p. 439). Like Dewey and other American pragmatists herejects the idea of simply located atomic sense qualities for a notion ofdirectly felt pervasive qualities that are context-dependent and thusto be described in terms of their holistic focus/fringe structure wherebythe immediately presented qualities articulated in the foregroundare partly determined by the surrounding horizon in the nonarticu-lated whole of the background (pp. 424–430). Moreover, like Deweyhe argues that aesthetic qualities function both as intrinsic and in-strumental values in an ends-means continuum: “The instrumentalsign-function of a presentation and its significance as immediate feltquale are cognate aspects of experience. . . . Every presentation hasboth at once” (p. 402). In the tradition of Kant, however, he alsounderscores the role of the disinterested aesthetic attitude of detachedcontemplation.

In his “conceptual pragmatism” Lewis formulates a Kantian episte-mology wherein the immediately felt qualities given in experience areconstituted by acts of mental construction. Hence in his theory ofvaluation he maintains that aesthetic experience includes both mate-rial and formal aspects, whereby the directly felt aesthetic qualities


require a specific constitutive mental act of disinterested attention.For Lewis the disinterested attitude is itself the differentia that marksoff aesthetic experience from other modes of human experience: “Inthe broadest sense, the esthetic might be marked off simply by refer-ence to this esthetic attitude of disinterested interest in the presented[quality]. . . . The directly apprehended is esthetic when we pause uponit; contemplate the quality of what is given in and for itself” (1946:443). Again: “Esthetic apprehension requires to be thus . . . disinter-ested, impersonal and contemplative” (p. 441). His concept of thebeautiful as an apprehension of pervasive aesthetic quality throughthe mental act of disinterested contemplation is then summarizedwhen he writes: “Only those values are distinctively esthetic whichare resident in the quality of something as presented . . . and by thatpause of contemplative regard which suspends the active interests offurther purposes” (p. 454). Thus in contrast to Dewey and other Amer-ican pragmatists who have exclusively underscored the role of “sym-pathy” in the immediate experience of directly felt aesthetic quality,Lewis clarifies how the aesthetic experience of value quality involves abipolar tension between sympathy and detachment, participation anddistance, or emotional involvement and disinterested contemplation.

As C. I. Lewis himself acknowledges (1968:670), his dialecticalunderstanding of aesthetic experience as requiring both sympatheticparticipation in directly felt quality and insertion of psychic distancethrough disinterested contemplation was itself influenced by DavidW. Prall. And it is clear both from his vocabulary and from his refer-ences that Prall has been influenced especially by John Dewey’s notionof beauty as pervasive aesthetic quality. Regarding the aesthetic atti-tude, Prall argues that “aesthetic experience [is] distinguished by itsdisinterested absorption in determinate qualities” (p. ix). Aestheticexperience and its description in aesthetic judgement requires thatone is aloof, but in the sense of an “intense activity of full contempla-tion” of “the essential qualities of things” (p. 13). “It is this sort ofaloofness,” says Prall, “that is common to all disinterested attention”(p. 13). He further asserts that the attitude of aloofness is “a descrip-tion of the characteristic disinterestedness of aesthetic experience” (p.13). Here Prall is agreeing with Kant and at least in one respecttaking a stand against Dewey by stating that aesthetic experienceinvolves an attitude of disinterested attention to qualities as immedi-ately presented. Like C. I. Lewis (pp. 441–444), Prall thus holds thata sympathetic feeling of pervasive aesthetic quality viewed with an


attitude of disinterested contemplation is itself the differentia of aes-thetic experience.

A theory combining a doctrine of pervasive aesthetic quality in thetradition of American pragmatism with an aesthetic attitude of de-tached contemplation is to be found in the imaginative presentationof Robert Pirsig’s best-selling novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Main-tenance: An Inquiry into Values, first published in 1974. As Pirsig laterreveals in his sequel volume titled Lila (1991), this “metaphysics ofQuality” represents an extension of mainstream twentieth-centuryAmerican philosophy. Building on insights expressed in F. S. C.Northrop’s The Meeting of East and West (1946), Pirsig then relates theimmediate experience of pervasive aesthetic quality in American prag-matism to the direct intuition of nature as an undivided aesthetic con-tinuum in Zen Buddhism. Unlike Dewey and other American philos-ophers of qualitative immediacy, however, Pirsig stands near the viewof C. I. Lewis (1946:443) whereby aesthetic value is the immediateexperience of events unified by pervasive quality and an aesthetic atti-tude of disinterested contemplation is itself the psychological state re-quired for this experience of quality. In chapter twenty-five of Zen andthe Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig emphasizes that a state charac-terized by a Zenlike “peace of mind,” or “mental quietness,” is itselfthe precondition for an immediate experience of aesthetic value quali-ties. In Pirsig’s words: “Peace of mind is a prerequisite for a perceptionof that Quality” (1979:294). As the protagonist in the novel culti-vates his Zen state of calm detachment, he is brought to a series ofsatori-like epiphanies wherein commonplace events are disclosed intheir quality or suchness. Moreover, Pirsig (pp. 296–297) emphasizesthat an immediate experience of quality through the Zen Buddhistmeditative practice of “just sitting” involves a twofold mental attitudewhich includes both “peace of mind” and “caring.” The meditativestate of calm detachment and sympathetic caring enables the leadingcharacter to experience quality in both art and technology so as tointegrate both the romantic (prereflective) and classic (reflective)notions of quality. Through the aesthetic attitude of calm detachment,all events become funded with the intrinsic value of pervasive aes-thetic quality whether it is the consummatory experience of beauty inart and nature or the process of fixing the engine of a motorcycle. Hetherefore writes: “When this concept of peace of mind is introducedand made central to the act of technical work a fusion of classic andromantic quality can take place at a basic level within a practical work-


ing context” (p. 296). Thus Pirsig’s novel presents an East-West modelof artistic detachment wherein awareness of pervasive quality by anaesthetic attitude combining distance with involvement culminatesin a reconstruction of experience through the imaginative transforma-tion of life into art.

The theories worked out by C. I. Lewis and David Prall in Americanphilosophy, along with Robert Pirsig in American literature, indicatethat a doctrine of pervasive aesthetic quality as held by John Dewey isin no way incompatible with “aesthetic attitude” theories underscoringa contemplative state that is detached, disinterested, and distancedfrom human emotions. Lewis, Prall, and Pirsig argue, like Dewey, thataesthetic quality is both instrumental and consummatory within anends-means continuum—thereby overcoming the conventional dual-ism between pragmatic utility and aesthetic value. But unlike Deweythey work out a more balanced doctrine in which the delight of aes-thetic experience is characterized both by full participation in lifethrough sympathetic feeling of pervasive felt quality and distancefrom life through the tranquil state of disinterested contemplation.

Langer: Aesthetic Distance as Symbolization

Susanne K. Langer, perhaps the most extraordinary woman philoso-pher in recent American thought, has developed an original theory ofart that criticizes and reformulates Bullough’s idea of psychic distancein terms of her own doctrine of artistic symbols as forms for feeling.Although Langer agrees with Bullough that psychic distance is vitalto art, the element of distance is not so much a function of a mentalattitude cultivated by the audience as a function of the symbolic natureof art. Langer’s Philosophy in a New Key (1942) argues that the “newkey” in twentieth-century philosophy is the doctrine of the symbol.Based on Ernst Cassirer’s doctrine of man as animal symbolicum, sheregards the defining characteristic of human mentality as the sym-bolic transformation of experience. Aside from Cassirer’s neo-Kantiandoctrine that human experience is constituted by “symbolic forms,”she also cites A. N. Whitehead’s idea that the characteristic level ofhuman experience is “symbolic reference” and the view that all expe-rience is conditioned by symbolic images produced through uncon-scious fantasy in the depth psychology of Freud and Jung. For Langer,human experience is mentally constructed by acts of symbolization—not only the “discursive” symbolism of math, science, and symboliclogic but also the “nondiscursive” symbolism of art, religion, and


mythology. Against this background she develops her notion of art asa “symbolic form” of human feeling and her notion of artistic creationas the “symbolic transformation” of human experience.

In her chapter on music Langer makes the point that an artisticprinciple may be obvious in just one special field and prove to be gen-erally applicable to other arts only after development within that field.As a primary example she cites Bullough’s theory of psychic distance:“Edward Bullough’s excellent notion of ‘psychical distance’ wouldprobably not have been recognized as an important principle in musicor ceramic art, but the peculiar problems of drama require such a con-cept” (1982:209n.). She adds that Bullough’s idea of psychic distanceis surely valid in its original field of drama, even if it does not proveto be universally applicable to all art and literature. Elsewhere inthe text she again makes reference to Bullough’s idea of psychic dis-tance as the hallmark of aesthetic experience (p. 222). Here she citesBullough: “Distance . . . is obtained by separating the object and itsappeal from one’s own self, by putting it out of gear with practicalneeds and ends” (p. 223). While Langer agrees that psychic distanceis a factor in art and literature, she underscores that it is a descriptionof experience which has been translated into symbols—that distanceis therefore symbolization: “The content has been symbolized for us,and what it invites is not emotional response, but insight. ‘PsychicalDistance’ is simply the experience of apprehending through a symbolwhat was not articulated before” (p. 223). Hence the innovation ofLanger’s approach is that psychic distance is now described as a func-tion of the symbolic content of art.

Langer expands upon her theory of psychic distance as the experi-ence of an art symbol in her sequel volume called Feeling and Form(1953). In this work she crystallizes her definition of art as follows:“Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling” (1953:40).Again she brings up the aesthetic principle which “Edward Bullough,in an essay that has become deservedly famous, called ‘psychic Dis-tance.’ All appreciation of art—painting, architecture, music, dance,whatever the piece may be—requires a certain detachment, which hasbeen variously called the ‘attitude of contemplation,’ the ‘aestheticattitude,’ or the ‘objectivity’ of the beholder” (p. 318). She agrees withBullough that while terms like detachment, disinterestedness, andobjectivity characterizing the notion of an aesthetic contemplation areinflexible, Bullough’s idea of psychic distance admits of degrees anddiffers not only according to the nature of the object, which may im-pose a greater or smaller degree of distance, but varies also according


to a person’s capacity for maintaining a greater or lesser degree of dis-tance. But as in her earlier work she again describes Bullough’s psy-chic distance in terms of the artistic symbol: as a description of “ournatural relation to the symbol that embodies an idea and presents itfor our contemplation, not for practical action” (p. 319). Furthermore:“It is for the sake of this remove that art deals entirely in illusions,which, because of their lack of ‘practical, concrete nature,’ are readilydistanced as symbolic forms” (p. 319).

As an example of psychic distance in Western theater, she writes:“Schiller, in his famous preface to Die Braut von Messina, called theGreek chorus, which he revived in this play, ‘a living wall’ to preservethe Distance of the work” (1953:322n.). Expanding her discussioninto a study of artistic detachment in East-West comparative aesthetics,Langer goes on to describe the effects of psychic distance achieved inIndian, Chinese, and Japanese theater (p. 324). She mentions, for in-stance, how in Chinese plays the attendants in ordinary dress comeand go on the stage. Although to the uninitiated audience the stage-hands appear to be an intrusion, they insert distance into the dramaby reminding us that it is art and not life. It was this same observationof Chinese opera that led Brecht to formulate his idea of the “alien-ation effect” as a principle of psychic distance in the theater. Moreover,she describes how on the Japanese stage an actor may step out of hispart by giving a signal and address the audience—and then, by anotherformal sign, resume his role, thereby inserting distance into the drama.Langer asserts: “These elements make the play dramatically convinc-ing precisely by holding it aloof from actuality; they assure the spec-tator’s ‘psychical Distance’ instead of inviting him to consider theaction as a piece of natural behavior” (p. 324). Langer then discussesthe function of artistic detachment in the rasa aesthetics of classicalIndian drama and poetry:

Some of the Hindu critics . . . understand much better than their Western colleagues the various aspects of emotion in the theater . . .the feeling that shines through the play itself—the vital feeling of the piece. This last they call rasa; it is a state of emotional knowlege, which comes only to those who have long studied and contemplated poetry. Itis supposed to be of supernatural origin, because it is not like mundane feeling and emotion, but is detached . . . pure and uplifting. [p. 323]

Langer argues that the extraordinary supernatural character attributedto the aesthetic delight of rasa “shows the mystification that beset theancient theorists when they were confronted with the power of a


symbol which they did not recognize as such” (p. 323). For Langer,then, the psychic distance described by Edward Bullough in modernWestern aesthetics, like its variants in the Chinese, Japanese, andIndian forms of ancient Eastern drama, is to be understood as a func-tion of symbolization. Although not recognized before, it is alwayscontact with the artistic symbol that produces the effect of psychicdistance in theater and the other arts both East and West.

Langer’s understanding of psychic distance is finally to be under-stood in terms of her “virtual” theory of symbolic art, which in today’scomputer-generated cyberspace culture might be called an aestheticsof virtual reality. Art is virtual experience, or virtual reality, a sem-blance of feeling, a mimetic illusion, or a hyperreal simulacrum. It isthis virtual, illusory, or semblance character of symbolic art thataccounts for its “otherness” from actuality and the contemplativedetachment, disinterestedness, or distance which is characteristic ofour response to it. Although Langer emphasizes the importance ofpsychic distance in art, she deemphasizes the “aesthetic attitude” cul-tivated by the subject and instead explains distance in terms of thesymbolic nature of the artwork: what Clive Bell terms the “significantform” of the aesthetic object. Art produces detachment from humanfeeling, not because the artist cultivates a rare, exceedingly difficult,and artificial kind of aesthetic attitude, but because the artwork is asignificant form that functions as a symbol for human feeling. Asexamples of the aesthetic attitude she mentions Schopenhauer’s notionof “a completely desireless state . . . as the proper attitude toward worksof art” (p. 34). Again, she makes reference to Roger Fry’s descriptionof the aesthetic attitude as a “disinterested intensity of contemplation”(pp. 37–38). According to Langer: “Artists . . . do not assume andcultivate the ‘aesthetic attitude’ ” (p. 45). She adds: “It is not the per-cipient who discounts the surroundings, but the work of art which, ifit is successful, detaches itself from the rest of the world. . . . Themost immediate impression it creates is one of ‘otherness’ from reality,the impression of an illusion enfolding the thing, action, statement,or flow of sound that constitutes that work” (p. 45).

The “otherness” of a work of art that detaches it from the environ-ment and isolates it from the world is described as its “aura of illu-sion,” or what Schiller terms its character of Schein, “semblance.” Langerstates: “This detachment from actuality, the ‘otherness’ that gives evena bona fide product like a building or a vase some aura of illusion, is acrucial factor, indicative of the very nature of art” (p. 46). The detach-ment produced by the semblance or illusion or similitude of an art-


work is then described as its “virtual character” (p. 49). Each kind ofart symbol has its own virtual character giving an aura of illusion, orsemblance, thereby constituting the otherness, detachment, and isola-tion of that artwork as the source of psychic distance. “Virtual space”(p. 72) is the primary illusion of plastic art and has three modes: the“virtual scene” of painting, the “virtual kinetic volume” of sculpture,and the “virtual place” of architecture (pp. 87–95). Langer’s explana-tion of psychic distance as a function of the semblance, illusion, orvirtual character of mimetic (imitative) art is clarified through herexample of architecture as a virtual place having an ethnic domain. Shewrites: “The place created by the architect is an illusion, begotten bythe visible expression of a feeling, sometimes called an ‘atmosphere’ ”(p. 99). A good French, Italian, or Mexican restaurant, like an Indian,Chinese, or Japanese restaurant, is an illusion, semblance, or simu-lacrum created by the virtual place of a work of architecture—eachwith its own exotic “atmosphere” or ambience corresponding to aunique ethnic domain, which isolates and detaches it from the sur-rounding environment so as to provide a degree of distance from every-day life. Langer identifies the virtual character producing detachmentin other modes of art: the “virtual duration” of music (p. 148), the“virtual gesture” of dance (p. 187), the “virtual life” of poetry (p.212), the “virtual memory” of literature (p. 277), the “virtual future”of drama (p. 306), and the “virtual present” of film as the “virtualexperience” of a dreamlike reality produced by the “virtual creativeimagination” (pp. 412–415). Hence for Langer’s aesthetics of virtualreality, that psychic distance which is the hallmark of great art is notsomething cultivated through an aesthetic attitude of disinterestedcontemplation. It is instead a function of the virtual character of art asa significant form symbolic of feeling, a hyperreal simulacrum thatproduces the aura of illusion establishing its “otherness” from reality,its “isolation” from the world, and its “detachment” from life.

The originality of Langer’s position can be appreciated by contrast-ing it to other leading theories of art that have emerged in the traditionof classical American philosophy. Similar to Dewey, Pepper, Prall,Lewis, and other American thinkers, Langer has underscored the ideaof beauty as a pervasive aesthetic quality that permeates the artwork inits felt wholeness. For Langer, as for Dewey, Pepper, and Lewis, qualelike colors, sounds, flavors, scents, and tactile sensations cannot besimply located either in the subject or in the object, either in theaudience or in the work of art, but are immediately felt pervasive aes-thetic qualities that are spread throughout the whole situation as its


single dominant feeling-tone. Langer writes: “It is a quality, above all,that pervades a work of art” (1967:106). And elsewhere: “The achieve-ment of artistic quality is the first, last and only aim of the artist’swork” (p. 121). Dewey (1980:27–58) holds that enjoyment of per-vasive quality requires full active participation and sympathy whilestrongly criticizing all “aesthetic attitude” theories of contemplativedetachment, distance, or disinterestedness. C. I. Lewis agrees withDewey that beauty is felt pervasive quality but, with Kant, holds thatsuch experience requires an aesthetic attitude of disinterested contem-plation. As Lewis asserts: “The esthetic might be marked off simplyby reference to this esthetic attitude of disinterested interest in . . .the quality of what is given” (p. 443). Langer’s position thereforestands between the views of Dewey and Lewis: while she agrees thatthe beautiful is immediately felt pervasive aesthetic quality, and thatpsychic distance is a factor in aesthetic experience, she rejects the ideathat distance is the result of a special aesthetic attitude cultivated bythe audience. Instead she argues that it is a function of the symboliccontent of the work of art.

For Langer it is the symbol that gives a work of art its otherness andaccounts for the contemplative detachment or psychic distance char-acteristic of our response to it. Langer’s emphasis upon the role of theartwork itself in eliciting the contemplative response of psychic dis-tancing is further developed in terms of her Whiteheadian concept ofart as a “lure for feeling.” Just as Langer’s idea of the art symbol isdeeply influenced by A. N. Whitehead’s “symbolic reference” theoryof aesthetic experience (p. 183) wherein clear and distinct sense quali-ties in the foreground focus are symbols for dim feeling-tone in thebackground field, she is further influenced by his idea of imaginativeliterature and art as a “lure for feeling” that induces maximum depthof aesthetic experience in the terminal satisfaction of an event (pp.184–185). Langer states near the end of Feeling and Form: “In art, it isthe impact of the whole, immediate revelation of vital import thatacts as the psychological lure to long contemplation. . . . The ‘lure offeeling’ (to borrow a phrase from Whitehead) is established almost atonce” (1953:397). In his book A Whiteheadian Aesthetic (1961), DonaldW. Sherburne focuses on the idea of art as a “lure for feeling” as thekey to Whitehead’s doctrine of aesthetic experience. For Whiteheadeach occasion of experience is directed by a “subjective aim” thatgoverns the process of self-creativity wherein multiplicity is gatheredinto a novel unity having the intrinsic value of directly felt pervasiveaesthetic quality. Sherburne clarifies how for Whitehead an artwork


“lures” the occasion of experience into suspending its usual subjectiveaims and practical interests in order to substitute a deeper aim of“aesthetic recreation” of value quality in an artwork. Similarly, Langerdevelops Whitehead’s suggestive notion of art as a lure for feelingthat suspends normal aims to elicit a response of prolonged disinter-ested contemplation. Langer’s Whiteheadian notion of art as a lure forfeeling represents an important corrective to theories that overempha-size the role of aesthetic attitude to the point of undermining thefunction of art for inducing the factor of psychic distance. If psychicdistance is rooted solely in an act of consciousness, it does not explainwhy certain works of art have the power to arrest the mind in tranquilrepose. According to Langer, then, psychic distance, contemplativedetachment, and disinterested attention are vital factors of aestheticexperience, but they are not rooted so much in the viewer’s mentaloperations as in the symbolic nature of art as a “lure for feeling,” aninvitation to contemplate beauty for its own sake.

Dickie: The Myth of Psychic Distance

George Dickie has in recent years become the foremost critic of “aes-thetic attitude” theory, including its associated notions of disinter-ested attention, artistic detachment, and psychic distance. His mostsystematic critique of the notion of the aesthetic attitude in its variousforms is set forth in Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis (1974).Dickie’s writings have ignited some of the most stimulating debatesto have emerged in recent aesthetic theory.

Dickie’s refutation of aesthetic disinterestedness as articulated byJerome Stolnitz has provoked Stolnitz to write various rejoinders inan ongoing debate between the two consisting of a series of publishedcritiques and countercritiques. The concept of psychic distance hasenjoyed considerable popularity since it was introduced by EdwardBullough in 1912. In recent years, however, Bullough’s theory has beenseriously questioned by Dickie, who in turn has been criticized bysuch writers as Sneh Pandit (1976) and Sushil Kumar Saxena (1978).Dickie’s earliest attack on the theory of psychic distance in art occurredin the latter part of his essay “Is Psychology Relevant to Aesthetics?”(1962). This critique was taken up once again in “The Myth of theAesthetic Attitude” (1964). He then defended his position in a briefarticle, “Bullough and Casebier: Disappearing in the Distance” (1972).His first full-scale treatment of the concept was published as “PsychicalDistance: In a Fog at Sea” (1973).


In 1964 Dickie published his best-known paper, “The Myth of theAesthetic Attitude,” in which he put forward a thesis that the aes-thetic attitude is a myth which is not only no longer useful butindeed harmful for aesthetic theory. To support his view Dickie criti-cizes such well-known versions of the aesthetic attitude as the theoryof psychic distance developed by Bullough and the concept of disin-terested attention articulated by Stolnitz and Vivas. For Dickie theword “aesthetic” becomes vacuous in such a case. As an exampleof what he calls the “myth” of the aesthetic attitude he points tothe use of “distance” or acts of “distancing” to characterize aestheticexperience. He claims that psychic distance refers to a “phantom stateof consciousness.” In Dickie’s words: “To introduce the technical terms‘distance’ . . . [and others] . . . does nothing but send us chasing afterphantom acts and states of consciousness” (1974:30). Elsewhere Dickiecites Bullough’s now classic example of a fog at sea to illustrate thetransformation from a nonaesthetic to an aesthetic experience througha shift in attitude by “insertion of distance.” In the fog a transforma-tion by distance is produced in the first instance by putting the phe-nomenon out of gear with our practical, actual self. Dickie relatesBullough’s explanation to Schopenhauer’s account of the sublime inwhich he speaks of the forcible detachment of the will necessary forappreciating a threatening object—except that Bullough’s theory issupposed to apply to all aesthetic experience, not just the threateningsublime.

Dickie endeavors to refute Bullough’s theory on two counts. First,he claims that distancing, as defined by Bullough, is not a kind ofvoluntary action which people who frequently experience art are capa-ble of bringing about consciously. He personally has never experiencedsuch an act, he says, nor does he know of anyone who has. He asks:

Is there, however, any evidence that acts of distancing and states of being distanced ever actually occur in connection with our experience of art and nature? When the curtain goes up, when we walk up to a painting, or when we look at a sunset, do we ever commit acts of distancing and are we ever induced into a state of being distanced? I cannot recall commit-ting any action that suspends practical activities or being in a psycho-logical state that prevents practical activity. [1974:99]

Second, he maintains there is no special distinction between practicalactivity and art activity, as implied by Bullough and other “distance”theorists, and therefore the entire phenomenon of art experience doesnot need to be explained by reference to any special attitude that puts


the spectator in a peculiar relationship to the work. He criticizes theterminology of distance theorists, their arguments, and the usefulnessof their examples. In general he denies that any special mode of atten-tion can be called peculiar to the aesthetic attitude. He asserts thatthe typically cited examples of failure to adopt the aesthetic attitude—for instance, dwelling on the artist’s intentions, thinking of thecost of the work, or contemplating the artist’s technique—all turnout to be mere cases of inattention. Dickie concludes that the onlypossible difference in attention between two experiences is that oneis either attending or not attending to something. According toDickie, there is no such thing as an aesthetic mode of attention,unless one means by it “paying close attention” to the aesthetic object.Attention is qualitatively the same in all instances whether aestheticor nonaesthetic.

In their rebuttal to Dickie’s position, Rader and Jessup (1976:59–60) point out that while soldiers are trained to pay close attention toevents, this mode of attention is not aesthetic, but practical and cog-nitive, thus showing the qualitative difference marking off differentmodes of attention. They conclude: “There is a difference betweenaesthetic attention and nonaesthetic attention. The critical differencein marking off the aesthetic sphere is between these kinds of attention,and not between attention and inattention. Paying close attention isnot sufficient to characterize aesthetic interest” (p. 59). In another re-buttal to Dickie’s view, S. K. Saxena presents a similar counterargu-ment: “What we have in cases like the above is not just close attention,but such heightened awareness as comes in the wake of a temporary suspensionof the everyday attitude and discloses much new material. It is such specialawareness that ‘distance’ signifies” (1978:83). It can be said thatDickie’s writings mark a transition from a period of widespread acclaimto one of critical evaluation of psychic distance and related notions inaesthetic attitude theory. Although the specific arguments formingthe basis of Dickie’s contention are not in the least persuasive, theyhave raised philosophical discourse on aesthetic attitude theory to ahigher plane of analysis.

Carlson: The Landscape Model of Beauty

According to Allen Carlson, one of the major paradigms for the aes-thetic appreciation of nature through an aesthetic attitude of disinter-ested contemplation of beauty, achieved through insertion of psychic


distance, is that of the “landscape” or “scenery” model of beauty. In theart world this model of appreciation through insertion of distance isillustrated especially by landscape painting: “In one of its favored senses‘landscape’ means a prospect—usually a grandiose prospect—seenfrom a specific standpoint and distance” (1995:131; italics added).Carlson describes a most interesting device called the “Claude glass,”fashionable in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which pro-duces a perceptual shift such that objects that are great and near are“removed to a ‘due distance’ . . . and ‘just perspective’ ” (p. 132). Thelandscape model, he says, “requires dividing the environment intoscenes or blocks of scenery, each of which is to be viewed from a par-ticular point by a viewer who is separated by the appropriate spatial(and emotional?) distance” (p. 132). A drive through the country islike a walk through a gallery of landscape paintings wherein eachlandscape is viewed from a due distance. Carlson observes that touristsreveal a preference for this model of appreciation by frequenting“ ‘scenic viewpoints’ where the actual space between the tourist andthe prescribed view often constitutes a ‘due distance’ ” (p. 132).

Carlson highlights the requirement of psychic distance in the aes-thetic attitude toward beauty in nature. At the same time he is criticalof this landscape model of psychic distance insofar as appreciation ofnature is reduced to a finished picture. He clarifies how the moderntourist relies on a ideal perspective where psychic distance comes tobe fixed through various framing devices like scenic viewpoints, thecamera’s viewfinder, and even the Claude glass of the eighteenth cen-tury. The tourist wishes to observe the landscape as an already finishedpicture where the scene is framed in a fixed perspective and set distancethrough the camera’s viewfinder: the result is a Kodachrome slide, anartistically composed postcard of the scene.

For a response to Carlson’s insightful position that “psychic distance”often involves a reified, sedimented, or frozen landscape presentedlike a finished picture with a fixed perspective and set distance, wecan turn to the poststructuralist and deconstructionist theory of thislandscape model of psychic distance articulated by Karatani Kòjin inhis Origins of Modern Japanese Literature. According to Karatani’s decon-structionist theory, derived from Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, and otherFrench poststructuralists, the famous Japanese novelist Natsume Sòsekiwrote novels based on a decentered worldview according to which his“sketching” (shaseibun) technique, learned from his friend the greattwentieth-century haiku poet Masaoka Shiki, the “landscape” (sansuiga)


is not a description of a preformed, constituted landscape of naturalbeauty, written in the past tense, but a constitutive act in the livingpresent that itself brings forth “the emergence of ‘landscape’ ” (1993:31). In that the landscape is not a fixed structure with self-identity, itnow emerges in the very process of sketching, thus to be constitutedand reconstituted in multivariate forms by free play of fantasy varia-tion in creative imagination.

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Chapt e r 2

Artistic Detachment in Japanese Aesthetics

The Japanese tradition of Zen aestheticism has articu-lated a variety of highly refined, elegant, and pervasive qualities ofatmospheric beauty such as aware (sad beauty), yûgen (profound mys-tery), wabi (rustic poverty), sabi (loneliness), shibumi (elegant restraint),ma (negative space), iki (chic), and fûryû or fûga (windblown elegance).Although it is common for studies of Zen Buddhism and Eastern cul-ture to mention such aesthetic qualities in order to convey the Japanesesense of beauty, they generally neglect the aesthetic attitude of de-tached contemplation required for the intuition of beauty. As empha-sized by scholars like Izutsu Toshihiko (1981:16), the immediately feltaesthetic qualities described in Japanese poetics—aware and yûgen, forexample—are derivatives from the fundamental value of yojò: “over-tones of feeling,” “overflow of feeling,” or “surplus feeling.” Continuingthis tradition the modern Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarò hasobserved how traditional Japanese culture is based on pure aestheticfeeling; hence aware and yûgen are both aesthetic qualities felt just asthey are in emptiness/suchness at the locus of absolute nothingness.Likewise, in Western romantic poetics, William Wordsworth has said:“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” But asWordsworth further clarifies, this overflow of feeling is “emotionrecollected in tranquility.” In the Preface to his Lyrical Ballads, Words-worth therefore asserts: “I have said that poetry is the spontaneousoverflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recol-lected in tranquility.” Chòmei explicitly defines yûgen in terms of yojò,overflow of feelings. But unlike the emotive, lyrical idea of poetry, it


is an overflow of feeling recollected in tranquility. The emotions arestill felt—indeed, they are felt as deeply as possible, reverberatinginto bottomless depths—but now these feelings are “recollected intranquility” through insertion of distance. Similarly it can be saidthat the distinctive aesthetic qualities of Japanese poetics such aswabi, sabi, shibumi, fûryû, fuga, and yûgen are all rooted in yojò, “over-flow of feeling,” apprehended through a mental attitude of detachedcontemplation as an intense emotion recollected in tranquility.

Why is “Zen” so directly related to the aesthetic attitude with itscharacteristic traits of disinterestedness, detachment, and distancing?First of all, the Japanese word “zen” (Ch. chan; Skt. dhyâna) signifies“meditation,” and the Zen Buddhist tradition underscores the act ofdetached contemplation whereby phenomena are perceived just asthey are in the openness or disclosure of their emptiness/suchness.Second, the Zen tradition of Japan, more than any other contempla-tive tradition East or West, focuses specifically on the aesthetic expe-rience of beauty manifested by ordinary phenomena in the opennessof emptiness/suchness and their creative expression through satori-like epiphanies of literature and art. The idea of “Zen detachment” iswell known: there are innumerable anecdotes relating the completedetachment of the Zen master who has achieved liberation, awakening,and enlightenment. Yet what is distinctive about Zen aestheticism isits emphasis on enlightenment through detached contemplation ofbeauty in nature and art. The cultivation (shugyò) of a tranquil, clear,selfless, and detached state of contemplative awareness, leading to aninsight into the mysterious beauty of insubstantial phenomena in theiremptiness/suchness, is itself the characteristic feature of Zen Buddhism.Finally, it should be emphasized that aesthetic attitude theories ofdisinterested contemplation illuminate the Zen doctrine of satori(enlightenment) arising through states of consciousness associated withthe traditional Japanese sense of beauty expressed through such idealsas aware (tragic beauty), yûgen (mysterious depths), wabi (spiritualpoverty), sabi (impersonal loneliness), and shibumi (elegant restraintthrough understatement)—including the mental attitudes of shikan(calm and contemplation), or tranquility insight; mushin (no-mind),or the spontaneous, preconscious, nonattached consciousness; andhishiryò (without-thinking), or the neutral state in meditative equi-poise on emptiness, the shunyata-like nonpositional state betweenthinking and not-thinking.

In his book titled Meaning (1975:85), Michael Polanyi reformulatesKant’s idea of beauty as disinterested pleasure in terms of an “iso-

Japanes e Aesthet i c s — 101

lation” theory of art and literature. Like I. A. Richards and HugoMünsterberg, Polanyi develops a theory of art as isolation accordingto which detachment from personal emotions is achieved by isolatingobjects within the artificial borders of a frame—whereupon the beautyof an object can now be contemplated for its own sake without regardfor personal interests or utilitarian considerations for anything outsidethe frame. But from the standpoint of East-West comparative aestheticsit is indeed significant that Polanyi goes on to argue that the realizationof aesthetic detachment through the tranquil contemplation of beautyreaches its apex in the Zen Buddhism of Japan. According to Polanyi,artistic detachment is achieved not only through the framing effect ofpainting, drama, and literature but also by means of the related phe-nomena of myth, ritual, and contemplation of religious experience. Inprimitive religions, he says, artistic detachment is realized through theartificial framework of myths and their reenactment in sacred rituals.Moreover, he describes how detachment is realized through the prac-tice of pure contemplation in the via negativa meditation systems bothEast and West. At this point, however, he raises the question how de-tachment from life is achieved through pure contemplation withoutthe mechanism of a “frame” as employed in art, myth, and ritual:

We have so far attended only in passing to the question of how these facts of the imagination become so fully detached from our daily concerns. . . . But when we turn to the practice of pure contemplation, which passes from the normal viewing of a landscape to a mystical contemplation of it, we do not seem to be crossing any conceptual barrier or setting up any artificial framework to separate this experience from the way we ordi-narily view scenery. Where then, in such contemplation, do we find the source of detachment? [p. 130]

Polanyi then proceeds to answer the query by reference to the traditionof Japanese Zen Buddhism. In Zen, detachment from personal inter-ests and desires is achieved through the intensive practice of zazenmeditation:

An answer to this question may be found most easily in Zen Buddhism, and this should throw light on the whole range of other mystical visions. Zen is acquired by prolonged, arduous training. . . . Descriptions abound of the harsh discipline to which the Zen novice submits. His enlighten-ment is associated with the effort and the suffering of this discipline, which detaches his life from the flow of normal experience and opens him to access to ecstatic meditation far removed from the humdrum interests of life. [p. 130]


Citing Toshimitsu Hasumi’s Zen in Japanese Art, Polanyi underscoresthe fact that the mode of “detachment” realized by Zen Buddhistmeditation is specifically that of an artistic detachment such that theecstasy of aesthetic experience is explicitly identified with the raptureof mystical experience. Polanyi asserts:

Returning to the cult of rapturous contemplation in Zen Buddhism, we meet with a theoretical development of it into a doctrine of aesthetics. Art, poetry, and painting are said to be the transmission of visionary experience and hence to tell of the NOTHING. . . . Of all ancient systems of ecstatic contemplation, Zen Buddhism alone applies directly to the creative arts. [p. 129]

With his characteristic depth of insight, Polanyi has given a splendidanalysis of beauty as a function of artistic detachment both in Zen andin Western traditions. He points out that in contrast to other contem-plative traditions like the via negativa meditation of Christian mysti-cism in the West or the Yoga of Hinduism in India, the Zen Buddhismof Japan has developed into an aestheticism wherein “detachment” isspecifically cultivated through the disinterested contemplation of tran-quil beauty in art and nature. As Polanyi observes in the foregoingpassage, among the ancient systems of disinterested contemplation“Zen Buddhism alone applies directly to the creative arts.”

In Zen Buddhism this detached mode of contemplation representsa suspension of all mental conditioning and correlate habits of percep-tion, which results in a spontaneous free play of imagination. Recall-ing the phenomenological approach explicated earlier, we note that adescription of aesthetic experience requires an account of not only thenoematic (constituted) content of beauty as hidden depth at theobjective pole but also the noetic (constitutive) act of detached con-templation that constructs the phenomenon at the subjective pole.The phenomenological analysis of aesthetic experience begins with adescription of its noematic content as value-rich figure/ground gestaltqualities: instead of attending exclusively to sedimented focal actuali-ties discriminated at the core of the perceptual field, one now intendsthe undiscriminated horizon of openness that surrounds it at thebackground field as an aura of mystery and depth. At the noema side ofaesthetic experience, focal entities illuminated in the foregroundbecome clear only by contrast with that darkness of the horizon bywhich they are encompassed at the background field, the horizon ofopenness or disclosure which reveals unsubstantial objects in theirinner depths. In accordance with a noetic attitude of artistic detach-


ment, however, is a suspension of sedimented interpretations leadingto a free play of fantasy variation in creative imagination opening upan inner horizon of latent profiles representing the multiplicity, variety,and possibility of phenomena. The state of detached aesthetic con-templation deconstructs sedimented focal settings leading to a gestaltswitch or reversal of attention—a shift of attention from the substan-tial objects articulated in the foreground to the horizon of opennesspresencing in the nonarticulated background. This noetic attitude ofdetached contemplation discloses the content of beauty as a dimen-sion of hidden mystery and depth as well as the inexhaustible reser-voir of creative possibility. From the phenomenological standpoint, anaesthetic object, understood as something that has the intrinsic valueof beauty, is constituted not just by what is seen—the noema or in-tended meaning—but also by how it is seen: the intentional act ofconsciousness which constitutes that meaning. For Zen Buddhism, aswe shall see, the intuition of aesthetic quality in art and nature on theside of the noema is itself to be analyzed as a function of an aestheticattitude of contemplative detachment involving disinterestedness,sympathy, and imagination on the side of the noesis.

Classical Japanese Aesthetics

Scholars have noted how yûgen became the ideal of atmospheric beautyexpressed by Buddhist art and literature in medieval Japan. But fewmention the aesthetic attitude of detached artistic contemplation thatis required for the vision of yûgen in an epiphany of beauty as bottom-less hidden depths. And those who have discussed the aesthetic atti-tude have confined their observations to a specific artist or thinker.They have failed to recognize it as a recurrent motif running through-out the Japanese tradition—from its origins in Kamakura-period waka(31-syllable) poetics of Chòmei, Shunzei, and Teika, to the nò dramaof Zeami and Zenchiku, to the monochrome sumie inkwash paintingsof Jòsetsu, Shûbun, and Sesshû, to modern Japanese literature in thetradition of Sòseki, Kawabata, Mishima, and Tanizaki.

In this section I describe the aesthetic attitude of artistic detach-ment in the yûgen tradition of classical Japanese aesthetics. We shallexamine the pervasive aesthetic quality of yûgen and related notions asnoematic correlates to noetic acts of contemplative detachment artic-ulated by a broad spectrum of Japanese technical notions includ-ing shikan (tranquility and insight), riken no ken (seeing of detachedperception), hishiryò (without-thinking), muga (no-self, non-ego, self-


detachment), akirame (detached resignation), mushin (no-mind), hininjò(detachment from human feeling), mukanshin-sei (disinterestedness),mushûjaku (nonattachment), and so forth. First I consider explicit the-ories of artistic detachment that have been articulated in the classicalaesthetics of Japan, beginning with its origins in what Misaki Gisen(1972) terms the “shikan aesthetic consciousness” (shikanteki biishiki)of late Heian and early Kamakura waka poetics. In this context I focuson the pervasive aesthetic quality of yûgen, or profound mystery, as anepiphany of depth that manifests through the artistic detachment cul-tivated by Tendai Buddhist shikan (Ch. chih-küan; Pali samatha-vipas-sana) or “tranquility and insight” meditation as articulated in the earlywaka poetics of Shunzei. Dògen (1200–1253), one of the foremostKamakura poet-priests in the tradition of shikan aesthetic conscious-ness, articulates a Zen metaphysics of Buddha nature as genjòkòan, or“presence of things as they are,” manifested in the being-time (uji) ofimpermanence-Buddha-nature (mujò busshò) that reflects the yûgenideal of beauty as mysterious hidden depths revealed through the“oneness of practice-enlightenment” (shusho itto) in zazen. For Dògenthe “presence of things as they are” is itself apprehended through thecontemplative attitude of “without-thinking” (hishiryò)—a state ofequilibrium that observes phenomena in emptiness/suchness withoutblind reactions of craving or aversion, liking or disliking, acceptanceor rejection. We then explore how the Japanese Buddhist ideal ofethereal beauty as yûgen and its apprehension through artistic detach-ment culminate in medieval nò drama as presented through Zeami’sprinciple of riken no ken. To envision the profound mystery of yûgeninvolves a shift from the egocentric perception of gaken to the objec-tive, selfless, and detached perception of riken no ken. Riken no ken isthe aesthetic satori-consciousness required for perception of yûgen bythe actors and spectators of nò theater as well as the playwright in thecreation of an original nò drama.

“Shikan Aesthetic Consciousness” in Waka Poetics

The medieval Japanese aesthetic ideal of Buddhist literary arts wasknown as the beauty of yûgen—literally “shadows and darkness” or, byextension, “mystery and depth.” Furthermore, the aesthetic idealof yûgen was explicitly rooted in the Tendai Buddhist meditationpractice of “tranquility and insight” (Ch. chih-küan; Pali samatha-vipasanna), or “calm-and-contemplation,” which influenced the devel-


opment of zazen (seated meditation) practice in Zen Buddhism. TheTendai practice of shikan in East Asian Buddhism was itself an evolu-tion of the original Indian form of samatha-vipassana meditation ex-pounded by the Buddha as the way for attaining liberation (moksha)from suffering (dukkha) in the peace of nirvana. Today the early Indianform of samatha-vipassana (shikan) practice has been revitalized throughthe Burmese tradition of Theravada Buddhism as based on the Bud-dha’s Pali-language treatise on meditation called Mahâsatipathana-sutta: “The Great Discourse on Mindfulness.” S. N. Goenka summa-rizes the nature of samatha-vipassana, or “tranquility and insight,”meditation in Buddha’s teachings as follows:

By observing unpleasant sensations without reacting, we eradicate aver-sion. By observing pleasant sensations without reacting, we eradicate craving. . . . This is the stage known as sankhâra-upekkha, equanimity toward all conditioning, which leads step by step to the ultimate truth of liberation, nibbâna. [Hart 1987:123]

Goenka continues: “The cause of suffering is tanhâ, ‘craving and aver-sion’ ” (Hart 1987:150). The root cause of suffering originates, notfrom vedanâ or “feeling,” but from karmically conditioned reactionsto feeling—craving and aversion, liking and disliking, attraction andrepulsion, love and hate, sympathy and antipathy. Hence in the prac-tice of samatha-vipassana the problem of suffering is eradicated throughvedanâ-sati or “mindfulness of feelings” with an attitude of “equa-nimity” (upekkha), the even-minded state of calm detachment fromall conditioned reactions of craving and aversion. Goenka describeshow vedanâ-sati, “mindfulness of feelings,” results in equilibrium ordetachment from blind reactions of attraction or repulsion when hewrites:

Vedanâ is particularly important because it offers vivid, tangible experi-ence of the reality of impermanence. . . . This realization makes obvious the futility of attachment to something that is so transitory. Thus the direct experience of anicca [impermanence] gives rise to detachment, with which one can not only avert fresh reactions of craving and aversion, but also eliminate the very habit of reacting. [p. 149]

According to early Buddhist psychology, then, liberation from suffer-ing is attained by the meditation practice of “tranquility and insight”leading to detachment from, or equanimity toward, all conditionedreactions of craving and aversion. Moreover, the point cannot be over-


emphasized that the aim of this Buddhist technique of detached con-templation is not to kill human feelings but, rather, to observe themwith equanimity free of habitual and conditioned blind reactions ofcraving/aversion, liking/disliking, affirmation/negation, or acceptance/rejection.

The Japanese sense of beauty has its roots precisely in this earlyBuddhist practice of samatha-vipassana or “tranquility and insight.”The importance of this shikan meditation as the mental attitude, stateof consciousness, or mode of attention determining the traditionalJapanese sense of beauty has been clarified by Misaki Gisen in a valu-able study, “Enlightenment of Natural Beauty: The Shikan AestheticConsciousness in the Famous Priests of the Kamakura Period” (“Shizenna bi no satori: Kamakura jidai meiso no shikanteki biishiki”), whichappeared in the Summer 1972 issue of the Japanese periodical Bigaku(Aesthetics). At the outset of his essay Misaki writes: “For the last threeor four years I have tried to clarify the relation between Buddhismand the special characteristic of Japanese aesthetic consciousness byusing the term ‘shikan aesthetic consciousness’ ” (1972:10). As denotedby Misaki’s apt phrase “shikan aesthetic consciousness” (shikanteki bi-ishiki), the traditional Japanese sense of beauty involves a highly re-fined aesthetic attitude rooted in the Buddhist meditation practice ofshikan. Misaki argues that Japanese aesthetic consciousness has beendeeply influenced by Buddhism since the Heian period, especially bythe Tendai Buddhist theory and practice of shikan. According toMisaki, shikan is a discipline of meditation in which the poet-priestbecomes detached from ordinary human reactions of craving and aver-sion in order to observe all phenomena as they are in their emptiness/suchness. Through the deep tranquility of shikan meditation practice,one realizes every phenomenon in nature as a spontaneous manifesta-tion of the Buddha nature itself. Tendai Buddhist philosophy there-fore affirms beauty in nature and recognizes art to be a valid pathleading to enlightenment or Buddhahood. This shikan aesthetic con-sciousness of Tendai Buddhism was subsequently assimilated by Zenand other sects in the Kamakura period. Misaki asserts that what hecalls “shikan aesthetic consciousness” is evident in the life and writingsof many famous priests of the Kamakura period, all of whom areknown for their love of nature and their composition of poetry. Yethe further maintains that the shikan aesthetic consciousness of thesefamous Kamakura priests was not that of an ordinary human aestheti-cism but the “enlightenment of natural beauty” (jinen na bi no satori)


acquired through the meditative shikan practice of “tranquility andinsight” or “calm and contemplation.”

The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japanby William R. LaFleur (1983) brings to light how perception ofatmospheric beauty as yûgen or “profound mystery” had its basis inthe Tendai Buddhist meditation practice of shikan. LaFleur says thatthe poetry of twelfth-century Japan is strikingly different from thatwritten earlier and, moreover, this change is due to the presence ofa new dimension of “depth” (fukasa) (p. 80). Making reference toscholars like Sen’ichi Hisamatsu (to be distinguished from the Kyotoschool philosopher, Shin’ichi Hisamatsu), he then points out that thisdepth dimension of medieval Japanese poetry is summed up in theaesthetic quality of yûgen (p. 82). Thus, according to LaFleur, “yûgeninvolves an epiphany of depth” (p. 131). He furthermore shows howthe aesthetic value of yûgen is grounded in the theory and practice ofshikan meditation in the poetics of Shunzei, Teika, and Saigyò (pp.80–106). Using the studies of Konishi Jin’ichi, LaFleur demonstratesthat in Shunzei’s waka poetics the beauty of yûgen participates in thestructure of Tendai shikan insofar as it manifests a deep and abidingtranquility. Konishi Jin’ichi traces the Japanese medieval aesthetics ofyûgen back to its source in Tendai Buddhist shikan meditation, point-ing out that “the content of shikan meditation is equivalent to thecontent of Zen” (cited by LaFleur 1983:94). These points are summa-rized by LaFleur as follows:

In both the shikan of Tendai and the arts of yûgen there is a definite quies-cence and tranquility. In shikan this is undoubtedly related to the practice of seated meditation, basically the seated zen, or zazen, that was part of most Buddhist practice but received special emphasis in the Zen Bud-dhist school. [p. 100]

As shown by LaFleur (1983:90), in a text on waka poetics (Koraifuteisho, 1197) Fujiwara Shunzei acknowledges the Tendai basis of hisaesthetic theory. In this text Shunzei asserts that the infinite depthand profound meaning of poetry are akin to the shikan meditation ofTendai Buddhism as described by its founder Chih-i (538–597). ForShunzei, the Japanese lyric called the uta is a process of transmissionof the Holy Dharma similar to the transmission of enlightenmentrunning through the Buddhist patriarchs. Moreover, Japanese poetryis said by Shunzei to have a dimension of depth that has an affinity


with the three stages of truth in Tendai Buddhism showing the iden-tity of convention (ketai) and emptiness (kûtai) in the middle way(chûtai) (pp. 90–91). Shunzei writes:

The Mo-ho chih-kuan of the Tendai school opens with these words by Kuan-ting [Chih-i’s amanuensis]: “Calm-and-contemplation [shikan] has in itself a clarity and tranquility beyond anything known to earlier generations.” Now if we pay attention to this at the outset, a dimension of infinite depth as well as profound meaning will be discovered. It will be like listening to something sublime and exalted while trying to understand the poetic sensibility. . . . Things that otherwise are incapable of being expressed in words will be understood precisely when they are likened to calm-and-contemplation [shikan]. [Cited by LaFleur 1983:90]

LaFleur goes on to cite the classic modern study called Yûgen to awareby Ònishi Yoshinori, who describes the process whereby the aestheticexperience of yûgen manifests through the “calm-and-contemplation”of shikan meditation:

When all of one’s “ego” has been transformed into the datum of nature and when one has penetrated into the arena of shikan—that is, into the locus of absorption into the vision of pure tranquility—then nature and mind or object and subject will have become one and the same. . . . The individual’s existence is the same as the totality’s, and the microcosm is amplified in the macrocosm. This is the unique aspect of this aesthetic experience. [Cited by LaFleur 1983:102–103]

As Ònishi Yoshinori describes, the practice of shikan meditation resultsin an aesthetic experience of yûgen or deep profundity characterized byidentification of subject and object as well as an interfusion betweenmicrocosm and macrocosm. In the holistic metaphysics of Tendai Bud-dhism, this interfusion of microcosm and macrocosm is termed ichinensanzen, meaning “in one thought-instant are three thousand worlds.”Hence in the waka poetics of Shunzei and others that emerged duringthe medieval period of Japanese Buddhist literary arts, the Tendaimeditation practice of shikan, or “tranquility and insight,” culminatesin a holistic vision of beauty as yûgen—an epiphany of wholeness anddepth whereby the concentrated microcosmic phenomena articulatedin the foreground focus merge with the expanded macrocosmic voidof emptiness, voidness, nothingness, or openness in the nonarticulatedbackground field.

Another important manifestation of shikan aesthetic consciousnessis to be seen in the Mikkyò (Esoteric) or Tantric teachings of TendaiBuddhism introduced to Japan by Saichò, also known by his posthu-


mous title of Dengyò Daishi. It was Saichò who spread the TendaiBuddhist shikan exercises of detached contemplation whereby phe-nomena are observed with equanimity, devoid of craving or aversion,thus revealing their suchness in the middle way (chûtai) betweenconventional existence (ketai) and emptiness (kûtai). The detachedcontemplation of mandala art in the Japanese tradition of MikkyòBuddhism is described by Michael Saso in his book Tantric Art andMeditation: “The meditator must not become attached to the vision,in fact must burn all images away in the invisible fires of the VajraWorld’s thunder and lightning, as well as the real fire of the Goma.This meditative process is preeminently a part of the oral hermeneuticcalled kuden” (Saso 1990:242). He concludes: “The kuden oral traditionis based firmly on the Mâdhyamika teachings of the empty middleway. Neither affirming or denying the real (Ch. shih) or the phenomenal(hsiang), the meditator in the Tendai tantric tradition is taught to burnaway and empty all images . . . until nothing, not even the ashes ofthe Goma Fire, remains” (p. 244). The Goma fire ceremony incorpo-rates the shikan meditations on various mandala images but ends withtotal detachment as conveyed by the powerful fire metaphor of burn-ing them all to nothingness. The Tendai form of detached contempla-tion, however, is to be understood as an attitude that clearly observesthe images without either affirming or denying their existence/non-existence—thus to stand in the middle way between eternalism andnihilism.

Among the famous Kamakura priests in the Japanese tradition ofshikan aesthetic consciousness discussed by Misaki Gisen is Dògen(1200–1253), the founder of Sòtò Zen Buddhism, who studied thetheory and practice of shikan meditation at Mount Hiei, the centralheadquarters of Tendai Buddhism. Takahashi Masanobu (1983:61–67) has argued that the content of Dògen’s zazen (seated meditation)is essentially that of yûgen, the beauty of hidden depths. Takahashiwrites: “The profound nature of Dògen’s thought finds its ground in acertain characteristic which can be found deep within the psyche ofthe Japanese. It is best expressed by yûgen . . . which implies a quiet,elegant and profound beauty” (pp. 61–62). Dògen’s aesthetic appreci-ation of nature and the original creation of poetry about events innature has been further brought to light by Steven Heine’s importantbooks: A Blade of Grass: Japanese Poetry and Aesthetics in Dògen Zen (1989)and A Dream Within a Dream: Studies in Japanese Thought (1991). Heineagrees with Takahashi’s view that Dògen’s zazen is disclosure of sur-plus aesthetic meaning as yûgen rooted in yojò, overtones of feeling. In


Heine’s words: “Dògen’s emphasis on the reality of unreality seems inaccord with the mysterious plentitude of meanings evoked by theyûgen/yojò poetic ideal” (1989:66). According to Heine, “Dògen’s in-fluence was strongly felt by two key figures, Zeami and Ryòkan, bothnoted for their distinctive interpretations of yûgen. Zeami, the majorplaywright and interpreter of Noh theater, was influenced by Dògenin his approach to aesthetics as the fulfillment of yûgen, that is, thesubjective attainment of purity and tranquility by both actor andaudience engaged in the play’s performance” (pp. 23–24). Heine citesthe research of Nishio Minoru to directly connect Dògen’s key con-cept of genjòkòan or “manifestation of the koan” (presence of things asthey are) to Zeami’s ideal beauty as yûgen, “mysterious depths,” in thenò drama. Heine states: “Nishio Minoru traces a conceptual threadlinking Dògen’s notion of genjòkòan as spontaneous here-and-nowrealization with Zeami’s view of yûgen” (p. 24). Furthermore, Heinedevelops the medieval yûgen poetics of hidden depth implicit inDògen’s writings against the background of Tendai shikan practice:“Medieval poetry in particular is characterized by a sense of ‘depth’(fukami) in pursuit of art as a ‘way’ (michi). . . . Frequently derived fromthe Tendai meditative practice of cessation-contemplation (shikan),poetry refines, purifies and uplifts various emotional responses to theworld of form” (p. 6).

It can be said that Dògen’s metaphysics of Buddha nature and phe-nomenology of zazen are filled with the Japanese aesthetic sensibilityof the late Heian/early Kamakura period from which it emerged.Dògen’s notion of impermanence-Buddha-nature (mujò busshò) in theflux of being-time (uji) reflects the aesthetic of perishability expressedby the ideal of mono no aware, the “sad beauty of things,” just as hisnotion of “presence of things as they are” (genjòkòan) reflects the aes-thetic ideal of yûgen, hidden depths. This can be seen clearly throughthe standardized poetic imagery that Dògen uses to articulate his con-cepts—when he invokes images of the moon on the water to describethe mystery and depth of events of genjòkòan, for instance, or imagesof the passing seasons to depict the transitoriness of events in theimpermanence of being-time. An example of Dògen’s original wakapoetry manifesting the mysterious beauty of yûgen in nature using thecodified image of the the full moon in the twilight darkness of anautumn evening is translated by Heine (1991:68) as follows:

Mata minto Just when my longing to seeOmoishi toki no The moon over Kyoto


Aki dani mo One last time grows deepest,Koyoi no tsuki ni The moon I behold this autumn nightNerare yawa suru Leaves me sleepless for its beauty.

Furthermore, Dògen’s metaphysics of Buddha nature is rooted inzazen practices related to Tendai exercises of shikan meditation and isthus to be understood as an expression of what Misaki Gisen terms“shikan aesthetic consciousness.” As we shall see, for Dògen this Tendaishikan (tranquility-insight) practice would be reformulated in termsof his shikantaza (sitting-only) form of zazen as propounded in theSòtò Zen sect of Japanese Buddhism. For Dògen, the sitting-onlypractice of zazen is “ ‘thinking’ (shiryò) of ‘not-thinking’ (fushiryò) by‘without-thinking’ (hishiryò).” According to the phenomenologicalframework to be articulated later in this book, a description of themysterious beauty of yûgen manifested by impermanence-Buddha-nature in being-time as genjòkòan, or presence of things as they are, atthe noematic (content) pole must be accompanied by a description ofthe noetic (act) pole, the mental attitude by which the former is itselfconstituted. For Dògen, as we shall see, the mysterious beauty of yûgenrepresented by “presencing of things as they are” (genjòkòan) at thenoematic pole corresponds to the noetic attitude of “without-thinking”(hishiryò): the neutralized state of meditative equipoise detached fromall positive and negative mental judgements.

Riken no ken in Zeami’s Nò Theory

Theoretical foundations for the aesthetics of nò theater were establishedby the actor, playwright, and critic Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443).The main artistic ideals established by Zeami were those of hana andyûgen. Hana, or “flower,” refers to the freshness and vitality of an actorwho can make the audience see an otherwise familiar role as if for thefirst time. Yûgen refers to the ethereal beauty of “grace,” “elegance,”“hidden depth,” and “mysterious darkness.” As most popular Englishintroductions to Zeami’s aesthetics point out, the ineffable mystery ofyûgen is the fundamental aesthetic quality of a nò play. What is neg-lected by most studies, however, is the mental attitude required on thepart of both actor and spectator as a precondition for experiencing theaesthetic quality of yûgen. Yet the major theorists of nò drama, includ-ing Zeami and his son-in-law Zenchiku (b. 1405), clearly formulatedwhat in modern Western philosophy would be called an aesthetic atti-tude theory of art and beauty. The atmospheric beauty of yûgen is con-


stituted not only by what is seen but how it is seen. This is indicatedby Ueda Makoto when he writes:

In the 15th century, calm resignation came into greater prominence among the components of yûgen. Prolonged social unrest and the influence of Zen Buddhism may have contributed to this change in emphasis. Two main exponents of yûgen in this last phase were Shinkei (1406–75), Shotetsu’s student and an expert renga poet, and Komparu Zenchiku (1405–70?), Zeami’s son-in-law and a Noh theoretician. Shinkei felt that yûgen lay not in visible shape or color but in the beholder’s attitude, and he encouraged poets to perceive supreme beauty in such monochromatic subjects as pampas grass on a withered moor or a waning moon in the dawning sky. Zenchiku went even further and claimed that the sun, the moon, the seas, trees, and grass all displayed yûgen. He thought that when an attitude of calm acceptance was manifested in art it took the form of yûgen and exuded tranquil beauty. [1983:355; italics added]

As noted by Ueda, the aesthetic attitude in the nò theory of Zenchikuis more radical than that of Shinkei. For the poetics of Shinkei, as forthe nò theory of Zenchiku, the tranquil beauty of yûgen requires anaesthetic attitude—what Ueda calls a beholder’s attitude of calm accep-tance. While for Shinkei the beauty of yûgen lies in the beholder’s atti-tude, certain properties in aesthetic objects elicit this attitude—forinstance, monochromatic themes like grass on a withered moor or afull moon at twilight. For Zenchiku, by contrast, any object whatsovercan manifest the beauty of yûgen when perceived with an aesthetic atti-tude of calm resignation. Nonetheless, both versions constitute an aes-thetic attitude theory which asserts that the experience of etherealbeauty as yûgen lies in the beholder’s attitude, while at the same timespecifying that this attitude is one of calm resignation, tranquility,and serene detachment.

Richard B. Pilgrim’s Buddhism and the Arts of Japan describes howtraditional Zen-influenced Japanese arts seek to discover and manifestthe “essence” (hon’i) of phenomena while further explaining how theBuddhist categories of nothingness (mu) or emptiness (kû) have beenused to denote that essence one seeks to express via the aesthetic mode(1981:46–47). Yet Pilgrim goes on to clarify that the Zen Buddhistdimension of Japanese art is seen in the turn from an emphasis onthe essence of aesthetic phenomena in their emptiness/suchness to themental attitude of the artist beholding those phenomena:

One indication of the deepening Buddhist and Zen influence on these ideals after the Heian Period is that the understanding of the deepest


spiritual attainment of the artist shifts from the discovery of the essences in things more directly to the quality of mind/spirit of the artist himself. A good example is Zeami’s notion that the underlying spiritual power of the true master’s kokoro (mind/spirit/heart) includes, but is not defined by, the Buddhist experience of no-mind (mushin). [p. 47]

As Pilgrim further explicates, the mushin or no-mind of Zen Buddhism,understood as a heightened mental state devoid of ego and empty ofall thought, has been explained by D. T. Suzuki and others as thepoint where all arts merge into Zen. Moreover, in the tradition of Zenaesthetics the state of mushin has come to designate a contemplativeattitude of calmness, tranquility, and spiritual detachment wherebythe emptiness/suchness of phenomena comes to manifestation. Pilgrimasserts that in the Zen-influenced arts of Japan the word “mushin”signifies “the unconscious, non-attached, spontaneous mind” (p. 46).Again: “Mushin in the arts is closely related to the tranquil, detachedbut aware mind” (p. 47). In Japanese Buddhist arts like the nò drama,then, the aesthetic experience of yûgen or profound beauty, whereinethereal phenomena are viewed in their bottomless depths as standingagainst the spatial background of nothingness, requires that the artistcultivates a calm and tranquil attitude of contemplative detachmentas signified by the Zen state of mushin: no-mind.

In Zeami’s nò theory, the aesthetic attitude of disinterested contem-plation required in all phases of artistic experience is explicitly andsystematically formulated in terms of his doctrine of riken no ken: “theseeing of detached perception.” Since the kanji character for “ri” alsosignifies “distance,” one might alternatively translate the word “riken”as “perception at a distance” and “riken no ken” as “the seeing ofperception at a distance.” Understood as “perception at a distance,”Zeami’s principle of riken clearly indicates how in nò and other Bud-dhist arts of Japan the cultivation of a disinterested mental attitude ofartistic detachment itself requires a psychological act of insertingpsychic distance into an event—and that transformation by distanceis thus an essential factor in attaining enlightenment through thearts. Zeami establishes the phrase “riken no ken” as a technical term indi-cating that the mental attitude of artistic detachment must be culti-vated by both the actors and the spectators of a nò drama as well as theplaywright. The concept of riken no ken is regarded by Japanese scholarsof nò theater as one of the most profound and original contributions ofZeami to aesthetics in general and the dramatic arts in particular. Japa-nese scholars like Nose Asaji, Nishi Minoru, and Omote Akira have


all offered a comprehensive explanation of the term. In her illumi-nating study titled “Riken no ken: Zeami’s Theory of Acting and The-atrical Appreciation” (1987), Yusa Michiko states: “Zeami developedhis insight into the nature of riken no ken . . . into a principle governingthe mental attitude that the actor should cultivate in order to becomea true master of his art” (p. 333).

Zeami developed his principle of riken no ken in several treatises in-cluding Kakyo, Yugaku Shudo Fuken, Kyui, Goi, and Rikugi. He intro-duced the principle for the first time in his treatise titled Shikado,written in 1420. Thus Zeami’s aesthetic attitude theory based on theprinciple of riken no ken was formulated centuries before the Coper-nican Revolution in Western aesthetics established by Kant’s Critiqueof Judgement (1790), wherein perception of beauty is now understoodto require a mental attitude of disinterested contemplation. Zeamican therefore be regarded as having formulated one of the earliest fullyexplicit and systematic theories of artistic detachment in the historyof aesthetics. In his various treatises Zeami articulates different aspectsof riken no ken so that according to the context it signifies the detachedcontemplation of spectators in the audience during a nò play (Shikado,Goi, Yugaku Shudo Fuken, and Kyui), the detached contemplation ofthe nò actor that encompasses the awareness of the audience (Kakyo),and the detachment of aesthetic consciousness in general (Rikugi).With his theory of riken no ken Zeami thus clarifies that the aestheticattitude is to be defined by a detached mode of perception operatingin artistic production and appreciation as well as in the act of dramaticperformance.

For Zeami, aesthetic experience must be analyzed not only in termsof its quality of yûgen, or profound beauty, but also in terms of its cor-responding mental attitude of riken no ken. That is to say, the artisticdetachment of riken no ken is the mental attitude on the side of the sub-ject that opens up and brings into appearance the aesthetic quality ofyûgen on the side of the object. In an important sense the beauty ofyûgen can therefore be described as a function of riken no ken. Thethesis here is that the pervasive aesthetic quality of yûgen is constitutednot only by what is seen but by how it is seen. In terms of the “act/content” (noesis/noema) distinction of modern phenomenological dis-course: if yûgen forms the “content” (noema) of aesthetic experience, thenriken no ken is the “act” (noesis) of consciousness by which it is consti-tuted. Hence there is always a direct correlation in aesthetic experiencebetween the perception of profound beauty (yûgen) at the noematic


pole and the mental attitude of detached contemplation (riken no ken)at the noetic pole.

Zeami clearly distinguishes between the “detached perception” ofriken no ken and the “ego perception” of gaken. In her study on Zeami’sdoctrine of riken no ken, Yusa Michiko writes:

The contrast he [Zeami] makes between riken no ken and gaken, literally “ego-perception,” is illuminating. If riken no ken is an “objective, self-less, and ‘detached’ mode of seeing,” gaken is a “subjective, self-centered, and ‘attached’ mode of seeing.” [1987:335]

According to Zeami, the actor of a nò play can unfold the graceful per-fection of hana (flower) and communicate the subtle beauty of yûgen(ineffable mystery) only upon making a radical shift from the subjec-tive, self-centered, and attached mode of seeing represented by gakento that of the objective, selfless, and detached mode of seeing desig-nated by riken no ken. Likewise, the audience can behold the myste-rious and enchanting atmosphere of yûgen created by the actors of a nòplay only by making a similar shift away from the “ego perception” ofgaken to the “detached perception” of riken no ken. Moreover, the actorof a nò play must also be aware of his appearance in the eyes of theaudience. If the audience is yin (negative), the actor must be yang (posi-tive); if the audience is yang, the actor must be yin—thereby forminga single body of theatrical experience. For this reason the riken no kenof the actor must fully encompass the riken no ken of the audience. AsZeami says in Kakyo:

Your appearance as seen by the audience forms for you your detached per-ception (riken). What your own eyes see is your self-centered perception (gaken) and not the seeing of detached perception (riken no ken). When you exercise your riken no ken, you are of one mind with your audience. [Cited in Yusa 1987:334]

Ultimately it is the shift away from the personal standpoint of gakenor “ego perception” to the transpersonal standpoint of riken no ken or“the seeing of detached perception,” which enables both actor andaudience to fuse together into an undivided aesthetic continuum ofheightened artistic awareness. The objective, selfless, and detachedperception of riken no ken is therefore a nondual experience that inte-grates the perspectives of subject (shite, the actor) and object (kensho,the audience) in a complete interpenetration of performer and specta-tor. In this way the actor and the audience together form a single unit


of theatrical experience. This in turn has important implications forthe concept of yûgen as the basic principle of beauty in the nò theater.Since the universal standpoint of riken no ken brings about a totalinterfusion of actor and audience, the beauty of yûgen cannot belocated either exclusively in the subject or exclusively in the object,either in the performers or the spectators, but instead permeates thewhole theatrical event through evocation of atmospheric beauty as itspervasive aesthetic quality.

Zeami’s theory of aesthetic experience, including both his idea ofmysterious beauty as yûgen and the corresponding mental attitude ofriken no ken, must ultimately be understood in the context of itsBuddhist foundations. While many scholars have established the Bud-dhist dimensions of Zeami’s nò drama in a general way, Yusa Michikospecifically clarifies the relationships between the Zen Buddhist satori-mind and the aesthetic attitude of riken no ken. As Yusa notes, in Kyui(ca. 1428) Zeami develops a scale of nine grades or ranks (i) of nòplays and the skills of the nò actor modeled after the Zen hierarchy ofdegrees of enlightenment. The highest level of art is “the art of thewondrous flower” (myòkafu), identified as the ultimate stage of rikenno ken: “the seeing of detached perception.” Describing this highestrank of art in Zenlike terms, Zeami asserts: “His art moves no-mind(mushin no kan), that is, [the audience’s] riken [aesthetic perception] ofthe art of ‘rankless rank’ (mui no ifu), and it is indeed the inexpressible‘wondrous flower’ ” (cited in Yusa 1987:338). In Yugaku Shudo Fuken(ca. 1424), Zeami connects his notion of riken no ken to the Buddhistnotion of “emptiness” (kû) and “no-mind” or “empty mind” (mushin),thus relating the epistemology of nò theater with Zen Buddhist intui-tion (p. 333). Yusa points out that the shift from the egocentric per-ception of gaken to the objective, selfless, and detached perception ofriken no ken is in fact identical with the “aesthetic satori-mind” of ZenBuddhism (p. 341).

Seen in the Japanese Buddhist context of its theoretical and practi-cal foundations, Zeami’s doctrine of riken no ken may be understood asone of the historical culminations of Tendai “shikan aesthetic conscious-ness” (shikanteki biishiki) underlying Kamakura-period waka poetics.Just as the ethereal beauty of yûgen was said to presuppose “shikan aes-thetic consciousness” in the waka poetics of Shunzei and Teika, so inZeami’s theory of nò drama the aesthetic experience of yûgen requiresthe psychic distance or detached seeing of riken no ken. While Kama-kura waka poetics was rooted in the Tendai meditation exercise calledshikan—“tranquility and insight,” the practice of detached contem-


plation beyond sympathy and antipathy—Zeami’s theory of nò dramawas also profoundly influenced by Zen theory and practice. His Zen-oriented doctrine of riken no ken, like the Tendai “shikan aesthetic con-sciousness” of waka poetics, holds that an experience of yûgen involvesa shift from ego perception to the selfless, tranquil, and detached con-templation of phenomena in their emptiness/suchness. Like the shikanaesthetic consciousness of waka poetics, the riken no ken of Zeami’s nòtheater is systematically developed through methods of self-cultivation(shugyo) with the final aim of achieving enlightenment, satori, in anepiphany of depth. It is this realization of beauty as yûgen through thethe cultivation of riken no ken, resulting in the aesthetic satori-mindof Zen enlightenment, that ultimately establishes Zeami’s nò theateras a major paradigm of geidò: the “tao of art” in traditional JapaneseBuddhist culture.

The Aesthetics of Discontent

It can now be seen how the medieval Japanese aesthetic of yûgen, pro-found depth, itself corresponds to a mental state of calm detachment.The aesthetic experience of yûgen as contemplated through the TendaiBuddhist meditation practice of tranquility and insight (shikan) issummed up in Misaki Gisen’s (1972:10) phrase: “shikan aesthetic con-sciousness” (shikanteki biishiki). The waka poetics of Shunzei, Chòmei,and Teika introduced the aesthetic ideal of yûgen (profound mystery),which added a new dimension of depth to the emotional and lyricalHeian aesthetic ideal of aware (pathos). Zeami’s nò drama theory fur-ther develops this medieval Buddhist literary ideal of yûgen groundedin riken no ken, “the seeing of detached perception.”

In The Aesthetics of Discontent: Politics and Reclusion in Medieval Japa-nese Literature (1991) Michele Marra formulates an ideology critiqueof aesthetic detachment in medieval Japanese literature and Westernorientalist studies of Japan based on the Kantian framework. As suchit provides an opportunity to critically examine the subject of artisticdetachment in Japanese aesthetics from a different perspective. Accord-ing to Marra, the Buddhist literary arts of medieval Japan represent a“literature of reclusion” (inja bungaku) written by poet recluses whowere “Buddhist apostles of detachment” (1991:98). The new Bud-dhist aesthetic values of miyabi (gracefulness, courtliness) and fûryû/fûga (windblown elegance) were likewise rooted in detachment. Fur-thermore, they have a hidden political agenda of developing a counter-ideology to the established power structure: “The moral and aesthetic


values of the aristocracy are rejected in light of their inadequacy toconform to the Buddhist rule of detachment” (p. 9). The literature ofreclusion underscores the aesthetic code of miyabi (courtliness), thebasic characteristic of which is “a desire to withdraw from the world”(p. 11). Again, miyabi is based on “a framework of detachment andreclusion” (p. 53). And the literature of reclusion is rooted in theshikan practice of Tendai Buddhism. In Marra’s words, the literatureof reclusion is “an anticourt aesthetic based on the tenets of the Mo-hoChih-küan (Great Concentration and Insight), a systematization of thedoctrines of the T’ien-t’ai school of Chinese Buddhism. This trenddevelops the theme of withdrawal already present in the aesthetics ofmiyabi, giving it a newer and deeper meaning” (p. 11). And else-where: “This new aesthetic was shaped by the values of these recluses,known in Japan as inja or tonseisha, who lived according to the prin-ciples of the Mo-ho Chih-küan (J. Maha-shikan, ‘Great Concentrationand Insight’)—a seminal work of the Tendai sect by the Chinese monkChih-i (538–597) imported to Japan at the beginning of the Heianera” (p. 59). This text is described as emphasizing the value of renun-ciation: withdrawing from society in order to “minimize attachmentto the world” (p. 59).

Yet there is a paradox here in that “the enlightened recluse emergesas one who lives in constant awareness of the unsolvable contradictionexisting between his attachment to a life of reclusion and the total,spiritual detachment which must be the target of reclusion itself”(1991:70). Marra mentions Chòmei: “Despite his statements to thecontrary—‘like a drifting cloud I rely on none and have no attach-ments’—Chòmei realizes that his own hut may be ‘in some sort a sin,and my attachment to this solitary life may be a hindrance to enlight-enment’ ” (p. 92). The Buddhist monk Kenkò (ca. 1280–1352) resur-rected the views on miyabi expresssed by dissatisfied courtiers of theHeian period and applied this model political center in an effort toreestablish the realm of aesthetics within the world of political power.Kenkò’s ideal gentleman is one whose inner detachment from worldlyconcerns allowed him to find a spiritual balance in a life inevitablymarred by social defilements (pp. 127–128). Kenkò emphasizes detach-ment through awareness of mujò (impermanence): “In order to reach astate of total detachment people must realize that death is unpredict-able” (p. 141). Marra states that “Kenkò’s holy men were paradigmsof singlemindedness and perfect spiritual detachment” (p. 143). Inthe tradition of the Mo-ho Chih-küan, “Kenkò upholds an ideal life ofreclusion spent in the pursuit of a quiet mental state” (p. 145).


At the very outset Marra points out that Japanese literature hasoften been approached through a Kantian framework which assumesthat literature is an “autonomous” discipline shaped by its own rules(1991:1). This emphasis on the autonomy of literature and art in Kant’sframework is based on the idea of beauty as disinterested pleasure: “Asthe German philosopher put it, the experience of the beautiful origi-nates from the ability to represent an object ‘by an entirely disinterestedsatisfaction or dissatisfaction’ ” (p. 1). Marra says that the developmentof modern aesthetics as an autonomous sphere has brought about thetendency of decontextualizing, depragmatizing, and depoliticizing theliterary text (p. 1). Upon introducing Japanese classics to the West,scholars have inevitably been guided by the aesthetic presuppositionsof Kant’s philosophy. This tendency was reinforced by the contempo-raneous development of the nativist theories of Mootori Norinaga(1730–1801), which similarly grant the literary text a privileged statusoutside history and politics (p. 3).

Marra takes as his starting point Foucault’s ideology critique ofpower relations: “Given Michel Foucault’s assumption of the centralityof power in the working of history, we realize that no human discoursecan ground itself outside the ideological process” (p. 7). Marra thusstates his intention to repoliticize Japanese literary texts through anaesthetics of power which shows how political discontent was oftendisplaced into the realm of aesthetics, literature, and culture. Despitehis disclaimer that his path of “ideology analysis” in the interpretationof Japanese literary texts “is not intended to reduce literature to ideol-ogy” (p. 12), the end result is just that: complete reductionism ofpoetry into ideology, of aesthetics into politics, of literary art into powerrelations. It is because of this problem that Kant set aesthetics in anautonomous sphere. When is there a moment for the contemplationof beauty in and of itself without ideological power relations of coer-cion, dominance, or authority exerted by corrupt political systems?Marra never quotes a poem unless it seems to reveal some hiddenmotive of political revenge. The Kantian view is that one takes greatpleasure in the detached contemplation of beauty for its own sake.There are many recluses who chose solitude, not for religious, moral,or aesthetic reasons, but because they were forced into exile by politicalpressures. But here the emphasis is on the psychological, the phenom-enological, the radically empirical content of aesthetic experiencewhereby the beauty of yûgen and its variants like wabi or sabi are rootedin an act of detachment—thus shifting from sedimented focal actual-ities in the foreground focus of attention to the spatial horizon of


hidden depths in the background field. As detachment from habitand convention, it means the reconstitution of the perceptual fieldthrough free variation in imagination in an open possibility searchresulting in variety, multiplicity, and plurality in the novel recreationof landscapes.

Thus while the ideological critique of artistic detachment in Japa-nese literature adds a significant dimension to the theme, it is a greaterror to reduce aesthetic experience through psychic distance to polit-ical motivations apart from the spiritual and artistic impulses in whichappreciation of beauty through tranquil contemplation is ultimatelyrooted. Although the ideology critique represents an important andeven indispensable approach to literary criticism, the vital function ofliterature is presentation of epiphanies, moments of illumination, theliterary equivalent of spiritual enlightenment or disclosure of eventsthrough cultivation of an aesthetic attitude of detached observation,emotional sympathy, and free play of creative imagination. In the caseof Japanese tradition, literature aims to manifest the beauty of yûgen,profound mystery, as an “epiphany of depth” triggered by shikan asdisinterested contemplation of events in their emptiness/suchness.

Marra is arguing that the medieval Japanese aesthetics of yûgen,based on the mental attitude of detached contemplation, has beenmisrepresented by the Western orientalist approach that assimilatesotherness by projecting its own image—in this case, the Kantian doc-trine of beauty as disinterested pleasure. But the reader of this bookhas already been presented with the history of Kantian aesthetics ofdisinterested beauty and is not so easily mislead. What Marra presentsas the “Kantian” view is (as Heidegger has argued) Schopenhauer’smisinterpretation of Kant. For Marra, the Japanese yûgen ideal of beautygrounded in detached contemplation is a literature of reclusion, with-drawal, rejection, and isolation. In other words: the Japanese ideal ofbeauty as yûgen and its correlate aesthetic attitude of shikan aestheticconsciousness represents the Western orientalist “Kantian” view ofnihilism, pessimism, voidism, negationism. Yet as even Heideggerhimself has argued, the Kantian view is not Schopenhauer’s pessimisticdoctrine of nihilism but the reverse: an ecstatic affirmation of phe-nomena just as they are for their own sake. Despite the great eruditionof Marra’s work, I am suggesting that the medieval Japanese ideal ofbeauty as yûgen, and its corresponding aesthetic attitude of detachment,is not an “aesthetics of reclusion.” It is an aesthetics of ecstasy, rap-ture, and delight of events observed through disinterested contempla-


tion of beauty, which affirms the intrinsic value of things just they arein the hidden depths of their emptiness/suchness.

Modern Japanese Aesthetics

We now turn to an account of artistic detachment in twentieth-century Japanese aesthetics as articulated by modern Japanese philos-ophers affiliated with the Kyoto school, including Nishida Kitarò,Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, D. T. Suzuki, Nishitani Keiji, and Kuki Shûzò.To begin with, I adumbrate the Kyoto school Zen Buddhist meta-physics of “emptiness” (kû), or “nothingness” (mu), and its underlyingBuddhist psychology of nonattachment (mushûjaku). Kyoto schoolphilosophers like Nishitani Keiji articulate a threefold dialectical Zenlogic of emptiness that moves from “being” (u) to “relative nothing-ness” (sòtaiteki mu) to “absolute nothingness” (zettai mu), which in turncorresponds to a sliding scale of degrees of attachment and nonattach-ment. While the eternalistic standpoint of being is characterized byattachment to the separate ego and substantial objects, and the nihil-istic standpoint of relative nothingness is characterized by attachmentto nothingness itself, the middle way of absolute nothingness is char-acterized by a mental attitude of total nonattachment that affirmsthings in their concrete particularity without clinging to either beingor nonbeing, existence or nonexistence, form or emptiness, presenceor absence. In the East/West Christian-Buddhist interfaith dialogueof the Kyoto school, just as in traditional Zen Buddhism, it is through“nonattachment” (J. mushûjaku) that the self is emptied into the locusof absolute nothingness; so in the via negativa apophatic Christianmysticism of Meister Eckhart, it is through the kenotic act of “de-tachment” (Ger. Abgeschiedenheit) that the self is emptied into the god-head of nothingness. Moreover the Kyoto school philosophers articu-late a Zen Buddhist aesthetics whereby through the discipline ofartistic detachment one is released into the field of absolute nothing-ness as the boundless openness wherein emptiness is fullness and full-ness is emptiness and all things presence just as they are in the beautyof suchness.

In this section I endeavor to show how various Zen thinkers relatedto the Kyoto school of modern Japanese philosophy, including NishidaKitarò, D. T. Suzuki, Nishitani Keiji, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, KukiShûzò, and various others, have developed an aesthetic attitude theoryof artistic detachment as a precondition for the experience of beauty


in art and nature. Nishida Kitarò’s “An Explanation of Beauty” (“Bino setsumei,” 1900) argues that the Japanese sense of beauty is rootedin a mental state of muga as no-self, non-ego, or ecstasy. D. T. Suzuki’sZen and Japanese Culture, first published in 1938, clarifies how Zensatori, or sudden enlightenment—as well as its diverse cultural mani-festations in the Zen-influenced arts of Japanese culture ranging fromthe military art of swordsmanship to the fine arts of painting, poetry,drama, and tea—are rooted in the Zen state of mushin, understood as atranquil, clear, unconscious, and nonattached state of no-mind-ness orempty-mind-ness, functioning as the ultimate source for both thecreation and enjoyment of beauty. Hisamatsu Shin’ichi’s Zen and theFine Arts (Zen to bijutsu, 1971) analyzes the Japanese sense of beauty interms of the psychological state of artistic detachment cultivated byZen Buddhist modes of contemplation. He describes this psychologicalstate of the subject of absolute nothingness in terms of muga or “no-self,” like Nishida Kitarò, as well as mushin or “no-mind” like D. T.Suzuki. He further characterizes this psychological state through theaesthetic attitude of “disinterestedness” (mukanshin). According toHisamatsu’s analysis of the Japanese sense of beauty, Zen-influencedworks of art produced from the disinterested state of no-self (muga) orno-mind (mushin) or no-thought (munen) springing from the subjectof absolute nothingness embody the peaceful quality of “detach-ment” (datsuzoku). Kuki Shûzò’s The Structure of Iki (Iki no kòzò, 1930)develops an Eastern variant of decadent aestheticism which argues thatthe Edo-period ideal of beauty as iki or “chic” involves enjoyment ofsexual feeling and other sensual pleasures through cultivation of a ZenBuddhist mental attitude of akirame, “detached resignation.” In thisway the Kyoto school philosophers have worked out a Zen-influencedtheory of aesthetic experience that underscores the mental attitude ofcontemplative detachment required for the apprehension of beauty inart and nature.

A striking feature of modern Japanese aesthetics is the formulationof various East-West models of artistic detachment based on a creativesynthesis of traditional Zen Buddhist notions of aesthetic distancewith Kantian theories of beauty as disinterested delight. “An Expla-nation of Beauty” (“Bi no setsumei,” 1900) by Nishida Kitarò relatesKant’s idea of beauty as pleasure that is “disinterested” (Ger. interesselos)to the Japanese sense of beauty as muga, no-self. In Zen and the Fine Arts,Hisamatsu Shin’ichi analyzes traditional Zen art in the yûgen style fromthe standpoint of Nishida’s metaphysics of absolute nothingness. ForHisamatsu there is a similarity between the imaginative free play (Ger.


spielen) and disinterested (Ger. interesselos) character of art in the Kantiantradition of German transcendental idealism and the quality of play-fulness (J. asobi) and disinterestedness (J. mukanshin) in the Zen/ChanBuddhist art of Japan and China. Moreover, he enumerates his famousseven characteristics of Zen aesthetics in which “detachment” (J. datsu-zoku) is a general trait of literature and art embodying the profoundmystery of yûgen. The Structure of Iki by Kuki Shûzò analyzes the Edo-period aesthetic ideal of iki or “chic” as a synthesis of three culturalelements: the “eroticism” (bitai) of a geisha; the “spiritedness” (ikuji)of a samurai; and the “detached resignation” (akirame) of a Buddhistpriest. Kuki’s analysis of iki is influenced by the French tradition ofdecadent aestheticism, which has its philosophical roots in Kant’stheory of beauty as a function of disinterested aesthetic contemplation.When Kuki’s analysis of the Japanese sense of beauty is viewed fromthe perspective of French decadent aestheticism as developed by Bau-delaire and d’Aurevilly, then iki is equivalent to chic, just as bitaicorresponds to coquetterie (coquettishness), ikuji to vanité (pridefulness),and akirame to the Kantian attitude of désintéressement (disinterested-ness). Hence in contrast to Kyoto school thinkers like Nishida, Hisa-matsu, and Suzuki, who articulate a more traditional Japanese Buddhistaesthetics of reclusion typified by the Zen priest in the isolation ofnature or the solitude of the monastery, Kuki instead works out a deca-dent aesthetics of Edo-period bordello culture exemplified by theamorous geisha in the “floating world” that flourished in the sprawl-ing red light Yoshiwara pleasure quarter of the city.

In chapter 5 we will consider East-West models of artistic detach-ment forged by the two giants of Meiji-period literature in Japan: MoriÒgai and Natsume Sòseki. First I discuss the Eastern “philosophy ofresignation” underlying the creative fiction of Mori Ògai, a versatileMeiji-period genius who built a double career as a novelist and anarmy medical officer at the highest rank of surgeon general. In hisnovels, novellas, short stories, and literary essays, Ògai develops hisphilosophical theme of resignation (J. teinen, akirame) through animpersonal narrative style written from the indifferent authorial per-spective of a disinterested “onlooker” (bòkansha) who can step back andview events from a contemplative aesthetic attitude of cool detach-ment, aloofness, and equanimity. Finally I present the remarkabletheory of psychic distance formulated by Natsume Sòseki in his haiku-novel Grass Pillow (Kusamakura), which depicts the mysterious beautyof yûgen as apprehended through the dehumanized aesthetic attitudeof hininjò, “detachment from human emotions.” Both Ògai and Sòseki,


as we shall see, elucidate their respective concepts of aesthetic distancethrough the fundamental conflict between artistic detachment versusemotional sympathy as well as the basic problem of overdistancing tothe point of dehumanization. Thus I will be examining the Japanesesense of beauty as a function of artistic detachment in classical andmodern thought as articulated from a multitude of diverse perspec-tives in both the philosophical and literary traditions of Japaneseaesthetics.

Here I want to undertake an inquiry into the aesthetic attitude ofdisinterested contemplation, artistic detachment, or psychic distanceas it developed in the Zen tradition of modern Japanese philosophy.An extensive body of writings on the nature of art and beauty hasdeveloped in Japan since the Heian period in the fields of poetry anddrama and, to a lesser extent, in painting, calligraphy, ceramics, music,the tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and landscape gardening. Butas Ueda Makoto (1983:18–19) has observed, aesthetics as a distinctivebranch of philosophical study, with its own clearly defined principles,methods, and subject matter, was first introduced to Japan from theWest by Nishi Amane (1829–1897), Mori Ògai (1862–1922), andothers during the early Meiji period. The modern Japanese term for“aesthetics,” bigaku or the “study of beauty,” was coined by NakaeChomin (1847–1901) around 1883. Early Japanese specialists in thefield of bigaku were all students of Western, especially German, aes-thetics who paid little attention to their own native Japanese tradi-tion. This trend began to change only when philosophical studies oftraditional and premodern Japanese aesthetics emerged: The Structureof Iki (Iki no kòzò, 1930) by Kuki Shûzò (1888–1941), for example,and Yûgen and Aware (Yûgen to aware, 1939) by Ònishi Yoshinori(1888–1959). At present there is still a gap between academic aesthe-ticians who are mainly interested in defining the nature of beautythrough Western methods and professional critics who try to appraiseworks of art in accord with traditional Japanese criteria. Hence UedaMakoto remarks: “A synthesis of Japanese and Western aesthetics stillremains the ultimate challenge for both these groups” (1983:19).

Although a comprehensive synthesis of Japanese and Western aes-thetics has yet to be worked out in a systematic fashion, the modernJapanese writers considered here did develop an East-West compara-tive orientation to the field of aesthetics. Modern Japanese thoughtgrew out of the Meiji Restoration period (1868–1912), during whichtime Japan opened up to outside influences and began to assimilate


Western ideals, norms, and values. The philosophy of Nishida Kitarò(1870–1945), Japan’s foremost speculative thinker, arose during thelate Meiji period and reflects this general effort of Meiji intellectualsto synthesize Western and Japanese concepts. Nishida’s works havesince inspired a virtual renaissance of speculative thought in what hascome to be known as the “Kyoto school” of modern Japanese philos-ophy, which includes such luminaries as Tanabe Hajime, NishitaniKeiji, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, Takeuchi Yoshinori, Ueda Shizuteru, andAbe Masao, along with others who are in various ways closely relatedto the school like Watsuji Tetsurò, Kuki Shûzò, and D. T. Suzuki.

In general the writings of Nishida Kitarò and the Kyoto school ofmodern Japanese philosophy are characterized by East-West compara-tive philosophy and Buddhist-Christian interfaith dialogue articulatedwithin the framework of a traditional Japanese Buddhist metaphysicsof “emptiness” (kû) or “nothingness” (mu). According to the Kyotoschool’s Zen metaphysics of nothingness and its underlying Buddhistpsychology of detachment, reality is to be analyzed at three levels:“being” (u)—the level of attachment to the Cartesian subject and theexternal world of material objects; “relative nothingness” (sòtaiteki mu)—the level of “nihility” (kyomu), which breaks attachments to the egoand material things by emptying them into a void of nonbeing andyet retains a subtle attachment to nothingness itself; and “absolutenothingness” (zettai mu) or “emptiness” (kû)—the level of complete“nonattachment” (mushûjaku) to both being and nonbeing. Whileattachment to the Cartesian ego and the dualism of its subject/objectframework results in the problem of eternalism, substantialism, orreificationism, attachment to nothingness results in the opposite prob-lem of nihilism, voidism, or negativism. The breakthrough to absolutenothingness, however, represents complete nonattachment to bothbeing and nonbeing at the middle way of emptiness standing betweenthe extremes of eternalism and nihilism. Through nonattachment oneis released into the boundless openness of absolute nothingness whereemptiness is fullness and fullness is emptiness so that all things cometo presence just as they are in their particular suchness. In both theChristian kenòsis and the Buddhist ùûnyatâ traditions, according to theinterfaith dialogue of Nishida and the Kyoto school, salvation/enlight-enment is a function of nonattachment to the ego achieved by self-emptying to nothingness. Moreover, since the compassionate bodhi-sattva is detached from nothingness he does not cling to nirvana butempties himself into the realm of samsara, just as in the kenòsis hymn


from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (2:5–11) it is said that JesusChrist was not attached to his equality with God but “emptied him-self” into the form of a servant for the sake of others.

Nishitani Keiji provides a lucid description of this Zen logic ofemptiness, which moves from being to relative nothingness to abso-lute nothingness as well as the corresponding psychological degreesof attachment and nonattachment, in Shûkyò to wa nanika (What IsReligion?, 1961), translated into English under the title Religion andNothingness (1982). First he characterizes the level of being as attach-ment to the Cartesian ego-self: “The very existence of this self is markedby a ‘self-attachment’ ” (1982:32; 1961:38). At the level of relativenothingness or nihilizing emptiness, the Cartesian ego is negated andemptied into the void of nonbeing yet now becomes attached to noth-ingness itself: “As long as this nothingness is still set up as somethingcalled nothingness-at-the-bottom-of-the-self, it remains what Bud-dhism repudiates as ‘the emptiness perversely clung to.’ . . . The selfthat sets up this nothingness is thereby bound by it and attached toit. . . . Nothingness may seem here to be a negation of being, but. . . as long as the self is still attached to it—it remains a kind ofbeing, a kind of object” (1982:33; 1961:39). Nishitani describes thelevel of emptiness or absolute nothingness as follows:

Buddhism goes further to speak of “the emptiness of the nihilizing view,” by which it means to stress that “absolute emptiness” in which nihilizing emptiness would itself be emptied. . . . All attachment is negated: both the subject and the way in which “things” appear as objects of attach-ment are emptied. Everything is now truly empty, and this means that all things make themselves present here and now, just as they are, in their original reality. They present themselves in their suchness, their tathatâ. This is non-attachment. [1982:34; 1961:40]

As stated by Nishitani, when all “attachment” (shûjaku) is negated—to subjects, to objects, even to nothingness itself—“this is non-attach-ment” (soshite mushûjaku to iu koto de aru) (1961:40). Thus the stand-point of being is characterized by a self-attachment that results ineternalism, the standpoint of nihilizing emptiness is characterized byattachment to nothingness itself so as to result in annihilationism,but the standpoint of emptiness or absolute nothingness is openedup through a psychological attitude of complete nonattachment. Onsome occasions Nishitani touches upon issues of Zen Buddhist aes-thetics—as, for instance, when he relates the poetics of Bashò to self-negation on the field of emptiness (1982:128–129; 1961:145–146).


But generally speaking, Nishitani describes the realization of absolutenothingness through nonattachment in the context of elaborating aphilosophy of religion. In this context Nishitani develops an East-West interfaith dialogue by articulating the realization of absolutenothingness through nonattachment to ego—both in terms of theZen Buddhist tradition of ùûntatâ (J. kû), or “emptiness of self,” andthe Christian tradition of kenòsis or “self-emptying.” For Nishitani, asfor Nishida Kitarò, Ueda Shizuteru, Abe Masao, and other Kyotoschool philosophers, the Christian kenòsis tradition is exemplified bythe via negativa mysticism of Meister Eckhart whereby, through detach-ment, the self is emptied into the godhead of nothingness. The radi-cal detachment underlying Eckhart’s kenotic theology and via nega-tiva apophatic mysticism is seen as the clearest Christian analogue tothe nonattaching, nonclinging, and noncraving Zen Buddhist spiri-tuality of emptiness in Japan. Like Zen Buddhism the Christian vianegativa mysticism of Eckhart requires complete detachment from allthings—not only from the internal ego and external objects but alsofrom all holy images, symbols, and archetypes, even representations ofJesus, the Cross, the Virgin Mary, the saints, or God himself, and allthe feelings of love, reverence, and joy they inspire, for all must beemptied into the godhead of nothingness beyond God.

Nishitani therefore describes emptiness as “the field of what Bud-dhist teaching calls emancipation, or what Eckhart refers to as Ab-geschiedenheit (‘detachment’)” (1982:106; 1961:120). The kenotic(self-emptying) tradition of via negativa Christian mysticism devel-oped by Meister Eckhart approximates Zen Buddhism not onlythrough its contemplative exercises of self-emptying and its explicitdescription of the godhead in terms of “nothingness” (das Nichts); italso specifies the mental attitude of detachment or Abgeschiedenheit(J. ridatsu; see Nishitani 1961:120) whereby one achieves the break-through to nothingness. Hence according to the East-West encountertheology of Nishitani Keiji, just as in Zen Buddhism it is throughnonattachment (mushûjaku) that the self is emptied into the locus ofabsolute nothingness, so in the via negativa apophatic Christian mys-ticism of Meister Eckhart it is through the kenotic act of detachment(Abgeschiedenheit) that the self is emptied into the godhead beyondGod as the desert of nothingness.

Although leading thinkers related to the Kyoto school have focusedespecially on the philosophy of religion, they have made valuable con-tributions to aesthetics—including “Art and Morality” (“Geijutsu todòtoku,” 1923) and various essays by Nishida Kitarò, Zen and the Fine


Arts (Zen to bijutsu, 1958) by Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, Zen and JapaneseCulture (1988) by D. T. Suzuki, and The Structure of Iki (Iki no kòzò,1930) by Kuki Shûzò. Each of these modern Japanese philosophershas developed a Zen-influenced doctrine of aesthetic experience inwhich the idea of artistic detachment plays a central role. NishidaKitarò, for the first time, explicitly relates Kant’s notion of aestheticdisinterestedness to the Japanese Zen Buddhist sense of beauty. Hisa-matsu Shin’ichi discusses the similarities and differences of Kant’snotion of aesthetic disinterestedness to artistic detachment in JapaneseZen Buddhism and then proceeds to analyze in detail how detach-ment is a fundamental aspect of Zen art. D. T. Suzuki, who introducedZen Buddhism to the West, formulates a notion of artistic detachmentin terms of the Zen doctrine of no-mind (mushin). Kuki Shûzò, whohas written perhaps the most original treatise on Japanese aesthetics,makes Buddhist detachment a key element in his theory. On theWestern side, Kuki is influenced by a tradition of French decadentaestheticism that traces its origins directly back to Kant’s theory ofbeauty as disinterested pleasure. Hence this section focuses on ZenBuddhist theories of artistic detachment produced by seminal thinkersrelated to the Kyoto school of modern Japanese philosophy.

Nishida Kitarò: Beauty as Muga and Aesthetic Disinterestedness

The bottom of my soulIs so deepNeither joyNor the waves of sorrowCan touch it.Can touch it.—waka poem by Nishida Kitarò

Nishida Kitarò (1870–1945) is widely recognized as Japan’s foremostmodern academic philosopher. To give an idea of his prolific literarycareer, the Collected Works of Nishida Kitarò (Nishida Kitarò zenshû; NKZ)amounts to nineteen volumes containing his major philosophicalworks, including A Study of Good (1911), Thought and Experience (1915),Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness (1917), Problems of Conscious-ness (1920), Art and Morality (1923), From the Acting to the Seeing (1927),The Self-Conscious System of the Universal (1930), The Self-Conscious Deter-mination of Nothingness (1932), and Fundamental Problems of Philosophy(1933–1934, two volumes), followed by six more volumes of Philo-sophical Essays produced in the last ten years of his life. Nishida is espe-


cially known for his early Jamesian notion of a “pure experience” (junsuikeiken) free of all subject/object dualism as articulated in A Study ofGood (Zen no kenkyû) as well as his later Buddhist reformulation of thisidea in terms of the “place” (locus, matrix, field) of nothingness asfirst developed in From the Acting to the Seeing (Hataraku mono kara mirumono e). Overall Nishida’s contribution has been to establish a globalsynthesis including an East/West comparative philosophy and Bud-dhist/Christian interfaith dialogue within a Zen framework based onthe master concept of kû (emptiness) or mu (nothingness).

Nishida articulated many of his basic ideas on aesthetics in Artand Morality (Geijutsu to dòtoku). Throughout this work he develops apolemic against the uncritical identification of beauty with selfishhedonic pleasure. In opposition to this view he cites with approvalKant’s doctrine from The Critique of Judgement that judgements of tasteare disinterested. Moreover, Nishida illustrates the disinterested atti-tude by citing a famous verse from the poetry of Goethe. Nishidawrites: “Goethe stated that we delight in the splendor of the stars butwe do not desire them (die Sterne, die begehrt man nicht, man freut sichihrer Pracht). Similarly, beauty since Kant has been thought of as ‘dis-interested’ (interesselos)” (NKZ 3:274). This reference to Kant’s idea ofthe sense of beauty as “disinterested” accords with Nishida’s strongreliance upon a Kantian framework throughout Art and Morality,wherein he endeavors to determine the a priori acts, conditions, orgrounds from which both the creative activity of the artist and themoral decision of the self arise. In this case, Kant’s notion of an act ofaesthetic disinterestedness on the part of the subject is affirmed byNishida as an a priori condition for the possibility of an experience ofbeauty in general.

These ideas expressed in Art and Morality were actually worked outnearly a quarter of a century earlier, however, in Nishida’s “An Expla-nation of Beauty” (“Bi no setsumei,” 1900; NKZ 13:78–80), an essayon aesthetics I have elsewhere translated in full (see Odin 1987).Indeed, “An Explanation of Beauty” was one of Nishida’s first originalphilosophical essays. Written eleven years prior to the publication ofhis maiden work, A Study of Good, it is a blueprint containing an ini-tial formulation of ideas, themes, and problems characteristic of whathas since become known by the honorific title of Nishida tetsugaku(“Nishida philosophy”). After criticizing what he regards as unsatis-factory accounts of aesthetic experience in the Western tradition, hethen analyzes Kant’s idea of artistic detachment in relation to his ownZen Buddhist concept of beauty. Anticipating the arguments of this


terse essay, Nishida holds that the pleasure of beauty in art and naturecannot be the hedonic pleasure described by Burke, nor the stablepleasure of Marshall, but rather is to be understood in terms of thedisinterested pleasure expounded by Kant. Furthermore, it is this Kan-tian notion of beauty as disinterested pleasure that best accords withthe Japanese sense of beauty as muga (selflessness).

Nishida begins his essay with an effort to formulate an adequatedefinition of “beauty” (bi) or, as it were, the “sense of beauty” (bikan):

What is beauty? If we inquire into it from the emotional aspect, the sense of beauty is nothing other than a kind of pleasure. Mainly since Burke, British psychologists have emphasized that beauty is something that gives a sense of pleasure, and that the sense of beauty is identical with selfish pleasure. Although this explanation is also true to a certain extent, as a definition of beauty it still is not adequate. [Odin 1987:215; see also NKZ 13:78]

While Nishida agrees there is a certain truth to the idea that beauty isa kind of “pleasure” (kairaku), he repudiates the notion that it can bea pleasure related to self-interest or, as it were, “selfish pleasure” (shi-yokuteki kairaku). He further criticizes the identification of the senseof beauty with a merely selfish or hedonic kind of pleasure on thegrounds that there are many worldly pleasures which cannot be de-scribed as beautiful or aesthetic. For instance, he asserts, everyonewould agree that no matter how much pleasure things such as fame,wealth, food, and drink give us, we do not at all consider them to beaesthetic pleasures (Odin 1987:215).

Nishida then considers a more sophisticated theory of beauty aspleasure elaborated by the American psychologist H. R. Marshall:

Recently a man named Marshall has written a book titled Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics, which explains in detail the sense of beauty as a kind of pleasure. According to Marshall’s argument, aesthetic pleasure is not limited only to the moment when it is felt, but is enjoyed in the same way when recalled later on. In a word, it is stable pleasure. [Odin 1987:215]

As Nishida points out, for Marshall the differentia of aesthetic experi-ence lies in the relative permanence of pleasure both in impression andin memory—in other words, “stable pleasure” (fuhenteki kairaku).According to this criterion of beauty, hedonic sense pleasures elicitedmerely by gratification of appetite are not aesthetic, since they quicklypass into satiety when the physiological conditions of appetite areremoved. But the beauty of art produces relatively permanent or


stable pleasure that does not pass into satiety and is not diminished asit is gratified. For this reason, Marshall argues that “stable pleasure” isthe special pleasure provided by art and known to us as beauty. WhileNishida agrees there is at least a partial truth to Marshall’s definitionof beauty as stable pleasure, he rejects this idea as a complete explana-tion of aesthetic experience.

In an effort to find a more satisfactory account of the beautiful, henow turns to the explanation developed by the tradition of Germanidealist aesthetics inspired by Kant’s Critique of Judgement, wherein thesense of beauty is defined as consisting in a purely “disinterested plea-sure.” Yet from the standpoint of East-West comparative aesthetics,Nishida’s most significant contribution in this essay is the manner inwhich he then proceeds to reformulate the Kantian sense of beauty asdisinterested pleasure in terms of a key philosophical notion of Japa-nese Zen Buddhism—namely, muga (Skt. anâtman), which can be alter-natively translated in this context as “ecstasy,” “no-self,” “non-ego,”or “selflessness.” Nishida continues:

Then what are the characteristics of the type of pleasure that makes up the sense of beauty? What is the special characteristic of the sense of beauty? According to the explanation of German idealism since Kant, the sense of beauty is pleasure detached from the ego. It is a pleasure of the moment, when one forgets one’s own interest such as advantage and dis-advantage, gain and loss. Only this muga (ecstasy, selflessness) is the essential element of beauty; when this is lacking, no matter what kind of pleasure you feel, it cannot give rise to the sense of beauty. [Odin 1987:216]

He then argues that when one is detached from the world and perceivesall things with an attitude of aesthetic disinterestedness in its sense asmuga, or selflessness, then any object whatsoever can be seen as beau-tiful. He continues:

A great man who is not only aloof from external matters but is also com-pletely divorced from any thought of self-interest reaches the point where everything in life gives a sense of beauty. . . . Therefore, if you want to obtain an authentic sense of beauty, you must confront things in the state of pure muga. [Odin 1987:216]

After defining the sense of beauty as aesthetic disinterestedness inthe Japanese Zen Buddhist sense of muga, or selflessness, Nishida thenargues that beauty is identical with truth. He further emphasizes thatbeauty understood as muga is identical only with “intuitive” truth(chokkakuteki no shinri) and not with intellectual truth obtained by the


faculty of discriminative thought (shikòryoku ni yotte etaru shinri). Herehe criticizes those who value only “logical truth” (ronriteki shinri) andreject intuitive truth as “the mere fancy of poets” (shijin no kûsò).According to Nishida, the intuitive truth of poets is that wherein wehave “separated from the self and become one with things” (onore ohanare yoku mono to itchi-shite), such that it is “truth seen with the eyesof God” (Kami no me o motte mitaru shinri). Nishida then identifies thisintuitive truth of beauty with the “open secret” or “open mystery”(offenes Geheimnis) of nature revealed to the poet as described by Goethe(Odin 1987:216–217). Indeed, the later Kyoto school emphasis onthe Heideggerian idea of beauty as primordial truth of openness ap-prehended through letting-be is here stated by Nishida in terms ofGoethe’s concept of nature as an open mystery seen through an atti-tude of calm resignation.

While Nishida’s essay begins with an effort to define “beauty” (bi),it ends by attempting to clarify relationships between the three philo-sophical disciplines of art (bijutsu), religion (shûkyò), and morality(dòtoku). He now argues that since beauty is rooted in the experienceof muga as selflessness or ecstasy, it is ultimately of the same kind asreligion. In Japanese Zen Buddhism, muga or non-ego is a term com-monly used to describe the selfless experience of satori: enlightenment.Consequently, when Nishida defines beauty as muga he suggests theproximity of aesthetic experience to spiritual enlightenment itself.But while the muga of beauty is “the muga of the moment” (ichiji nomuga), the muga of religion is “eternal muga” (eikyû no muga). It shouldbe pointed out that Nishida’s fundamental distinction between thetemporary ecstasy of aesthetic experience as opposed to the eternalecstasy of religious experience is at once reminiscent of Schopenhauer’sdistinction between the momentary deliverance provided by artisticdetachment versus the everlasting salvation of nirvana or completespiritual resignation achieved at the level of sainthood. Hence in TheWorld as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer writes that the pure dis-interested aesthetic contemplation of beauty by an artist “does not de-liver him from life for ever but only for a few moments” (1958:I, 267).

Nishida then asserts that morality too derives originally from theexperience of muga. This claim is appropriate in that another standarddictionary definition of muga is “altruism,” which is the moral impli-cation of the term in its sense as “selflessness” or “non-ego.” HenceNishida’s essay “An Explanation of Beauty” once again anticipates animportant theme from Art and Morality: in a chapter titled “The Union


Point of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty” (“Shinzembi no gòitsuten”),Nishida emphasizes that the fusion point for both art and morality isthe ecstatic experience of self-negation arising at the standpoint ofreligious intuition. Toward the end of “An Explanation of Beauty” hefurther argues that although morality originates in the same realm asart and religion—namely, what he calls the “Great Way of muga”—itstill belongs to “the world of discrimination” (sabetsukai) since theidea of duty that is essential to morality is built on the distinctionbetween self and other as well as good and evil. Thus morality is stillnot equal to the sublime realms of religion and art wherein the worldof discrimination is fully transcended. Yet, he concludes, when moralityadvances to its highest degree there is no difference between the reli-gious, artistic, and moral standpoints. Nishida concludes his essay asfollows:

If I may summarize what has been said above, the feeling of beauty is the feeling of muga. Beauty that evokes this feeling of muga is intuitive truth that transcends intellectual discrimination. This is why beauty is sub-lime. As regards this point, beauty can be explained as the discarding of the world of discrimination and the being one with the Great Way of muga; it is really the same kind as religion. They only differ in the sense of deep and shallow, great and small. The muga of beauty is the muga of the moment, whereas the muga of religion is eternal muga. Although morality also originally derives from the Great Way of muga, it still belongs to the world of discrimination. . . . It does not yet reach the sublime realms of religion and art. However, . . . when morality advances and enters into religion, there is no difference between morality and religion. [Odin 1987:217]

In the final analysis, the basic insight of Nishida’s “An Explanation ofBeauty’’ is that while the spheres of art, religion, and morality differin extent as well as depth, thereby establishing a hierarchy of degreesof values, they all originate ultimately from the same fundamentalexperience of muga: ecstasy, non-ego, or selflessness.

Nishida’s application of the term “muga,” or selflessness, to definebeauty throughout this essay clearly anticipates his Jamesian notionof an egoless “pure experience” (junsui keiken) as developed in his firstpublished book, A Study of Good. Insofar as “pure experience” is under-stood as an “immediate experience” (chokusetsu keiken) devoid of subject/object bifurcation and empty of cognitive reflection, one can say thatbeauty as muga or selflessness is a mode of pure experience. In hismature philosophy Nishida would later reformulate his earlier notion


of pure experience in terms of mu no basho, the “place of nothingness,”which is itself precisely the locus of muga, selflessness. Hence in thisway Nishida’s description of the Kantian sense of beauty as disinter-estedness from the standpoint of muga can be understood as an egolesspure experience: the self is emptied and all events are seen just as theyare in the beauty of emptiness/suchness.

Nishida’s “An Explanation of Beauty” clarifies a fundamental mean-ing signified by Kant’s idea of aesthetic disinterestedness that is oftenmisunderstood by his critics: the relationship between selflessness anddisinterestedness in the experience of beauty. As demonstrated byJerome Stolnitz (1961a:132) in his study “On the Origins of ‘Aes-thetic Disinterestedness,’ ” the historic occasion in which the conceptof aesthetic disinterestedness emerged was the polemic against self-interest, egoism, and utilitarianism. Aesthetic disinterest implied fromthe beginning a perception of a thing for its own sake, a perceptionthat is “object-centered” as opposed to “self-centered” (p. 138). Andwhile the idea of disinterestedness carried the sense of “unselfishness”when opposed to egoism in ethics, in aesthetics it indicated more thestate of being “selfless” or “impersonal” (p. 138). Looking at the orig-inal formulation of beauty as disinterested pleasure by Karl PhilippMoritz, the aesthetic attitude of disinterestedness is again explicitlydefined in terms of self-forgetting:

As the beautiful object completely captivates our attention, it diverts our attention momentarily from ourselves, with the effect that we seem to lose ourselves in the beautiful object; and precisely this loss, this forget-fulness of ourselves, is the highest stage of pure and disinterested pleasure which beauty grants us. [Cited in Woodmansee 1984:32–33; italics added]

These aspects of aesthetic disinterestedness are emphasized by NishidaKitarò when he describes Kant’s idea of beauty as a “pleasure de-tached from the ego” (jiko o hanaretaru kairaku)—further defined as “apleasure of the moment, when one forgets one’s own interest such asadvantage and disadvantage, gain and loss” (Issin no rigai tokushitsu owasuretaru toki no kairaku). Moreover, Nishida’s use of muga, or no-self, likewise clarifies the deeper meaning of aesthetic disinterested-ness in Kant’s theory as a selfless, detached, and impersonal contem-plation of beauty.

On the Eastern side, Nishida’s essay is a crystallization of muga asthe aesthetic attitude underlying the traditional Japanese sense of


beauty. As we shall see shortly, D. T. Suzuki identifies muga (no-self)with mushin (no-mind) and then develops mushin as the mental atti-tude of detached contemplation underlying Zen aestheticism in tradi-tional Japanese culture. Likewise, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi identifies muga(no-self) with mushin (no-mind) while restating both in terms of theaesthetic attitude of “disinterestedness” (mukanshin) in Zen Buddhism,which he relates in turn to the disinterested attitude of Kantian aes-thetics. Traditional Japanese aesthetic categories like yûgen, wabi, shi-bumi, and sabi are all characterized by the disinterested aesthetic stateof muga (selflessness or non-ego). An example is provided by R. H.Blyth (1981) in his classic study of haiku poetry, where he analyzes“Zen as it is related to the mind of the haiku poet” under thirteenheadings, the first of which is “Selflessness” (p. 154). Blyth writes: “Itis a condition of selflessness in which things are seen without profit orloss” (p. 155). He adds: “The realization of the selflessness of thingscomes through a realization of non ego, muga” (p. 158). In this wayBlyth’s analysis clarifies the same relationships Nishida seeks to estab-lish between the Zen Buddhist state of muga or selflessness and thedisinterested attitude free of all concern for gain and loss in the Japa-nese sense of beauty.

Indeed, Nishida’s quintessential expression of the Japanese sense ofbeauty as rooted in muga or no-self is at the same time a clarificationof the Chinese sense of beauty formed through Taoist and Buddhistworldviews as well as the earlier I Ching tradition. It should be recalledhow in his work titled Jen-chien Tz’u-hua, Wang Kuo-wei articulatesthe Chinese sense of beauty precisely in terms of the state of wu-wo(J. muga), “no-self” (see Rickett 1977). Wang makes the fundamentaldistinction between the “state of no-self,” or the “impersonal state”(wu-wo chih ching), and the “state of having self,” or the “personalstate” (yu-wo chih ching). Furthermore, Wang defines the Chinese senseof “the beautiful” (yu-mei) as being rooted in the “state of no-self”(wu-wo chih ching) (Rickett 1977:14–15, 26, 40–41). The aestheticattitude of wu-wo is the egoless state of “self-detachment” in contrastto yu-wo or the egocentric state of “self-attachment.” For Wang thetraditional Chinese sense of beauty as no-self or self-detachment rep-resents a disinterested contemplative state of peaceful tranquility thatcauses one “to forget his personal interest . . . or stress of worldly caresor desires” (p. 13). From the standpoint of comparative aesthetics,Wang’s idea of the traditional Chinese sense of beauty as a function ofno-self or self-detachment is deeply influenced by Taoism and Bud-


dhism in the East as well as by Schopenhauer in the West (p. 13).Hence just as for Nishida Kitarò the traditional Japanese sense ofbeauty is a function of muga, for Wang Kuo-wei the traditional Chi-nese sense of beauty is a function of wu-wo: no-self, selflessness, or self-detachment. Nishida Kitarò’s view can finally be summed up withthe insight that the Japanese sense of beauty is to be defined as muga,or no-self, which in Western terms approximates the Kantian idea ofbeauty as a “pleasure detached from the ego” (jiko o hanaretaru kairaku).

Hisamatsu Shin’ichi: Zen Detachment and the Fine Arts

Hisamatsu Shin’ichi (1889–1980) graduated in 1918 with a doctoratein philosophy from Kyoto Imperial University, where he studiedunder the direct tutelage of Nishida Kitarò. Through the influenceof Nishida, he began the study of Zen meditation at Myòshinji Tem-ple under Ikegami Roshi combined with a textual study of Zen Bud-dhism as understood from the standpoint of Nishida’s philosophy ofabsolute nothingness. As a student of philosophy under Nishidahe studied the relation of Zen Buddhism to Western mysticism. Acollection of his works, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi chosakushû (1969–1980),includes Oriental Nothingness (1939), The Spirit of the Tea Ceremony (1948),The Way of the Absolute Subject (1949), Man’s Authentic Existence (1951),and Zen and the Fine Arts (1958). After holding several earlier posi-tions, Hisamatsu was appointed assistant professor at Kyoto Univer-sity in 1937, where he taught Buddhist philosophy and religion untilhis retirement in 1939. Hisamatsu is now regarded as a leading repre-sentative of what has become known as the Kyoto school of modernJapanese philosophy.

As can be seen from his bibliography, Hisamatsu combined anexpertise in the Zen philosophy of absolute nothingness with a stronginterest in Japanese Buddhist aesthetics. Apart from being one of theforemost scholars of chanoyu with such works to his credit as The Spiritof the Tea Ceremony (1948), Hisamatsu was also himself respected as atea master of distinction. Yet for purposes of the present study, Hisa-matsu’s Zen and the Fine Arts (Zen to bijutsu) is of special relevance.Since its translation into English in 1971, Hisamatsu’s Zen and the FineArts has ranked alongside D. T. Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture (1988)as a standard introduction to Japanese Zen Buddhist aestheticism.While Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture underscores the central role ofmushin or “no-mind” in Zen Buddhist aestheticism, Hisamatsu’s Zenand the Fine Arts explicitly articulates “detachment” as an essential


factor in all Zen art, including the famous paintings, poems, plays,gardens, floral arrangements, ceramics, tea rituals, and other creationsspringing from the Japanese religion of beauty. Hisamatsu in factunderscores the identity between nonattachment and mushin or “no-mind” in Zen Buddhist aesthetics. For Hisamatsu all Zen art is acreative expression of absolute nothingness requiring a state of no-mind characterized by its total nonattachment. Moreover, in thiswork Hisamatsu discusses the Kantian sense of beauty as “disinter-ested” (interesselos), pointing out both its similarities and differencesto the notion of “disinterestedness” (mukanshin) in Zen art. In thefollowing passage, translated from the Japanese edition of Zen and theFine Arts, Hisamatsu writes:

Art is said to be play (German: spielen) in contrast to work. It is said to be, in the words of Kant, interesselos, meaning “disinterested,” without practical interest. Of course, usually art is like this: an actor is not said to have commited a murder only because he played the role of a murderer in a play, nor does he receive accolades for having played the role of a hero. . . . However, the manifestation of Zen is not this same kind of dis-interested play, for it is a serious living activity. At the same time, this active Zen expression does have its own kind of detachment which can be described as an “unrestricted freedom.” This Zen disinterestedness is quite different from the interesselos character of art because it derives from the “no-self” (J. muga) or “no-mind” (J. mushin) nature of Zen. This “unrestricted freedom” aspect of Zen should be called an artistic quality of a higher level, as a kind of diversion not seen in ordinary theater arts. Instead of the so-called disinterestedness of ordinary art, Zen is disinter-ested even in actual life. It is a disinterested daily life, a practical life of play, or as it were, a life-play. Herein may also be found the romanticism of Zen. [1958:8–9]

According to Hisamatsu, then, there is a profound similarity betweenthe “free play” (spielen) and “disinterested” (interesselos) character of artas conceived by the Kantian tradition of the West and the quality of“playfulness” ( J. asobi) and”disinterestedness” (J. mukanshin) in theZen Buddhist arts of East Asia. He also underscores an important dif-ference between these two traditions, however, arguing that while thedisinterested play in Kant’s theory is confined to the autonomous realmof the arts alone, Zen detachment is free of interest even in commonexperience so as to be a “disinterested actual life” (mukanshin na jissenseikatsu)—a disinterested play of aesthetic delight in everyday exist-ence that results in the total fusion of art and life. Furthermore, incontrast to the interesselos or disinterested nature of beauty in Kant’s


formalist aesthetics, the mukanshin or disinterestedness of beauty inZen aestheticism has a quality of bottomless depths insofar as it isrooted in what Nishida Kitarò calls the muga or “no-self” dimensionof beauty and what D. T. Suzuki calls the mushin or “no-mind”dimension of beauty in Zen Buddhist art and literature.

Hisamatsu’s remarks also clarify a basic insight of his teacherNishida Kitarò as articulated in the latter’s essay “An Explanation ofBeauty” (“Bi no setsumei”). Nishida, after criticizing as inadequatethe idea of beauty as a selfish hedonic pleasure, goes on to affirm theKantian sense of beauty as a pleasure that is “disinterested” (interesse-los). Nishida then proceeds to reformulate Kant’s notion of aestheticdisinterestedness in terms of the Japanese Zen Buddhist sense ofbeauty as muga, which again may be variously translated as “ecstasy,”“no-self,” “non-ego,” or “selflessness.” In full accord with Nishida’sview, Hisamatsu says that the detachment or disinterestedness of Zenart differs from the interesselos character of ordinary art insofar as it isrooted in the “no-self” (muga) or “no-mind” (mushin) nature of Japa-nese Zen Buddhism. Furthermore, as Hisamatsu elsewhere asserts inZen and the Fine Arts, this Zen state of muga or no-self is none otherthan what he calls the “fundamental subject of self-awareness” (jikakuno shutaisei) realized in Zen satori, or enlightenment (1958:51)—namely, the “formless self” (muso na jiko) understood as the “subjectthat is nothing” (muteki shutai) (p. 55), a view he attributes to histeacher Nishida Kitarò (p. 54).

In another chapter of Zen and the Fine Arts called “The Character-istics of Zen Art” (“Zen geijutsu no seikaku”), Hisamatsu enumeratesthe “seven characteristics” of art in East Asian Zen Buddhism: “TheseSeven Characteristics are Asymmetry (fukinsei), Simplicity (kanso), Aus-tere Sublimity (kòkò), Naturalness (shizen), Profound Darkness (yûgen),Detachment (datsuzoku), and Tranquility (seijaku)” (1958:29). As isapparent from this list, Hisamatsu enumerates detachment as anessential characteristic of all Zen art. Hence what he previously dis-cussed as the “disinterested” (mukanshin) or interesselos attitude of Zenaestheticism is now analyzed in terms of the detachment (datsuzoku)characterizing Zen art. Moreover, as he later clarifies, detachment isinseparable from each of these other characteristics of Zen art. Theasymmetry and naturalness, for instance, are primary expressions ofdetachment insofar as the latter denotes spontaneity or freedom fromconvention. Simplicity and tranquility are qualities that nearly alwaysaccompany the characteristic of detachment in a work of Zen art. More-over, works of Zen art containing the traits of detachment, simplicity,


and tranquility are said to embody the aesthetic quality of profounddarkness (yûgen): the ideal of beauty as mystery and hidden depthsthat was most admired in medieval Japanese canons of taste.

Hisamatsu then considers each of these seven characteristics indetail. In a section called “Detachment” (datsuzoku), he elucidates thedetached quality of Zen art as follows: “The sixth characteristic of‘detachment’ means, briefly stated, freedom from habit, convention,custom, formula, rule, etc., that is, not being bound to things” (1958:34). Similar to the way Taoism undermines the Confucian principle ofli (ritual action) in terms of the spontaneity and naturalness of wu-wei(letting-be), so Hisamatusu argues that it is only through detachmentfrom habit and convention that the Zen poet or painter can decondi-tion experience and spontaneously recreate the landscape in novelforms. In this section Hisamatsu emphasizes that detachment is afundamental characteristic of all cultural expressions of Zen and canalso be observed in the spontaneity and freedom from convention of aZen master’s activities. Citing The Record of Lin-chi, Hisamatsu arguesthat the Zen injunction “When meeting a Buddha, kill the Buddha!When meeting a Patriarch, kill the Patriarch!” demonstrates that aZen master free of convention is utterly detached not only from worldlythings but also from the transcendent realm itself (p. 34). Hisamatsuthen applies the seven characteristics, including detachment, to thegreat artworks in the tradition of East Asian Zen/Chan Buddhism. Herefers to inkwash paintings such as Hakuin’s Monkey and Sesshû’sWinter, along with works of calligraphy such as Ryòkan’s Mind, Moon,and Circle and Hakuin’s Mu, as Zen works of art in which the charac-teristic of detachment is present to a remarkable degree (p. 35). Andin his analysis of selected plates he describes how detachment and theother characteristics are embodied in famous examples of sumie ink-wash painting, calligraphy, architecture, ikebana flower arrangement,landscape gardening, crafts, nò drama, the tea ceremony of chanoyu,and other paradigms of Zen art in traditional Japanese culture (pp.71–106).

In his chapter “What Is Zen?” (“Zen to wa nani ka”), Hisamatsuagain discusses the seven characteristics of Zen art as they are rootedin the formless self realized in Zen satori (sudden enlightenment). Inthis context he further analyzes the characteristic of detachment (datsu-zoku) as originating within the formless self as the subject of absolutenothingness, which was discussed earlier in relation to Zen muga orno-self as the ground of disinterestedness in Eastern art. Thus hewrites: “The sixth characteristic, ‘detachment,’ is also an important


aspect of the formless self” (1958:65). He emphasizes that the form-less self of absolute nothingness is completely detached in the sense ofnot being attached to any form—including both nonattachment toself and nonattachment to external phenomena. It is through detach-ment from all forms that Zen art shifts our attention away from objectsarticulated in the foreground focus to the nonarticulated void of form-less nothingness in the background field. Although concerned withwhat has form, the subject of absolute nothingness remains formless(p. 65). Thus the characteristic of detachment or freedom from allform manifested by great works of Zen art ultimately has its sourcein this formless self of absolute nothingness. In Hisamatsu’s words(pp. 58–59):

While Oriental culture may be described as a culture of Nothingness, this “Nothingness” (mu) does not signify mere nonexistence or negation, but instead refers to the Subject that is Absolutely and Actively Nothing. . . . It is in the artistic expression of this Subject that is Abso-lutely and Actively Nothing that we have the creation of a uniquely Oriental art.

For Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, as for his teacher Nishida Kitarò, Zen art inEastern culture is ultimately to be comprehended as a spontaneousand creative expression springing from the bottomless depths of thisformless self: the “subject that is absolutely nothing” (zettaiteki namuteki shutai). As stated by Hisamatsu in the preceding passage, the“nothingness” (mu) of Zen Buddhism is not a relative nothingness ornihilizing emptiness in the sense of a mere void of nonbeing and nega-tion, but an absolute nothingness, or a dynamic, creative, and positiveemptiness that manifests all things in their particular suchness. Hisa-matsu thus develops his Zen philosophy of art in the context of theKyoto school’s metaphysics of nothingness with its underlying Bud-dhist psychology of nonattachment wherein the eternalistic standpointof “being,” characterized by self-attachment, is emptied into the nihil-istic standpoint of “relative nothingness,” characterized by attachmentto nothingness itself, which is then emptied into “absolute nothing-ness,” characterized by complete detachment as the middle way be-tween eternalism and nihilism. According to Hisamatsu Shin’ichi,then, the art and literature of Zen Buddhist aestheticism manifest thedetached, tranquil, and serene beauty of profound mystery as a spon-taneous expression of formless nothingness, which requires both forits creation and its appreciation a disinterested mental attitude char-acterized by total nonattachment.


D. T. Suzuki: The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind

Although Buddhist historians now debate whether Zen/Chan Bud-dhism was introduced to China by the legendary Bodhidharma, itcannot be doubted that Zen Buddhist philosophy, meditation, andaesthetics were introduced to the West by D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966).In works like The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind Suzuki argues that the cen-tral teaching to be found in the Platform Sutra attributed to Hui-neng(J. Enò), the legendary sixth patriarch of Zen/Chan Buddhism, is thedoctrine of no-mind (mushin) or no-thought (munen). He furtherdemonstrates how no-mind itself represents the mental state of totalnonattachment. Moreover, in Zen and Japanese Culture he shows howthe detached tranquility of no-mind functions as the aesthetic attitudeunderlying the Zen-influenced art and literature of Japan. Suzukiwrites that the main purpose of Zen and Japanese Culture is to show therole that “Zen Buddhism has played in the molding of Japanese cul-ture and character, especially as exhibited in the arts generally andparticularly in the development of Bushido” (1988:18). He maintainsthat the satori of Zen and the arts of traditional Japanese culture aredeeply related insofar as they have a common source in the nonattach-ment of mushin (no-mind). Hence the central thesis that Suzuki putsforward in Zen and Japanese Culture is that “mushin [no-mind] . . . iswhere all arts merge into Zen” (p. 94). Suzuki clarifies how the de-tached, tranquil, unconscious, and empty-minded state of mushin isthe mental attitude required to master the martial art of swordsman-ship (p. 111) as well as the Zen tradition of literature and art (p. 220),including haiku poetry, nò drama, sumie inkwash painting, and chanoyu(the tea ceremony). Suzuki (p. 220) holds that all great works of ZenBuddhist art and literature manifest the beauty of yûgen, “profoundmystery,” and that the ultimate source from which yûgen arises is theunconscious depths of mushin (no-mind). Hence, like the other Japa-nese thinkers considered here, Suzuki describes how the Japanese atmo-spheric sense of beauty is rooted in a psychological state, mentalattitude, or mode of attention that is cultivated through Buddhistmeditation.

The Zen doctrine of no-mind articulated by D. T. Suzuki has beenused throughout the history of Japanese aesthetics to denote themental attitude of artistic detachment required for both the creationand the enjoyment of beauty. Here I refer to the scholarship of RichardPilgrim (1981:47), who points out the common use of mushin in theJapanese Buddhist religio-aesthetic tradition of geidò, or tao of art, to


signify a detached, empty, and tranquil mind. Yusa Michiko (1987:342–344) describes Zeami’s use of the Zen concept of mushin to sig-nify the aesthetic satori-mind of riken no ken, the “seeing of detachedperception,” which is the mental attitude of artistic detachment culti-vated both by the spectator and the actor during the perfomance of anò drama. Hisamatsu Shin’ichi (1958:8–9) likewise argues that the“disinterestedness” (mukanshin) or “detachment” (datsuzoku) character-izing the aesthetic attitude cultivated in traditional Zen art and liter-ature has its basis in the egoless state of mushin: no-mind. Suzuki’s workthus brings to light the Zen doctrine of no-mind as one of the majortheories of artistic detachment to have emerged in the history of Japa-nese Buddhist aesthetics.

Life and Writings. Daisetz Tetitaro Suzuki was born in Kanazawa,where at high school he became classmates and lifelong friends withNishida Kitarò. At the age of twenty-one he was influenced by Nishidato enter Tokyo Imperial University and at the same time began trainingat Engakuji, a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monastery in Kamakura, underthe direction of Kosen Roshi. From 1897 to 1909 he lived abroad asan editor and translator in the United States. Upon his return to Japanin 1909 he became a lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1921he moved to Kyoto to take the chair of professor of Buddhist philoso-phy at Otani University and began publication of The Eastern Buddhist.From 1951 to 1958 he again lived abroad in America and Europe. Inhis final years he returned to Japan where he died, in Kamakura, atthe age of ninety-five. Suzuki’s writings comprise almost ninety titlesin Japanese and over thirty volumes in English. Aside from his researchinto Zen he is known for his contributions to Mahayana Buddhism ingeneral, including studies on Kegon (Skt. Avatamsaka; Ch. Hua-yen),Yogacara, and Pure Land Buddhism, the Gandavyuha and Lankavatarasutras, Christian-Buddhist comparative mysticism, and traditionalJapanese culture. Suzuki’s Buddhist scholarship is grounded on hisstudy of texts in the original Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese lan-guages as well as Western sources in French, German, and English. Tohis interpretation of Zen Buddhism Suzuki brought not only a broadknowledge of Western philosophy, psychology, and Christian mysti-cism but also familiarity with the modern syncretic Japanese philos-ophy of Nishida Kitarò and the Kyoto school. It is often said thatSuzuki’s writings on Zen were inspired by his own experience ofsatori or sudden enlightenment. In an autobiographical essay, “EarlyMemories” (see Abe 1986:11–12), Suzuki recounts his dramatic


experience of satori at Engakuji in December 1895 after five years ofintensive training in zazen.

Suzuki’s English-language works focusing specifically on Zen Bud-dhism include such classic titles as Essays in Zen Buddhism (1933), AnIntroduction to Zen Buddhism (1934), The Training of the Zen BuddhistMonk (1934), Manual of Zen Buddhism (1935), Zen Buddhism and ItsInfluence on Japanese Culture (1938), The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind (1949),Living by Zen (1949), Studies in Zen (1955), Zen and Japanese Buddhism(1958), Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis (1960), Zen and Japanese Cul-ture (1959), The Field of Zen (1969), and What Is Zen? (1971) as wellas several edited volumes of selected writings such as Zen Buddhism(1956) and The Essentials of Zen Buddhism (1962). As shown by thetestimonials from Abe’s A Zen Life: D. T. Suzuki Remembered (1986),Suzuki’s writings exerted a deep and lasting influence on Westernadvocates of Zen including Thomas Merton, Alan Watts, Philip Kap-leau, and Robert Aitken, along with the San Francisco Renaissancepoets and novelists of the “Beat Zen” movement such as Jack Kerouacand others. In Japan he strongly influenced Nishida Kitarò and otherKyoto school thinkers like Torataro Shimomura, Nishitani Keiji, Hisa-matsu Shin’ichi, and Abe Masao. It is significant that Nishida Kitarò’smaiden work, Zen no kenkyû (1911), first translated into English byV. H. Viglielmo as A Study of Good, is prefaced with an introduction byD. T. Suzuki, who underscores the Zen basis of Nishida’s philosophyof pure experience and absolute nothingness articulated through a logicof paradox.

Yet Suzuki’s works on Zen Buddhism in general and his writingsabout the influence of Zen on Japanese culture in particular have beenstrongly criticized on various points by Japanese and Western scholarsalike. As discussed by Fujioka Daisetz (1994:247–250), the first crit-ical assault leveled against Suzuki’s Zen Buddhism and Its Influence onJapanese Culture was developed by Umehara Takeshi in the August1966 issue of the journal Vision. First Umehara attacks Suzuki’s one-sided emphasis on Zen and to a lesser extent Pure Land as the inspira-tion underlying Japanese spirituality while neglecting Shintoism aswell as other Buddhist schools like Shingon, Tendai, and NichirenBuddhism. Umehara argues that although Suzuki emphasizes thepeaceful and compassionate nature of Zen spirituality he nonethelessreveals a tendency toward militarism throughout his essays on Zenand the samurai warrior. He also criticizes Suzuki’s failure to speakout against Japanese militarism during World War II. Following Ume-hara various scholars have criticized Suzuki’s writings on Zen Buddhism


and its influence on Japanese spirituality for its romanticized, ideal-ized, and mythologized presentation of Zen. Some have underminedSuzuki’s evangelical, missionary, and popularizing approach to Zenwhile others criticize his works as being insufficiently historical,philosophical, and rational. Peter Dale (1986) launches an ideologycritique against Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture for its aestheticallycamouflaged militarism developed under the subterfuge of artistic,moral, and spiritual ideals. He further criticizes Suzuki’s work for itsnationalism, cultural narcissism, and ethnic chauvinism insofar as itrepresents a text in the genre of nihonjinron (studies of Japanese iden-tity), which propagates the myth of Japanese uniqueness. Abe Masao,summarizing various critical reactions toward Suzuki’s writings, pointsout that “Suzuki presented only Rinzai Zen, neglecting the importantstream of Soto Zen, including its remarkable Japanese promulgator,Dogen” (1986:112). Despite these and other legitimate complaints,Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture remains a classic treatment on thesubject of Zen aestheticism and its influence on traditional Japanesespirituality.

Suzuki on Buddhist Detachment. In his chapter “History of Zen Bud-dhism in China from Bodhidharma to the Sixth Patriarch (Hui-Nèng),”contained in Essays on Zen Buddhism, Suzuki underscores the centralimportance of the doctrine of “nonattachment” in the Buddhist ideaof emanciation throughout all its phases of development:

As I have repeatedly illustrated, Buddhism, whether primitive or devel-oped, is a religion of freedom and emancipation, and the ultimate aim of its discipline is to release the spirit from its possible bondage so that it can act freely in accordance with its own principles. This is what is meant by non-attachment (apratishtita-cittam). [1927:I, 161]

He goes on to say that emancipation through nonattachment has bothnegative and positive meanings. Whereas in its negative aspect itmeans detachment from the ego, passions, senses, and intellect, in itspositive aspect it means return to the original nature of mind. ForSuzuki, the positive, affirmative, or antinihilistic view of Zen Bud-dhism is finally realized in the Platform Sutra attributed to Hui-neng:“We can say that Zen has come to its own consciousness by Hui-nèng.. . . How then did Hui-nèng understand Zen? According to him, Zenwas the ‘seeing into one’s own Nature.’ This is the most significantphrase ever coined in the development of Zen Buddhism” (1927:I,


203). As Suzuki understands Hui-neng’s teachings, kenshò or “seeinginto one’s own nature” specificially means realization of mushin: no-mind. Thus Suzuki finds the apex of Buddhism in the Zen doctrine ofno-mind.

Suzuki analyzes the Zen doctrine of no-mind in such works as“Mushin to iu koto” (“On No-Mind,” 1939) and The Zen Doctrine ofNo-Mind: The Significance of the Sutra of Hui-Neng (1949). For Suzukithe Zen doctrine of “no-mind” (J. mushin; Ch. wu-hsin) sums up thebasic teachings of “no-thought” (J. munen; Ch. wu-nien), “nonform”(J. musò; Ch. wu-hsiang), and “nonabiding” (J. mujû; Ch. wu-chu) ex-pressive of total nonattachment, nonclinging, and nongrasping aspropounded in the Platform Sutra. Suzuki maintains that the enlight-enment of satori is characterized by the psychological state of mushin,or no-mind, which is in turn grounded in the epistemology of nondis-criminating prajnâ-intuition and the metaphysics of ùûnyatâ (J. kû):emptiness. From the standpoint of depth psychology, Suzuki furtherdescribes mushin as the unconscious and describes its realization insatori as superconsciousness arising through consciousness of the un-conscious, or what he also calls the cosmic unconscious.

Suzuki presents the Zen doctrine of no-mind from the perspectivesof both theory and practice in Living by Zen: “Zen has several namesfor satori. . . . Some of them are ‘the mind that has no abode,’ ‘themind that owns nothing,’ . . . ‘the unattached mind,’ ‘mindlessness,’‘thoughtlessness’ ” (1949b:75). Rephrasing the same constellation ofideas from the Zen doctrine of no-mind as presented in the PlatformSutra, Zen satori is here described in such terms as “mindlessness”(= no-mind) or mushin, “thoughtlessness” (= no-thought) or munen,and “the mind that has no abode” (= nonabiding) or mujû—all ofwhich are synonymous with “the unattached mind” (= nonattachment).Suzuki underscores the primary importance of understanding Zenenlightenment as mushin or “mindlessness” while at the same timeunderscoring its meaning as nonattachment to forms and concepts:“Zen is most emphatic in its insistence on ‘mindlessness.’ . . . To clearconsciousness of any trace of attachment to the mind-concepts, Zenproposes various practical methods” (p. 76). The following method byDaushyu Yekai, a disciple of Baso, is then presented to induce thestate of mindlessness through nonabiding or nonattachment:

If you wish to have a clear insight into the mind that has no abode, you have it at the very moment when you are sitting. . . . Things that are at this moment before your mind are already here. What is important in


regard to things generally is not to get attached to them. When the mind is not attached, it raises no thoughts of love or hate, and the present mind will disappear by itself with all its contents. [p. 76]

Hence like the Buddhist technique of shikan (Pali: samatha-vipassana)or “tranquility and insight,” the practitioner of Zen is here instructedto enter the state of mindlessness by observing present mental con-tents with equanimity, calmness, and detachment, thereby to eradi-cate all mental perturbations arising from habitual blind reactions oflove and hate, attraction and repulsion, or craving and aversion.

In The Zen Doctrine of No-Mind, first published in 1949, Suzukiemphasizes that the key teaching of the Platform Sutra attributed toHui-neng is “no-thought” (munen) or its synonymous term, “no-mind”(mushin) (1990:57). Mushin and munen signify “no-consciousness andare therefore to be translated as the ‘unconscious’ ” (p. 57). No-mindand no-self are described as Hui-neng’s “seeing into one’s self-nature,”which is itself “seeing into nothingness” (p. 30), which is the mind ofnonattachment, including detachment from the mind as well as de-tachment from concepts and all other mental contents. The basic pointthroughout his analysis is that no-mind sums up Hui-neng’s triad ofnonthought (munen), nonform (musò), and nonabiding (mujû) while atthe same time emphasizing how all three principles signify the empty,calm, and undisturbed mind of total nonattachment. According toSuzuki, no-mind indicates that “the mind is altogether detached fromform, which also means detachment from the mind itself; and this is astate of wu-nien [ J. munen], ‘no-thought-ness’ ” (p. 102). Suzuki quotesfrom Hui-neng, who asserts: “What is wu-nien, no-thought-ness? See-ing all things and yet to keep your mind free from stain and attach-ment, this is no-thought-ness” (p. 126). Again, Hui-neng is quoted assaying: “One who understands this truth is wu-nien (‘without thought’). . . and wu-chao (‘without attachment’)” (p. 79). This means that no-thought/no-mind is to see things but remain detached from them.Suzuki states: “Mushin [no-mind], or munen [no-thought], is prima-rily derived from muga [no-self], wu-wo, anâtman, ‘no-ego’, ‘selfless-ness,’ which is the principal conception of Buddhism” (p. 120). Asdefined here, then, no-mind is to be comprehended as detachmentfrom ego.

Suzuki cites Hui-neng’s explanation of nonform as detachmentfrom forms: “By formlessness is meant to be in form and yet to bedetached from it” (p. 58). Hui-neng describes the no-thought state ofprajñâ-insight as engagement of the six senses with total detachment:

when


“When you have emancipation, this means that you are in the Sama-dhi of Prajñâ, which is munen (no-thought-ness). . . . When used, itpervades everywhere, and yet shows no attachment anywhere” (p.127). The third principle of nonabiding is likewise explained throughnonattachment as follows: “If you wish to understand when the mindcomes to realize the moment of non-abiding, sit in the right medita-tion posture, and purge your mind thoroughly of thoughts . . . haveno attachments to them. Not to have attachment means not to rouseany feeling of hate and love” (p. 66). Realization of no-mind throughmeditation requires detachment and equanimity by observing mentalcontents without blind reactions of love and hate, liking and dislik-ing, craving and aversion, sympathy and antipathy. Hui-neng is againcited as defining the process of dhyâna (J. zen; Ch. chan) or meditationby which insight into no-mind is achieved as nonattachment to innermind and outer form: “Dhyâna (tso-ch’an) is not to get attached to themind. . . . When outwardly a man is attached to form, his inner mindis disturbed. But when outwardly he is not attached to form, his mindis not disturbed” (p. 33). The examples can be multiplied withoutend. The main point is that Suzuki understands no-mind/no-thoughtas the central teaching of Hui-neng’s Zen/Chan Buddhism while defin-ing no-mind as nonattachment, including detachment from the mind,ego, self, form, thought, passion, desire, and the six senses. Yet Hui-neng’s Zen doctrine of no-mind is not a nihilistic theory of quietism.It is the insight into one’s own self-nature as mushin where the mind isundisturbed in immovable prajñâ-wisdom insofar as it enjoys the aes-thetic world of forms but remains detached from them in a state ofequanimity without craving or aversion.

Suzuki’s Doctrine of No-Mind. The most popular work in Suzuki’sextensive corpus of writings is no doubt Zen and Japanese Culture. Andsince the time of its publication, it has become the standard introduc-tion to Zen aestheticism. When Suzuki published Zen Buddhism andIts Influence on Japanese Culture in 1938, it created a sensation in theWest. In 1940 it was translated into Japanese by Kitagawa Momòand was widely read in Japan. Then, in 1959, a revised and enlargedversion of this work was published under the present title, Zen andJapanese Culture. Whereas Suzuki’s other writings concentrate on Zenphilosophy, meditation, and enlightenment, this work focuses on howthe spirit of Zen influenced Japanese aesthetic ideals and their em-bodiment in the various arts and crafts of traditional Japanese culture.From the theoretical standpoint this work represents an application of


the Zen doctrine of no-mind to traditional Japanese culture. Its thesisis that no-mind, the mind of nonattachment, is the aesthetic attitudeunderlying the creation and enjoyment of beauty.

Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture describes the Eastern cult of “Zenaestheticism,” understood as a concentrated expression of Japanesespirituality. According to the Zen hierarchy of values, the aestheticdimensions of life are given priority over the moral and cognitivedimensions. For Zen aestheticism: “Art impulses are more primitiveor more innate than those of morality. The appeal of art goes moredirectly into human nature. . . . Morality is regulative, art is creative.. . . Zen may remain unmoral but not without art” (1988:27). HereSuzuki openly admits that despite all rhetoric about bodhisattvas ofcompassion, Zen does not sustain any moral position and remainsimmoral—beyond good and evil. Moreover, Zen is a religion of beautywherein aesthetic and spiritual values are identical. Hence in ZenBuddhism: “Aestheticism . . . merges into religion” (p. 355). For Suzukithere is at once a close analogy between the creative artist and the Zenpractitioner: “The artist’s world is one of free creation, and this cancome on from intuitions directly and immediately rising from theisness of things. . . . To this extent, the artist’s world coincides withthat of Zen” (p. 17). But he continues: “What differentiates Zen fromthe arts is this: While the artists have to resort to the canvas andbrush . . . Zen has no need of things external. . . . What Zen does is todelineate itself on the infinite canvas of time and space” (p. 17).Hence the ultimate goal of Zen aestheticism is not the creation ofexternal artworks such as inkwash painting, poetry, or drama but thecreative transformation of one’s own everyday life into a work of art:“The Zen-man is an artist to the extent that, as the sculptor chiselsout a great figure deeply buried in a mass of inert matter, the Zen-man transforms his own life into a work of creation” (p. 17).

In the Japanese cult of Zen aestheticism, the creative transforma-tion of life into art requires cultivation of a mental attitude of con-templative detachment. Suzuki asserts that “Zen teaches a form ofdetachment” (1988:347). Yet here as elsewhere he underscores thepoint that Zen detachment does not result in nihilism in the sense ofa life-denying or world-negating attitude of renunciation. Instead itleads to a higher affirmation through an aesthetic and religiousinsight into facts in their emptiness in the positive sense of their con-crete particular suchness, thisness, or isness. Throughout Zen andJapanese Culture he expresses the mental attitude of artistic detachmentas expressed through the profound mystery of yûgen, the spiritual


poverty of wabi, the impersonal loneliness of sabi, and the windblownelegance of fûryû. For instance, he describes the Zen intuition ofbeauty in nature through disinterested contemplation by means of thereligio-aesthetic ideal of fûryû (windblown elegance), which the haikupoet Bashò identified as the spirit pervading the arts and crafts ofJapan: “Such a disinterested enjoyment of Nature . . . is known as fûryû,and those without this feeling of fûryû are classed among the mostuncultured in Japan. The feeling is not merely aesthetical, it has alsoa religious significance” (p. 81). He adds that this disinterested aes-thetic enjoyment of beauty in nature represented by the nonclinging,nonabiding, and nonattached spirit of fûryû is expressed in its deepestform through the extreme artistic detachment of the Zen/Chan deathpoem or parting-with-life verse:

It is perhaps the same [disinterested] mental attitude that has created the custom among cultured Japanese of writing a verse in either Japanese or Chinese at the moment of death. The verse is known as the “parting-with-life verse.” The Japanese have been taught and trained to be able to find a moment’s leisure to detach themselves from the intensest excite-ments in which they may happen to be placed. Death is the most serious affair absorbing all one’s attention, but the cultured Japanese think they ought to be able to transcend it and view it objectively. [p. 82]

Discussing Japanese aware or sad beauty in relation to Buddhist mujòor impermanence, Suzuki states: “Evanescent glory has appealed verymuch to the Japanese imagination . . . beauty is something momentaryand ever-fleeting” (p. 381). He further relates the Japanese aestheticof perishability to the mental attitude of nonattachment cultivated byZen Buddhism: “Changeability itself is frequently the object of admi-ration [and] is associated with the virtue of non-attachment, which ischaracteristically Buddhistic as well as an aspect of Japanese character”(p. 380).

At the core of Suzuki’s treatment of Japanese aesthetics is the Zendoctrine of no-mind. For Suzuki the Japanese sense of beauty is itselfultimately rooted in the psychological state that Zen Buddhism callsmushin: “no-mind,” “empty mind,” “mu mind,” or “mindlessness.” Hemaintains that Zen ideals of beauty in the medieval Japanese canonsof taste such as yûgen (profound mystery), wabi (rustic poverty), sabi(loneliness), and fûga/fûryû (windblown elegance) are all to be analyzedas a function of the egolessness and no-mind-ness of mushin. The Zenexperience of satori (enlightenment) as well as its multivariate expres-sion in the arts and crafts of traditional Japanese culture all have the


psychological state of mushin as their common basis. Suzuki articu-lates the detached Zen state of mushin as the unifying principle wherebyZen fuses with art:

Mere technical knowledge of an art is not enough to make a man really its master, he ought to have delved deeply into the inner spirit of it. This spirit is grasped only when his mind is in complete harmony with the principle of life itself, that is, when he attains to a certain state of mind known as mushin, “no-mind.” In Buddhist phraseology, it means going beyond the dualism of all forms of life and death, good and evil, being and non-being. This is where all arts merge into Zen. [1988:94]

Suzuki analyzes no-mind as the psychological state of Zen satori aswell as the mental attitude underlying the various arts of traditionalJapanese culture including the military art of swordsmanship asexplicated in the writings of Zen master Takuan along with the varietyof fine arts like the nò drama of Zeami, the haiku poetry of Bashò, thesumie painting of Sesshû, and the chanoyu (tea ceremony) of Sen noRikkyû. In Zen and Japanese Culture, Suzuki again reaffirms his viewthat the Zen doctrine of no-mind is the key teaching to be found inthe Platform Sutra: “Mushin (wu-hsin) or munen (wu-nien) is one of themost important ideas in Zen. . . . Enò (Hui-neng), the sixth patriarchof Zen, emphasizes munen (or mushin) as most essential in the study ofZen. When it is attained, a man becomes a Zen-man” (1988:111n.).The Zen doctrine of no-mind encapsulates Hui-neng’s three principlesof no-thought, nonform, and nonabiding—all of which denote a stateof emancipation through complete nonattachment. He defines no-mind as follows: “The Heavenly Way is above the self, which is mushin,no-mind, or munen, no-thought. When mushin is realized, the mindknows no obstructions, no inhibitions, and is emancipated fromthoughts of life and death, gain and loss, victory and defeat” (p. 133).Here mushin is described as a disinterested state insofar as it is has noregard for self-interest in personal gain or loss. In this context Suzukithen suggests a relation between mushin and Lao-tzu’s Taoist attitudeof wu-wei: “doing by nondoing” (p. 133). He also notes the similaritybetween the no-mind-ness, empty-mind-ness, and egolessness of mushinin Zen Buddhism and Chuang-tzu’s Taoist idea of “mind-fasting”(shin-sai) (p. 148).

Furthermore, Suzuki emphasizes that while ushin is the consciousmind attached to the ego, mushin or no-mind is the unconscious,which is detached from the ego. He notes: “The swordsman calls thisunconscious ‘the mind that is no-mind’ (mushin no shin)” (1988:147).


And he adds that the “no-mind” (mushin) is identical with “everydaymind” (heijò-shin) (p. 147). No-mind or the unconscious is everydaymind as the effortless, natural, spontaneous, and pre-self-consciousmind that eats when hungry, drinks when thirsty, and sleeps whentired. In this context Suzuki translates passages from Takuan’s essay“The Mind of No-Mind” (“Mushin no Shin”) to clarify how the Zendoctrine of no-mind underlies the military art of swordsmanship (p.111). According to Takuan the Zen swordman must shift from theconscious mind (ushin no shin) to the unconscious, spontaneous, tran-quil, empty, and detached mind of mushin no shin, the “mind of no-mind.” For this reason Suzuki asserts: “Takuan strongly emphasizesthe significance of mushin, which may be regarded in a way as corre-sponding to the concept of the unconscious” (p. 94). This radical shiftof attention from mind to no-mind is to be understood both in tem-poral and in spatial categories. From the temporal perspective Takuanwrites that in Zen Buddhism ignorance (avidyâ) or nonenlightenmentmeans the abiding stage where “the mind attaches itself to any objectit encounters. This attaching is known as tomaru, ‘stopping’ or ‘abiding.’The mind stops with one object instead of flowing from one object toanother” (cited in Suzuki 1988:95). The nonattaching, nonabiding,nonclinging, enlightened state of mushin (no-mind) and munen (no-thought), by contrast, is always flowing without stoppage: “Whenmushin or munen is attained, the mind moves from one object toanother, flowing like a stream of water” (cited in Suzuki 1988:111).From the spatial perspective Takuan asserts that while the consciousmind of ushin no shin is localized and so directs the mind or attentionto a specific focal point (the sword, the opponent, the act of striking,the hara center in the lower abdomen), the unconscious state of no-mind or mushin no shin is instead nonlocalized as an unfocused state ofattention that fills up the whole of one’s being and flows freely as it isneeded (pp. 105–106). Takuan ends his essay by stating that the art ofswordsmanship must be rooted in the experience of satori, which isbased on a psychology of mushin, or no-mind, and which in turn isgrounded in the Buddhist metaphysics of kû, emptiness (p. 113).

Suzuki next goes on to apply the Zen doctrine of no-mind to thefine arts of drama, poetry, painting, and the tea ceremony. While dis-cussing the role of no-mind-ness in the arts of swordsmanship, heidentifies mushin (no-mind) and munen (no-thought) with muga (no-self), arguing that this is also the psychological state underlying theaesthetic ideal of sabi or impersonal loneliness in Japanese poetics:“This state of mind is also known as egolessness (muga or non-âtman).


. . . The so-called spirit of sabi-shiori (‘solitariness’), running throughSaigyò or Bashò, must also have come from the psychic state of ego-lessness” (1988:127). It should be noted that by grounding aestheticexperience in the egoless state of muga while at the same time identi-fying egolessness with no-mind-ness, Suzuki at once approximatesthe view of Nishida Kitarò (see Odin 1987) when he defines the Japa-nese sense of beauty as muga.

Suzuki makes an analogy between the experience of satori and thecreation and enjoyment of beauty in the fine arts of Japan: “Thissupreme moment in the life of an artist, when expressed in Zen terms,is the experience of satori. To experience satori is to become consciousof the Unconscious (mushin, no-mind), psychologically speaking. Arthas always something of the Unconscious about it” (1988:220). AfterSuzuki’s Introduction to Zen Buddhism (1938) was republished in 1948with a new foreword by C. G. Jung, Suzuki restated mushin in terms ofdepth psychology as the unconscious, or what he also calls “the cosmicunconscious,” and satori or enlightenment as the superconscious whereconsciousness opens to the unconscious. He relates the Zen satori-flash of clear insight into mushin or no-mind as the unconscious well-spring of artistic creativity to the medieval Japanese Buddhist aestheticideal of yûgen (mystery and depth): “Myò is sometimes called yûgen . . .in Japanese literature. Some critics state that all great works of artembody in them yûgen. . . . Where satori flashes there is the tapping ofcreative energy; where creative energy is felt art breathes myò andyûgen” (1988:220). For Suzuki, then, art resonates with the profoundmystery of yûgen when it springs from satori—which is seeing intoone’s original Buddha nature as mushin or no-mind, the bottomlessdepths of the unconscious functioning as the infinite reservoir ofcreative potentiality. Hence, just as for Shunzei, the mysterious beautyof yûgen is apprehended through the contemplative detachment ofshikan, “tranquility and insight,” and for Zeami it is directly experi-enced with the aesthetic attitude of riken no ken, the “seeing of de-tached perception,” and for Suzuki it is realized in the psychologicalstate of mushin, “no-mind,” the cosmic unconscious—the precon-scious, spontaneous, natural state of nonattachment.

Suzuki’s doctrine of mushin or “no-mind” has a long history in Japa-nese aesthetics and has been widely used in the various arts and craftsthat developed under the aegis of Zen. In Japanese aesthetics, gener-ally speaking, the term “mushin” is used to represent the mental atti-tude of artistic detachment functioning as the source underlying thecreation, performance, and enjoyment of beauty as yûgen (mystery and


depth). In Buddhism and the Arts of Japan Richard Pilgrim (1981:47)notes that the deepening of the Zen Buddhist dimensions of art thatcan be observed after the Heian period is to be found in the shift awayfrom an emphasis on the beauty of things to the state of mind ofthe artist. Pilgrim points out that the state of mind cultivated by theZen arts in the Japanese Buddhist religio-aesthetic tradition of geidò(the tao of art) is often described through the category of mushin, no-mind. In this context he makes reference to D. T. Suzuki’s view (1988:220) that mushin is the fusion point where Zen merges with art.Furthermore, he emphasizes that in the religio-aesthetic tradition ofgeidò—the way of the artist—the concept of mushin specifically denotesa mental attitude of tranquil detachment. Pilgrim asserts: “Mushinappears in many of the Way arts, especially those coming under theinfluence of Zen in the Muromachi Period . . . mushin in the [Zen] artsis closely related to the tranquil, detached but aware mind” (p. 47).This use of mushin to indicate a mental attitude of artistic detachmentin the tradition of Zen aestheticism is summed up by Pilgrim (p. 47)as follows:

Among these [Japanese aesthetic] notions there is one which is foundin several artistic traditions. This is the Buddhist state of mind mushin (no-mind, mu-mind). Whatever this term’s meaning within an orthodox Buddhist context, in the arts the word represents the unintending, unconscious, non-attached, spontaneous mind.

In the medieval period of Japanese aesthetics, the Zen Buddhist con-cept of mushin was explicitly and systematically developed as a theoryof artistic detachment in the nò drama of Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443). As clarified especially by Yusa Michiko, in Zeami’s nò dramathe aesthetic attitude of artistic detachment is expressed through theconcept of riken no ken, “the seeing of detached perception” (1987:331–345). Moreover, for Zeami the artistic detachment of riken no kenis identified with the Zen state of mushin (no-mind): “According tothe Zen doctrine of mushin, or ‘no-mind,’ the original state of the mindis pure, devoid of any self-reflection. . . . Riken no ken as ‘no-mind,’ orthe pre-self-conscious mind, is the seat of aesthetic delight” (p. 342).In this context Yusa identifies D. T. Suzuki’s understanding of mushinas the unconscious and Zeami’s understanding of the term: “WhatSuzuki calls ‘unconscious’ is the ‘pre-self-conscious’ phase of mind [inZeami’s nò theory]” (p. 341n). Explaining riken no ken, the seeing ofdetached perception, is itself rooted in Zen mushin and satori in Zeami’saesthetics of the nò drama: “Zeami’s insight into riken no ken is the in-


sight into the nature of aesthetic sensation, perception, and apprecia-tion. Riken no ken is rooted in the reality of the primordial mind,mushin, the idea so cherished by Zen, and it is enacted by the satori-mind” (p. 344). She adds: “Riken no ken is nothing but the aestheticsatori-mind exercised in the theatrical art” (p. 341). Once again shedirectly connects Zeami’s understanding of satori, mushin, and riken noken to D. T. Suzuki’s doctrine of no-mind in relation to Japanese aes-thetics (p. 341n). Zeami’s treatise Kyûi (ca. 1428) discusses the nineranks of nò plays and the skills of the nò actor and names the higheststage of art as myòkafû, “the art of the inexpressibly wondrous flower.”The ninth and highest stage is described as the level where the nòactor “moves no-mind” (mushin no kan) or the audience’s own highlyrefined aesthetic attitude of riken or artistic detachment. Yusa thuswrites:

It was through the attention he paid to the audience that Zeami devel-oped his insight into the nature of riken no ken, which he made into a principle governing the mental attitude that the actor should cultivate in order to become a true master of his art. In Yûgaku Shûdò Fûden, ca. 1424, Zeami tied this initially practical insight with the Buddhist notion of ùûnyatâ (kû), or emptiness, and mushin, the “primordial mind” or “no-mind,” the mind clear of conceptualization and images. In this way, the epistemology of noh became closely connected with Buddhist intuition and sensibility in general, and that of Zen in particular. [p. 333]

In Zeami’s nò theory, the aesthetic attitude of riken no ken, the seeingof detached perception, is therefore rooted in the Zen psychology ofmushin or no-mind, its underlying Buddhist metaphysics of ùûnyatâ(J. kû), emptiness, and its actualization through the satori-mind ofenlightenment.

Finally, I would like to point out the close relation between D. T.Suzuki’s Zen doctrine of no-mind and the view of Hisamatsu Shin’ichi,who in his interpretation of Japanese Buddhist aesthetics explicitlydevelops the Zen concept of mushin as a doctrine of artistic detachmentand disinterested aesthetic contemplation. To begin with, Hisamatsuacknowledges Suzuki’s profound influence on him after they metthrough an introduction arranged by Nishida Kitarò. In Hisamatsu’sown words: “It was my most revered teacher, Dr. Kitarò Nishida, whoin 1920 first introduced me to Dr. Daisetz Suzuki. Ever since thattime, for a period of some forty-five years, I have received Dr. Suzuki’smany kindnesses in the Dharma” (see Abe 1986:143). In Zen and theFine Arts, we recall, Hisamatsu discusses Kant’s idea of the aesthetic


attitude as a pleasure that is “disinterested” (interesselos) in conjunc-tion with the Zen Buddhist aesthetic attitude of “disinterestedness”(mukanshin):

Art is said to be . . . in the words of Kant, interesselos, meaning “disinter-ested,” without practical interest. . . . Zen expression does have its own kind of detachment which can be described as an “unrestricted freedom.” This Zen disinterestedness (mukanshin) is quite different from the interes-selos character of art because it derives from the “no-self” (muga) or “no-mind” (mushin) nature of Zen. [1971:8–9]

According to Hisamatsu, then, while both Kant and Zen agree thatbeauty requires an aesthetic attitude which is disinterested, there isalso a significant difference insofar as the artistic detachment culti-vated by Zen has its basis, not in the transcendental ego as for Kant,but in the egoless state of “no-mind” (mushin) or “no-self” (muga).Like Suzuki and Nishida he defines the aesthetic attitude in terms ofmuga or no-self. Moreover, like Suzuki, he identifies the egolessness ofmuga with the no-mind-ness of mushin. The “detachment” (datsuzoku)that Hisamatsu regards as a characteristic trait of Japanese Buddhistart and literature in the yûgen style is correlated with the aesthetic atti-tude of “disinterestedness” (mukanshin), which itself derives ultimatelyfrom the psychological state of “no-mind” (mushin) established throughZen contemplation. Both Zen and Japanese Culture by D. T. Suzukiand Zen and the Fine Arts by Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, therefore, clarify howthe Zen sense of beauty is rooted in mushin: the detached, empty, tran-quil, and egoless state of no-mind.

For Suzuki, then, the heart of Zen is satori: an instantaneous awak-ening to mushin or no-mind otherwise known as kenshò, seeing intoone’s original Buddha nature as no-mind. From the standpoint ofdepth psychology, he restates the realization of no-mind in satori asthe sudden enlightenment whereby one achieves superconsciousnessby becoming conscious of the unconscious, or the cosmic unconscious,which in Mahayana Buddhism is known as the âlaya-vijnâna or store-house consciousness. Following the Platform Sutra of Hui-neng hedescribes no-mind as no-thought, nonform, and nonabiding, whichaltogether represent the mind of nonattachment. Again, the no-mind-ness of mushin is identical with the egolessness of muga (no-self). Thestate of no-mind is attained by observing mental contents with de-tachment and equanimity devoid of blind reactions of love and hate,liking and disliking, craving and aversion. Suzuki understands thepsychology of mushin or no-mind in terms of its relation to the Zen


epistemology of immovable prajñâ -intuition and the Zen metaphysicsof ùûnyatâ, emptiness. The mind of no-mind is further explained asthe point where Zen merges with art. We have seen how in the his-tory of Japanese aesthetics the Zen concept of no-mind is used to rep-resent the mental attitude of artistic detachment. Both the militaryart of swordsmanship and the fine arts of painting, poetry, drama, andtea are all said to have a common source in the detached, tranquil,spontaneous, unconscious state of no-mind. In the art of swordsman-ship, no-mind signifies the pre-self-conscious or unconscious state ofthe nonattaching mind that flows spontaneously from one object toanother as well as the nonfocal and nonlocalized mind that fills thewhole of being and is directed freely as needed. In the fine arts, no-mind is the creative wellspring of the unconscious: the boundless voidof imaginative possibilities. Suzuki’s writings on Japanese culture thusilluminate how Zen satori, along with its creative expression in Zen-influenced art and literature, is to be analyzed as a function of no-mind: the mind of nonattachment.

Kuki Shûzò: The Aesthetics of Iki

Among the major thinkers related to the Kyoto school of modernJapanese philosophy, the work of Kuki Shûzò (1888–1941) is stillrelatively unknown. Yet Kuki has written what some regard as themost creative treatise on Eastern and comparative aesthetics in modernJapanese philosophy. Hence one of the functions of this section is tointroduce the remarkable life and writings of Kuki to an English-speak-ing audience. Of special interest to our intercultural theme of psychicdistance as a factor in aesthetic experience is how, in contrast to theaustere detachment characterizing traditional Zen ideals of beauty likeyûgen, wabi, sabi, and shibumi, Kuki sets forth a decadent aestheticismbased on the high-fashion ideal of iki, or “stylishness,” wherein eroticfeelings and other sensual pleasures are sublimated into highly refinedsensations by the aesthete, dandy, or connoisseur (tsûjin), who adopts aKantian/Zen impartial attitude of disinterested contemplation. Fromthe standpoint of East-West comparative philosophy, it is significanthow Kuki articulates his concept of iki (chic) as formulated through asynthesis of akirame (detached resignation) of Zen aestheticism in theEast and the attitude of désintéressement (disinterestedness) of Frenchdecadent aestheticism in the West—both of which are based on anaesthetic attitude rooted in disinterested contemplation of beauty forits own sake without any concern for utility or moral considerations.


Kuki, or rather Count Kuki, was born into a wealthy family ofnoble descent. After years of graduate study at Tokyo University, hetraveled to Germany in 1922 where he studied philosophy at Heidel-berg, Freiburg and Marburg universities under the direct tutelage ofEdmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger along with such distinguishedneo-Kantians as Heinrich Rickert and Eugen Herrigel (himself laterknown for his short work based on his experiences in Japan, Zen in theArt of Archery). Then in the autumn of 1924 Kuki journeyed to Francewhere he would remain until the spring of 1927, engaged in the studyof modern French philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris with HenriBergson. Subsequently he returned to Germany in order to attend Hei-degger’s lectures in 1927 and then went back to France in 1928 tostudy again with Bergson. As discussed by Stephen Light (1987), itwas for a period of about two and a half months during the fall of1928 that Kuki employed none other than the young Jean-Paul Sartre(then only twenty-three years of age) as a conversation partner on thetopic of modern French philosophy ranging from Descartes to Berg-son. Light demonstrates that in 1928 it was Kuki who introducedSartre to the philosophy of Husserl and Heidegger—thereby correct-ing Simone de Beauvoir’s claim in La Force de l’âge that it was RaymondAron who first informed Sartre about phenomenology in 1932 (Light1987:23). Following this extraordinary sojourn in Europe, Kuki finallyreturned to Japan in 1929. He obtained a professorship at Kyoto Uni-versity in 1933 whereupon he joined Nishida Kitarò and TanabeHajime as a faculty member in the philosophy department.

Kuki’s major publications in Japanese include The Structure of Iki(Iki no kòzò, 1930), Rhyming in Japanese Poetry (Nihonshi no oin, 1931),The Philosophy of Existence ( Jitsuzon no tetsugaku, 1933), The Problem ofContingency (Guzensei no mondai, 1935), and Humanity and Existence(Ningen to jitsuzon, 1939). Among his published articles he has writtenon various aspects of aesthetic theory such as “A Consideration AboutFûryû” (“Fûryû ni kansuru ikkosatsu,” 1937), “The Fusion of Art andLife—Thoughts on the Second Volume of the New Manyoshû” (“Gei-jutsu to kekatsu to no yugo—Shinmanyoshû maki ni no saiso,” 1938),and “The Metaphysics of Literature” (“Bungaku to keijijògaku,” 1940).In addition, Kuki authored a series of essays in French during his stayin Paris, including “Considerations of Time” (Propos sur le temps, 1928).While at the time of this writing none of Kuki’s Japanese-languageworks have as yet been published in an English translation, his trans-lated Parisian writings, penned in French, are now available in StephenLight’s book Shûzò Kuki and Jean-Paul Sartre: Influence and Counter-


Influence in the Early History of Existential Phenomenology (1987). PartTwo of Light’s book contains a translation of Propos sur le temps, whichis itself composed of two brief essays. The first essay, “The Notion ofTime and Repetition in Oriental Time,” shows the influence of thephenomenology of internal time consciousness developed by Husserland Heidegger in Germany as well as Bergson’s voluntaristic notionof temporality as a creative evolution of élan vital, here applied towardthe analysis of what Kuki calls “Oriental time.” The second essay ofPropos sur le temps, “The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art,” isa treatment of Eastern aesthetics wherein Kuki analyzes the “triplesource” from which the spiritual content of Japanese art derives—namely, what he calls the spiritual mysticism of Indian Buddhist reli-gion, the pantheism of Chinese Taoist philosophy, and the moralidealism of bushidò (Light 1987:52). Part Three of Light’s book con-tains a translation of Kuki’s Propos on Japan, which includes a series ofbrief vignettes on the aesthetic and intellectual dimensions of Japa-nese culture analyzed from the standpoint of French philosophy andvice versa.

Kuki’s greatest contributions have been in the field of aesthetics—in particular his brilliant analysis of a Japanese concept of beautyknown as iki, an aesthetic ideal that acquired currency during the Edoperiod. While older, more traditional Japanese aesthetic ideals havereceived detailed scholarly analysis, the more recent concept of iki hasreceived little attention aside from Kuki’s treatise on the subject. Con-sequently, Kuki’s study has become the standard reference text on ikiin the canons of modern Japanese aesthetic taste for scholars such asHisamatsu Sen’ichi. As explained in Hisamatsu’s Vocabulary of Japa-nese Literary Aesthetics (1963:63–66), along with such closely relatednotions as sui and tsû, the aesthetic ideal of iki arose in the government-regulated centers for prostitution in Edo-period Japan that have cometo be referred to poetically as the “floating world” (ukiyo). The ideal ofsui had a connotation of savoring the emotions aroused by relationsbetween the sexes as regulated by standards of elegant restraint. Whena man or woman understood sui and moved in circles where the expres-sion was current, he or she was called suisama (a person clever in love).Sui appears most conspicuously in Kamigata literature in Osaka duringthe Genroku era—particularly Ihara Saikaku’s kòshoku-mono (fictiondealing with amorous adventures). While “sui” was a regional termused primarily in the Osaka-Kyoto bordellos, “iki” was fashionable inthe Yoshiwara pleasure quarter of Edo (present-day Tokyo). The aes-thetic ideal of iki appears most prominently in early nineteenth-


century literature written in Edo—particularly in the prose genresknown as ninjòbon and sharebon, in ballads (Kiyomotobushi, Shinnaibushi),and in the kabuki scripts of Kawatake Mokuami and others. The term“tsû” also came into vogue during this period. As Hisamatsu Sen’ichiexplains: “Iki and tsû are inextricably associated. Iki is a type of aes-thetic ideal; tsû is a term applied to someone pursuing that ideal”(1963:65). For this reason we have terms like “tsûjin” (a tsû person),“daitsû” (a great tsû), and various others. Broadly speaking, the clusterof aesthetic terms like iki, tsû, and sui all denote the nonchalance andcool urban sophistication of the bordello dandy who was completelyat home in the demi-monde of the pleasure quarters in the floatingworld of Edo-period Japan. It is against this general background thatwe can now examine the technical philosophical analysis of iki pro-vided by Kuki Shûzò.

Kuki’s understanding of iki is introduced, if only briefly, in one ofhis 1928 Parisian essays written in French titled “Geisha.” In this essayof only two pages, Kuki asserts that iki was a moral-aesthetic ideal em-bodied by the geisha, highly refined courtesans of the “floating world”(ukiyo), in Edo-period Japan. In Kuki’s words: “The ideal of the geisha,at once moral and aesthetic, that which is called iki, is a harmoniousunion of voluptuousness and nobility” (Light 1987:87). For Kuki thismoral-aesthetic ideal of iki reveals a paradoxical union of contradic-tory tendencies such as the sensual and the noble to be found in boththe artistic sensibility cultivated in Edo-period bordello life and Frenchdecadent aestheticism. He adds: “Sensual pleasure animated by a noblespirit is testament to a great idealist civilization. It is the reason whyBaudelaire, for example, has so many admirers in Japan” (Light 1987:88). While this brief vignette of the geisha offers a fascinating glimpseinto the paradoxical nature of iki as a moral-aesthetic ideal, to gain adeeper understanding of this notion we must consider Kuki’s majortreatise on Japanese and comparative aesthetics: The Structure of Iki.

In December 1926, still living in France, Kuki finished a manu-script titled The Essence of Iki (Iki no honshitsu)—the rough draft of whatwould later become his acclaimed work The Structure of Iki (Iki no kòzò).Any consideration of Kuki’s inquiry into the structure of iki requiresan understanding of the philosophical method he used to conduct hisinquiry. At the end of his introduction to The Structure of Iki, Kuki(1930:15) explains his basic methodological orientation:

The understanding of iki . . . must be a factual and concrete “existential understanding.” Before inquiring into the essentia of iki, we must look at


the existentia of iki. In a word, the study of iki is not “expressionistic.” Instead, it should be “hermeneutic.” What is the structure of iki as a form of concrete, ethnic experience? First we will attempt to understand the “existential mode” of iki through a description of “phenomena of con-sciousness.” Then we will try to grasp it by the conditions of being discovered through its objective expression.

In this passage Kuki expresses his methodological commitment toexistential and hermeneutic phenomenology as derived from EdmundHusserl and Martin Heidegger. Kuki’s indebtedness to these twophilosophers is openly acknowledged in a footnote to the precedingpassage wherein he cites both Husserl’s Ideas: Introduction to Pure Phe-nomenology (Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie, 1913) and Heidegger’sBeing and Time (Sein und Zeit, 1927). His commitment to existentialphenomenology is at once clear from the statement that iki is an “exis-tential mode” (sonzai yòtai) that can only be grasped by a phenomeno-logical description of “phenomena of consciousness” (ishiki genshò). Inother words, iki is not merely an abstract ideal of beauty to be seenthrough its objective expressions. It is a concrete mode of existence orway of being-in-the-world, the formal conditions of which are to bedescribed through the method of phenomenology. He further under-scores this existential orientation of his study by asserting that a truegrasp of iki must be an “existential understanding” (sonzai etoku). More-over, his statement that an inquiry into the “existentia of iki” must pre-cede an inquiry into the “essentia of iki” is itself a direct invocation ofthe well-known existentialist dictum: “Existence precedes essence.”Finally, he specifies that his analysis of iki through the method of exis-tential phenomenology is “interpretive” or “hermeneutic” (kaishaku-teki). In other words: he will endeavor to gradually unfold the mean-ing of iki as a concrete existential mode by describing its variety ofcontexts and uses in Japanese culture. Through the “hermeneuticcircle,” one moves from text to context and back again to interpret theparts through the whole and vice versa. In this case Japanese culture isused to illuminate the structure of iki while at the same time iki func-tions to illuminate the structure of Japanese culture.

Kuki’s methodological orientation in The Structure of Iki especiallyreflects the influence of Heidegger. Although the phenomenologicalmethod was initially developed by Husserl, it was Heidegger who for-mulated the existential-hermeneutic approach to phenomenology thatKuki adopts in his own work. Yet just as Kuki was profoundly influ-enced by Heidegger, Heidegger himself would pay lasting tribute toKuki in his essay “A Dialogue on Language” contained in On the Way


to Language (1982). This dialogue presents a conversation between anInquirer (Heidegger) and a Japanese Visitor (Professor Tezuka of TokyoUniversity) on the topic of Count Kuki, including the latter’s meth-odological approach to the aesthetic ideal of iki. The opening lines ofthis dialogue reveal the great esteem in which Count Kuki Shûzò washeld by both Martin Heidegger and Nishida Kitarò:

Japanese: You know Count Shûzò Kuki. He studied with you for a number of years.

Inquirer: Count Kuki has a lasting place in my memory.Japanese: He died too early. His teacher Nishida wrote his epitaph—for

over a year he worked on this supreme tribute to his pupil.Inquirer: I am happy to have photographs of Kuki’s grave and the grove

in which it lies. [1982:1]

Heidegger’s dialogue especially clarifies the “hermeneutic” nature ofKuki’s inquiry into the structure of iki. Throughout the dialoguethere are many references to Kuki’s hermeneutic treatment of iki as anaesthetic, moral, and even ontological notion. At one point the Japa-nese Visitor states: “What you mean to say with hermeneutics mustsomehow have illuminated Iki more brightly for Count Kuki” (p. 13).Shortly thereafter, the Inquirer describes how Kuki attempted to her-meneutically unfold the complex meaning of iki as the “sensuous radi-ance through whose lively delight there breaks the radiance of some-thing suprasensuous” (p. 14). The Japanese Visitor then responds:“With that explanation, I believe, Kuki has hit on what we experiencein Japanese art” (p. 14).

While discussing the relationship between language and culture inhis introduction to The Structure of Iki, Kuki employs the etymologicalstyle of analysis characteristic of Heideggerian hermeneutics in orderto disclose the complex of meanings signified by the Japanese word“iki.” In this context he searches for equivalents to the Japanese wordamong the European languages, especially French: chic, élégant, coquet-terie, dandy, Fangerei, and raffiné (1930:9–11). In English, iki in its senseas “chic” denotes smartness, mod, posh, dapper, flair, stylish, and soforth. But he concludes that none of these terms exhaust the full rangeof meanings denoted by iki because they lack the essential componentof shibumi, a Japanese aesthetic ideal signifying astringency and ele-gant restraint (p. 12). Thus Kuki writes: “In short, there is no wordamong Western languages which has precisely the same meaning asiki. It is therefore justifiable to consider iki as an expression of theunique existential mode of Eastern, or rather Yamato (Japanese), cul-


ture” (p. 12). In such a manner, then, Kuki has already indicated theparadoxical structure defining iki as a moral-aesthetic ideal. While insome contexts the subdued elegance of shibumi may be taken as stand-ing in direct opposition to the coquettishness of iki, the paradoxicalstructure of Japanese aesthetic taste ultimately requires both elementsas contradictory poles within the total structure of iki.

In the second chapter of The Structure of Iki, Kuki gives a concisesummary of the structure of iki or “chic” as follows: “The structure ofiki is revealed by three elements: bitai (coquettishness), ikuji (pride),and akirame (detached resignation)” (1930:28). He further clarifies thatamong these three factors constituting the nature of iki, the coquett-ishness of bitai serves as the foundation whereas the pride of ikuji andthe detached serenity of akirame are regulated by historical and cul-tural factors (p. 28). According to Kuki’s analysis, the first element ofiki is bitai, signifying the bipolar tension generated when the self estab-lishes a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. This inner ten-sion of bitai denotes the coquettishness (namamekashisa), eroticism (tsu-yapposa), amorousness (iroke), and sensuality (iropposa) that altogetherconstitute the very foundation of iki. According to Kuki, bitai is theelement that locates iki in the world of “intersexual” (iseiteki) relation-ships. The eroticism and amorousness of bitai are embodied by thegeisha, the courtesan (tayu), and the tsûjin (dandy) who inhabited theYoshiwara pleasure quarter in the Edo-period floating world. As weshall see, it is precisely this element of crude eroticism denoted bybitai that ultimately constitutes iki as a Japanese mode of decadentaestheticism.

The second element of iki is ikuji, designating the qualities of pride,valor, nobility, spiritedness, and gallantry. This element of ikuji is his-torically and culturally rooted in the military honor and chivalry ofthe samurai who cavorted in the pleasure quarter of Edo and thereforebrings with it the moral idealism of bushidò: the tao of the warrior. Nowthe bushidò warrior class that dominated Japan for seven hundred yearsspilled over into all the other classes and so the ideal of ikuji or pride-fulness came to permeate Japanese culture.

The final element constituting the aesthetic, moral, and spiritualcontent of iki is akirame, meaning “resignation,” “renunciation,” or“detachment.” Of course, it is this element of iki that is most perti-nent to our present study on artistic detachment in the Japanese aes-thetic of Zen Buddhism. In Kuki’s words: “The third aspect of iki isakirame (detachment). It is a disinterestedness based on a knowledgeof fate and a renunciation of worldly attachments” (1930:25). Here as


elsewhere in The Structure of Iki, Kuki defines the resignation and de-tachment of akirame in terms of mukanshin, a term denoting “noncha-lance,” “indifference,” or, most literally, “disinterestedness.” It shouldbe recalled that “mukanshin” is the same Japanese term used by Hisa-matsu Shin’ichi (1971:8) in Zen and the Fine Arts (Zen to bijutsu) forthe purpose of translating the German word “interesselos” or “disinter-ested,” which for Kant determines the nature of aesthetic judgementsin matters of taste. Kuki further states that the attitude of “disinter-estedness” (mukanshin) typical of akirame or detachment is acquiredespecially by the older geisha through a long life of suffering and dis-appointment in the floating world (1930:27). In this context he citesthe words: “Sui [= iki] is crudeness (yabo) which has suffered” (“Yabowa momarete sui to naru”) (p. 27). Finally, Kuki shows that the elementof akirame has its historical and cultural roots deep in the Japanese Bud-dhist philosophy of resignation. It is precisely by virtue of this Bud-dhist element of akirame or detached tranquility in combination withthe bushidò element of ikuji or spirited gallantry whereby the crudeeroticism and sensuality of bitai is itself raised to the the level of iki asa moral-aesthetic ideal of Japanese culture. Kuki therefore writes:“Briefly stated, in the existential mode of iki is contained the elementof bitai (coquettishness), which has as its foundation the ikuji (pride)derived from the [moral] idealism of bushidò and the akirame (detach-ment) from the background of Buddhist irrealism, which altogetherdefine its existential perfection” (p. 30).

While in the second chapter Kuki analyzes iki in terms of his triadof seductive coquetry (bitai), the gallant’s pride (ikuji), and detachedresignation (akirame), in chapter three he clarifies the bipolar struc-ture of iki in terms of a series of paired antonyms: shibumi (astringency)versus amami (sweetness); gehin (crude) versus jòhin (refined); jimi (plain)versus hade (gaudy). And in a section entitled “Shibumi/Amami” (1930:50–57), he underscores the paradoxical structure of iki as an aestheticlifestyle or existential mode that is mediated by two formerly opposedvalues in the canons of taste: “astringency” (shibumi) and “sweetness”(amami). Kuki’s schematic chart on the structure of iki, appearing inthe same section, indicates that while the sweetness of amami is a“positive” (sekkyokuteki) value directed toward the “gaudy” (hade), theastringency of shibumi is a “negative” (shòkyokuteki) value directedtoward the “plain” and “somber” (jimi) (p. 57). Within the paradoxicalaesthetic value structure of iki or “chic” denoting the cool sophistica-tion and nonchalance of the stylish bordello dandy, there is a dual ten-sion whereby the sweetness (amami) associated with the coaxing and


seductive quality of the coquettish geisha is itself tempered by theastringency and subdued elegance of shibumi. Hence when Kuki definesiki as a “harmonious union of voluptuousness and nobility” in hisParisian essay called “Geisha,” he clearly anticipates his more detailedanalysis of the paradoxical amami/shibumi (sweetness/astringency) struc-ture of iki as elaborated in his Iki no kòzò.

Kuki’s analysis of the bipolar amami/shibumi (sweetness/astringency)contrast in The Structure of Iki exerted a profound influence on DoiTakeo’s famous psychological study, The Structure of Amae (Amae no kòzò,1971). In his section on “amami/shibumi” (pp. 50–57) Kuki undertakesa detailed analysis of amae (an aspect of amami)—a notion that psychi-atrist Doi Takeo would later argue was the key to Japanese patterns ofbehavior. The word “amae,” which is etymologically related to theadjective “amai” (sweet) and the noun “amami” (sweetness), is itself anominative meaning “dependency wish” or “drive to dependence.”The verbal form, “amaeru,” means “to play the baby to,” “to act like aspoiled child,” “to coax,” or “to indulge upon another’s love.” Con-versely, “amayakasu” means “to indulge, spoil, baby, or pamper some-one.” In terms of the amami/shibumi contrast, while shibumi or astrin-gency is a negative quality that moves in the direction of restraint inorder to avoid social contact, amami or sweetness is a positive qualitythat moves in the direction of establishing intimate social relation-ships. Kuki writes: “Amami (sweetness) expresses the positive qualityin this contrast in that between a person being indulged (amaeru-sha)and a person indulging (amaerareru-sha), there is always a positive com-munication opened up” (p. 51). For Kuki, amae functions similarly tothe bitai component of iki insofar as it denotes a sweet, flirtatious, andseductive type of coquettish behavior associated especially with amo-rous relations between the sexes. As an example he cites various collo-quial expressions using “amae” in an erotic sense like “A woman is mostdesirable when she amaerus” (amaeru sugata iro fukashi) (p. 53). Hencefor Kuki there is an inner tension within the structure of iki. On theone side shibumi, like akirame, has a negative value that moves towarddetachment from an object or person; on the other side, amae andamami, like bitai, have a positive value that moves toward union withan object or person.

In his Structure of Amae, Doi uses his key psychological notion ofamae (coaxing in dependent relationships) in order to interpret notonly Japanese patterns of behavior but the whole of traditional Japa-nese culture, including the art and literature of Japanese aesthetics. Doianalyzes the structure of amae as follows: “Amae is essentially a com-


plete dependence upon an object, a wish for the identification of sub-ject and object” (1971:114). For Doi, both the Zen Buddhist expe-rience of satori (enlightenment) and its modern reformulation in theEast-West philosophy of Nishida Kitarò as a kind of “pure experi-ence” (junsui keiken) are expressions of Japanese amae mentality withits underlying dependency wish for an identification of subject andobject. Thus Doi writes: “In this regard it is interesting that theNishida philosophy which became so popular in prewar Japan, withits notion of a pure experience in which subject and object fuse, hasclearly received an influence from Zen” (p. 92). Doi then interpretsthe Japanese sense of beauty as an additional example of the amae men-tality in that aesthetic experience also merges the subject with theobject: “Let us now consider the Japanese aesthetic sense. Here toothe amae sensibility is an important factor. What is called beauty usu-ally indicates that an object pleases the senses, such that the one whoenjoys the beauty of the object becomes one with it through that expe-rience” (p. 87). In this context Doi applies his amae principle to variousideals of beauty in traditional Japanese aesthetics, including mono noaware, wabi, sabi, and iki:

Above I have discussed some characteristics of Japanese thought in rela-tion to amae psychology, but one could also find connections to various other aspects. For example, the famous notion of mono no aware spoken of by Motoori Norinaga appears to be similarly related to the amae sensi-bility. Amae signifies being moved by some human or natural object (taishò) and thereby becoming entirely one with that object. Ultimately, wabi and sabi, as as well as iki, and even the understanding of human relationships established by giri-ninjò (social obligation versus human feeling), are all originally based upon mono no aware. [1971:91]

As Doi states in this passage, mono no aware or the sad beauty of ephem-eral things is said to express the Japanese amae mentality in that it is adeep emotion which unites a subject with some object. But he thenpoints out that the celebrated ingredients of the Japanese aestheticsense—wabi and sabi—imply a type of quietism that seeks to renouncehuman society and hence would seem to be diametrically opposed tothe desire for human contact dominated by the amae mentality. Yetthe person who has achieved the detached tranquility of wabi and sabiultimately achieves an identity with his surroundings (p. 88). Doi nextcontrasts the world-renouncing qualities of wabi and sabi with the aes-thetic notion of iki. Iki, like amae, seeks to establish an identity of sub-ject and object:


Another important notion, one that stands in contrast to wabi and sabi, is the concept of iki. As opposed to wabi and sabi, the ideal of iki is not attained by detachment from the human world but is an aesthetic sensi-bility of someone who lives in the common world yet purifies life of the roughness that accompanies amae in its cruder aspects. [p. 88]

Doi goes on to discuss the amami/shibumi contrast of iki as describedby Kuki in his Structure of Iki:

In Iki no kòzò, an excellent work by Kuki Shûzò that analyzes iki in detail, the author defines iki as “sophisticated” . . . and then establishes its rela-tionship to amae mentality. . . . He explains that iki, along with amami and shibumi, are “special intersexual modes of existence. . . . Considering amami as the normal state, one finally arrives, by means of iki, at the point of shibumi, whereupon one then exercises restraint in relationships with others. [p. 89]

Of greatest concern for our present study is the recognition that anaesthetic attitude of “disinterestedness” (mukanshin) is essential to ikiinsofar as the Buddhist detachment of akirame is a basic element withinits complex structure. Yet the Buddhist detachment of iki must beunderstood in a context quite different from that of the other Buddhist-influenced aesthetic ideals we have examined. The traditional artisticand literary ideals that emerged in the classical and medieval canonsof Japanese taste—yûgen, ma, wabi, sabi, fûryû, and shibumi—all involveto some extent a disinterested aesthetic contemplation of beauty inthe solitude and isolation of nature. The more recent aesthetic ideal ofiki, by contrast, is said to involve the exercise of Buddhist detachmentin the very midst of the red light districts that arose in the sprawlingurban centers of Japan. Accordingly, while the paradigm of a detachedand tranquil wabi/sabi lifestyle might be embodied by a reclusive Zenartist-priest dwelling in a lonely tea hut in his quest for ideal beautythrough the religio-aesthetic tradition of geidò—the tao of art—the ikilifestyle is instead embodied by the sensual and elegant geisha of theEdo-period brothels. Hence while the existential mode of iki doesindeed require a profound Buddhist element of akirame, or detachment,it is not a detachment cultivated through tranquil meditation in thetemples of a mountain retreat but a detachment born from suffering abroken heart in the bordellos of a floating world.

From the standpoint of comparative aesthetics, it is clear that Kuki’snotion of iki has been strongly influenced by French doctrines of deca-dent aestheticism. The French tradition of aestheticism, or aestheticdecadence, was a nineteenth-century movement that included such


representative authors as Baudelaire and d’Aurevilly. As explained byliterary critic M. H. Abrams (1981:2), the movement of French aes-theticism traces its philosophical origins back to the Kantian idea ofbeauty as a pleasure that is “dis-interested” (interesselos). Although Kukistudied Kantian philosophy with the leading scholars of Germany dur-ing his sojourn in Europe, it is in the specific context of French aesthet-icism that Kant’s idea of beauty as disinterested pleasure entered intohis notion of iki or “chic” as an aesthetic ideal. In his Essence of Laughter,the French aesthete Charles Baudelaire describes the ideal of beauty forhis cult of dandyism as follows: “The characteristic beauty of the dandyconsists, above all, in his air of reserve, which in turn arises from hisunshakable resolve not to feel any emotion” (1956:50). Elsewhere Bau-delaire asserts that the dandy “aspires to indifference” (p. 28). ForBaudelaire, it is this posture of contrived indifference, nonchalance, oraloofness from human emotions that elevates the aesthetic life to a kindof religion (p. 48). Similarly, Kuki’s aesthetic ideal of iki or “chic” hasa profound religious dimension by virtue of its Buddhist componentof akirame, detached resignation. The dapper savoir faire and serenenonchalance of the Parisian dandy, the brothel habitué who is com-pletely at home in the demi-monde, is based on a highly refined aes-thetic attitude of désintéressement, a disinterested contemplation of beautyfor its own sake without any concern for utility or moral considera-tions. Likewise, the Edo-period tsûjin, the sophisticated bordello dandywho frequents the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter, must cultivate an aes-thetic attitude of “disinterestedness” (mukanshin). Just as for Baudelairethe special beauty of dandyism is an “air of reserve,” for Kuki the spe-cial beauty of iki is that of shibumi: elegant restraint. Kuki’s concept ofiki might therefore be described as representing a distinctive Edo-period theory of aesthetic decadence formulated through an originalcreative synthesis of both Japanese and French traditions of aestheti-cism. In this context he describes how the aesthetic experience of ikirequires a mental attitude of disinterested contemplation that derivesfrom both the Japanese Buddhist notion of akirame (detached resigna-tion) in the East and the désintéressement of French aestheticism in theWest.

As Peter N. Dale (1986:72) points out: “If Heidegger providedKuki with his linguistic and conceptual tools, it is beyond doubt thathis reading of the French decadents was critical for his reappraisal of,and sense of affinity with, the dandy tradition of Edo.” Dale claimsthat while Kuki has been profoundly influenced by Baudelaire andother French decadents, the elements of bitai, ikuji, and akirame con-


stituting the threefold structure of iki have been specifically appropri-ated from the work of Barbey d’Aurevilly. That is to say, Dale is charg-ing Kuki of plagiarism. Dale writes: “Bitai corresponds to d’Aurevilly’scoquetterie, ikuji to his vanité, and akirame to désintéressement. There arenumerous other points of verbal and analytical correspondence” (p.76). According to Dale, for purposes of highlighting the absoluteuniqueness of Japanese culture in general and the aesthetic ideal of ikiin particular, Kuki neglects to cite d’Aurevilly as a major source forhis analysis. Kuki’s work thereby becomes one of disguised transposi-tion, of discovering a Japanese counterpart to the Western theory, andthen erasing all comparison with his original. Dale adds: “We see thisclearly in his failure to cite Barbey d’Aurevilly, though his analysis ofbitai, ikuji and akirame derives directly from the latter” (p. 72). In hiseffort to critically undermine what he calls the “myth of Japaneseuniqueness” propagated by works on nihonjinron or “studies of Japa-nese identity,” Dale wishes to expose the nationalism, cultural chau-vinism, and ethnocentrism implicit in Kuki’s aesthetic concept of iki(pp. 57, 68–73, 155–161). Just as some have discerned the essence of“Japanness” (nihonrashisa) in aware (pathos), amae (coaxing), aidagara(relationship), akirame (resignation), tate (verticality), ma (interval,space), ie (family household), or ki (spirit, mood, feeling), so Kuki seesthe quintessence of Japanness in his absolutely unique concept of iki(chic). In accordance with the tradition of nihonjinron, Kuki endeavorsto interpret the whole spectrum of ethnic experience in the light ofhis single chosen term—in this case, the notion of iki—with the aimof showing how the entire Japanese tradition can be summed up withthis one key word. Yet as Dale rightly points out, Kuki’s tsûjin (sophis-ticate) in quest of an iki lifestyle has its counterpart in Baudelaire’sdandy, just as the three constitutive elements of bitai, ikuji, and aki-rame are directly corresponding to, if not derived from, d’Aurevilly’sparallel notions of coquetterie, vanité, and désintéressement. Thus whileKuki’s Structure of Iki stands today as a classic work on Japanese aes-thetic taste in the modern period, his claim that iki is an absolutelyunique existential mode of Yamato culture with no Western counter-part is exaggerated.

From this standpoint, Kuki’s Structure of Iki is to be understood asarticulating a highly stylized if not exotic form of Eastern aestheti-cism that has built upon French as much as Japanese traditions of aes-thetic decadence in literature and the arts. The fundamental notionunderlying Kuki’s East-West philosophy of decadent aestheticism isthat detachment is the prerequisite for connoisseurship whereby one


enjoys the most delicate hedonic sensations of life, including the eroticpassion of sexual relations, while at the same time inserting the dis-tance of elegant restraint. In the final analysis, Kuki’s existential modeof iki bears a deep structural proximity with the tradition of Frenchdecadence to the extent that both advocate a posh and dapper aestheticlifestyle wherein crude eroticism, gallant pride, and cool detachmentare paradoxically combined in the pursuit of “chic” as the supremeideal of beauty.

170

Chapt e r 3

An East-West Phenomenology

of the Aesthetic Attitude

In concluding Part One of the book, I want to outline aphenomenological interpretation of the aesthetic attitude of disinter-ested contemplation as articulated by both the Western and Japanesephilosophical traditions. While the argument gradually unfolds inthe course of exposition, it is worth outlining some advantages of thisphenomenological approach here at the outset. The Copernican Revo-lution in the history of Western philosophy is the transcendental ideal-ism of Kant—a view which argues that in human experience senseobjects are “constituted” by mental acts of subjects—just as the turningpoint in the history of Western aesthetics is Kant’s Critique of Judgement(1790), where he sets forth his idea of beauty as a function of an atti-tude of disinterested contemplation. Whereas ancient and medievaltheories present beauty as an attribute of harmony located in the object,for Kant something is beautiful or sublime according to the disinter-ested attitude of the subject.

Kant’s transcendental idealism was to be further developed inHusserl’s phenomenology, which analyzes in detail how the humanmind constitutes the perceptual field through mental acts of inten-tionality. Phenomenology is a descriptive method that starts with anepoché, or suspension of judgement, and then describes phenomena asthey appear to consciousness in their prereflective presence. The ideaof epoché traces back to the ancient Greek skepticism of Pyrrho recordedby Sextus Empiricus, where it means suspension of judgement leadingto liberation of tranquility in ataraxia (mental imperturbability).Scholars have related the experience of tranquility of ataraxia in Greek

An East-West Phenomenology — 171

skepticism to the divine peace of nirvana in early Buddhist thought,achieved through vipassana or “insight” meditation as “observation offeeling” (vedana sati) with “equanimity” (uppekha) devoid of “blindreactions” (tanha) of craving and aversion. The invariant stucture ofmental life is “intentionality” (consciousness-of): the noesis → noemacorrelation whereby the noema (objective content) is constituted bythe noesis (subjective act) of consciousness. Phenomenological meth-odology thus involves a twofold description of both the noema or con-stituted object pole and the correlate noesis or constitutive act pole. Itfollows from this that a Husserlian phenomenological aestheticswould likewise involve a requirement to provide a twofold descrip-tion of beauty as something constituted by what is felt on the noemaside and how it is felt on the noesis side. Leading scholars have devel-oped Heidegger’s philosophy in relation to Husserl’s phenomenologywherein a noematic description of phenomena is supplemented by anoetic analysis of the act that intends the noema. For Heidegger, thenoema is the horizon phenomenon of the “region of openness” whereinthe noesis is the open, detached, and nonfocal perception of Gelassenheitor “letting-be” (see Ihde 1974:24). Heidegger undertakes a Husserlianphenomenological description of beauty in terms of “horizon phe-nomena” comprehended as the background horizon of nothingness/openness at the noematic pole while Gelassenheit, “letting-be,” is theact of detached contemplation that corresponds to it at the noetic pole.Thus in essays like “Origin of the Work of Art,” Heidegger describesart as the beauty of original truth (aletheia), or unconcealedness, wherephenomena stand out in ekstasis into the openness of nothingnessthrough the attitude of Gelassenheit.

I employ this kind of phenomenological analysis as a frameworkby which to interpret the yûgen style of art and literature in the Zen-influenced tradition of Japanese aesthetics. (See Figure 1.) By this viewthe atmospheric beauty of yûgen, or mystery and depth, signifies thosevalue-rich figure/ground “gestalt qualities” (Gestaltqualitäten) on theside of the noema that are constituted by an attitude of disinterestedcontemplation on the side of the noesis. A phenomenological analysisdiscloses the noematic content of yûgen as the beauty of hidden depththrough a description of “horizon phenomena,” wherein illuminatedobjects clearly articulated at the foreground focus are seen to fadegradually into a vague penumbral region of darkness and shadows inthe surrounding horizon of openness or nothingness at the nonarticu-lated whole of the background field. By this view an aesthetic gestaltquality of yûgen on the noematic side is revealed as corresponding to a


noetic act of disinterested contemplation. This act has the nature ofphenomenological epoché (suspension of judgement), or “neutralization”of sedimented mental positings, which allows the object to come topresence just as it is in emptiness/suchness. The aesthetic attitude atthe noetic pole corresponding to the noematic content of beauty asyûgen is further seen to have both a negative aspect of disinterestednessand a positive act of creative reconstitution through what Husserl callsthe practice of “fantasy variation” in imagination.

Figure . Beauty in Japanese Aesthetics: A Phenomenological Diagram

Haiku Moment(Epiphany)

Intentionality(Noesis Noema Correlation)

Noesis (Act Pole) Noema (Content Pole)[how it is seen] [what is seen]

Epoché (suspension) Horizon Phenomena of Openness/Nothingness

(i) Neutralization (i) Outer horizon of prereflective presence

(ii) Fantasy variation (ii) Inner horizon of multiplicity, variety, possibility

Aesthetic Attitude Value-Rich Figure/Ground Gestalt Qualities

(i) Detached sympathy (i) Rapture through distance(ii) Reconstitution of (ii) Seeing as

perceptual field

Shikan (tranquility and Yugen (shadows and darkness)insight) as detached as beauty of “mystery and depth”contemplation



The mental attitude of disinterested contemplation that noeticallyconstitutes the noematic content of beauty as hidden depths is histor-ically presented through its articulation by leading figures in the“shikan aesthetic consciousness” (shikanteki-biishiki) of the yûgen tradi-tion of Japanese aesthetics—including the meditative practice ofshikan or “tranquility and insight” in the early waka poetics of Shunzei,Chòmei, and Fujiwara no Teika; the riken no ken or “seeing of detachedperception” in the dramatic theory of Zeami’s nò theater; the hishiryòor “without-thinking” in Dògen’s phenomenology of zazen; the hininjòor “detachment from human emotions” in the haiku-novel Grass Pillow(Kusamakura, 1906) by Natsume Sòseki in modern Japanese literature—as well as the mukanshin or “disinterestedness” characterizing thesubject of absolute nothingness and the ridatsu or quality of “detach-ment” characterizing the traditional Zen art object as described byHisamatsu Shin’ichi in the Kyoto school of modern Japanese philos-ophy. In such a manner I sketch out an East-West phenomenologicalaesthetics wherein beauty is comprehended as a value-laden figure/ground gestalt quality having the content of hidden depth at the sur-rounding horizon phenomena characterizing the noema, which is itselfconstituted by a disinterested aesthetic attitude of detached contem-plation achieved through insertion of psychic distance at the noesis.

In defining the aesthetic attitude it is first necessary to repudiate theerroneous view that the act of artistic detachment is somehow exclusiveof desire, passion, emotion, feeling, sympathy, or other affective ele-ments. Artistic detachment is an aesthetic attitude of heightened inter-sensory awareness and intensified feeling that achieves rapture throughdistance; it is not an anesthetic attitude that deadens the senses and killsall feeling. As Robert C. Neville observes: “Detachment is a prerequi-site for connoisseurship” (1978:41). At this point, however, he makesan important disinction between the (positive) state of detachmentfrom desire and the (negative) state of renunciation of desire: “Detach-ment is not the same as renunciation. To renounce a desire is to rejectit, or to reject its object. Detachment from a desire neither accepts norrejects but objectifies and observes it” (p. 40). He continues: “Detach-ment allows for a maximization of objective perception and affectiveexperience” (p. 41). And again: “This [detachment] is an extremelycomplex form of consciousness which maximizes both passionate affectand dispassionate observations” (p. 41). Neville succinctly articulatesseveral important aspects regarding the psychology of detachment,including the artistic detachment cultivated by the connoisseur.Detachment is not a negative attitude of renunciation; it is a positive


mental state that maximizes both observation and feeling by combin-ing them in a unified act of psychic integration. While renunciationis a nihilistic stance that rejects desires and their objects, artistic de-tachment is an aesthetic attitude that neither accepts nor rejects desiresbut instead observes them with equanimity.

The Aesthetic Attitude in the West

Jerome Stolnitz describes Kant’s aesthetic attitude theory of disin-terested contemplation as “a Copernican Revolution in aesthetics—whether an object is beautiful or sublime depends upon the experienceof the spectator” (1961a:138). Summing up the Western tradition itcan be said that while ancient and classical theories define beauty asan attribute of the object, like harmony or symmetry, the CopernicanRevolution inaugurated by Kant’s transcendental idealism underscoresthe aesthetic attitude of the subject. “Aesthetic attitude” means thatthe acts or psychological states of subjects are involved in the perceptionof beauty, so that a person can do something—like perceiving “dis-interestedly” (Kant), exercising “detached contemplation” (Schopen-hauer), inserting “psychic distance” (Bullough), “recollecting powerfulemotions in tranquility” (Wordsworth), holding “intransitive atten-tion” (Vivas), or “seeing-as” (Aldrich). And as we shall see, the aestheticattitude of disinterested contemplation corresponds to the Husserlianphenomenological attitude of epoché as openness to phenomena. Just asthe aesthetic attitude involves acts whereby a subject does something—like perceiving disinterestedly—the Husserlian phenomenologicalattitude requires that one performs the epoché or “neutralization” ofsedimentations. Again, in Heideggerian terms, one exercises the noeticattitude of Gelassenheit or “letting-be” in order to perceive the noematichorizon of openness, presence, nonconcealment. Just as Husserl’s epochéis a neutralization of all positive or negative judgements in order toobserve things presencing as they are, Heidegger’s Gelassenheit is calleda “meditative thinking” between judgements of yes and no at the basisof “calculative thinking.” A characteristic feature of the phenomeno-logical attitude of openness to phenomena is neutralization of all affir-mative or negative judgements, just as for aesthetic attitude theoriststhe state of disinterested contemplation involves detached observationwithout desire or loathing.

The phenomenology of Husserl has its basis in the transcendentalidealism of Kant insofar as it underscores the point that all humanexperience, including aesthetic experience, is actively constituted by


mental acts of “intentionality” as noesis → noema correlation. Just asphenomenology requires a twofold descriptive profile whereby anaccount of the noematic content of experience is to be supplementedby a description of the noetic attitude by which the former is posited,an account of beauty requires both a description of the gestalt quali-ties at the noematic pole and the aesthetic attitude of disinterestedcontemplation at the noetic pole. Here I will endeavor to clarify howthe Husserlian phenomenological categories illuminate aesthetic expe-rience in general and the idea of a disinterested aesthetic attitude ofdetached contemplation in particular. I will then apply phenomeno-logical categories to Japanese notions of aesthetic experience with theircharacteristic approach to beauty as a function of an act of disinterestedcontemplation.

From the foregoing it follows that a phenomenological aestheticsregards beauty as something constituted not only by what is seen, thenoema, but also by how it is seen, the noesis. It is this insight—that aes-thetic experience requires a twofold description of both noematiccontent and its correlate noetic act of positing—which makes phe-nomenology an apposite framework for elucidating aesthetic attitudetheories. A phenomenological account of aesthetic experience describesbeauty as the hidden depth of value-rich figure/ground gestalt qual-ities immediately presented at the noematic pole followed by a re-flexive description of those corresponding acts of positing at the noeticpole. One of the central motifs in Husserl’s phenomenology is thatthe invariant structure characterizing phenomena on the noematicside is its holistic core/horizon, figure/ground, or focus/field gestaltcontexture wherein objects discriminated in the foreground focus ofattention are always surrounded by an encompassing “horizon” at thebackground field, including both a spatial and temporal horizon aswell as an inner horizon of alternate latent profiles. The method of phe-nomenology thus requires a shift from the “natural attitude” of alreadysedimented interpretations frozen in the noetic context to the open-ness of the “phenomenological attitude,” which in its negative phaserequires epoché or suspension of judgement to neutralize habitual con-structs and which in its positive phase involves spontaneous reorgan-ization of the perceptual field through the Husserlian technique of“fantasy variation” in creative imagination, thereby to disclose phe-nomena in their multiplicity, possibility, and variety. Insofar as thephenomenological attitude has both a negative phase of epoché as “neu-tralization” of sedimentations, along with a positive phase of “fantasyvariation,” it elucidates the two phases of an aesthetic attitude directed


toward contemplation of beauty: its inhibitory phase of “detachedsympathy” and its constructive phase of “seeing-as” through inexhaus-tible free play in creative imagination.

In Experimental Phenomenology (1977), Don Ihde explicates this Hus-serlian phenomenological thesis of intentionality, or noesis → noemacorrelation, as follows: “The analysis begins with what appears (noema)and then moves reflexively towards its how [noesis] of appearing” (p.50). Again: “What is seen, the noema, is correlated to the act by whichit is seen, the noesis” (p. 130). In terms of a phenomenological analysisof aesthetic experience, then, beauty is constituted not only by what isexperienced at the noematic pole but also how it is experienced throughconstitutive acts of mental positing at the noetic pole. Ancient andclassical aesthetics locate beauty in the noema—what is experienced—while romantic traditions following in the wake of Kant’s CopernicanRevolution argue that beauty is in the noesis or subjective act—how itis experienced. Phenomenology arrives at a midpoint between theseextremes with the doctrine that the invariable trait of human con-sciousness is intentionality or noesis → noema correlation, so that thephenomenological method requires a twofold description of both thenoema (what is experienced) and the noesis (how it is experienced).

Phenomenological aesthetics is above all a method of descriptionthat begins with the “reduction”—the epoché or neutralization of sedi-mented meanings of the natural attitude—in an effort to return to thefield of lived experience to describe those vivid aesthetic qualitiesimmediately presented in the stream of consciousness. Based on thekey phenomenological notion of intentionality, or noesis → noema corre-lation, it is held that aesthetic experience, like all experience, requiresa twofold description of both the noema or constituted objects of expe-rience as well as the noesis or acts of constitution by which the formeris itself posited. Phenomenology is at once akin to aesthetics insofar asit goes back to “things themselves” to recover the vivid, intense, andimmediate value qualities of the noema. Also, the phenomenologicalepoché or suspension of affirmative/negative judgements at the noeticact pole is analogous to the aesthetic attitude in its negative or inhib-itory aspect of disinterested contemplation. Furthermore the shift fromthe “natural attitude” to the “phenomenological attitude” is similarto the shift from the practical-utilitarian-cognitive attitude to the aes-thetic attitude in its positive aspect of creative reconstitution wherebyalready sedimented objects of the perceptual field are deconstructedand then spontaneously reorganized into novel value-laden figure/ground gestalt environments through the creative visioning process


that Husserl calls “fantasy variation” in imagination. Both “psychic dis-tance” from intense feeling and “seeing-as” through fantasy variationare thereby explicated by phenomenological discourse.

For Husserl, phenomenology is a science of accurate descriptionrepresenting a “return to the things themselves”—that is to say, arecovery of events presencing just as they are when apprehended by anact of epoché, a “neutralization” of already sedimented meanings whichis detached from frozen conceptual frameworks in events of disclosurethat enable phenomena to come into appearance in the concrete imme-diacy of prereflective experience. Husserlian phenomenology includesa critical analysis of the “natural attitude” wherein the objectified worldat the noematic pole appears as already fixed and given due to “sedi-mentations” of habitual interpretations embedded in the world at thenoetic pole. Ihde explains how the epoché, or suspension of judgement,deconstructs frozen structures of the noema constituted by already sedi-mented interpretations in the noesis: “Epoché displaces that natural atti-tude or already sedimented [noetic] context from the outset” (1977:105). He further clarifies how the epoché neutralizes habitual sedimen-tations of the “natural attitude” and leads to the “phenomenologicalattitude” of openness (p. 108). The epoché results in a radical shift fromthe natural attitude, characterized by already sedimented interpreta-tions, to the phenomenological attitude characterized by openness tophenomena: “The first shift was what the Husserlian would call a shiftfrom the natural to a phenomenological attitude. . . . On reflection,the Husserlian epoché is a device for breaking the bonds of familiaritywe have with things, in order to see those anew” (p. 120). What shouldbe emphasized here is that this shift from the sedimentation of the habit-uated “natural attitude” to the openness of the Husserlian “phenome-nological attitude” is itself a functional equivalent of the shift fromthe practical-cognitive attitude to the Kantian aesthetic attitude ofdisinterested contemplation. Like the phenomenological attitude ofopenness, the aesthetic attitude involves an epoché as disinterested ob-servation of felt qualities immediately presented to consciousness. Inhis explanation of phenomenological aesthetics, Monroe C. Beardsleyunderscores this relation between the phenomenological reduction ofepoché and the aesthetic attitude required for perception of beauty:

For the Phenomenologist’s presuppositionless openness to what is pre-sented, suspending [through epoché ] practical and theoretical concerns, comes close to being a description of all aesthetic experience (cf. Ideen, sec. 111). In some part, to have an aesthetic experience is to perform a


Phenomenological reduction [bracketing, suspension, neutralization, epoché, presuppositionless openness]. [1966:367]

As Beardsley points out, the suspension of practical-theoretical con-cerns and the openness of the phenomenological epoché are basically adescription of aesthetic experience. Specifically, the epoché correspondsto the notion of an “aesthetic attitude” functioning as the noetic actconstitutive of beauty with its characteristic disinterestedness, detach-ment, and distance. Indeed, the relation between the aesthetic attitudeof disinterested contemplation and the phenomenological attitude ofepoché is at once suggested by Edward Bullough’s notion of “psychicdistance” as an act of “putting the phenomenon . . . out of gear withour practical, actual self” (1977:95). The act of putting the phenom-enon “out of gear” by insertion of aesthetic distance is thus parallelto the phenomenological act of epoché, which suspends, neutralizes,switches off, brackets, and holds in abeyance all practical, cognitive,and utilitarian concerns toward the aim of providing an objectivedescription of events through an impartial attitude of disinterestedobservation.

In Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, Husserlclearly articulates his method as involving a shift from the naturalattitude, with its characteristic interests in sedimented objects, to thephenomenological attitude of epoché, whereupon the transcendentalego views everything from the neutral standpoint of a “disinterestedonlooker.” Husserl writes:

If the Ego, as naturally immersed in the world, experiencingly and otherwise, is called “interested” in the world, then the phenomenologially altered—and, as so altered, continually maintained—attitude consistsin a splitting of the Ego in that the phenomenological Ego establishes himself as a “disinterested on-looker,” above the naively interested Ego. That this takes place is then itself accessible by means of a new reflection, which as transcendental, likewise demands the very same attitude of looking on “disinterestedly”—the Ego’s sole remaining interest beingto see and describe adequately what he sees, purely as seen, as what is seen and seen in such a manner. [1973:35]

Furthermore, in his 1913 work titled Ideas: General Introduction toPure Phenomenology, Husserl explicitly develops the “disinterested on-looker” attitude characterizing the epoché or neutralization of the phe-nomenological reduction in terms of the aesthetic attitude whereby onedisinterestedly observes a phenomenon in its presencing while suspend-ing all judgements of affirmation (being) or negation (nonbeing):


But it is just the same with the object depicted, if we take up a purely aesthetic attitude, and view the same again as “mere picture,” without imparting to it the stamp of Being or non-Being. . . . But, as can clearly be seen, that does not mean any privation, but modification, that of neutralization. [1969:311–312]

Husserl further defines the epoché in terms of an act of bracketing, sus-pension, or neutralization of already fixed conceptual frameworks asthe attitude of detachment from all thetic positings: “Neutralization asgeneral modification of all thetic consciousness . . . [is] a fundamen-tally essential peculiarity of all consciousness generally, not attached tothe actual theses” (p. 448; italics added).

The “openness” of phenomenological seeing refers not only todetachment from sedimentation—repetitive habitual constitution ofphenomena in the natural world—but also freedom as an open possi-bility search for novel figure/ground gestalt environments. For Kant,we recall, the aesthetic attitude has both negative and positive stagesby virtue of which the beautiful and sublime come into manifestation.The negative/inhibitory phase of disinterestedness leads to a positive/reconstructive phase of free play in imagination interacting with othermental faculties. For Husserlian phenomenology the inhibitory phaseof artistic detachment is an epoché—a suspension of judgement—thatneutralizes already sedimented patterns leading to a positive phase offree variation in creative imagination that reconstitutes the perceptualfield into novel topographical possibilities—whereupon sedimentedfocal objects are opened up into the continuum of an encompassinghorizon, including a “field” of lived space and a “duration” in the ever-flowing stream of internal time consciousness. It is the inexhaustiblevariation power of creative imagination that discloses multiplicity,variety, and possibility in phenomena and opens up new horizons inthe topographical field. Through the act of disinterested observationachieved by epoché, sedimented focal actualities habitually discrimi-nated in the foreground are deconstructed, resulting in a noetic reversal,gestalt switch, or shift of attention from foreground focus to back-ground field—whereupon phenomena come to stand out throughekstasis into the openness of being at the periphery in the spatial-temporal horizon of the perceptual field. The neutralization of frozenmental patterns through detachment from sedimented interpretationsdiscloses both the spatial horizon in the background field and the tem-poral horizon in the ever-flowing stream of internal time conscious-ness, whereupon the lived experience of the self now is revealed in itswholeness as a being distended through past, present, and future


stages of the temporal continuum—including those “retentions” ornoetic acts of intentionality constitutive of the past, “protentions” ornoetic acts constituting future phases, and “primal impressions” ofthe now point. An act of artistic detachment (epoché, reduction, bracket-ing, suspension, neutralization) opens up not only an “outer horizon,”including a surrounding field of lived space and flowing stream oflived time, but also an “inner horizon” of possibility, multiplicity, andvariety, so that the perceptual field is at each moment created and re-created again and again through a spontaneous free play of fantasyvariation in creative imagination.

It is this aesthetic attitude of disinterested contemplation in itstwo phases—the passive stage of sympathetic detachment and theactive stage of spontaneous free play in imagination—which is devel-oped by the Rader/Jessup thesis outlined in Art and Human Values. Asemphasized by the Rader/Jessup thesis, Kant’s aesthetic attitudetheory requires both a negative aspect of disinterestedness and a posi-tive aspect of free play in imagination: “He [Kant] maintained that‘disinterestedness’ is necessary but not sufficient to characterize thepure aesthetic judgment. Another indispensable mark of the aestheticis the harmonious play of our mental faculties including the resultantpleasure” (1976:51). To illustrate this idea of disinterested beauty asimaginative variation power of free play they discuss Virgil Aldrich’saesthetic attitude theory, based on Wittgenstein’s analysis of “seeing-as,” using ambiguous figures like the “duck/rabbit” in PhilosophicalInvestigations. They cite, as well, another ambiguous figure used byWittgenstein: a black cross on a white ground or a white cross on ablack ground. Similarly, they analyze diagrams that can be perceivedas receding like a tunnel, or protruding like a truncated pyramid seenfrom above, or flat like a small square in gestalt psychology wherediagrams are imaginatively transformed when a view switches fromone perspective to another (pp. 64–65). Rader and Jessup clarify thatbeauty is not only the fixed property of objects, but further requires adescription of the aesthetic attitude which constitutes its appearance,and contend that the aesthetic attitude itself has two sides: an “atten-tional aspect” of disinterestedness and an “elaborative aspect” of sym-pathy and imagination. The attentional aspect of detachment, distance,or disinterestedness does not eliminate the human element of feeling—whether desire, emotion, or sympathy—but means that feeling isapprehended in tranquility by detached observation. A disinterestedfeeling suspends habitual interpretation of phenomena and allows forthe play of imagination and other faculties so as to spontaneously


reorganize events from different perspectives like the gestalt switchillustrated by multistable optical illusions such as the duck/rabbit orhallway/pyramid.

The very same point is underscored in Experimental Phenomenology(1977) by Don Ihde, who in his Husserlian phenomenological inter-pretation of art uses multistable diagrams like the hallway/pyramidor Neckar cube to illustrate how the aesthetic meaning of the noema(content pole) is constituted by mental acts of positing at the noeticpole through free variation in imagination. He explores the interdis-ciplinary relation between phenomenology and the arts by describinghow the already sedimented noetic attitude of fixed interpretationconstitutes the noema in habitual patterns whereas the polymorphic,multiperspectival, and open noetic attitude of free variation spontane-ously constitutes and reconstitutes the perceptual field into novelfigure/ground gestalt configurations to disclose multiplicity, possi-bility, and variety of phenomena in their full complexity (pp. 147–152). The imagination is connected with the phenomenological atti-tude of epoché as detachment from sedimentation or suspension ofhabitual interpretation through neutralization of judgement, whichenables one to spontaneously reorganize the perceptual field into novelvalue-laden figure/ground gestalt patterns through the creative vision-ing process that Husserl calls fantasy variation rooted in the inexhaus-tible variation power of imagination.

Theories of artistic detachment, as noted earlier, hold that beauty isnot simply the fixed and given property of some physical object butalso requires for its appearance the cultivation of a mental subject’saesthetic attitude of disinterested contemplation. According to thephenomenological doctrine of intentionality as noesis → noema correla-tion, aesthetic experience, like all experience, requires a twofold cor-relate description of both the noema (or constituted object pole) andthe noesis (or constitutive subject pole) by which the former is itselfbrought to presence in the horizon of openness/disclosure. Hence inthis chapter I develop a phenomenological theory whereby aestheticexperience as rapture through detachment is described in terms of itsnoesis → noema intentionality structure, according to which beauty isan epiphany of hidden depth at the noematic content pole constitutedby an attitude of detached contemplation at the noetic act pole.

The various aesthetic attitude theories of artistic detachment thatemerged in the Western and Eastern traditions are to be understoodfrom the phenomenological standpoint as efforts to provide a com-plete account of aesthetic experience wherein beauty is described in


terms of its qualitative features at the noematic pole as well as themental acts by which the former is itself constituted at the noeticpole. From the phenomenological thesis of intentionality—or noesis→ noema correlation—it follows that the aesthetic attitude of contem-plation must be described both in terms of the what (noema) and thehow (noesis). An aesthetic attitude therefore functions like the “phe-nomenological attitude” of epoché, or “neutralization,” an impartialstandpoint of observation that suspends all judgements of affirmationand negation so that noematic phenomena come to presence as theyare in qualitative suchness. Furthermore, like the noetic shift fromthe already sedimented views of the natural attitude to the opennessof the phenomenological attitude, the aesthetic attitude includes botha negative phase of detached sympathy and a positive phase of recon-stitution through free variation in creative imagination.

The Aesthetic Attitude in the East

Western versions of an aesthetic attitude theory have been formulatedin terms of such representative notions as disinterestedness (Kant), de-tached contemplation (Schopenhauer), resignation (Goethe), psychicdistance (Bullough), dehumanization of art (Ortega y Gasset), equi-librium in synaesthesis (I. A. Richards), isolation through framing(Münsterberg, Polanyi), epiphanies of luminous mental stasis (Joyce),intransitive attention (Vivas), seeing-as (Aldrich), alienation effect(Brecht), emotion recollected in tranquility (Wordsworth), epoché orneutralization (Husserl), and Gelassenheit or letting-be (Heidegger).

In the East, variants of an artistic attitude theory of disinterestedcontemplation include ancient Indian ideals of aesthetic experiencesuch as Abhinavagupta’s ùantarasa or peaceful beauty constituted bysadârânikarana as the universalization process of deindividuation; theancient Chinese ideal of beauty established by the Taoism of Lao-tzuas that unfathomable dark mystery (hsüan) of the indeterminate void(hsü) constituted by the attitude of “letting-be” (wu-wei) along withits modern reformulation by Wang as a yin mode of dark mysteriousbeauty in the “realm of self-detachment,” “world of no-self,” or “im-personal state” (wu-wo chih ching); and the Japanese ideal of beautyconstituted by “shikan aesthetic consciousness”—including Shunzei’swaka poetics of “calm and contemplation” (shikan), Dògen’s zazen stateof “without-thinking” (hishiryò) as the neutral attitude between think-ing (shiryò) and not-thinking (fushiryò), Zeami’s nò drama theory basedon the “seeing of detached perception” (riken no ken), Bashò’s haiku


poetics of “impersonal loneliness” (sabi), Sen no Rikyû’s aesthetics ofthe tea ceremony based on the detached attitude of “rustic beauty”(wabi), or, in more recent Japanese philosophical thought, Suzuki’s“no-mind” (mushin), Nishida’s “no-self” (muga), Hisamatsu’s “disin-terestedness” (mukanshin) and “detachment” (datsuzoku, ridatsu), Nishi-tani’s “nonattachment” (mushûjaku) as the state between being andnothing, Kuki’s “detached resignation” (akirame) as a component ofiki (chic), Ògai’s disinterested onlooker (bòkansha) mentality of “de-tached resignation” (teinen, akirame), and Sòseki’s “detachment fromhuman emotions” (hininjò).

All of these detachment theories recognize that beauty is not justan attribute of fixed and given sense objects: to some extent it is also afunction of the subject—an aesthetic attitude of disinterested con-templation through detached observation of phenomena as they appearto consciousness. In this way the theories adopt a phenomenologicalorientation by describing how pervasive aesthetic qualities like monono aware (sad beauty of impermanent things), yûgen (profound mys-tery), wabi (rustic poverty), sabi (impersonal loneliness), shibumi (ele-gant restraint), fûryû (windblown elegance), and iki (chic) are all alikeconstituted by mental acts of achieving rapture through noetic acts ofpsychic distancing. Like phenomenology, Zen attempts a return tothe things themselves in their original presence, suchness/isness, orqualitative immediacy. Yet in accord with the intentionality thesis ofnoesis → noema correlation, a description of what appears (the noema)must be accompanied by an analysis of how it appears (the noesis). It isthis phenomenological idea of intentionality—that noematic mean-ing is correlated with a noetic act of constitution—which requires somekind of aesthetic attitude theory. Zen ideals of beauty like yûgen are tobe analyzed in phenomenological terms as a description of eventspresencing just as they are in a satori-like epiphany of depth revealedat the surrounding horizon of openness/disclosure. This noematic de-scription of yûgen as beauty in terms of a holistic vision of events intheir hidden depths as the content of horizon phenomena encirclingall focal objects is to be correlated with the noetic act of positing,which constitutes its appearance through an aesthetic attitude of de-tached contemplation. Similar to the epoché of phenomenological aes-thetics, detached contemplation of beauty in Zen involves a nonposi-tional noetic attitude of no-mind, no-thought, or without-thinkingthat neutralizes sedimented focal actualities habitually discriminatedin the foreground so that events open up and come to presence in theexpanded horizon of openness located in the background field of


boundless nothingness where emptiness is fullness and fullness isemptiness. Just as the act of epoché neutralizes sedimented habitual dis-crimination of focal actualities to apprehend the spatial horizon as asurrounding background field, it also neutralizes sedimented percep-tions of the present to apprehend the duration of a temporal horizonas a flowing stream of internal time consciousness.

The relation between Husserl’s epoché and Buddhist samatha-vipassanâor “tranquility-insight” practice has been elucidated in a study byS. W. Laycock (1994). Laycock clarifies that while Husserl on occasionuses the terms “epoché” and “reduction” interchangeably, there is a dis-tinction between them. While epoché indicates a shift of attention, theresultant attitude to reflect radically on what presents itself is the“reduction.” With this distinction, then, Laycock points out: “Theepoché is, in certain dimensions of comparability, the Husserlian counter-part of ‘tranquility’ cultivation (Skt. samatha bhâvanâ); and the reduc-tion, of the cultivation of insight (vipassanâ bhâvanâ)” (p. 139). Again,Laycock (p. 154) points out that the literal meaning of epoché as “switch-ing off” approximates the Buddhist conception of nirvana as “blowingout” the flames of craving and aversion. Furthermore, he describes the“Great Doubt” ( J. taishi) of Zen as the “Buddhist epoché ” (p. 152). Lay-cock characterizes the Great Doubt of Zen as the “equipoise of theBuddhist epoché,” because it is not simply the act of negation but rises,in Hui-neng’s words, “above existence and non-existence” (p. 150).Thus like the Husserlian epoché, the “Buddhist epoché ” is a neutral stateof equipoise between noetic judgements of affirmation and negationwhich itself apprehends the noematic presence of phenomena sus-pended emptiness-like between the realms of being and nonbeing.

Our phenomenological analysis of the aesthetic attitude of detachedobservation underscores precisely this aspect of Husserlian epoché in itssense of “withholding” all assent or dissent. In general the epochéparallels the early Buddhist mindfulness practice of samatha-vipassanâ(J. shikan) or tranquility-insight beyond all blind reactions of cravingand aversion, as well as the later Zen Buddhist epoché of the GreatDoubt beyond existence and nonexistence. It also functions as anequivalent to Dògen’s zazen practice as without-thinking (hishiryò)beyond thinking (shiryò) and not-thinking (fushirò). As we shall see,Dògen’s idea of enlightenment (satori) as presence of things as theyare (genjòkòan), seen by without-thinking (hishiryò) beyond the affir-mation of thinking and the negation of not-thinking, has been for-mulated by scholars in aesthetic terms as the vision of yûgen throughshikan practice, which in turn has been interpreted through Western


phenomenology as noematic presence corresponding to a noetic atti-tude of epoché: the neutralization of all affirmative or negative judge-ments. Furthermore, we shall see how in Sòseki’s literary treatment ofthis theme the vision of yûgen as epiphany of mysterious depths sus-pended between existence and nonexistence requires emotionaldetachment (hininjò) from all “sympathy” (dòjò) and “antipathy”(handò). Similarly, Joyce’s idea of epiphany as disclosure of beautyrequires a detached attitude characterized as a luminous stasis of aes-thetic pleasure beyond kinetic reactions of desire and loathing. Likethe phenomenological attitude of epoché, East-West variants of the aes-thetic attitude are seen to have this character of detached contempla-tion that neither accepts nor rejects either desires or their objects butsimply objectifies and observes whatever is immediately presented toconsciousness in their suchness. Hence both the phenomenologicalattitude of epoché and the aesthetic attitude of disinterested contem-plation represent an impartial state of meditative equipoise betweenaffirmation and negation.

A phenomenological investigation into the aesthetics of darknessand shadows developed by the yûgen tradition of Japanese art and lit-erature involves a description of both the qualities appearing as the(objective) content of beauty and the (subjective) acts of positing thatcorrespond to them—that is to say, both what appears and how itappears, both noema and noesis. Here I want to sketch a description ofthe noematic phase followed by the noetic phase of constitutive acts.A phenomenological investigation into the noematic content of beautyas yûgen underscores those aesthetically valuable figure/ground gestaltqualities of immediate experience where illumined objects articulatedin the foreground are encircled by a surrounding penumbral zone oftwilight darkness and shadows in the encompassing nonarticulatedhorizon of openness/nothingness at the background field. In a treatiseon yûgen aesthetics called In Praise of Shadows (1977), Tanizaki Ju-nichirò describes the Japanese aesthetic preference that finds beautynot in objects themselves but in patterns of shadow cast by things asthey recede into surrounding twilight, conjuring a halo of darkness,an aura of mystery and depths.

The fundamental structure of perceptual phenomena, according tosuch Western phenomenologists as Edmund Husserl, Martin Hei-degger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, is their essential point/horizonor figure/ground gestalt contexture, wherein a clearly discriminatedforeground focus of attention is always encircled by an undiscrimi-nated background field. As Merleau-Ponty observes, this nonarticu-


lated horizon of openness surrounding focal objects articulated in thebackground is the field of lived space: he calls it “the darkness in thetheatre necessary to the clarity of the spectacle” and the “zone of non-being before which precise beings, figures and points appear” (1962:100). From the standpoint of phenomenology, the Japanese aestheticquality of yûgen or shadowy darkness signifies the nonarticulated hori-zon of lived space as the dark ground of nonbeing that envelops focalentities in the field of being as a halo of mystery and depth. In TheField of Consciousness, Aron Gurwitsch articulates the essential point/horizon or figure/ground gestalt structure of the perceptual field asdescribed by contemporary phenomenologists in both auditory andvisual terms:

The “figure-ground” structure is exhibited in all perceptual phenomena after a period of stillness, the sudden resounding of a musical note or noise is experienced as figure emerging from a “ground.” . . . Experience of stillness is parallel to the experience of darkness as visual background out of which a luminous point flares up. [1964:112]

Don Ihde’s Experimental Phenomenology (1977) explicates how aes-thetic experience describes the figure/ground structure of noematicphenomena as well as the noetic acts by which they are constituted.The aesthetic worldview in which the horizon phenomena of the noemaare apprehended by noetic acts of suspension, variation, and reversal isillustrated by Japanese landscape painting: an insubstantial object inthe articulated foreground focus of attention discloses that horizon ofopenness or nothingness in the nonarticulated wholeness of the en-compassing background field. Ihde observes: “A somewhat more radi-cal shift occurs in a type of traditional Japanese art. In this art someobject—a sparrow with a few blades of grass or a single cherry branchwith blossoms—stands out against a blank or pastel background” (p.129). He continues:

Our traditional [Western] way of viewing would say that the subject matter—what stands out and is dominant in the foreground—is the sparrow or the blossoming branch. The background is merely empty or blank. . . . Yet the emptiness and openness of a Japanese painting isthe subject matter of the painting, the sparrow or the branch being set there to make the openness stand out. . . . To understand such a painting calls for a deep reversal in the noetic context. [p. 129]

This not only explains how Japanese painting discloses horizon phe-nomena of openness, emptiness, or nothingness at the noema but indi-


cates that this aesthetic mode of viewing requires an act of suspen-sion, variation, and reversal in the noesis.

A second example given by Ihde derives from another tradition butapplies nonetheless toward elucidating the Japanese aesthetics of dark-ness and shadow:

A fascinating aesthetic view of the world can be found in a further-reaching set of examples. Carlos Castaneda describes one such difficult but captivating example in the teachings Don Juan offers him. The old wizard advises Carlos to go out and look at a tree, and instead of seeing it in the usual way (the natural attitude), he instructs him to look at the shadows, so that eventually, it is the shadows that he sees as primary. The wizard is trying to get Carlos to reverse the dominant and foreground and the recessive and background, so that the ordinary tree/shadow appear-ance becomes a shadow/tree appearance. [p. 128]

The shift from ordinary object/shadow appearance to the aestheticworldview of the new shadow/object appearance at the noema requiresan act of spontaneous reconstitution at the noesis—a radical gestaltswitch or noetic reversal from the already sedimented view of thenatural attitude to the openness of the phenomenological attitude.This phenomenological mode of seeing in its phases of suspension(epoché), variation, and reversal is equivalent to the aesthetic attitudeof disinterested contemplation in its inhibitory aspect of detachmentand it reconstructive aspect of free play.

Heidegger, as we have seen, undertakes a Husserlian phenomeno-logical description of beauty in terms of “horizon phenomena” as thesurrounding horizon of nothingness/openness at the noema whereasGelassenheit (“letting-be”) is the act of disinterested contemplation towhich it is correlated at the noesis. For Heidegger, beauty is originaltruth (Gk. aletheia) or unconcealedness whereby phenomena stand outin ekstasis into the openness, presence, and nonconcealment throughthe meditative thinking of Gelassenheit. Heidegger’s description ofGelassenheit as “releasement toward things and openness to the mys-tery” at once suggests the atmospheric Japanese beauty of yûgen or“mystery and depth” apprehended through an aesthetic attitude ofdetached contemplation—variously called shikan (tranquility-insight)in the waka poetics of Shunzei, Chòmei, and Teika, riken no ken (seeingof detached perception) in the nò theory of Zeami, hishiryò (nonthink-ing) in the Zen theory of Dògen, mukanshin (disinterestedness) ordatsuzoku (detachment) in the modern Zen philosophy of Hisamatsu


Shin’ichi, mushin (no-mind) in the Zen aestheticism of D. T. Suzuki,hininjò (detachment from human feeling) in the literary works of Na-tsume Sòseki, and so on.

The Haiku Moment

The Japanese Haiku (1960) by K. Yasuda elaborates a striking analysisof haiku poetics wherein aesthetic experience is to be understood as a“haiku moment”—a satori-like epiphany or flash of insight whereinpervasive aesthetic qualities like sabi (impersonal loneliness), wabi(rustic beauty), and yûgen (dark mystery) are evoked through an aes-thetic attitude of disinterested contemplation. Yasuda’s articulation ofthe “haiku moment” represents a Japanese literary equivalent toJames Joyce’s notion of an “epiphany,” or moment of illumination, inwhich the vision of beauty as wholeness, harmony, and radianceculminating in a vision disclosing the “whatness” (L. quidditas) of anordinary event is apprehended through an impartial attitude describedas a luminous stasis of aesthetic pleasure. In his explanation of theatmospheric ideal of beauty in Japanese haiku poetics, Yasuda citesthe American philosophers of art (John Dewey, S. K. Langer, S. C.Pepper) who develop a contextualist model whereby beauty is notsimply located either in the subject or the object but is spread through-out the whole field, situation, or context as its pervasive quality. Hethen goes on to clarify how pervasive qualities like yûgen (mysteriousdepth) and sabi (impersonal sadness) correspond to an aesthetic atti-tude of disinterested contemplation. Yasuda describes three mentalattitudes in the perception of a dragonfly over a rye field: a farmer, anentomologist, and a poet. The farmer adopts a commercial attitude thatviews the presence of dragonflies over his rye field strictly in economicterms. The entomologist adopts a scientific attitude that reductionisti-cally analyzes the dragonfly with technical categories. Finally, there isthe aesthetic attitude of the haiku poet:

In contrast to these two attitudes, the poet’s is neither commercial nor scientific. His attention is directed not to his knowledge about the dragonfly, nor to the value of the rye field. He is interested in the object for its own sake. . . . An attitude such as this is aesthetic. I shall call it a haiku attitude. [1960:132]

Yasuda explains how for Bashò’s haiku theory the poet cannot inter-ject anything of his personal, egoistic, or selfish attitude but mustinstead depict the impersonal quality of the moment. According to


Bashò’s haiku theory, a poem should not be tinged with one’s ownpersonal feelings of joy or sorrow: it is a description of the event initself enjoyed for its own sake. Yasuda continues:

When a person is interested and involved in the object for its own sake, then, a haiku attitude is formed. It is therefore said that a haiku attitude is a state of readiness for an experience which can be aesthetic. . . . This readiness, moreover, must be for a disinterested form of single-minded activity. If it is not disinterested, it will be commercial, the farmer’s atti-tude, or scientific, like his friend’s [the entomologist]. [Hume 1995:134; italics added]

Yasuda’s account of haiku poetics is at once reminiscent of RomanIngarden’s phenomenological study of literature in The Cognition ofthe Literary Work of Art. Ingarden, as noted earlier, was a student ofHusserl who developed a phenomenological analysis of how aestheticmeaning in a literary work is noetically coconstituted by intentionalacts of the author and the reader. One of the significant aspects ofIngarden’s phenomenological analysis is that he describes both thepassive and active phases of intentionality whereby aesthetically valu-able gestalt qualities given in the literary work of art elicit active noeticoperations of constitution. In this context he articulates a threefoldtypology of mental attitudes operating when the reader interacts witha literary work of art:

Above all, it is necessary to characterize the two attitudes of the reader which are here being contrasted . . . (a) the purely cognitive or “investi-gating” attitude and (b) the “aesthetic” attitude. Both are distinguished from the “practical” attitude. [1973:172–173]

According to Ingarden, then, there are three basic mental attitudes:the cognitive, the practical, and the aesthetic. This scheme essentiallycorresponds with Yasuda’s classification into commercial, scientific,and poetic attitudes. Just as for Ingarden the cognitive and practicalattitudes are suspended in epoché for a shift to an aesthetic attitude ofdisinterested contemplation in order to realize aesthetically valuablegestalt qualities, so for Yasuda the haiku moment requires that oneshift from the scientific and commercial attitudes in order to realizethe poetic attitude of artistic detachment for awakening to immedi-ately felt pervasive aesthetic quality.

Ingarden illustrates these three attitudes along with the radicalshift that occurs in changing from the natural attitude (the ordinarystate of sedimented practical/cognitive attitudes) to the openness ofthe phenomenological/aesthetic attitude. The practical attitude is


illustrated by someone who buys a picture for interior decoration; heassumes a cognitive attitude when he investigates the properties ofthe painting he has purchased. But for Ingarden (1973:173), an aes-thetic attitude of contemplative detachment is a third possibility—anattitude of detached contemplation wherein one views the work of artas a whole in its pervasive aesthetic value quality:

Finally, when he reposes on a sofa, is sunk in “contemplation,” and attempts to view the work in its totality in its artistic form, only then does he assume the “aesthetic” attitude.

Here the aesthetic attitude is described as an act of contemplation.Moreover, for Ingarden the aesthetic attitude of contemplation isregarded as “a certain distance . . . between the object of cognition andthe subject of cognition” (p. 281; italics added). Similar to the wayIngarden discusses beauty in terms of aesthetic gestalt qualities ofliterature, Yasuda explicates haiku poetry as aiming to depict the per-vasive aesthetic quality of an event disclosed in a haiku moment. Yetboth thinkers hold that realization of pervasive figure/ground gestaltquality requires a shift from the sedimented worldview of the naturalattitude to the openness of the phenomenological attitude—as itwere, a shift from the practical/cognitive attitude to the aesthetic atti-tude. In accord with the phenomenological thesis of intentionality asnoesis → noema correlation, we are obliged to describe the aestheticallyvaluable “gestalt qualities” (Gestaltqualitäten) disclosed at the noematicpole as well as a reflexive account of the corresponding disinterestedattitude of detached contemplation at the noetic pole.

Art and literature of the Kamakura period are characterized by ashift from the quality of aware (sad beauty) to the quality of yûgen(mysterious darkness or profound mystery). A noematic analysis ofbeauty as yûgen represents a description of horizon phenomena whereobjects clearly discriminated in the foreground focus of attention grad-ually recede into the mystery and darkness of the horizon of disclosurein the nondiscrimated background field by which they are encircled.The noematic content of yûgen in turn corresponds to a noetic attitudeof detached contemplation. An emphasis on this kind of aestheticattitude of detached contemplation in Japanese geidò (the tao of art) ishistorically traced back to its origins in what Misaki Gisen (1972)calls the “shikan aesthetic consciousness” (shikanteki biishiki) of thelate Heian and early Kamakura priesthood. The “shikan aesthetic con-sciousness” of Japanese poetics signifies a turning point characterizedby the shift in emphasis from the object to the act of detached con-


templation by which it is constituted. This shikan (Ch. chih-küan) prac-tice of Japanese Tendai (Ch. T’ien-t’ai) Buddhism is itself rooted inthe early Buddhist samatha-vipasannâ (“tranquility and insight”) medi-tation wherein liberation from suffering is attained through vedanâ-sati: “mindfulness of feeling,” the detached observation of intensefeeling sensations with “equanimity” (upekkha), the even-minded per-ception of phenomena free of all blind reactions of craving and aver-sion, attraction or repulsion, love or hate, liking or disliking. Like thephenomenological epoché (bracketing, reduction, neutralization), it isa suspension of judgement that neither affirms nor negates thephenomenon in being or nonbeing but is, rather, an openness thatallows the thing to presence in qualitative immediacy just as it is inthe emptiness/suchness of absolute nothingness.

Dògen’s “Without-Thinking”

One of the most significant expressions of what Mikaki Gisen terms“shikan aesthetic consciousness” is to be found in Dògen’s Zen Bud-dhist philosophy. In Dògen’s metaphysics of impermanence-Buddha-nature, mujò or “impermanence” of insubstantial events in the flux of“being-time” (uji) is connected to the Japanese aesthetic of perish-ability encapsulated by the “sad beauty” of aware, whereas genjòkòan or“presence of things as they are” is related to the “profound beauty” ofyûgen, these in turn being rooted in the detached tranquil mode ofattention cultivated by zazen meditation as an expression of “shikanaesthetic consciousness.” But as various comparative works on Japa-nese Buddhism have endeavored to clarify, Dògen’s thought can beunderstood in Husserlian phenomenological terms wherein the appre-hension of prereflective presence at the noematic content pole corre-sponds to a shift from the natural attitude of already sedimentedinterpretations to the phenomenological attitude of epoché or “neutral-ization” at the noetic act pole. By this view, Dògen’s phenomenologyof zazen involves a twofold analysis of satori wherein immediate expe-rience of things “presencing just as they are” (genjòkòan) at the noemacorresponds to the noetic attitude of “without-thinking” (hishiryò).Dògen’s notion of without-thinking approximates the aesthetic atti-tude of epoché insofar as it requires detachment from judgements ofaffirmation and negation and thus leads to seeing things presencingas they are in openness of nothingness where emptiness is fullness andfullness is emptiness.

Zen Action/Zen Person by T. P. Kasulis (1981) is a pioneering phe-


nomenological analysis of Dògen. Kasulis underscores the fact thatDògen’s idea of genjòkòan (manifestation of the koan) is apprehendedby the mental state of hishiryò (without-thinking). From a phenome-nological standpoint, Kasulis translates/interprets Dògen’s centralnotion of genjòkòan as “presence of things as they are.” Although Kasulisdoes not emphasize the aesthetic dimension of Zen experience, heremarks that Bashò’s haiku poetry is an example of a traditional Zen-influenced literary art that expresses an event of genjòkòan, prereflec-tive presence (1981:124). Using a phenomenological framework,Kasulis (p. 72) goes on to explain how for Dògen the state of hishiryòor “without-thinking” is the (nonpositional) noetic attitude that itselfcorresponds to the noematic content of enlightenment as genjòkòan. InDògen’s phenomenology of zazen (seated meditation), there is a dis-tinction between three noetic attitudes of “thinking” (shiryò), “not-thinking” (fushiryò), and “without-thinking” (hishiryò):

1. “Thinking” represents a positional noetic attitude of eitheraffirming or negating and corresponds to the noematic contentof conceptualized objects.

2. “Not-thinking” is a positional noetic attitude of negationwhose noematic content is objectified thinking.

3. “Without-thinking” is the state of zazen meditation represent-ing the nonpositional noetic attitude of neither affirming nornegating that corresponds to the noematic content of genjòkòan,the “presence of things as they are” (p. 73). Again, from a phe-nomenological standpoint Kasulis (pp. 39–51) analyzes mushinor “no-mind” as the noetic act corresponding to the noematiccontent of mu, nothingness (pp. 39–51).

Kasulis further suggests that Heidegger’s phenomenological atti-tude of Gelassenheit (letting-be) can be understood as a Western parallelto the Zen doctrine of no-mind—or what in Dògen’s phenomenologyof zazen is represented by the noetic attitude of without-thinking(1981:48–51). Kasulis writes that Gelassenheit is “a state of composurearising out of an attitude of letting things be” (p. 48). For Heidegger,Gelassenheit is a synonym for “meditative thinking,” which stands incontrast to “calculative thinking.” Meditative thinking, or Gelassenheit,is an attitude of letting-be whereby phenomena come to presence inopenness/nothingness of being; calculative thinking means “to re-present” (vorstellen) things as objectified (p. 48). Similar to Mumon’sZen concept of no-mind as a “moment of yes-and-no,” Heideggerspeaks of Gelassenheit as being suspended “between yes and no” (see


Kasulis 1981:49). In Dògen’s phenomenology of zazen, this responseto primordial presence of things in nothingness through the statebetween yes and no is designated by “without-thinking” (hishiryò),which is itself the nonpositional noetic attitude suspended between theaffirmation of “thinking” (shiryò) and the negation of “not-thinking”(fushiryò). Thinking corresponds to affirmative judgement correlatedwith being; not-thinking corresponds to negative judgement corre-lated with nonbeing; without-thinking corresponds to the middle wayof emptiness/suchness between being and nonbeing. By this viewHeidegger’s Gelassenheit or letting-be through meditative thinking assuspension of yes and no itself functions like Dògen’s thinking of not-thinking by without-thinking as the middle between conventionaland empty levels of truth.

David E. Shaner further develops this Husserlian phenomenologicalanalysis of Japanese Buddhism including both the zazen of Dògen andthe tantric mandala visualization of Mikkyò Buddhism. Like Kasulis,Shaner describes Zen enlightenment in terms of the Husserlian phe-nomenological categories of noesis and noema. The act of neutralizationat the noesis corresponds to the perception of horizon phenomena atthe noema. His thesis is that both zazen meditation and tantric mandalavisualization neutralize sedimentations—resulting in holistic body-mind awareness of nothingness presented as an expanded peripheryand horizon in toto. In this context, Shaner explicates Dògen’s idea ofwithout-thinking (hishiryò) in terms of the Husserlian phenomeno-logical category of neutralization (epoché), understood as a noetic atti-tude of total detachment from habitual mental constructs:

Dògen explicitly refers to “without thinking” (hishiryò) which is a tech-nical term paralleling our contemporary phenomenological category of “neutralization.” Just as “neutralization” has been seen to reflexively transcend both affirmative and negative thetic intentions, “without thinking” (hishiryò) reflexively transcends both “thinking” (shiryò) and “not thinking” (fushiryò).” [1985:164]

He then goes on to clarify how Dògen’s noetic attitude of without-thinking achieves nonattachment to self, including detachment frombody and mind, through neutralization of physical tensions andmental intentions:

“Thinking” (shiryò) is used by Dògen to represent affirmative thetic positings. “Not-thinking” (fushiryò), of course, designates the denial of thinking and is itself a negative thetic positing. Therefore to represent the mode of neutral presencing, which transcends thetic judgments and


frees attachment to body-aspects and mind-aspects, Dògen uses the term “without thinking.” [p. 164]

According to the phenomenological method, the Zen concept ofaesthetic experience is to be analyzed through the noetic → noematicor act → content intentionality structure of consciousness so thatwithout-thinking (hishiryò) or no-mind (mushin) is the noetic atti-tude which corresponds to the noematic content of “prereflectivepresence” (genjòkòan) whereby events are disclosed (opened up) as theyare in emptiness/suchness. Generally speaking, Japanese Buddhistnotions like shikan (tranquility and insight), mushin/munen (no-mind/no-thought), and hishiryò (without-thinking) express the (nonposi-tional) noetic attitude of detached contemplation that correspondsto the noematic content of enlightened experience as nothingness/openness, emptiness/suchness, or prereflective presence of things asthey are in being-time of impermanence-Buddha-nature. Applied spe-cifically to the Japanese notion of aesthetic experience, the Zen cate-gories of shikan, mushin, and hishiryò represent the open, detached, andspontaneous aesthetic attitude of tranquil contemplation at the noeticpole which constitutes the beauty of things presencing just as they arein yûgen, profound depths, at the noematic pole.

Now let us examine how the phenomenological category of epochéor “neutralization” can also illuminate the aesthetic dimensions in-herent in Dògen’s notion of without-thinking. Misaki Gisen (1972),we should recall, identified Dògen as one of the foremost poet-priestsof the “shikan aesthetic consciousness.” Takahashi says that the con-tent of Dògen’s zazen is essentially that of yûgen: the beauty of mysteryand depth. In Takahashi’s words: “The profound nature of Dògen’sthought . . . is best expressed by yûgen . . . a quiet, elegant and pro-found beauty” (1983:61–62). Moreover, one of the leading scholars ofDògen’s Zen Buddhist philosophy, Steven Heine, in agreement withTakahashi’s view, interprets Dògen’s metaphysics of reality as genjòkòanbased on an aesthetic appreciation of nature and creation of poetry interms of a “mysterious plentitude of meanings evoked by the yûgen/yojò [mysterious depth/affective feeling] poetic ideal” (1989:66). Heinealso traces the medieval yûgen ideal of beauty as mysterious depthsimplicit in Dògen’s writings to the “Tendai meditative practice ofcessation-contemplation (shikan)” (p. 6).

Both Western phenomenology and the Zen teachings of Dògenhave been incorporated into the East-West synthesis of Nishida Kitaròand the Kyoto school of modern Japanese philosophy. Nishida Kitarò


often employs phenomenological categories of Husserl to analyzevarious noetic-noematic intentionality levels of pure experience. Sub-sequent thinkers related to the Kyoto school like Nishitani Keiji, AbeMasao, Watsuji Tetsurò, and Kuki Shûzò have appropriated Hei-degger’s existential phenomenology to articulate the horizon of abso-lute nothingness/openness through detached contemplation withoutjudgements of affirmation/negation. As noted earlier, there are threefundamental levels of reality in the Kyoto school’s metaphysics ofnothingness and its underlying Buddhist psychology of detachment:the first is being (u), the standpoint of eternalism that is marked byattachment (shûjaku) to the Cartesian subject and its objects; the secondis relative nothingness (sòtaiteki mu), the standpoint of nihilism wherebyone becomes attached to emptiness itself; and the third is absolutenothingness (zettai mu), the standpoint of nonattachment (mushûjaku)at the middle way between eternalism and nihilism. The mental atti-tude of detached contemplation corresponding to the third level ofemptiness or absolute nothingness as the horizon of boundless open-ness is described by Nishitani Keiji: “All attachment is negated: boththe subject and the way in which ‘things’ appear as objects of attach-ment are emptied. . . . They present themselves in their suchness, theirtathatâ. This is non-attachment” (1982:34; 1961:40).

Analyzed in terms of Dògen’s phenomenology of zazen, attachmentto being corresponds to the noetic attitude of “thinking” (shiryò),attachment to relative nothingness corresponds to the noetic attitudeof “not-thinking” (fushiryò), and nonattachment at the place of empti-ness or absolute nothingness corresponds to the noetic attitude of“without-thinking” (hishiryò). Or restated in terms of the Tendailogic of Three Truths, which Dògen studied as a monk at Mount Hiei,the headquarters of Tendai Buddhism in Japan: without-thinking cor-responds to the “middle truth” (chûtai) between the “conventionaltruth” (ketai) of being and the “empty truth” (kûtai) of nonbeing.According to the Christian-Buddhist interfaith dialogue elaboratedby the Kyoto school, just as in Zen the standpoint of absolute noth-ingness is realized through “nonattachment” (mushûjaku, ridatsu) soin the via negativa Christian mysticism of Meister Eckhart the radicalbreakthrough whereby the self is emptied into the godhead of “noth-ingness” (Ger. das Nichts) is achieved by “detachment” (Ger. Abge-schiedenheit). Moreover, breakthrough to absolute nothingness by exer-cise of detachment is understood in terms of Heidegger’s existentialphenomenology as releasement into the horizon of openness/nothing-ness through detachment of Gelassenheit (letting-be). Kyoto school


philosophers typically cite Bashò’s haiku poetry as the paradigm of aliterary artform depicting events as they are in emptiness/suchnessrealized through detached contemplation at the standpoint of openness/nothingness. In terms of Heidegger’s phenomenological aesthetics,the function of haiku poetry is disclosure of events in the beauty oforiginal truth as aletheia or unhiddenness whereby they come to pres-ence, openness, and nonconcealment through the detached contem-plative attitude of letting-be.

In accord with the revolution in aesthetics triggered by Kant’s tran-scendental idealism—which shifted the center of gravity from theexperienced object to the attitude of the experiencing subject—andwith its further development into the phenomenological concept ofaesthetic experience as being characterized by intentionality or noesis→ noema correlation, all of the Kyoto school philosophers discussedhere describe various aspects of the Japanese Buddhist sense of beautyas constituted both in terms of what is seen at the noema and how it isseen at the noesis. For Nishida Kitarò the Japanese sense of beauty re-quires an act of self-negation in the ecstasy of muga or no-self. D. T.Suzuki articulates traditional Zen ideals of beauty like yûgen, wabi,sabi, and furyû in terms of an aesthetic attitude of mushin or no-mind:the unconscious, spontaneous, detached state of awareness. HisamatsuShin’ichi holds that there is a profound similarity between the “freeplay” (Ger. spielen) and “disinterested” (interesselos) character of art asconceived by the Kantian tradition of the West and the quality of“playfulness” (J. asobi) and”disinterestedness” (mukanshin) in the ZenBuddhist arts of East Asia. In contrast to the austere Zen philosophyof Nishida, Nishitani, Suzuki, and Hisamatsu, there stands the deca-dent aestheticism of Kuki Shûzò. Kuki’s work integrates Japanesecanons of connoisseurship based on Zen principles of artistic detach-ment with French decadent aestheticism tracing back to Kant’s ideaof beauty as a function of disinterested contemplation. Moreover,Kuki studied with Husserl and Heidegger and assimilated the phe-nomenological, existential, and hermeneutic modes of cultural analysis.For Kuki, the high-fashion Edo-period aesthetic ideal of iki or “chic”requires that beauty include three elements in a cultural synthesis:the eroticism (bitai) of the seductive geisha, the prideful gallantry(ikuji) of the samurai, and the detached resignation (akirame) of theZen priest. In bipolar terms, the aesthetic ideal of “chic” (iki) is to beanalyzed through a tension between emotional sympathy representedby the sweetness of amami and psychic distance imposed by theastringency of shibumi.

Part Two

Psychic Distance in Literature

East and West

199

Chapt e r 4

Psychic Distance in Modern Western

Literature

The problem of psychic distance as a factor in art andbeauty has been explored not only in the field of academic philosophybut in modern and postmodern literature as well. The notion ofpsychic distance has been thematized, for example, in the “portrait-of-the-artist” novel that proliferated in the late nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century movements under the rubric of aestheticism, includ-ing the controversial school of decadent aestheticism. It can be said thataestheticism is a religion of art whereby salvation is achieved in anepiphany, or moment of illumination, by disinterested contemplationof beauty. As Ian Small writes in the introduction to his sourcebooktitled The Aesthetes: “To experience life in the manner of art was thedefinition of spiritual success in the terms of Aestheticism” (1979:xii). The portrait-of-the-artist novels function as a manifesto for aes-theticism wherein art is elevated to the level of a religion with its ownpath—the way of beauty; its own clergy—the priest of imagination;its own salvific goal—the rapture of aesthetic delight; and its ownspiritual discipline—cultivation of artistic detachment. The ideal ofaestheticism was to cultivate a heightened aesthetic attitude of artisticdetachment so that each moment could be viewed as if it were a paint-ing, a poem, a play. Hence the ultimate religious goal of aestheticismwas no less than the imaginative transmutation of life into art throughinsertion of psychic distance.

Another characteristic feature in portrait-of-the-artist novels is thecorrelation between artistic detachment and the epiphany. As clarifiedby M. H. Abrams in Natural Supernaturalism (1973:418–427), a leit-

200 — Psychic Distance in Lit erature East and West

motif of the modern novel is what James Joyce called the “epiphany”—the moment of vision. Like “the Moment” of Wordsworth and theromantics, Proust’s moments privilégiés, Henry James’ act of imaginationwhich “converts the very pulses of the air into revelations,” JosephConrad’s “moments of vision,” Thomas Wolfe’s attempt “to fix eter-nally . . . a single moment of man’s living . . . that passes, flamesand goes,” Virginia Woolf’s “moments of vision” as the “little dailymiracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark,”and William Faulkner’s “instant of sublimation” are all enumeratedby Abrams (p. 419) as variants of Joyce’s “epiphany” in the modernnovel. Yet as Joyce himself emphasizes, the epiphany of an objectcorresponds to an act of artistic detachment on the part of the subject.It is precisely through cultivating an aesthetic attitude of disinterestedcontemplation by insertion of distance that the artist imaginativelytransforms ordinary events of everyday life into epiphanies: ecstaticmoments of beauty, illumination, and delight.

In this chapter I want to discuss the role of psychic distance in rela-tion to spiritual epiphanies of beauty as depicted in portrait-of-the-artist novels. On the Western side we will look at four paradig-matic works of fiction by authors related to the movement of Britishaestheticism: Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater; Roderick Hudson byHenry James; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde; and A Portraitof the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. In Chapter 5, on theEastern side, we will focus on portrait-of-the-artist novels by thetwo founders of modern Japanese literature: Mori Ògai and NatsumeSòseki. Whereas the creative fiction of Mori Ògai represents a crea-tive synthesis of German and Sino-Japanese movements of philosoph-ical-literary aesthetism, the fiction of Natsume Sòseki signifies theintegration of British and Sino-Japanese aestheticism. As we shall see,at the center of these Japanese novels is typically a developing artistwho seeks to observe satori-like epiphanies of beauty as hidden depththrough cultivation of artistic detachment. Yet a conflict arises whenartistic detachment is brought to the extreme of alienation, isolation,and dehumanization. Hence the fundamental problematic character-izing the philosophy of aestheticism expounded in these archetypalportrait-of-the-artist novels, both East and West, is the dialectical ten-sion between detachment versus sympathy. As clarified especially byMaurice Beebe in Ivory Towers and Sacred Founts (1964), this funda-mental conflict in portrait-of-the-artist novels can be articulated withthree interrelated themes: the Divided Self, the Ivory Tower, and theSacred Fount. In the process of self-realization, the developing artist-

Modern West ern Lit erature — 201

hero experiences a Divided Self through the opposition between artisticdetachment from life (as symbolized by the Ivory Tower) and emo-tional involvement with life (as symbolized by the Sacred Fount). Afinal epiphany through reversal characteristic of portrait-of-the-artistnovels, both in their Eastern and Western variants, is that artistic de-tachment is incomplete: moral sympathy is also necessary. The aestheticattitude required for the epiphany, or moment of vision, thereforeincludes a creative synthesis of both the Ivory Tower and the SacredFount—namely, the balance of distance and involvement, detachmentand sympathy, or disinterestedness and engagement—unified in asingle act of psychic integration.

Here it should be noted that this chapter on the treatment of por-trait-of-the-artist novels in Western aestheticism is relatively brief inrelation to Chapter 5 on the Japanese tradition. The reason for this issimple: while there is a vast body of work available in English on theWestern authors considered here, little has yet appeared on the Japa-nese tradition of literary aestheticism. Thus in the presentation thatfollows, the various concepts, themes, and problems of Western aes-theticism will be used as a point of reference to illuminate the tradi-tion of literary aestheticism in Japan.

Origins

As emphasized by the literary critic M. H. Abrams, the French andBritish aesthetic movements ultimately trace their philosophicalorigins to the Kantian idea that beauty is itself a psychological func-tion of disinterested contemplation:

Aestheticism, or “the Aesthetic Movement,” was a European phenom-enon during the latter nineteenth century that had its chief philosophical headquarters in France. Its roots lie in the German theory, proposed by Kant (1790), that the pure aesthetic experience consists of a “disinter-ested” contemplation of an aesthetic object without reference to its reality, or to the “external” ends of its utility or morality. [1981:2]

In the French movement, fundamental notions deriving from Kantianaesthetics included the autonomy of art, the value of art for its ownsake, artistic detachment, the free play of imagination as a preconditionfor aesthetic experience, and beauty as a pleasure that is “disinterested.”

French aestheticism as developed by Baudelaire, d’Aurevilly, Flau-bert, and others was later introduced into England by Walter Pater(1839–1894). The aesthetic movement—art for art’s sake—flourished


in England from the late 1860s until the early 1890s. Its basic motifswere expressed in the conclusion of Pater’s Studies in the History of theRenaissance (1873) and then further developed in his novel Marius theEpicurean (1885). Indeed, Pater’s Marius the Epicurean became theprototype for the portrait-of-the-artist novel that flourished in themovement of British aestheticism including such representative worksas The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) by Oscar Wilde and A Portrait ofthe Artist as a Young Man (1916) by James Joyce. The American writerHenry James, who lived much of his life as an expatriate in Londonand other European cities, developed the themes of French and Britishaestheticism in a series of quintessential portrait-of-the-artist novelssuch as Roderick Hudson (1875) and The Tragic Muse (1890).

In these and other archetypal portrait-of-the-artist novels arisingout of British aestheticism, psychic distance simultaneously operatesat many levels—including elements of theory, imagery, plot, characterdevelopment, and narrative construction. At the theoretical level, theprotagonist often constructs a doctrine of beauty as a function of dis-tance. Moreover, such novels employ images of literary imagination toillustrate the artistic detachment by depicting epiphanies of beautyevoked through insertion of distance. The plot invariably focuses onthe aesthetic education of the hero through cultivation of distance inthe process of becoming a creative artist—poet, painter, sculptor, oractor—or else a dilettante, connoisseur, aesthete, or dandy. Even themost commonplace event can be transfigured into an epiphany ofbeauty through insertion of distance. It is through insertion of dis-tance that life is transformed into art. As for character development,the protagonist becomes increasingly distanced from life to the pointof complete indifference—whereupon a fundamental conflict arisesbetween distance and involvement. The protagonist realizes that artrequires distance from life, and in this context he experiments withthe many possible degrees and variations of distance on the slidingscale from low distance to middle distance to great distance. If thereis underdistancing, the artwork loses its universality, objectivity, andgenerality. But if there is overdistancing, the work of art becomesdehumanized. Hence the artist discovers that one must strike a goldenmean between excess and privation—in this case, a balance that liesbetween too much and too little distancing.

In portrait-of-the-artist novels, psychic distance is not only devel-oped in terms of an explicit theory of detachment and then workedinto the plot and character development of its protagonist. It is alsoa literary technique in the narrative construction of the novel. The


Rhetoric of Fiction (1961) by Wayne C. Booth has become a standardwork of literary criticism analyzing the control of aesthetic distancein the modern novel. Booth describes how Henry James, James Joyce,and other founders of modern Western fiction have established thenarrative ideal of objectivity as the disinterested reporting of events.Booth (pp. 67–83) further explicates how the modern literary ideal ofobjectivity is expressed through a variety of synonyms—impersonality,detachment, distance, or disinterestedness—and includes such distin-guishable qualities as neutrality, impartiality, and impassability. Hethereby shows how, in contrast to works of imaginative fiction thatencourage the reader to become fully involved in human emotions oflife, the novels of modern authors like James and Joyce instead developan elaborate system of controls over the reader’s varying degrees ofinvolvement and detachment.

Walter Pater: Pioneer of British Aestheticism

As pointed out by M. H. Abrams: “The doctrines of French Aestheti-cism were introduced into England by Walter Pater” (1981:2). Wehave already seen how French aestheticism had its philosophical rootsin Kant’s notion of the aesthetic attitude—defined both in terms ofits “disinterestedness,” or artistic detachment from personal desire onthe negative side, and by its “free play” of imagination on the positiveside. In accord with Kant’s revolution in aesthetics, Pater underscoresthe shift in emphasis from the beauty of objects to the constitutiveacts of distancing by the subject. Thus in the introduction to hissourcebook on British aestheticism titled The Aesthetes, Ian Smallasserts: “Pater focused attention away from the object of contempla-tion and on to the contemplating mind” (1979:xv). The idea of anepiphany was developed by Pater in his conclusion to Studies in theHistory of the Renaissance, where he describes human experience as com-prised of successive “moments” of heightened sensations in conscious-ness. But influenced by Kant’s transcendental idealism Pater developsa kind of phenomenological approach that focuses on the act of detachedcontemplation whereby the moment of beauty itself comes intoappearance.

Pater’s ideal of artistic detachment, articulated in Studies in the His-tory of the Renaissance and Imaginary Portraits, is vividly depicted throughthe images of literary imagination in his novel Marius the Epicurean.This work tells the story of a boy called Marius as he grows into man-hood during the reign of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. In the


process of achieving self-realization, Marius takes on the role of adetached spectator of life: “With this was connected the feeling . . . ofa poetic beauty in mere clearness of thought, the actually aestheticcharm of a cold austerity of mind . . . that was made easy by his naturalEpicureanism, already prompting him to conceive of himself as butthe passive spectator of the world around him” (1985:106). Impressedby the ceaseless flux of existence described by the ancient Greekphilosopher Heraclitus, the young Marius adopts the philosophy ofCyrenaicism, a modified form of Epicureanism based on the detachedcontemplation of beauty. Although this new position is called Epicu-reanism, it is not to be identified with pleasure-seeking hedonism:“Not pleasure, but a general completeness of life” (p. 115). Marius’Epicureanism is described as a new “aesthetic philosophy” (p. 119)based on an “aesthetic education” (p. 117) of cultivating an enhancedsensibility to music, literature, and the arts, which in its highest formis raised to the level of religion: “Such a manner of life might comeeven to seem a kind of religion—an inward, visionary, mystic piety, orreligion. . . . In this way, the true aesthetic culture would be realiz-able as a new form of the contemplative life” (p. 118). Epicureanismis thereby elevated to the status of a religion, so that the Epicureanbecomes an artist-priest devoted to the detached contemplation ofbeauty in all its forms. The narrative describes Marius as “somethingof a priest, and that devotion of his days to the contemplation of whatis beautiful, a sort of perpetual religious service” (pp. 182–183). Fur-thermore, the aesthetic attitude of the artist-priest is described notonly in terms of its negative aspect, as detachment from personaldesires, but also in terms of its positive aspect as the imaginative recon-struction of experience: “Had he not come to Rome partly under poeticvocation, to receive all those things, the very impress of life itself,upon the visual, the imaginative, organ . . . to transmute them intogolden words?” (p. 136).

But in a later chapter titled “Second Thoughts,” Marius undergoesa reversal. He now realizes the narrowness of his former aestheticismas a religion of beauty: “Cyrenaicism is ever the characteristic philos-ophy of youth, ardent, but narrow in its survey—sincere, but apt tobecome one-sided, or even fanatical. It is one of those subjective andpartial ideals, based on vivid, because limited, apprehension of thetruth of one aspect of experience (in this case, of the beauty of theworld and the brevity of man’s life there)” (p. 181). He adds: “TheEpicurean has a strong apprehension for the beauty of things, anexclusive preoccupation with the aesthetic and imaginative side of


things, bent on living in a stream of refined sensations” (p. 185).What is neglected in the narrow aestheticism of his youth, we nowlearn, is the cultivation of moral sympathy: “If, now and then, they ap-prehended the world in its fullness, and had a vision, almost ‘beatific’,of ideal personalities in life and art, yet these moments were a verycostly matter: they paid a great price for them, the sacrifice of a thou-sand possible sympathies, of things only to be enjoyed through sym-pathy, from which they detached themselves” (p. 185). The stunningreversal and grand epiphany in the novel are a recognition that aes-thetic detachment is not sufficient; there is also a need for moral sym-pathy. Marius describes this new awakening as follows: “It definednot so much a change of practice, as of sympathy—a new departure,an expansion, of sympathy” (p. 188). Hence the new perspective doesnot require a change in the practice of aesthetic detachment itself butonly its integration with the practice of sympathy. Toward the end ofhis life, Marius embraces Christianity and his life takes on a deepermode of detachment through meditation on impermanence anddeath. He now describes his attitude as “a meditatio mortis, ever facingtowards the act of final detachment” (p. 289).

Marius the Epicurean thus establishes the archetypal structure forthe pattern of the many portrait-of-the-artist novels that would followin the movement of British aestheticism: the protagonist adopts aes-theticism as a religion of beauty rooted in the practice of artistic de-tachment. The high priest of Pater’s Epicurean religion of beauty istherefore one who develops an aesthetic attitude in which the acts ofdetached contemplation and creative imagination alchemically trans-mute life into art as an ever-changing stream of exquisite moments,refined impressions, and intense sensations. Yet after taking detach-ment from life too far, there is an epiphany: a flash of recognition thatperfection requires both artistic detachment and moral sympathy.

Henry James: The Detached Observer

Influenced by European aestheticism, the American novelist HenryJames (1843–1916) develops the theme whereby through detachmentand imagination the artist-hero turns ordinary events into an epiphanyof beauty so as to transform life into art. As James declared in a letterto H. G. Wells: “It is art that makes life” (1920:II, 490). James madea landmark contribution to literary style in the composition of a novelwith his aesthetic ideal of the detached observer—that is, the narrativeof his novels is restricted to the “point of view” or what he otherwise


calls a “center of consciousness,” “central intelligence,” and “lucidreflector.” James’ various portrait-of-the-artist novels typically focusupon an artist-hero who is characterized as having the capacity fordescribing the beauty of aesthetic events from the impartial stand-point of a disinterested bystander, impersonal spectator, or detachedobserver. In James’ The Sense of the Past, “Detachment and selection”are described as the “prime aids of the artist” (1907–1917:XXVI, 61).Yet the ideal artist-hero has the double-consciousness which includesboth artistic detachment and moral sympathy. Lambert Strether ofThe Ambassadors is “burdened . . . with the oddity of a double conscious-ness. There was detachment in his zeal and curiosity in his indifference”(1907–117:XXI, 5). In his study called Ivory Towers and Sacred Founts(1964), Maurice Beebe uses the titles from two of James’ novels asarchetypal ideals of the artist-hero: the Ivory Tower, symbolizing theideals of detachment, disinterestedness, and distance, as opposed tothe Sacred Fount symbolizing participation, sympathy, and involve-ment. As Beebe (pp. 197–231) points out in his chapter on “HenryJames: The Ideal of Detachment,” both the ideals of the Ivory Toweras detachment from life and those of the Sacred Fount as participationin life are combined in James’ own twofold aesthetic ideal of an artist-hero with a double consciousness of disinterested curiosity (or de-tached engagement).

But in James’ novels the artist-hero is a person of genius who hascultivated a highly refined aesthetic attitude characterized by thenegative or inhibitory phase of detached observation and the positiveor constructive phase of creative imagination. For James the artisticgenius is not only a disinterested bystander with the capacity fordetached, objective, and impersonal observation; he is also one whopossesses a talent for the imaginative reconstruction of experience.In an often cited passage from his 1884 essay “The Art of Fiction,”James articulates his theory of moments of vision in connection withthe faculty of imagination: “When the mind is imaginative—muchmore when it happens to be that of a man of genius . . . it converts thevery pulses of the air into revelations.” After suspending the normalhabits of perception through the exercise of artistic detachment, thegenius then uses the crucible of imagination to alchemically trans-mute commonplace events into moments of beauty, delight, and illu-mination. In one of his letters to H. G. Wells, James clarifies thisrelationship between the negative phase of artistic detachment andthe positive phase of creative imagination in an aesthetic experienceof beauty:


There is, to my vision, no authentic, and no really interesting and no beautiful, report of things on the novelist’s, the painter’s part unlessa particular detachment has operated, unless the great stewpot or cru-cible of the imagination, of the observant and recording and inter-preting mind in short, has intervened and played its part—and this detachment, this chemical transmutation for the aesthetic, the representational, end is terribly wanting in autobiography. [1920:II, 181–182]

James’ first portrait-of-the-artist novel, Roderick Hudson, was pub-lished in 1875—indeed, ten years prior to the appearance of WalterPater’s Marius the Epicurean. James’ “international theme” typicallyestablishes a contrast between the new country of America, with itslack of art and culture, as opposed to the high culture of Europe withits accumulated monuments and treasures of art. In James’ treatmentof the international theme, the American is typically spontaneous,open, natural, and innocent whereas the European is governed by tra-dition, elegance, grace, and refinement. For James the aesthetic idealof the international theme as it bears upon the development of ayoung artist is to combine the spontaneity of the American with thecultivation of the European. In Daisy Miller, James’ most popular work,the international theme provides a contrast between the Americanwoman and the European woman in terms of Daisy’s spontaneityversus the ritual decorum of the European woman. In Roderick Hudson,the international theme is presented for the first time when a youngAmerican sculptor named Roderick Hudson takes a pilgrimage toRome to “report on a real aesthetic adventure” (1980:80). HenryJames, like Walter Pater, describes the aesthetic education of a youngman in Rome—thus to portray his “museum” concept of life as agallery of art objects to be used for the detached contemplation ofbeauty. The journey to Rome functions as “an education of the sensesand imagination” (p. 127) in a place where the American artist can cul-tivate a heightened ability to receive intense aesthetic impressions asa disinterested spectator. Rowland Mallet, the center of consciousnessin the novel, sees his friend Roderick Hudson developing a stoic atti-tude of aesthetic detachment to the point of losing moral sympathy:“Rowland had found himself wondering shortly before whetherpossibly his brilliant young friend were without conscience; nowit dimly occurred to him that he was without that indispensableaid to completeness, a feeling heart” (pp. 164–165). But in the endRoderick Hudson descends from art to life when he turns fromthe ideal beauty of his marble statues to the worldly appeal of the


heroine Christina Light. The failure of Roderick Hudson, in short, isthe loss of distance resulting from excessive involvement in humanemotions.

From Roderick Hudson (1875) to The Tragic Muse (1890) to The GoldenBowl (1904), Henry James produced a series of portrait-of-the-artistnovels thematizing in various ways the problem of psychic distance inaesthetic experience as well as the conflict between artistic detachmentand moral sympathy. James’ productivity throughout his long andprolific career is no doubt to be explained, at least in part, by his owngenius of imagination, his great cultivation of detachment, and hisintensity of emotional involvement. Yet it has often been pointed outthat James, who never married, renounced all personal involvementsin life for the sake of his art. Hence unlike Roderick Hudson, HenryJames did not abandon his dedication to the ideal of artistic detach-ment but remained aloof as an impartial observer of events frombeginning to end.

Oscar Wilde: Decadent Aestheticism

Both the aesthetic and the decadent movements in England are repre-sented by the writings of Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), especially hisnovel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and his play Salomé (1893).Moreover, Wilde’s life itself has come to be regarded as the very cari-cature of a decadent aesthete. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, an aesthetenamed Dorian obtains an occult portrait of his own image that en-ables him to remain forever young—although the signs of aging, in-cluding all physical and moral degeneration, are recorded in the paint-ing itself. By this ingenious device Wilde at once establishes thefundamental theme of aestheticism: the imaginative transformationof life into art, or the effort to live each moment as if one is a figure ina painting, novel, or play.

At one point his mentor Lord Henry informs Dorian that a womanwith whom he had been romantically involved, the Shakespeareanactress Sibyl Vane, has just committed suicide. Detached, aloof, indif-ferent, and uninvolved, Dorian merely tells those present with coolnonchalance that if they view her suicide as a moment in a Shake-spearean play, instead of an occasion for sorrow, it now becomes an actof great beauty when seen from the proper distance. Lord Henry thenrecalls the words of Dorian and realizes they hold the key to Dorian’sinability to feel sorrow over the actress’ death:


You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of romance—that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; and if she died as Juliet, she came back to life as Imogen. . . . To you at least she was always a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shake-speare’s plays. . . . Mourn for Ophelia if you like. . . . But don’t waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are. [1985:116]

Shortly thereafter, Dorian Gray confirms this view by stating thatthere is nothing sad in Sibyl Vane’s suicide, since it was the greatromantic tragedy of her age (p. 123). As a leading Shakespeareanactress, Sibyl Vane would regularly play Ophelia as well as Juliet,Desdemona, Imogen, and other heroines of the stage, reenacting theirtragic lives and deaths night after night. On the eve of her suicide,she simply played her greatest role—raising her own life into thesphere of art (p. 123). In this context, Dorian further explains his aimof becoming detached from all human emotions so that life can alwaysbe seen from a purely aesthetic point of view (p. 122). Yet to thoselistening to Dorian Gray, it seems that he has carried artistic detach-ment from human emotions much too far and has lost all sympathyfor the people around him. As one person responds: “You talk as ifyou had no heart, no pity in you” (p. 122). It is this lack of pity thatresults in the collapse of his narrow aestheticism into a form of moraldecadence. Thus Wilde develops a subtle and ironic critique of deca-dent aestheticism while expressing the fundamental tension betweenartistic detachment and moral sympathy in the aesthetic way of life.

James Joyce: Culmination of the Tradition

The culmination of the portrait-of-the-artist novel in the tradition ofBritish aestheticism is without question James Joyce’s masterwork, APortrait of the Artist as a Young Man, first published in 1916. In thiswork a developing artist-hero named Stephen Dedalus is described asgradually “detaching himself” (1977:67) and becoming “withdrawn”(p. 68), “alone” (p. 59),”antisocial” (p. 177), and so on. As Stephenachieves increasingly greater aesthetic distance from life, he proceedsto formulate his own detachment theory of art and beauty. FirstStephen expands upon Thomas Aquinas’ notion of beauty as havingthree elements: wholeness (L. integritas), harmony (consonantia), andradiance (claritas): “Three things are needed for beauty, wholeness,harmony and radiance” (p. 212). The radiance is further described asquidditas, the “whatness” or quality of a thing (p. 213). In a revised


version of Portrait of the Artist called Stephen Hero, Joyce reformu-lated this theory of beauty in terms of his celebrated doctrine of the“epiphany.” As in the first version, beauty is analyzed as having thethree qualities of wholeness, symmetry, and radiance. The third qualityof beauty, identified as claritas or radiance, is also its quidditas or what-ness. Moreover, the radiance of a thing wherein its whatness is disclosedis itself the moment of revelation whereby the object achieves itsepiphany:

By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation. . . . He believed that it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments. . . . It is just in this epiphany that I find the third, the supreme quality of beauty. [p. 288]

Having defined the beauty of wholeness, harmony, and radiancewhereby the object achieves its epiphany, Joyce describes the aestheticattitude of detached contemplation by means of which the quality ofbeauty is envisaged:

The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. . . . The esthetic emotion (I use the general term) is therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing. [p. 205]

As opposed to the kinetic reaction of desire or loathing, the aestheticattitude of an artist resulting in the visionary apprehension of beautyis described as a condition of luminous silent stasis beyond cravingand aversion or attraction and repulsion: “Beauty expressed by theartist cannot awaken in us an emotion which is kinetic. . . . It awakens,or ought to awaken, or induces, or ought to induce, an esthetic stasis”(p. 206). And elsewhere: “the instant wherein that supreme quality ofbeauty, the clear radiance of the esthetic image, is apprehended lumi-nously by the mind which has been arrested by its wholeness andfascinated by its harmony in the luminous silent stasis of estheticpleasure” (p. 213). Hence for Joyce the beauty of wholeness, harmony,and radiance whereby the object achieves its epiphany must itselfcorrespond to a mental attitude of calm detachment on the side of theartist: namely, the luminous silent stasis of aesthetic pleasure beyondall desire and loathing.

Stephen then describes the historical evolution of literature in threestages—the lyrical, epic, and dramatic—corresponding to the move-


ment from involvement to detachment, kinetic to static, or personalto impersonal:

The dramatic form is reached when . . . the personality of the artist . . . refines itself out of existence, impersonalises itself, so to speak. The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. [p. 215]

At this level of analysis, the theme of artistic detachment is now de-veloped as a literary technique for the narrative construction of a text.The ideal of narrative composition is complete objectivity as an im-partial, impersonal, and indifferent reporting of events. Artistic detach-ment is now developed in terms of a system of controls over thereader’s level of distance and involvement. Thus as the story progresses,the artist-hero becomes increasingly detached, isolated, aloof, indif-ferent, disinterested, impersonal, and distanced from life. This dis-tancing is reinforced by the aesthetic theory that Stephen expounds inwhich kinetic impulses of desire and loathing are rejected for the“luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure.” It is this aesthetic stasisbeyond desire and loathing that leads to the epiphany of beauty in itswholeness, harmony, and radiance. Further, Stephen describes hispreference for the dramatic form of literature wherein personalityis refined out of existence to become impersonal, aloof, and indif-ferent through the aesthetic attitude of detached contemplation. Thethematization of psychic distance as a factor in beauty and itscorrelate problem of overdistancing versus underdistancing is thusapproached from a variety of perspectives in Joyce’s multilayerednarrative.

According to James Joyce, then, the beauty of wholeness, harmony,and radiance whereby the object achieves its epiphany requires forits emergence an aesthetic attitude having two phases: the negativeor inhibitory phase, as a luminous stasis of aesthetic pleasure, and apositive or creative phase of imaginative transformation. DescribingStephen’s idea of the dramatic stage of narrative composition markedby the shift from the personal to the impersonal, Joyce writes: “Theesthetic image in the dramatic form is life purified in and reprojectedfrom the human imagination” (p. 215). The material world created byGod must be purified in the human imagination in order to becomeart. Abandoning his former goal of becoming a Jesuit priest who per-forms the miracle of transubstantiation through the mass, Stephennow elects to become instead “a priest of eternal imagination, trans-


muting the daily bread of experience into a radiant body of everlivinglife” (p. 221). Here Joyce brings to culmination a central and recur-rent theme in the tradition of British aestheticism: the alchemicaltransmutation of life into art through creative imagination. Joyce’spassage, cited from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is at once remi-niscent of “the transmutation of life into art” through the alchemy ofimagination described in classic texts of British aestheticism such asRosa Alchemica by William Butler Yeats, “The Decay of Lying” by OscarWilde, and Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater. Furthermore, Joyce’simaginative transmutation of commonplace events into epiphanies ofbeauty recalls the use of alchemical transmutation of life into art inthe crucible of imagination described in “The Art of Fiction” andother essays on literary criticism by Henry James. Thus for JamesJoyce, as for others in the tradition of British aestheticism, the visionaryapperception of beauty is a function of a twofold aesthetic attitudecharacterized by the exercise of detachment on the one side and crea-tive imagination on the other.

As Maurice Beebe explains in Ivory Towers and Sacred Founts (1964),Stephen Dedalus in Joyce’s Portrait is the archetypal artist-hero inthat the Divided Self of the protagonist wavers between the IvoryTower and the Sacred Fount—between the aesthetic distance from liferequired by his holy mission as an artist-priest and his natural desireas a human being to participate in the life around him. Stephen grad-ually retreats more and more into the isolation of his Ivory Tower tolook down from a distance upon the world below: aloof, indifferent,detached. There is no reversal at the end of this novel. Stephen doesnot recognize that beauty requires both artistic detachment and moralsympathy. On the contrary, the novel ends with Stephen completelyexalted: As he sets off to undertake his divine mission as an artist-priestof imagination, he has achieved total godlike distance from life: “Olife! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experienceand to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of myrace” (p. 253). But in Joyce’s next work, Ulysses (1922), the failure ofthe artist-hero’s narrow aestheticism is revealed suddenly and unex-pectedly in a dramatic reversal when Stephen Dedalus is presented asthe fallen Icarus. As clarified by C. H. Peake in James Joyce: The Citizenand the Artist (1977), Portrait of the Artist shows the development ofStephen Daedalus into an Artist through aesthetic distance, artisticdetachment, and isolation from life, but Ulysses shows the developmentof Leopold Bloom into a Citizen through emotional involvement, socialengagement, and participation in life. Stephen of Portrait and Bloom


of Ulysses are complementary opposites in the process of resolvinginternal conflicts in the search for self. Peake sums up his thesis whenhe states:

Before any resolution could be achieved, it was necessary to develop the concepts of artist and citizen and transform their mode of presentation. Ulysses imposes this transformation abruptly and forcefully. The artist’s painfully chosen isolation has proved sterile; detachment, however neces-sary, has proved as unfruitful as submission; it is now equally necessary for him to renew sympathies. [Peake 1977:345; italics added]

Thus when Joyce’s Ulysses is read as the sequel to Portrait of the Artist asa Young Man, it clarifies precisely that “detachment” is bankrupt apartfrom “sympathy,” that the Artist must also become a Citizen, and thatthe aesthetic distance from life symbolized by the Ivory Tower mustbe balanced by moral participation in life as symbolized by the SacredFount.

214

Chapt e r 5

Psychic Distance in Modern Japanese

Literature

Whereas Nishida Kitarò (1870–1945) became the lead-ing philosophical representative of the “modernization” process duringthe Meiji Restoration (1868–1912) through his attempt to synthesizeEastern and Western values, the novelists Mori Ògai (1862–1922) andNatsume Sòseki (1867–1916) were his counterparts in Japanese liter-ature. Indeed, Mori Ògai and Natsume Sòseki are regarded as the twogiants of Meiji-period fiction. Their efforts to forge a creative synthesisof Eastern and Western ideals through the medium of imaginativeliterature derives partly from the fact that both Ògai and Sòseki wereproducts of the new Meiji imperial university system—sent abroad tostudy in Europe at precisely that key juncture in time when Japan,after centuries of “national seclusion” (sakoku), was again opening itselfto Western influences. Ògai studied medicine, philosophy, and litera-ture in Germany from 1884 to 1888; Sòseki conducted research onEnglish literature in London from 1900 to 1903. Thus while Ògai’s fic-tion represents a synthesis of Japanese and German literature, Sòseki’swritings signify an integration of the Japanese and British literary tra-ditions. And since both writers emerged during that transitional timeof the late Meiji period when the Tokugawa philosophical values werestill flourishing, both were fully grounded in Confucian learning aswell as Chinese language and literature. As a result, the creative fic-tion of both Ògai and Sòseki represents a profound syncretism of theChinese, Japanese, and European literary traditions.

Here I want to clarify how Mori Ògai and Natsume Sòseki both

Modern Japanes e Lit erature — 215

formulate an original theory of aesthetic distance which is then illus-trated in various ways through their portrait-of-the-artist works ofcreative fiction. Hasegawa Izumi has pointed out the aesthetic atti-tude of detached resignation developed under the influence of ZenBuddhist philosophy in both Ògai and Sòseki: “Much of Ògai’s writingconveys a mood of resignation which is reminiscent of the attitudetoward life adopted by Natsume Sòseki in the last years of his life”(1963:241). Mori Ògai articulates his theory of aesthetic distance inwhat J. Thomas Rimer classifies as “self-portrait of the artist” storiesdating from 1909–1915 (see Ògai 1994) by means of his ideal of adisinterested onlooker (bòkansha) who cultivates an Apollonian con-templative attitude of resignation (teinen, akirame), serenity (heiki), anddetached amusement (asobi). Ògai’s philosophy of detached resignationis itself a synthesis of the traditional Japanese spirit of akirame and theGerman romantic idea of resignation (Entsagung) formulated by Goetheand other European thinkers. Natsume Sòseki works out a theory ofaesthetic distance in his portrait-of-the-artist novel called Grass Pillow(Kusamakura, 1906) wherein the beauty of “profound mystery” (yûgen)is apprehended in an epiphany of depth through a mental attitudecharacterized by “detachment from human emotions” (hininjò). Sòseki’shininjò theory of artistic detachment is itself formed through a syn-thesis of the Japanese and English literary traditions.

Both novelists thematize the tension between detachment and sym-pathy that emerges in the process of becoming an artist through culti-vating an aesthetic attitude of disinterested contemplation. Thus MoriÒgai and Natsume Sòseki both have developed an East-West modelof an aesthetic attitude of psychic distance as impartial observation ofphenomena in their suchness achieved through an aesthetic attitudeof detached contemplation—a notion that is not only influenced bythe Kantian ideal of beauty as a function of disinterestedness but alsoby that ancient Eastern philosophy of resignation which some havedescribed as the heart of traditional Japanese spirituality.

Akirame: Detached Resignation in Mori Ògai

Mori Ògai is regarded by many Japanese scholars as the preeminentauthor of Meiji-period fiction. Ògai was a prodigy who graduatedfrom the Medical College of Tokyo Imperial University at only nine-teen years of age and was later sent as an army medical officer to Ger-many to study nutrition and military hygiene. In his lifelong career asa high-ranking army medical officer, he earned promotions as director


of the Military Medical College, director of the medical staff to theImperial Guard Division, and chief editor of the Japanese MedicalJournal, finally being appointed to the highest position of surgeongeneral of the Japanese army in 1907. After retiring from the army in1916 he was appointed director and chief librarian of the ImperialMuseum. Parallel to his achievements in the military, scientific, andmedical fields he became one of the most renowned figures in modernJapanese literature. Ògai’s works of creative fiction amount to morethan one hundred and twenty titles including novels, novellas, shortstories, diaries, poems, plays, and biographies. Moreover, he was thefounding editor of the literary magazine Subaru (The Pleiades). Hewas a brilliant linguist, as well, who became a translator of Europeanliterary and philosophical works into modern Japanese during theMeiji period. Aside from his fluency in German and other Europeanlanguages he was known for his remarkable command of both classicalJapanese and Chinese. In his dual career as a medical doctor, scientist,military officer, government official, and high-ranking bureaucrat onthe one side and novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, essayist,biographer, cultural historian, literary critic, aesthetician, teacher,editor, linguist, and translator on the other, Ògai was a towering intel-lectual figure who came to represent the paradigmatic Renaissanceman of the Meiji Reconstruction: a genius who bridged science andthe literary arts.

Ògai’s East-West Philosophy of Resignation

Ògai’s creative fiction is outstanding not only for its great literary andaesthetic value but also for its deep philosophical content. His storiestypically focus on philosophical themes and often contain lengthy dis-cussions of various Western and Chinese philosophers. In some cases—Shizuka Kanai in Vita Sexualis (1909), for example, or Ono Tasukuin “Kompira” (1909)—the main figure is a professor of philosophy byvocation. For a period of time Ògai lived with his relative Nishi Amane(1829–1897), one of the first Meiji scholars to study abroad, who iscredited with having introduced Western philosophy into Japan andwith having coined a great part of Japanese philosophical terminology,including the term “tetsugaku” for “philosophy” in 1874 (Piovesana1969:11). In his German diaries and semiautobiographical works offiction like “Daydreams” (“Mòsò,” 1911), Ògai recollects his study ofGerman philosophy, literature, and aesthetics, including Kant, Hart-mann, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Goethe, and others, while a student


of medicine in Berlin. It is from his study of German romantic litera-ture and philosophy in the West, combined with his encyclopedicknowledge of the Chinese and Japanese philosophical traditions, thatÒgai came to formulate his own theoretical standpoint: what Hase-gawa Izumi calls Ògai’s “philosophy of resignation” (1963:244). Oka-zaki Yoshie’s book Ògai to teinen (Ògai and Resignation, 1969) presentsan exhaustive account of the “resignation” motif in Ògai’s life, thought,and fiction. According to Okazaki’s interpretation, Ògai’s fiction rep-resents variations of his central theme: detached resignation (teinen,akirame). For Okazaki the pervasive mood in Ògai’s fiction is one ofcomplete detachment as expressed through the narrator’s contrivedstance as onlooker (bòkansha) or disinterested malcontent (fuheika).Ògai’s philosophy of detached resignation signifies one of the firstgreat theories of aesthetic distance based on an East-West synthesisduring the Meji period of modern Japanese literature.

The most famous statement of Ògai’s attitude of detached resigna-tion is to be found in his essay “My Standpoint” (“Yo ga tachiba,”1909): “The word that sums up my feeling best would be that of resig-nation. My feeling is not confined to the arts; every aspect of societyevokes this in me. Others may think I am suffering to hold such anattitude, but I am surprisingly serene” (1991:27). He further clarifiesthat “resignation” (teinen, akirame) designates a mental attitude of“serenity,” “nonchalance,” “coolness,” or “indifference” (heiki) (1971:VII, 99; 1991:26). Indeed, a common expression of contemporary Japa-nese youths in Tokyo is “zenzen heiki desu”—“I am totally cool [de-tached].” As Ògai states in the passage just cited, the stance of de-tached resignation is not only an aesthetic attitude that is applicableto the arts but an entire way of life. In everyday Japanese parlance, theword “akirame” can sometimes be understood as “giving up” and func-tions similarly to the Japanese expression “shikata ga nai” (“it cannotbe helped”). But in its Buddhist context, “akirame” further denotes anattitude of serene detachment in the sense of calm acceptance whenconfronted by overwhelming forces of “destiny” or “fate” (unmei) result-ing from the karmic law of cause and effect (inga). Hence in Ògai’sphilosophy of resignation the term “akirame” does not indicate givingup but signifies instead a contemplative mental attitude characterizedby detachment, serenity, and equanimity, which itself results in aheightened capacity for clear disinterested observation and penetratinginsight into everyday events. Furthermore, Ògai was born into thesamurai class and uses the word “akirame” in the bushidò sense of serenedetachment rooted in the unbending resolve of the warrior. In Ògai’s


writings, akirame is not a passive state of acquiescence at all: it is adynamic attitude of discharging one’s duty (giri) at the sacrifice ofone’s human feelings (ninjò).

Through the medium of creative fiction, Mori Ògai works out across-cultural philosophy of resignation based on an East-West syn-thesis of the Japanese, Chinese, and German literary traditions. Hase-gawa Izumi says that Ògai adopted “a characteristically Oriental ap-proach to life which is best described as the philosophy of resignation”(1963:244). The “Oriental” influences entering into Ògai’s East-Westphilosophy of detached resignation include attitudes characteristic oftraditional Japanese Buddhism as well as Tokugawa-period JapaneseConfucianism and neo-Confucianism. In semiautobiographical storieslike “Daydreams” (“Mòsò,” 1911), Ògai develops the concept of anonlooker attitude of calm resignation in terms of traditional JapaneseBuddhist symbols of isolation and detachment while depicting him-self as a Buddhist recluse who observes everything with a detachedgaze (Ògai 1994:180). According to Hasegawa (1963:242), Ògaiformulated this philosophy of detached resignation during hisgovernment-imposed “exile” in the remote city of Kokura on the Japa-nese island of Kyushu between the years 1899 and 1902, at whichtime he is known to have practiced Zen meditation. Donald Keene(1973:841) relates the cool detachment characterizing Ògai’s bystanderattitude of resignation to the Zen-influenced bushidò code of thesamurai warrior. Dilworth connects Ògai’s onlooker mentality of re-signed sadness to traditional Japanese aesthetic sensibilities pervadingnò drama, haiku poetry, the tea ceremony, and modern Japanese cinema(see Ògai 1991:32). As Rimer emphasizes, Ògai’s onlooker mentalityof detached resignation derives partly from his early upbringing inthe tradition of Confucian self-cultivation (Ògai 1994:4).

Ògai’s philosophy of resignation thus has its roots in the tradi-tional Japanese aesthetics of akirame, which itself has been deeplyinfluenced by the detached tranquility of Zen meditation with its cul-tural manifestations in the military arts of the warrior as well as thefine arts of painting, poetry, and drama. The Eastern philosophy ofresignation articulated by Ògai in fact represents an aesthetic stancetoward life that is continuous with the Zen Buddhist yûgen tradi-tion of Japanese literature and art. Ueda Makoto (1983) describes theEastern concept of resignation in its Zen Buddhist sense as an aestheticattitude of calm acceptance that elicts visions of tranquil beauty asyûgen: “In the 15th century, calm resignation came into greater promi-nence among the components of yûgen. Prolonged social unrest and


the influence of Zen Buddhism may have contributed to this changein emphasis. . . . When an attitude of calm acceptance was manifestedin art it took the form of yûgen and exuded tranquil beauty” (1983:VIII, 355; italics added). Although Ògai’s fiction does not generallydepict exotic Eastern images of beauty as yûgen in the same way as tobe found in certain works by Sòseki, Kawabata, Tanizaki, and Mishima,his disinterested bystander nonetheless functions as an aesthetic atti-tude of calm resignation whereby the meaning of commonplace eventsin everyday life is disclosed in an epiphany of depth through insertionof psychic distance.

If Ògai’s philosophy of detached resignation is rooted in traditionalEastern attitudes cultivated by Confucianism, Zen Buddhism, bushidò,and Japanese aestheticism, on the Western side it can be traced toSpinoza, Goethe, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hartmann, andvarious other European thinkers. Ògai articulates this conflict of res-ignation versus passion, detachment versus sympathy, distance versusinvolvement, in terms of Nietzsche’s two fundamental aesthetic atti-tudes: the Apollonian versus the Dionysian. Ògai develops this Apollo-nian/Dionysian motif in novels like Vita Sexualis (1972:150) andYouth (1994a:442) and in literary essays like “History as It Is and His-tory Ignored” (1991:7). Although Nietzsche criticizes the nihilisticmodes of passive resignationism propounded by Schopenhauer andinstead upholds a Dionysian aesthetics of ecstasy, Ògai himself favorsan Apollonian spirit of detached contemplation that aims toward astate of peace, calm, and serenity. One author states: “Ògai’s Apollo-nian spirit of resignation is reminiscent of both Spinoza and Goethe:Spinoza’s philosophy, itself mediated through Ògai’s long interest inGoethe, played a role in the formation of this ‘resignation’ concept.Like Spinoza, Ògai was impelled to ‘neither laugh nor weep.’ . . . Butlike Goethe, Ògai conceived of this kind of ‘resignation’ in terms ofactive pursuit of duty and destiny” (Ògai 1991:27).

Ògai’s idea of resignation, then, was significantly influenced by theGerman poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), a contem-porary of Kant who made the concept of resignation (Entsagung) cen-tral to his own aesthetic theory. Yet as we can see from Ògai’s favoritequote from Goethe, resignation is to be found not in passivity butthrough action and fulfillment of duty as prescribed by the demandsof the here and now (Ògai 1994:176–177). Thus while Ògai’s disin-terested onlooker strives to realize a contemplative aesthetic attitudeof calm resignation, it is at the same time the dynamic resignation ofGoethe in the West as well as that of bushidò in the East, which for the


samurai warrior means to achieve detachment from human feelings(ninjò) through active fulfillment of one’s duty (giri). Rimer notes thatJapanese critics often see Ògai’s philosophy of resignation as the resultof his growing sense of disillusionment over aspects of his own lifeand career, as well as the shortcomings of Meiji Japan. But he empha-sizes that Ògai’s bystander mentality of detached resignation is a posi-tive state of mind directed toward acquiring deep insight into life—not a pessimistic attitude of withdrawal resulting from emotionalfatigue (see Ògai 1991:385n). Rimer explains Ògai’s Apollonian phi-losophy of resignation in positive terms by means of Bertholt Brecht’s“alienation effect”—a dramaturgical technique used to insert aestheticdistance for the purpose of establishing an objective standpoint fromwhich to develop an ideology critique leading to social transformation.In Rimer’s words:

Intellectual awareness requires objectivity, and aesthetic distance permits the reader to contemplate what he has read and generalize from it. Ògai wants more than a personal, emotional response. Bertholt Brecht, in describing his celebrated “alienation effect,” wrote that his object was “not just to arouse moral objections to certain circumstances of life but to discover means for their elimination.” Ògai, in his own way, is attempt-ing a similar effort in his Apollonian meditation. [Ògai 1991:10]

Ògai’s Apollonian spirit of detached resignation is therefore not thenihilistic, pessimistic, or negativistic attitude toward life underminedby Nietzsche in his Dionysian critique of Schopenhauer. Instead itrepresents a positive system including the spiritual value of peacefultranquility, the cognitive value of clear insight, the aesthetic value ofsubdued quietness, and the moral value of social transformation in anactive pursuit of duty through disinterested action.

Upon considering Ògai’s double career as doctor/scientist andnovelist/artist, one might speculate on how his specialization in medi-cine actually comes to bear upon his literary works in terms of theirform and content. As for the content, his works often deal with medicalissues. The single most interesting example is probably Ògai’s highlyacclaimed story called “The Boat on the River Takase” (“Takasebune,”1916), which probes the case of a man charged with murdering hisown brother but whose actual intentions lead to a discussion on one ofthe central problems of biomedical ethics: the question of euthanasia,mercy killing in order to “let a person die painlessly” (1991:234). Fur-thermore, some of his autobiographical stories have a medical doctoras their protagonist: such figures as Òta Toyotarò in “The Dancing


Girl,” Okada from The Wild Geese, and Òmura Sònosuke, the doctorand man of letters from Youth. Shibue Chûsai (1916), a masterpiecefrom Ògai’s later period of biographical literature (shiden), details thelife of a Tokugawa physician whose main interests were medicine andliterature—a kind of disguised autobiography that enabled Ògai towrite with distance about a historical figure who could almost havebeen himself.

Most interesting of all is how Ògai’s specialization in medicine bearsupon his detached stance as a writer. Rimer suggests that one possiblesource of Ògai’s bystander attitude of detached resignation is his medi-cal training: a similar quality, Rimer says, can be observed in the workof another literary doctor, the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov(Ògai 1994:3–4). But why would a medical doctor with the rank ofsurgeon general become a novelist who develops a philosophy of res-ignation? The answer may lie in what might be termed the “medicalparadigm” of philosophy: rooted in ancient Greek skepticism, devel-oped by a physician named Pyrrho, and then passed down throughthe writings of Sextus Empiricus. According to this medical paradigm,philosophy is not just an academic pursuit but a form of psychotherapyaimed at healing both mind and body through realization of ataraxia,“mental tranquility,” achieved by epoché, “suspension of judgement,”in a neutral state of meditative equipoise between affirmation andnegation. Ògai’s bystander attitude of detached resignation indicatesa state of equilibrium that, like the ataraxia of Sextus Empiricus, hasa therapeutic function resulting in mental tranquility through absenceof mental perturbation.

Indeed, Buddhism too is based on the medical paradigm of philos-ophy insofar as the Buddha himself declares that he is the great physi-cian, that his techniques are cures, and that his thought is a therapyleading to the goal of recovery from illness. According to the four nobletruths expressing the Buddhist medical paradigm, the problem is suf-fering, the cause is blind reactions of craving or aversion, the solutionis nirvana or tranquility, and the way is nonattachment to both crav-ing and aversion. As various comparative studies, have noted, thistherapeutic model of ancient Greek skepticism leading to absence ofmental perturbation in ataraxia or mental tranquility is near to themedical paradigm of Buddhism where suffering in cured throughtranquil contemplation in the peace of nirvana. Both the ataraxia ofGreek skepticism and the nirvana of Buddhism overcome sufferingthrough a state of mental tranquility achieved by detachment fromjudgements of affirmation and negation or feelings of liking and dis-


liking. Ògai’s Apollonian ideal of detached resignation, expressedfrom the impartial standpoint of a disinterested onlooker, can beunderstood from the context of the medical paradigm of philosophytypified by ancient Greek skepticism in the West and Buddhism inthe East.

Resignation in Ògai’s Fiction

We have seen how Ògai sums up the theory of artistic detachmentdefining his own stance as a writer through his notion of the disinter-ested onlooker (bòkansha) characterized by detached resignation (teinen,akirame), serenity (heiki), and playfulness (asobi). He further describesthe philosophy of resignation underlying his standpoint as a disinter-ested onlooker in terms of Nietzschean aesthetic categories as theApollonian attitude of tranquil contemplation in contrast to the darkemotional Dionysian standpoint of intoxication, rapture, and ecstasy.As a novelist, however, Ògai articulates his philosophy of resignationnot only in conceptual terms but also through the images, symbols,and metaphors of the literary imagination as presented through theartistic medium of creative fiction. In the fiction of Ògai, the Apollo-nian attitude of detached resignation is developed as a philosophicaltheme that is then worked into the plot and character development aswell as an authorial perspective of narrative construction. Scholarsrecognize three periods of development in Ògai’s fiction: the earlyperiod of Ògai’s career includes three romantic novellas written soonafter his return from Germany; after a hiatus of twenty years, Ògaibegan his middle period extending from the end of the Russo-Japa-nese War to the death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912; Ògai’s lateperiod, extending from the end of the Meiji Reconstruction in 1912to around 1916, includes historical novels (rekishi shòsetsu) and bio-graphical (shiden) pieces. The evolution of Ògai’s philosophical motifof detached resignation can thus be traced through these three stagesmarking his literary career.

Early Period. The resignation and bystander themes received theirinitial formulation in three romantic novellas written immedi-atelyafter Ògai’s return from Germany: “The Dancing Girl” (“Maihime,”1890), “A Sad Tale” (“Utaka no ki,” 1890), and “The Courier” (“Fumi-zukai,” 1891). Hasegawa Izumi cites with approval the view that “mod-ern Japanese literature began with Ògai’s four-year stay in Germany”(Hasegawa 1963:237). Scholars have pointed to Ògai’s aesthetic


attitude of detached resignation as an aloof bystander, disinterestedonlooker, or impartial observer during his years in Germany as consti-tuting an important factor leading to his development as a novelist.J. T. Rimer underscores the quality of detachment characterizing MoriÒgai’s objective bystander attitude during this formative period of hisdevelopment:

Yet even in these early years Ògai found he possessed one basic charac-teristic that permitted him both to observe and to create: his ability to put himself in the position of what he was to call at one later point the [detached] bystander. No matter how involved he became in the events around him, Ògai preserved the ability to study them, and himself, with a certain detachment. [Ògai 1994:3; italics added]

It was Ògai’s ability to step back and insert psychic distance into eventsin order to perceive them objectively as a disinterested onlooker withcool detachment that defined his heightened powers of clear observa-tion and artistic creation.

Ògai’s first published story, “The Dancing Girl” (“Maihime”), whichin 1989 was turned into an elegant film by the director Shinoda Masa-hiro, is a blueprint for much of his later writings. According to Hase-gawa Izumi, “The Dancing Girl” is Ògai’s first autobiographical self-portrait of the artist as a young man and establishes central andrecurrent themes developed throughout his entire literary career. InHasegawa’s words: “The Dancing Girl is an important key to under-standing Ògai, as is Delusions [Mòsò], which provides a psychologicalportrait of the artist during the years he spent in Germany” (1963:241). “The Dancing Girl” tells the story of a young military doctornamed Òta Toyotarò who is sent to Germany by the Japanese govern-ment to study Western medicine. Òta soon creates a scandal, however,when he develops a passionate love affair with a beautiful Germandancer named Elise who subsequently becomes pregnant with hischild. Torn between the conflicting forces of duty versus romantic love,he decides to return to Japan in order to advance his career. The struc-tural pattern of “The Dancing Girl,” like many other stories writtenby Ògai during his early and middle period, is the tension betweengiri (social obligation) and ninjò (human feeling)—or, as otherwise ex-pressed, between the detached resignation of akirame and the passionof romantic love. The aesthetic philosophy of detached resignation inÒgai’s writings during this first period of his literary career has beensummed up as follows:


If we follow Okazaki Yoshie’s interpretation, the concept of “resigna-tion” formed one side of Ogai’s earliest literary expression. His first romance, “Maihime” (1898), revolves around the tension betweengiri, that is, loyalty to the performance values of clan and family,and ninjò, that is, the dictates of the human heart and aesthetic emo-tion. . . . The tension between giri and ninjò, between teinen (“resigna-tion”) and romantic love, reoccurs in Ogai’s next works, “Utaka noki” and “Fumizukai.” . . . Ògai’s middle period works, written between 1906 and 1912, rang various changes on the “resignation” theme. [See Ògai 1991:26]

In the romantic novellas of Ògai’s early period, we find a genuineJapanese literary counterpart to the celebrated “international theme”developed in American literature by Henry James, beginning withRoderick Hudson in 1876. James’ portrait-of-the-artist stories focusingon the international theme typically involve a youthful Americanartist-hero who travels abroad to Europe to experience its museums,galleries, and monuments of art and then endeavors to record his aes-thetic impressions from the standpoint of a disinterested onlooker. Inthis context there arises a tension between the requirements of artisticdetachment and emotional sympathy. Likewise, in stories like “TheDancing Girl” Mori Ògai develops an international theme wherein ayoung Japanese man travels to Europe as a disinterested onlooker anda similar tension develops between detachment and sympathy. BothJames and Ògai were the first major novelists of their respective coun-tries to live in Europe and write autobiographical self-portrait-of-the-artist stories based on their experiences abroad. Scholars of both Jamesand Ògai have emphasized that it was their powers of heightened clearobservation—through the aloof, indifferent, and impartial third-personstance as a disinterested bystander or detached onlooker in a foreignculture—that led to their development as major novelists. In the semi-autobiographical portrait-of-the-artist stories of both James and Ògaithe idea of artistic detachment is formulated as a philosophical themeand then worked into the literary elements of plot, character develop-ment, and narrative technique. These parallels take on special impor-tance when one realizes the extent to which both novelists were respon-sible for shaping their own literary traditions—James in American/European literature and Ògai in Japanese literature. In this respect onecan discover kindred spirits in Henry James and Mori Ògai as dis-interested observers who used their standpoints as aloof onlookers torecord their experiences in a foreign culture.


Middle Period. During this second period Ògai’s literary output wasprolific and resulted in three novels—Vita Sexualis (1909), Youth (Seinen,1910), and The Wild Geese (Gan, 1911–1912)—and an unfinished worktitled The Ashes of Destruction (Kaijin, 1912). Ògai’s most celebratednovel, The Wild Geese, which in 1953 was turned into an internation-ally acclaimed film called The Mistress, is a lucid expression of theApollonian/Dionysian struggle between detachment versus sympathy,duty versus human feeling, calm resignation versus passionate love.Other stories belonging to this period that have come to be regardedas classic statements of Ògai’s aloof bystander attitude of detachedresignation—including “Kompira,” “Asobi” (Play), “Fushinchû”(Under Reconstruction), “Mòsò” (Daydreams), and “Hyaku monoga-tari” (Ghost Stories)—have now been made available in an anthologytitled Mori Ògai: Youth and Other Stories (1994a). It is significant thatthe stories expressing Ògai’s Apollonian bystander mentality of de-tached resignation are grouped together by the editor under the title“Self-Portraits of the Artist: 1909–1915.” Like other works of crea-tive fiction in the portrait-of-the-artist genre, Ògai’s stories depictthe artist as an aloof figure who cultivates an aesthetic attitude of dis-interested contemplation—thereby leading to the fundamental con-flict between detachment and sympathy along with the problem ofoverdistancing to the point of dehumanization.

Ògai’s story “Under Reconstruction” (“Fushinchû,” 1910) can beread as a sequel to “The Dancing Girl.” “Under Reconstruction” isthe tale of Watanabe, a high-ranking Japanese bureaucrat who goes toa restaurant in a Western-style hotel in downtown Tokyo to meet hisformer mistress, a German woman who is a singer. But after their en-counter it seems they will never meet again. Watanabe and his mis-tress appear to be Òta and Elise of “The Dancing Girl,” now in middleage, twenty years later. But Watanabe of “Under Reconstruction” ex-presses a deeper level of detachment than does Òta of “The DancingGirl.” When his former German mistress asks Watanabe if she mightkiss him while seated at the restaurant, he remains aloof and says:“We are in Japan” (1994a:152). Rimer explains Watanabe’s bystanderattitude of cool detachment, distance, and resignation as follows: “Lifehas brought him [Watanabe] a certain sense of psychological distancefrom his own environment. . . . Òta’s self-awareness in the earlier storyremains a purely personal one. In Under Reconstruction . . . Watanabemaintains a distanced and detached attitude toward his own emotionsthroughout his interview with his nervous and unsettled partner”


(1982:212). He continues: “It was in this period of life that Ògai beganto speak of the need he felt in himself to develop an attitude of resig-nation, a desire to define himself as a ‘bystander’ ” (p. 212). Thus inthe transition from “The Dancing Girl” to “Under Reconstruction”there is a shift from the romantic standpoint of emotional involve-ment to the objective standpoint of a detached neutral bystander whoinserts psychic distance into events in order to enjoy them with anartistic attitude of calm resignation.

Ògai’s concepts of resignation, serenity, detached amusement, eter-nal discontent, and the Apollonian contemplative attitude are summedup by his notion of the bòkansha (detached onlooker), which surfacedin “Ghost Stories” (“Hyaku monogatari,” 1912). “Ghost Stories” is asemiautobiographical portrait-of-the-artist story wherein the narratoris revealing Ògai’s own view of himself as the bòkansha—a detachedonlooker, uninvolved bystander, impartial observer. This story is nar-rated by Setsuzo, who describes himself as a “born onlooker” (umare-nagara no bòkansha). In Setsuzo’s words: “I thought deeply, deeply,over my own attitude of the bystander which has been with me since Iwas born. . . . I am one fated since birth to be a bystander” (Ògai1994a:194). Again, Setsuzo asserts: “I myself, both by natural incli-nation and personal custom, have always had a tendency, where I maygo, to become a bystander” (p. 193). At a party in which a traditionalgame of telling ghost stories is to be played, Setsuzo once again takesup his position as a bystander through the exercise of detached obser-vation. But an epiphany of self-revelation occurs when he meets thehost and suddenly recognizes another bystander—a mirror-image ofhimself: “And indeed I have felt most like myself when I . . . couldremain at ease among the bystanders. . . . I realized that I felt as thoughI had met an old friend in a strange land. I felt as though one bystanderhad recognized another” (p. 194).

In another semiautobiographical portrait-of-the-artist story en-titled “Kompira” (1909), written a year after the death of Ògai’s owninfant son from whooping cough, the attitude of detached resignationis once again expressed through the narrator, a philosophy professornamed Ono Tasuku. After the death of his son, Ono describes his atti-tude of cool indifference as follows:

Although the professor had contemplated how very sad it would be if his son were to die, he was shocked at how exceedingly shallow and insignif-icant his grief now seemed. It was as if he felt none of the deep sorrow he had expected. . . . At the same time, the scene in the room struck him with vivid, objective, dreadful clarity. . . . He saw them all so clearly and


with cool indifference as if they were merely characters on a stage. He felt intensely displeased to see himself standing there as if he were a mere bystander. [Ògai 1994a:127]

This passage clearly reveals the aesthetic attitude of a disinterestedonlooker who with cool indifference views everyone as if they werefictional characters. The narrator’s position as a detached bystanderallows him to perceive events in an aesthetic way by viewing otherpeople as if they were figures in a play. As in the alienation effect ofBrecht, the narrator becomes an uninvolved spectator by insertingpsychic distance into the events unfolding as if in a theatrical perfor-mance. By adopting the standpoint of an impersonal observer he cansee even the death of his own son as if it were only a scene in a drama.Ògai’s story “Kompira” focuses on the motif that has become the sinequa non of portrait-of-the-artist literature both East and West: the actof psychic distancing required by the aesthetic attitude of a detachedbystander as well as the conflict between artistic detachment versusemotional sympathy and the problem of overdistancing to the pointof inhumanity.

The “resignation” (akirame, teinen) and “bystander” (bòkansha)themes defining Ògai’s Apollonian spirit of detached observation attainnew depth and clarity in “Daydreams” (“Mòsò,” 1911). In “Daydreams”Ògai’s sense of himself as a disinterested bystander is expressed throughthe narrator, who is now an old man facing death. The old man livesas a recluse in a “small hut”—a common symbol of detachment in theaesthetics of reclusion of medieval Japanese Buddhist literature asrepresented by Kamo no Chòmei’s thirteenth-century essay, “AnAccount of My Hut” (“Hòjiki”). According to the narrative in Ògai’sstory: “In this small hut, built some time ago as a country retreat, justlarge enough to sit in, the old man has only the barest of necessities,like a Buddhist recluse” (Ògai 1994a:180). The old man expresses thedetached attitude of an uninvolved onlooker when he says: “I felt likea man standing at the crossroads who looks coolly at the faces ofpassersby. My gaze was detached, but I did stand there and occasion-ally raise my hat to them” (p. 178).

In the context of describing his position as a detached onlooker, theold man reflects on his lifelong study of German romantic philosophyand literature. He remembers that the first philosophical book heread as a young medical student in Berlin was Hartmann’s Philosophyof the Unconscious (p. 172). Here Ògai expresses his view that “Hart-mann’s aesthetics . . . was still the best to date, the most original”


(p. 179). Elsewhere Ògai explicitly develops the medieval JapaneseBuddhist aesthetic ideal of yûgen—signifying the ethereal beauty of“darkness and shadows” or “mystery and depth”—as a synonym forHartmann’s aesthetic concept of the unconscious (see Bowring 1979:76). This view, incidentally, is analogous to D. T. Suzuki’s idea thatthe beauty of yûgen embodied in Zen art and literature represents abreakthrough to the state of mushin (no-mind), the cosmic uncon-scious (1988:220). Although the old man in “Daydreams” admiresHartmann’s aesthetics of the unconscious, he is nonetheless critical ofits nihilistic stance toward life. In an effort to discover the source ofHartmann’s aesthetics he next turns to Schopenhauer’s philosophy ofresignation, but again he rejects the attitude of renunciation in theworld-negating standpoints of nihilism, pessismism, and quietism: “Ihad not been able to accept Schopenhauer’s Quietive, that sedative whichtried to destroy the will to life and make people enter a state of noth-ingness” (1994a:179). The old man also describes how the pessimismof Schopenhauer and Hartmann is brought to a more extreme degreein Philipp Mainlaender’s “philosophy of redemption.” According toMainlaender it is inconsistent and unreasonable for Hartmann to holdsuch a deeply pessimistic view of existence while arguing that oneshould nevertheless affirm life. Mainlaender himself, the old man notes,committed suicide at the age of thirty-five (p. 176). Next the old mantakes up a study of Nietzsche’s Dionysian aesthetics of the superman.For the superman art is not a sedative leading to passive resignationbut a stimulant to life that overcomes nihilism through a transvalua-tion of all values leading to a complete affirmation of existence in theinnocence of becoming. But ultimately the old man is dissatisfiedwith the Dionysian aesthetics of Nietzsche: “This too, however, wasintoxicating wine rather than nourishing food” (p. 179). The old manfurther recollects how he was led to adopt Goethe’s philosophy ofresignation in action. Hence the author cites his favorite statement byGoethe: “How can a man come to know himself? Never through re-flection. Perhaps through action. Try to do your duty and in the endyou will know your true worth. What is your duty? The demands ofthe here-and-now” (cited in Ògai 1994a:177).

At the end of the story the old man’s disinterested attitude of resig-nation, serenity, and equanimity is most fully expressed through hiscalm detachment toward death itself: “And so I descend the final slopeof life and know at the bottom lies death. I am not, however, afraid ofdeath. . . . I myself have no fear of death, nor have I Mainlaender’s‘death wish.’ Neither in fear nor in love with death, I simply walk down


the final slope” (p. 177). Ògai’s “Daydreams” thereby formulates thebòkansha theme of a detached bystander through a dynamic philosophyof resignation based on a cross-cultural synthesis derived from JapaneseBuddhism and its Zen manifestation through bushidò in the East andGerman romanticism in the West. This East-West philosophy of de-tached resignation, developed in “Daydreams” and other portrait-of-the-artist stories dating from the middle period of Ògai’s career, hasbeen described by R. J. Bowring (1979:130–131):

The end result of the search [for resignation] revealed in “Mòsò” was quite inconclusive, as one can see from the rest of the stories written between 1909 and 1912. Their central theme turns out to be the explo-ration of the nature and possibility of maintaining an attitude of detach-ment towards life and its problems. Was the position of a bystander, an onlooker, a dispassionate observer, tenable for a sensitive intellectual? The pessismism of Hartmann and the Buddhist speculations clearly led in the direction of an attitude of resignation. The continual rejection of theories in “Mòsò” suggests that there were strong doubts.

An important restatement of the resignation motif is to be found inÒgai’s notion of detached amusement or playfulness (asobi) expressedin stories like “Asobi” (1910) and “Fushigi na kagami” (1912). Thisrelation between detachment and play in art has a long history inboth its Eastern and Western variants. In his Critique of Judgement, forexample, Kant explains the aesthetic attitude whereby beauty is ap-prehended both in terms of its negative or inhibitory aspect as “disin-terested” (interesselos), that is, “detached from personal desires,” andits positive aspect as the harmonious “free play” (spiel) of productiveimagination (1952:89). Likewise in The Aesthetic Education of ManSchiller (1954:Letter 15, 76) describes the disinterested aesthetic atti-tude of detached contemplation as a function of the “play impulse”(Spieltrieb). Ueda Makoto (1982:34) explains how in his later years theJapanese haiku poet Bashò reformulated his Zen-influenced aestheticideal of sabi or “impersonal loneliness” in terms of karumi or “light-ness,” whereby detachment from human emotions is now achieved ineveryday life through a lighthearted attitude of humor and playfulness.In Zen and the Fine Arts (1971:8–9) the Kyoto school philosopher Hisa-matsu Shin’ichi underscores the similarity between the “playful” and“disinterested” character of the aesthetic attitude in the Kantian tra-dition of German philosophy and the quality of “playfulness” (J. asobi)and “disinterestedness” ( J. mukanshin) in the Zen Buddhist aestheticismof Japan. It is precisely this relation between detachment and playful-


ness characterizing the artistic attitude of a bystander that Ògai de-scribes through his synthesis of the Japanese and German traditionsof literary aestheticism.

In his story called “Play” (“Asobi,” 1910), Ògai develops his ideathat the achievement of serenity through resignation is to be found inthe lighthearted “playful” attitude of detached amusement wherebyall situations are to be regarded as if they were a kind of childlikegame or sport (see Ògai 1994a:137–147). Ògai’s views are expressedthrough the narrative of Kimura, a government official and man ofletters who uses the attitude of detached amusement to transcend theboredom and suffering of his everyday life when he is transferred to aprovincial office after he has gained a reputation as a writer—just asÒgai had been “exiled” to Kokura in Kyushu for three years. The nar-rative explains that for Kimura “doing anything was a kind of play”(p. 144). Kimura’s playful attitude of detached amusement is furtherdescribed as being “neither serious nor frivolous” (p. 146). ExpressingÒgai’s own authorial perspective as a disinterested bystander, Kimurathen describes the activity of creative writing as a kind of game orsport he plays with a childlike attitude of detached amusement: “Whenhe wrote, he felt like a child playing its favorite game. That didn’tmean that there weren’t some difficult times. In every ‘sport’ there wassome obstacle to overcome. He also knew that art was nothing to laughat” (p. 143).

The theme of detached play is once again taken up in a later storytitled “Strange Mirror” (“Fushigi na kagami,” 1911). While sitting inhis room and listening to his wife doing accounts, Ògai suddenly feelshis soul has withdrawn from his body and is dispassionately observinghim from the outside:

Seeing that my body was just mumbling when my wife said anything its shadow took an interest. But it had not the slightest feeling of pity. Why? Because they say that my soul treats everything with detachment (asobi) and so takes an indiscriminate interest in anything it comes across. Since when has this been common knowledge? I recently described the life of a petty official who led his wretched life with serenity, and in making him confess his attitude of resignation I used the word asobi.No sooner did someone kindly recognize it as my own confession than that whole crowd . . . pointed me out to each other crying asobi, asobi. . . . From then on they had a marvellous label for my soul. [Bowring 1979:132–133]

Here Ògai explicitly identifies resignation (akirame) with play (asobi)while clarifying how both signify a mental attitude of serene detach-


ment. In this passage Ògai’s authorial perspective of playful amuse-ment through detached resignation is disclosed through a satire ofhis own story called “Play” (“Asobi”), wherein he had first confessedhis bystander attitude of asobi (detached amusement). The narrativecontinues:

Now that this detached essence of mind had slipped out of my body it became interested in everything it saw. . . . It had no sympathy, no fellow-feeling. This too has long been recognized by the world at large. Detachment (asobi) is an affirmative evaluation, but lack of sympathy is a negative one; the former is a constructive assertion, but the latter merely passive. [Bowring 1979:133]

This illuminating passage from “Fushigi na kagami” clearly expressesÒgai’s bystander attitude of detached playfulness as well as the Apol-lonian/Dionysian conflict of artistic detachment versus emotional sym-pathy. He then relates the conflict of detachment versus sympathy tothe body/mind distinction when in a sudden moment of epiphany the“detached essence of mind” is separated from the physical passions ofhis corporeal self through an imagined out-of-body experience. Fur-thermore, it underscores the fundamental aesthetic problem of over-distancing to the point of dehumanization. Here we find one of Ògai’sclearest statements that while artistic detachment is itself a positivequality it becomes negative if divorced from human feeling. Both de-tachment and sympathy, resignation and pity, distance and involve-ment, are necessary conditions for art as a unity of Apollonian andDionysian impulses. In this context he also clarifies how his stance asa writer is connected to the bystander attitude of playful resignationwhen the detached essence of his spirit, now liberated from the pas-sions of its physical body, is described as becoming fascinated by every-thing it sees. These points are summed up by R. J. Bowring in an anal-ysis following his translation of the preceding passage from “Fushigina kagami”:

Here we have the two sides of the coin clearly represented. To be detached is a desirable quality but it brings with it the complica-tions of inhumanity. The simple man Kimura [from “Asobi”] is safeas long as he is never subjected to the pressure that the professor in “Kompira” undergoes. When the natural instinct is towards uncom-plicated sympathy when faced with human tragedy, the mask of in-difference and cool detachment becomes distasteful and untenable. [1979:133]


The Apollonian contemplative spirit of detachment, resignation,playfulness, and serenity is also manifest in Ògai’s three major novels:Vita Sexualis, Youth, and The Wild Geese. Ògai’s first novel, Vita Sexualis(1909), banned by authorities soon after its publication, discusses suchtopics as autoeroticism, homosexuality, pornography, sex education,and erotic art. Like Youth and The Wild Geese, Vita Sexualis employs theimpartial narrative standpoint of a detached onlooker to examine ob-jectively the subject of awakening sexuality in youth. In Vita SexualisÒgai expresses his aesthetic preference for the calm Apollonian spirit ofdetached resignation in opposition to the ecstatic Dionysian attitudedriven by dark emotions, passions, lusts, and will to power. Ògai’s aes-thetic preference for the Apollonian spirit is intended to undermine theJapanese literary movement of naturalism (shizenshugi), which he criti-cizes as overemphasizing the Dionysian spirit of passion. At the sametime Ògai maintains that both the Dionysian attitude of passion andthe Apollonian standpoint of detachment are necessary for art. The nar-rator, a retired university professor of philosophy named Kanai, states:“He did not acknowledge only what Nietzsche called Dionysian asdeserving the name of art. He also acknowledged the Apollonian asart. In sexual desire detached from love, however, there could be noreal passion so that even he himself could not but realize that a personwithout passion cannot be a good subject for autobiography” (Ògai1972:150).

It is instructive to compare Mori Ògai’s Apollonian attitude of de-tached contemplation with the Dionysian ecstasy of Nietzsche’s phi-losophy of art as developed in the fiction of Mishima Yukio. Contrast-ing Mishima’s fiction to works like Ògai’s autobiographical novel VitaSexualis, for instance, R. Starr writes: “Mishima’s determinism, then,compelled him to take the opposite position to Mori Ògai in regardto his sexuality: the Dionysian sex-drive could not be controlled by anApollonian act of will” (1994:40). Mishima’s Decay of the Angel (Tenningosui) describes the physical deterioration of Honda, its main protago-nist. Starr asserts:

Honda’s moral decline . . . begins in youth as an innocent observer, one who likes to watch great events from the sidelines, and to speculate on their meaning. By old age he has become a caricature of himself, no longer a detached, philosophic observer but a prurient voyeur, spyingon proletarian lovers in city parks. The evil which lurks beneath the surface of passive “detached observation” itself is unmasked for what itis and stands in sharp contrast to the stalwart virtues of an unreflective man of action such as Isao. [1994:59]


Starr contends that Mishima’s novels represent an “aesthetics of death,night and blood” that culminates in an act of destruction: when hisphilosophical sledgehammer shatters the mask of its protagonist, thenihilistic void of empty nothingness within is exposed. In this casethe mask of a “detached, contemplative observer” with Apolloniancalm is uncovered as the passive nihilism of a “deviant voyeur.”

Ògai’s novel called Youth (Seinen, 1910–1911), itself partly modeledafter Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1796), is a portrait-of-the-artist novel about a young man named Junichi who aspires to be-come a novelist. Once more stating his opposition to the Japanese nat-uralist movement with its overindulgent emphasis on the physicalaspect of human passions, Ògai describes his own view of “spiritualnaturalism” (1994a:430), which underscores the spiritual values ofhuman life. In this context he again takes up the theme of resignationversus passion in terms of Nietzsche’s Apollonian/Dionysian aestheticcategories. He describes Schopenhauer’s resignationism as a pessimisticrenunciation of life and its dialectical overcoming through Nietzsche’sDionysian attitude with its total affirmation of life. He criticizes theindividualism of Nietzsche’s superman theory based on will to power,however, wherein one strives to become great by defeating others.Instead he sets forth his own doctrine of “altruistic individualism” (p.482), a view that is intended to posit a middle axiom between Westernegoism and Eastern groupism. Ògai’s narrator clearly expresses hisidentification of erotic passion or romantic love with the intoxication ofDionysius: “The idea of love contains in it an intoxication with life.. . . Something like opium or hashish! True, opium’s prohibited out-wardly even in China, but I doubt if a human being can ever abandonsuch a drink. Even if he’s punished by Apollo, Dionysius will neverbecome extinct” (p. 442). Later he describes how a geisha namedOchara working in the Edo-period Yoshiwara pleasure district of thefloating world combines the Dionysian spirit of passionate emotionwith the Apollonian spirit of disinterested contemplation. The narra-tive reports a news item in the newspaper that ran as follows: “It hasbeen the talk of the town that Ochara . . . has been wild in her pursuitof men ever since she has been an apprenticed geisha. . . . The savingfeature about her passion for these handsome faces, however, say thosewho knew her, is that she remains disinterested” (p. 505; italics added).This struggle between Apollonian versus Dionysian impulses in art—expressed by the theme of akirame versus romantic love in Vita Sexualisand other works in the middle period of Ògai’s fiction—calls to mindKuki Shûzò’s The Structure of Iki (Iki no kòzò), wherein the Edo-period


aesthetic ideal of iki (chic) embodied by the geisha is likewise de-scribed as a tension between the detached resignation of akirame andthe erotic passion of sexual love (1930:25).

The thematization of conflict between resignation and feeling devel-oped in Ògai’s earliest romantic novella, “The Dancing Girl,” is againto be found in his most popular novel, The Wild Geese. “The DancingGirl” and The Wild Geese are complementary versions of Ògai’s inter-national theme in that the former is a sad love story about a Japanesemedical student living in Berlin who renounces his passionate affairwith a German girl named Elise in order to return to Japan whereas thelatter is the melancholy tale of a Japanese medical student living inTokyo who forgoes romantic involvement with a Japanese womannamed Otama in order to study abroad in Germany. The Wild Geese isacknowledged today as one of the finest novels in the canon of modernJapanese literature. Despite the high regard in which he is held amongJapanese critics, Mori Ògai has not achieved widespread recognitionby Western readers. But Ògai’s The Wild Geese is a novel to be savoredas much as any of the works by Natsume Sòseki, Akutagawa Ryûno-suke, Kawabata Yasunari, Tanizaki Junichirò, Mishima Yukio, EndòShûsaku, Abe Kòbò, Òe Kenzaburo, and other modern Japanese novel-ists who have acquired a readership in the West. As a creative work offiction The Wild Geese is a simple romantic tale of unfulfilled love thatevokes pure aesthetic pleasure through its enchanting story as well asthe graceful beauty of its symbolic images and the subdued eleganceof its understated prose. As a historical piece it vividly recreates thepicturesque urban scenes of old Tokyo in the Meiji period, mostlylong since vanished through modernization. As a semiautobiographicalwork it is a self-portrait-of-the-artist novel that affords us many psy-chological insights into Ògai’s life and mental state during his forma-tive years as a young medical student at Tokyo Imperial University.The Wild Geese is a “culture-bearing” novel that has often been praisedfor its uniquely Japanese character insofar as it represents a classic ex-pression of traditional Japanese aesthetic sensibilities. But it is also aphilosophical novel in which the “resignation” and “onlooker” themesare presented with special clarity. It can be said that the Japanesenessof The Wild Geese consists at least partly in its poignant expression ofthe spirit of akirame or “detached resignation” pervading traditionalJapanese thought and culture.

In the translator’s introduction to The Wild Geese, Ògai’s philosoph-ical concept of resignation, worked out during his three years of exile,is explained as follows: “Perhaps the Kyushu period had its positive


aspect in helping Ògai define ‘resignation,’ a key word in his vocabu-lary and one especially important in The Wild Geese. To Ògai, the wordmeans serenity of mind which enables one to calmly observe the worldand one’s self” (1959:6). This explanation of akirame clarifies that forÒgai “resignation” does not indicate a passive state of giving up but amental attitude of “serenity” (heiki) resulting in heightened powers ofclear observation rooted in tranquility. Like the traditional JapaneseBuddhist exercise of shikan (“tranquility and insight”) culminating insatori, the akirame characterizing Ògai’s bystander mentality involvesan attitude of calm detachment from craving and aversion leading toan epiphany or flash of insight into the commonplace events of every-day life. In The Wild Geese—as in “The Dancing Girl,” Vita Sexualis,Youth, and various other stories—Ògai employs an objective style ofimpartial narration written from the disinterested authorial perpec-tive of an indifferent bystander to describe the awakening sexuality ofa young person coming of age—in this case, a young Japanese woman.In The Wild Geese, Otama the heroine is an “onlooker” who waits eachday with calm resignation for an attractive university medical studentnamed Okada to pass by her house. Through the bystander attitude ofresignation the heroine sacrifices her human feelings for the sake ofduty when she is forced by circumstances to become the mistress of arich moneylender named Suezo in order to provide for her elderlyfather:

And now that she realized she was not only a “whore” but one kept by a usurer whom the world detested, the feeling of humilation that time and resignation had softened and toned down emerged once more. . . . Grad-ually her thoughts settled. Resignation was the mental attitude she had most experienced. And in this direction her mind adjusted itself like a well-oiled machine. [1959:47]

The narrative describes Otama’s increasing sense of detached resigna-tion during her encounters with Suezo as follows: “She would be withhim in the room, but her real self was detached, watching the scenefrom the side. . . . Her treatment of Suezo became more cordial but herheart more remote. . . . She did not even feel sorry for him because ofher indifference” (pp. 76–77). And later: “She had acquired that cool-ness of mind that most women in the world who do have it can reachonly after experiences with many men. Suezo found it stimulating tobe trifled with by her coolness” (p. 102).

At the conclusion of The Wild Geese, the philosophy of resignationis reformulated in terms of what Ògai calls the “unbefangen attitude”


(1959:118)—a mental state characterized by equilibrium, serenity, andimpartiality. A jujitsu student named Ishihara explains the bushidòphilosophy of resignation—whereby one can attain mental equilibriumthrough an impartial attitude—to Okada and the narrator so they cansneak past a police box with a goose they have just illegally killed.The narrator says: “So Ishihara lectured us on our mental attitude inpassing the box in question. It was, to sum up what I heard, that weshould not waver in our equilibrium of mind; that if we wavered, therewould be a gap; that if there were a gap, it would give the antagonistthe advantage. . . . It seemed to me that his speech was nothing morethan what his jujitsu master had told him” (p. 117). After they havesuccessfully completed their task, Ishihara asserts: “I taught you thesecret of the mind’s equilibrium. . . . You were able to get beyond thepoliceman and maintain an unbefangen attitude!” (p. 118). Hence in thefinal pages of The Wild Geese it can be seen how once again Ògai formu-lates his Apollonian ideal of a detached onlooker based on a contempla-tive philosophy of calm resignation by means of an East-West synthesisthat integrates the traditional Japanese spirit of akirame with the “un-befangen attitude” of German romanticism.

Like Henry James, James Joyce, and other pioneers in the Westerntradition of literary aestheticism, Mori Ògai’s portrait-of-the-artiststories focus on the aesthetic education of a young writer through cul-tivating the power of disinterested observation and in this contextilluminate the conflict of artistic detachment versus moral sympathyalong with the problem of overdistancing that leads to dehumaniza-tion. Ògai’s fiction in Japanese literature can therefore be analyzed interms of the three interrelated motifs in Western portrait-of-the-artistnovels as articulated by Maurice Beebe (1964): the Divided Self, theIvory Tower, and the Sacred Fount. For the recurrent motif in theseJapanese portrait-of-the-artist novels produced during the middleperiod of Ògai’s literary career is precisely that of a developing artistwho endeavors to realize wholeness by overcoming the Divided Selfthrough psychic integration of two struggling forces—the Apollonianversus the Dionysian—thereby to reconcile estrangement from lifesymbolized by the Ivory Tower and involvement with life symbolizedby the Sacred Fount.

Later Period. In the last period of his literary career, Ògai came torealize his full potential as a writer through the historical novella (reki-shiteki shòsetsu) and biographical fiction (shiden). In his historical writ-ings Ògai becomes preoccupied with the spiritual, moral, and aesthetic


significance of the past for the present—thereby reflecting his ownefforts to integrate modern Western and traditional Japanese valuesduring the Meiji Reconstruction. Ògai’s story “Exorcising Demons”(“Tsuina,” 1909) gives us a key to his deepening interest in history aswell as his turn to the genre of historical and biographical fiction whenhe paraphrases Nietzsche on the twilight of art: “The best things withinus may be an inheritance of the sensibilities of an ancient time” (1994a:64; see also p. 69).

Ògai’s later works are characterized by a distanced, disinterested,and detached reporting of historical events as recreated in tranquilityfrom the objective, impartial, and impersonal narrative standpoint ofan uninvolved onlooker. Rimer observes: “Coolness and objectivitycharacterize [Ògai’s] attitudes in re-creating the past” (Ògai 1991:7).In “History as It Is and History Ignored” (“Rekishi sono mama to reki-shibanare,” 1914), where he elaborates on the aesthetics of his historicalfiction, Ògai again uses the Dionysian/Apollonian categories to classifyhis own philosophy of art: “In general, I would say that my works arenot ‘Dionysian’ but ‘Apollonian’ ” (1991:7; 1971:VII, 105–106). ForÒgai the Dionysian spirit is based on full participation in life and pas-sionate involvement in human emotions whereas the Apollonian spiritrequires aesthetic distance from life and cool detachment from humanemotions. Although Ògai recognizes that both impulses are necessaryto art, the Apollonian spirit of his later historical works embodies thetranquil and detached attitude of contemplation (1991:7; 1971:VII,105–106) as opposed to the Dionysian spirit of intoxication, ecstasy,and rapture.

In his later historical fiction Ògai pushes his ideal of detached ob-servation to a new extreme in an effort to achieve maximum psychicdistance from human emotions. Donald Keene remarks: “His [Ògai’s]detachment . . . made his later works seem cold” (see Ògai 1991:36).The austere detachment characterizing these later works can be seenin stories like “The Abe Family” (“Abe ichizoku,” 1912) and “The Inci-dent at Sakai” (“Sakai jiken,” 1914), both of which examine the feudalvalues of the samurai warrior. This relation between the detached spiritof the samurai warrior and the bòkansha or “onlooker” mentality thatÒgai establishes in his later writings can be understood through D. T.Suzuki’s description of Zen swordsmanship: “The perfect swordsman. . . is an indifferent onlooker of the fatal drama of life and death in whichhe himself is the most active participant” (1988:96; italics added).Shortly after the seppuku (ritual disembowelment) of General Nogiat the death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912, Ògai wrote “The Abe


Family” in reaction to the feudalistic custom of junshi, the rite of sui-cide carried out in order to follow one’s lord to the grave. The psycho-logical dimension of this work has been examined by the Japanesepsychiatrist Doi Takeo, who cites “The Abe Family” as an example ofpeople who live only by tatemae, ritualized social institutions, in totalseparation from honne or spontaneous personal feeling. Thus an abso-lute priority is accorded the value of giri (social obligation) over ninjò(human emotion). In this story Ògai’s narrative adopts the objectivestandpoint of a detached bystander in order to describe the tragic de-struction of the Abe clan through a series of macabre battles, bloodymassacres, and ritual suicides.

Similarly, Ògai’s story “The Incident at Sakai” employs the imper-sonal narrative standpoint of an indifferent onlooker in order to de-scribe in gruesome detail a historical incident involving a group ofJapanese samurai forced to commit ritual suicide as reparation overthe death of French soldiers killed during a struggle at the port ofSakai, near Osaka (see Ògai 1991:129–151). While recreating thisbloodcurdling scene, Ògai’s narrative account is careful to suppressthe expression of any sympathy or antipathy but simply provides anobjective, neutral, and impartial description of the event as it un-folded. Edwin McClellan articulates the ice-cold detachment charac-terizing Ògai’s objective style of impartial narration in this historicaltale: “Sakai jiken . . . in which [Ògai] describes the execution by en-forced self-disembowelment of eleven footsoldiers . . . is a grim andgrisly tale, made all the more so by the author’s unrelenting detach-ment” (1983:V, 53). Ògai’s detachment is demonstrated by the factthat he betrays no horror at the pain and cruelty of the bloodletting asone samurai after another kneels before the authorities and disem-bowels himself; instead he tells the story as objectively as possible inorder to achieve an epiphany of insight through insertion of distance.Yet as McClellan points out: “The apparent severity of [Ògai] . . . thealmost perverse detachment of his stance as a writer . . . have in Japanwon him the kind of reverence accorded to no other writer” (p. 53).

Dilworth makes an apposite comparison between the tranquil resig-nation of the disinterested “onlooker” in Ògai’s later historical fictionand the aesthetic attitude of “resigned sadness” in the movies of OzuYasujirò, one of the greatest of Japanese filmmakers. He notes thatlike the ending of a typical Ògai story (“Sakai jiken,” “Jiisan baasan,”“Takasebune”), Ozu’s films such as Late Spring, Tokyo Story, and AnAutumn Afternoon conclude with a quiet atmosphere of serene beautyas viewed through the silent repose of an aesthetic attitude character-


istic of the spectator of a nò drama, the participant in a tea ceremony,or the haiku master objectively viewing a landscape (see Ògai 1991:33). Hence the hero of an Ògai story, like the protagonist of an Ozufilm, is a disinterested onlooker who is able to step back and savor themoment by adopting the contemplative aesthetic attitude of calmresignation. Donald Keene discusses the aesthetic attitude of artisticdetachment in the philosophy of resignation underlying Mori Ògai’slife, thought, and fiction in relation to the detachment from humanemotions cultivated by the samurai warrior based on the Zen-influencedphilosophy of bushidò. Keene writes: “Mori shared with his samuraiheroes a reluctance (akin to traditional Japanese impassivity) to dwellon the emotions. His detachment . . . made his later works seem cold,but their strength and integrity were strikingly close to the samuraiideals he so admired” (see Ògai 1991:36). The objective style of narra-tion in Ògai’s later historical fiction thus reflects the tranquil detach-ment of Zen meditation with its cultural manifestations in geidò, theway of the artist, and bushidò, the way of the samurai warrior.

It can now be seen how in his later fiction Mori Ògai forged auniquely objective style of narrative technique by adopting the im-personal standpoint of a detached bystander to history. Earlier we notedhow in his classic study The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961:67–83) Wayne C.Booth analyzes the control of “aesthetic distance” in the modernWestern novel. He describes how Henry James, James Joyce, and otherfounders of modern Western fiction have established the narrativeideal of objectivity—otherwise expressed through synonyms like detach-ment, distance, disinterestedness, impersonality, equanimity, neutrality,impartiality, and impassability. Architects of the modern novel in theWestern tradition like Henry James and James Joyce endeavored tocreate an objective style of impersonal narration purged of all humansubjectivity in which the self is refined out of existence through anattitude of mental stasis whereby the events of life would attain theirepiphany. Exemplifying the traditional Japanese aesthetic ideal of shi-bumi, or subdued elegance, the understatement, astringency, and re-straint characterizing Ògai’s objective style of literary narration bringsevents to their epiphany by disclosing essence through simplification.Ògai’s pioneering efforts to forge an objective mode of narrative con-struction from the authorial perspective of a detached onlooker clearlyparallels the experiments in objective narration developed by HenryJames and other giants of modern Western literature. Like these pio-neers in the West, Mori Ògai rejects fiction wherein the reader is en-couraged to become fully involved in human emotions. Instead he de-


velops an elaborate system of controls over the reader’s varying degreesof involvement and detachment. Hence, like his counterparts in mod-ern Western literature, Ògai engineered a new literary form based onan objective style of narration that seeks an epiphany of insight throughthe disinterested neutral reporting of events.

Hininjò: Artistic Detachment in Natsume Sòseki

Natsume Sòseki, whose lifespan coincided almost exactly with theMeiji Restoration (1868–1912), is widely regarded as one of the pre-eminent figures in modern Japanese literature. In 1907 Sòseki resignedfrom his prestigious position on the faculty of Tokyo University toedit a literary column at the Asahi newspaper, during which period hewrote about one novel per year. Sòseki is known mostly for his earlycomic novels Botchan (Little Master, 1906) and Wagahai wa neko de aru(I Am a Cat, 1906), as well as his later psychological novels like Sorekara (And Then, 1909), Mon (The Gate, 1910), Kokoro (The Heart,1912), and Meian (Light and Darkness, 1916). But Sòseki also wrotean extraordinary novel focusing on the Japanese sense of beauty titledKusamakura (Grass Pillow, 1906). The philosophical theme of thisnovel is the role of psychic distance in the aesthetic experience ofbeauty in art and nature. Sòseki elaborates upon the aesthetics of thisnovel in his brief autocommentary titled “My Grass Pillow” (“Yo gaKusamakura,” 1906) and in a letter to Morita Sòhei dated 30 September1906, both of which are now included in his complete works. Takenaltogether this material outlines a systematic theory of beauty as afunction of psychic distance. In particular he describes how the Japa-nese sense of beauty as yûgen, “mysterious darkness,” requires the cul-tivation of a disinterested aesthetic attitude that he terms hininjò, “de-tachment from human feeling.” While Sòseki is especially concernedto depict the traditional Japanese sense of beauty, he at the same timedraws inspiration from both Western and Eastern traditions of literaryaestheticism in order to show how art requires distance from life. Yetthe danger of artistic detachment is always that of overdistancing tothe point of dehumanization, alienation from life, and exile from society.The dialectical tension between artistic detachment versus humanemotion thus becomes the fundamental problematic in Sòseki’s novel.

The main character of Grass Pillow is an artist from Tokyo who en-deavors to achieve Zen enlightenment through the disinterested con-templation of ethereal beauty in nature. Although it is not mentionedin the story, the actual setting is a remote spa in the volcanic area of


Mount Aso in Kyushu. By means of such artistic detachment the pro-tagonist of Grass Pillow attempts to view events of nature like a haikupoem, a sumie monochrome inkwash painting, or a nò drama, so that alllife is transformed into art. Thus Sòseki uses the vivid image-makingpower of literary imagination to illustrate the process of distancing asit occurs in aesthetic experience as well as in acts of artistic creationand artistic appreciation. In scene after scene he portrays how theimagery of yûgen or mysterious darkness is evoked in an epiphany ofdepth through acts of psychic distancing.

In 1926, Sòseki’s novel was made into a set of three picture scrollstotaling twenty-three meters in length by Matsuoka Eikyû (1867–1916), a distinguished painter of the Yamato-e school, and his disci-ples. Following the story of Grass Pillow, the scroll depicts its imagesof tranquil beauty seen from the aesthetic attitude of disinterestedcontemplation. A faithful reproduction of this scroll, made by a teamof Japanese artists, has now been made available in a Japanese booktitled Sòseki sekai to Kusamakura-e (The Picture Scroll of Grass Pillowand the World of Sòseki) by Kawaguchi Hisao. As Kawaguchi notesin his introduction: “The scroll follows the story of Kusamakura, depict-ing its impressive scenes one after another, and shows an interestingand instructive interpretation of this haiku-like novel in which ‘detach-ment from humanity’ is a motif” (1987:1). Through this picture scrollone can visualize the haiku journey of Sòseki’s artist-hero on his questfor ideal beauty through aesthetic detachment.

Sòseki’s Grass Pillow as a Haiku-Novel

The Meiji novel that best expresses the traditional Japanese sense ofbeauty is no doubt Sòseki’s Kusamakura (Grass Pillow), translated intoEnglish as Unhuman Tour (1927) by Takahashi Kazutomo and later re-translated as The Three-Cornered World (1965) by Alan Turney. “MyGrass Pillow” (“Yo ga Kusamakura,” 1906)—a brief autocommentaryin which Sòseki explains the aesthetics of his own novel (1925:XIV,565–568)—first appeared in the journal Bunshò sekai in November1906. It is in this essay that Sòseki announces Grass Pillow as represent-ing the discovery of a new genre of literature which he calls the “haiku-novel” (haikuteki shòsetsu). Indeed, Sòseki’s Grass Pillow can be regardedas a “haiku-novel” not only in terms of its form and content but alsoin terms of its spontaneous method of composition: it was writtenfrom start to finish within less than one week in a sudden burst of crea-tive inspiration.


At the outset of his essay, Sòseki enumerates some of the varioustypes of novels predominant in the literary fiction of the times, em-phasizing that they are essentially realistic works aiming to expose thetruth of life through a description of inner psychological events in themind or external facts in the world. His own work is contrasted to theseconventional novels as follows:

My Grass Pillow was written with the completely opposite meaning from what is usually called a “novel” in the world. I would be satisfied if a kind of feeling—a feeling of beauty—remains in the mind of the reader. Other than this I have no objective. Hence there is no plot and no development of events. [p. 565]

In this passage Sòseki clearly articulates two distinguishing features ofGrass Pillow: first, the sole objective is to evoke a “feeling of beauty”(utsukushii kanji); second, there is “no development of events” (jiken nohatten ga nai). Unlike the conventional novel, which has as its mainpurpose the development of an interesting story or plot in order toreveal the truth of life, Sòseki’s Grass Pillow has no plot and aims onlyto disclose the beauty of events in nature so as to produce an aestheticeffect in the mind of the reader. Insofar as Grass Pillow is a plotlessnovel with a discontinuous story line and no development of events, itis a precursor of the nouveau roman or “new novel” of postmodernistliterature. For Sòseki’s Grass Pillow, as for the decentered novels ofJames Joyce, the purpose is not to tell a story but to record epiphaniesof beauty.

At the conclusion of his autocommentary, Sòseki suggests that awork like Grass Pillow, which is devoid of plot and aims only to pro-duce an aesthetic effect in the reader, might be called a “haiku-novel”(haikuteki shòsetsu). Here Sòseki asserts that in addition to the conven-tional novel, “the haiku-novel showing the beauty of life should alsoexist” (p. 568). He continues: “If this haiku-novel, although it is astrange name, came to be established, it would open up a new area inthe world of literature” (p. 568). Sòseki ends with the statement thatthe haiku-novel—whose sole function is the creation and enjoymentof beauty—has never existed before in its pure form either in Japan orin the West. Thus Grass Pillow may be regarded as signifying the adventof a new literary genre in the world of fiction (p. 568).

Sòseki’s haiku-novel Grass Pillow depicts the poetic journey of ayoung artist from Tokyo into the solitude of nature on his way to anisolated hot-spring (onsen) resort in Kyushu. The very title of Sòseki’swork, Kusamakura, means “Grass Pillow”—which by poetic convention


refers to a haiku journey into nature, sleeping under the stars at nightwith the grass as one’s pillow. As a haiku-novel, Grass Pillow is designedto be a modern novel patterned after the classic haiku travel diaries ofMatsuo Bashò (1644–1694), especially the record of his nine-monthjourney through the wilderness of Tohoku in 1689 called Oku no hoso-michi (Narrow Road to the Deep North, 1694). The haiku travel diaryis written in haibun (haiku prose): thus seventeen-syllable haiku poemsare accompanied by a prose narrative that creates the atmosphere forthe poem to spring forth in a satori-like epiphany. The protagonist ofGrass Pillow resembles Bashò insofar as he is depicted as an artist-prieston a spiritual pilgrimage in search of Zen enlightenment achieved bydetachment from emotions through poetry. Like Bashò the protago-nist of Sòseki’s haiku-novel adopts a mode of Zen aestheticism thatelevates art into a religion of beauty through a fusion of aesthetic andmystical experience. The Zen aestheticism of the artist-hero is clearlyindicated when he declares that haiku poetry is a discipline whichculminates in the achievement of Zen satori: enlightenment. In thepoet’s words: “To become a poet is one way to achieve enlightenment”(Shijin ni naru to iu wa, ishu no satori de aru) (1972:35). It can be saidthat the artist-hero of Grass Pillow, who goes unnamed throughout thenovel, becomes an archetypal figure representing a composite imageof Shunzei, Chòmei, Teika, Saigyò, Sesshû, Rikyû, Zeami, Bashò, andall those who have followed the Japanese Buddhist religio-aesthetictradition of geidò: the “tao (or way) of art.”

While the artist-hero of Grass Pillow takes Bashò’s view on the reli-gious dimensions of poetry, in terms of style he is much closer to theEdo poet Yosa Buson (1716–1784), a leading haiku poet as well as anaccomplished master of bunjinga (literati) painting. Buson developedhis own unique brush style known as haiga (haiku painting) and wouldoften depict scenes in nature both with haiku poems and haiku paint-ings. The Meiji poet Masaoka Shiki (1867–1902) appreciated Busonfor the “pictorial” quality of his poems and praised Buson’s haiku forbeing almost paintings. Unlike Bashò, Buson does not speak of the“oneness of self and nature” but captures the precise beauty of eventswith a clarity of impression as seen with the objectivity of a painter orpoet. Using Buson as his model, Shiki advocated the reform of haikuthrough the painterly technique of “sketching” (shasei). This tech-nique, developed by Shiki in the 1890s, involves the practice of goingout into nature with notebooks and making “sketches from life.” Theaim is “to depict as is” (ari no mama ni utsusu) based on an immediateexperience of events in their suchness according to the format of haiku


poems. Natsume Sòseki was a close friend of Shiki from their studentdays and was strongly influenced by the sketches from life technique.As Janine Beichman notes in Masaoka Shiki (1986:21), Shiki stayedwith Sòseki in 1895 and led a group of young haiku poets calledthe “Wind in the Pines Society” (Shòfû Kai) that met nightly inSòseki’s home. Besides his serious involvement with haiku composi-tion and sketching literature, Sòseki was also an amateur landscapepainter.

Like Buson, and like Sòseki, the artist-hero of Grass Pillow is both apainter and a poet. As he hikes up the mountain trails, the painter-poet of Sòseki’s haiku-novel visualizes the canvas of nature as if it werea landscape painting, a black-ink drawing, or an unraveling picturescroll. As a result, both the prose and poetry of Sòseki’s haiku-novelvividly depict the landscapes of nature with a painterly quality remi-niscent of the “pictorial” (egaku-teki) style of Buson and the “sketch-ing” (shasei) technique of Shiki in Japanese literature, not to mentionthe “word painting” of Ruskin in English literature.

Poststructuralist Dimensions

The profound influence of Masaoka Shiki’s prose sketches from life onSòseki’s creative writing style and its wider implications for Meiji fic-tion has been emphasized by Karatani Kòjin in his poststructuralist“modernity critique” (kindai hihan) titled Origins of Modern JapaneseLiterature: “Although Sòseki may appear to have suddenly turned tocreative writing at the age of thirty-eight, he had practiced haikucomposition with Masaoka Shiki since his student days and had be-come deeply involved in Shiki’s ‘sketching’ or shaseibun movement”(1993:179). Karatani points out that when Sòseki began writing I Ama Cat (Wagahai wa neko de aru), it was not as a novel but as a sketch tobe featured in a haiku journal (p. 179). Grass Pillow (1906), which waswritten during the same period as I Am a Cat (1905), is also to beunderstood as shaseibun or “sketching literature.” Karatani explains:“Sòseki sought the basis of ‘sketching’ in . . . an attitude of detachment”(p. 181). He adds that in Grass Pillow the attitude of “detachment”required for sketching is thematized by the word “hininjò” (p. 181).Whereas this kind of detached or nonhuman (hininjò) standpoint isachieved in Grass Pillow by viewing events with the impartial objec-tivity of a painter or a poet, it is achieved in I Am a Cat by observingthings with the aloofness, indifference, and irony of a pet cat. More-over, while the modern Japanese novel typically uses the “ta” suffix to


denote the past tense, shaseibun or “sketching literature” describes theimmediate experience of events as they are happening now and isalways written in the present tense. Karatani writes: “Sòseki’s fictionalwriting began with the composition of ‘sketching literature’ or shasei-bun writings, which generally employed the present progressive tense.. . . This type of writing was pioneered by Masaoka Shiki” (p. 73). Thepast tense of the “ta” suffix describes reified constructs with a fixed self-identity whose origins have been forgotten—including a fixed andgiven “landscape” (sansuiga) and its correlate notion of a centered sub-ject or “self” (watakushi). Karatani notes: “Sòseki could not accept whatMichel Foucault defines as ‘the principle of identity’ in Europeanthought. For Sòseki, structures were entities which were interchange-able and capable of redefinition” (p. 16). While most discussions ofMeiji literature still presuppose modernist categories of identity thatSòseki tried to negate, Karatani maintains that the literary critic EtòJen develops a postmodern reading of Sòseki though his focus on the“sketching” technique of Shiki Masaoka:

Etò attempts to analyze developments in this decade of Meiji by focusing on the “sketching” of Shiki and his disciple, Takahama Kyoshi. Accord-ing to Etò’s interpretation, “description” (byòsha) in Meiji literature should not be understood as a process of describing something, but as the emergence of the “thing itself,” and hence of an entirely new relationship between “words” and “things.” [p. 30]

Earlier we noted how Allen Carlson (1995:132) highlights the re-quirement of psychic distance in the aesthetic attitude. Nonetheless heis critical of the “landscape” model of beauty insofar as appreciation ofnature is reduced to a finished picture with a fixed perspective anddue distance established by framing devices: scenic viewpoints, thecamera’s viewfinder, even the nineteenth-century “Claude glass” (aspecial mirror for inserting distance). But as we can see from the pre-ceding citation from Karatani Kòjin’s deconstructionist analysis ofJapanese literature, the “sketching” technique of Shiki and Sòseki isnot a description of a preformed, already constituted landscape writtenin the past tense: it is a constitutive act in the living present thatitself brings forth “the emergence of ‘landscape’ (or what Etò wouldterm the emergence of ‘things’)” (1993:31).

Karatani underscores the point that Shiki’s technique of sketchingwas meant to bring back to life the world of haiku that had beenbrought into being by Bashò and flowered under Buson but nowseemed on the verge of extinction. For Shiki, the haiku technique of


shaseibun did not connote “sketching” in the sense of copying. It wasan attempt to “revitalize language in all its diversity. It was Sòseki,rather than Shiki’s disciples, who carried on this mission. For Sòseki‘sketching’ meant the liberation of writing, the liberation of diversegenres” (1993:179).

Karatani’s deconstructive analysis opens the way for understandingSòseki’s haiku-novel in its proper context as a mode of sketching liter-ature. The attitude of detachment required for sketching becomes thecentral theme of Grass Pillow as presented through the concept ofhininjò. The liberation of writing and revitalization of language in-tended by the sketching method is achieved in Sòseki’s Grass Pillowby a remarkable stylistic virtuosity in a multiplicity of genres derivedfrom Chinese, Japanese, and English literary traditions—includingancient, classical, and modern/postmodern traditions of literature, bothin poetry and prose, as developed in the East and the West. In Sòseki’sdecentered haiku-novel there are no fixed structures with self-identity:all events formed through sketching are in the process of creation, re-creation, and transformation. Grass Pillow is a form of “sketches fromlife” literature combining prose and poetry that depict the immediateexperience of events written in the present progressive tense. Thepainter-poet’s sketchings are a process of describing, not somethingalready fixed, but the constitution of the thing itself; not a descriptionof a preformed landscape but the very emergence of the landscape itself.Insofar as the landscape is not a fixed structure with self-identity, itemerges in the very process of sketching—thus to be constituted andreconstituted in multivariate forms. Likewise, the heroine called Namiis revealed to have no fixed subject or self or identity that can begrasped by a totalizing perspective; rather, like a multisided inkwashpicture, it is disseminated into an irreducible plurality of meaningsand perspectives devoid of essence, center, or core. Thus from the stand-point of Karatani Kòjin’s deconstructive postmodernist investigationinto the origins of Meiji literature, Sòseki’s haiku-novel Grass Pillowis to be comprehended as an imaginative experiment in shaseibun or“sketching literature” derived from Masaoka Shiki’s innovative sketch-ing technique of haiku composition and from the painterly (egakuteki)style of the Yosa Buson.

Yûgen: The Ideal of Beauty

As Ueda Makoto (1976:11) has emphasized, the ideal of beauty inSòseki’s Grass Pillow is the medieval Japanese concept of yûgen—“mys-


tery and depth” or “shadows and darkness.” The painter’s aestheticpreference for traditional Asian standards of taste in general and theJapanese ideal of yûgen in particular is revealed when he states his ap-preciation for the poetry of T’ao Yuan-ming (365–427) and WangWei (701?–761), the haiku of Bashò (1644–1694) and Buson (1716–1784), the calligraphy of the Zen priest Kòsen (1633–1695), and thelandscape painting of Wen T’ung (1018–1079), Taiga (1723–1776),and Sesshû (1420–1506). When the painter-poet of Grass Pillow re-flects on what might best serve as a subject for poetry, he enumeratestraditional symbols of yûgen. The painter-poet thinks to himself: “Theshadow I had just seen, considered just as a shadow, was charged withpoetic beauty. . . . A hot spring in a secluded mountain village, theshadow of flowers on a spring night, a voice singing softly in themoonlight, a figure on a misty moonlit evening, are all good themesfor an artist” (1972:34).

As William LaFleur points out: “Yûgen involves an epiphany ofdepth” (1983:131). Izutsu Toshihiko (1981:26–28) vividly describesthis epiphany of depth in terms of a figure/ground phenomenologicalmodel whereby art and literature in the yûgen style of beauty depicthow unsubstantial phenomena articulated in the foreground gradu-ally shade into the monochrome darkness of a bottomless void in thenonarticulated whole of the encompassing background. Hence through-out Sòseki’s haiku-novel the protagonist records one epiphany of depthafter another through exotic images of yûgen by concentrating, not onobjects in the clearly articulated foreground focus of attention, but onthe dim halo of shadows and darkness they cast as they recede into thetwilight atmosphere of encompassing space to disclose the bottomlessvoid of nothingness. Sòseki’s versatility as a writer is amply demon-strated in Grass Pillow as seen by his composition of Chinese poetry inkanbun as well as traditional Japanese verse forms such as waka andhaiku—all interspersed throughout his highly ornate prose style. Thesevarious poems, most of which attempt to depict the elusive figure ofthe heroine called Nami from different points of view, reveal the aes-thetic value of yûgen: the beauty of hidden depths manifested throughpoetic images of dim shadows and twilight darkness. One of thesepoems reads (1972:40):

The shadows of a spring night interweave,So blossoms and woman appear as one.Is that a woman or phantom,Standing in the misty moonlit eve?


Chapter six ends with a breathtaking epiphany of yûgen when thegates of night open into the purple depths of heaven and the heroinedisappears into the surrounding darkness—only to reappear like aphantom hovering shunyata-like between existence and nonexistence,form and emptiness, or being and nothingness in the black void thatpoints to her origin.

In a remarkable scene that comes at the end of chapter seven,Sòseki explicitly uses the term “yûgen” in the context of evoking themysterious and ethereal beauty that this term denotes. While soakingin the public bath at a hot spring (onsen) resort, the painter unexpect-edly encounters the heroine called Nami in the nude. He soon notesthat there is no trace of vulgarity about her naked form, however, inthat her body is partly veiled by a swirling haze of mist, vapor, andsteam rising up from the hot thermal bath. He thinks to himself:

The woman’s figure was not fully revealed like the usual nude but could only be vaguely seen in an atmosphere of yûgen [darkness and mystery] that made everything within it appear ethereal. Her figure had a warmth, atmosphere, and rhythm that were artistically perfect, like a sumie [black-ink] painting in which one can imagine all that has been suggested by the artist’s brush. [1972:83]

Hence in this scene the artist-hero of Grass Pillow inserts distance inorder to see the naked body of Nami as if it were a dimly visible figurein a monochrome sumie inkwash painting characterized by the perva-sive aesthetic quality of yûgen.

Under the inspiration of Sòseki’s haiku-novel Grass Pillow, post-Meiji Japanese writers have gone on to compose novels that evoke themystery and darkness of yûgen. Tanizaki Junichiro’s In Praise of Shadows(1977) is a treatise on the Japanese aesthetic preference for the beautyof darkness and shadows functioning as a prolegomena to his own fic-tion wherein he recreates the twilight atmosphere of yûgen from themedieval period in Japanese art and literature. He says that the Japa-nese, in opposition to Western canons of taste, have cultivated an aes-thetic preference, not for objects themselves as seen in the light of day,but for the shadows they cast as they recede into the darkness of night,conjuring in their stead an aura of mystery and depth. At the climaxof Tanizaki’s novella A Portrait of Shunkin (1963), for instance, a manblinds himself by thrusting a needle into his eyes—but at that momentachieves a sudden awakening when Shunkin’s face appears before himlike a mandala image of the Buddha surrounded by a halo of luminousdarkness. Mishima Yukio’s Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji) ends


with a striking vision of yûgen wherein a Zen monk at last apprehendsthe beauty of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto when it fades into theblack void of twilight as a crystallization of the dark night of noth-ingness in which it stands. Kawabata Yasunari’s Nobel prize-winningnovel Snow Country (Yukiguni) culminates in the vision of a woman’stransparent image floating on the train window in the foregroundagainst the vast expanse of twilight darkness of the moonlit snow inthe background symbolizing the positive emptiness of an Easternnothingness. All of these masterpieces of Japanese fiction are per-meated with Zen aestheticism and culminate in an exquisite vision ofbeauty as yûgen. What distinguishes Sòseki’s Grass Pillow is that it ex-plicitly thematizes the aesthetic attitude of disinterested contemplationthrough insertion of psychic distance whereby the visionary apprehen-sion of beauty as yûgen appears in an epiphany of hidden depths.

Beauty as a Function of Artistic Detachment

In Origins of Modern Japanese Literature, as we have seen, Karatani Kòjinunderscores how Sòseki’s writing of creative fiction began through thecomposition of shaseibun or “sketching literature.” For Sòseki, he notes,the haiku technique of sketching involves an aesthetic attitude of “de-tachment from humanity.” And this attitude was itself articulated inGrass Pillow through the term “hininjò”:

Sòseki sought the basis of “sketching” in a certain disposition towardthe world. It was an attitude of detachment toward “human affairs” (including those of the self), but it was neither cold nor lacking in compassion. In the novel Grass Pillow, Sòseki uses the term hininjò, or “asympathetic.” [1993:181]

Karatani traces the aesthetic attitude of detachment emphasized byMeiji figures such as Sòseki in literature and Nishida in philosophy toits origins in Zen Buddhism. While at the beginning of the Meijiperiod many former samurai warriors were converting to Christianity,Karatani points out that “there were others of course, a few—NishidaKitarò, Natsume Sòseki—who sought transcendence of sufferingthrough Zen, cultivating a spirit of detachment” (p. 85). Earlier wenoted that Nishida Kitarò, the founder of modern Japanese philos-ophy, has articulated an aesthetic attitude theory of beauty groundedin an East-West perspective unifying Kant’s notion of beauty as afunction of disinterested contemplation with the Zen idea of muga orno-self. In Sòseki’s Grass Pillow, the Zen spirit of artistic detachment


is thematized by means of his key notion of hininjò, meaning “non-human,” “unsympathetic,” or “detachment from human emotions.”Sòseki’s unique concept of hininjò reappropriates the history of Japa-nese Buddhist yûgen aesthetics including Shunzei’s waka poetics rootedin shikan or “tranquility and insight” meditation and Zeami’s nòtheory of “the seeing of detached perception” (riken no ken). Yet at thesame time Sòseki’s Zen notion of hininjò, detachment from humanfeeling, also approximates Kant’s idea of beauty as a function of “dis-interested” aesthetic contemplation and its reformulation by Westerntheories of artistic detachment—including Bullough’s “psychic dis-tance,” Ortega y Gasset’s “dehumanization of art,” and Münsterberg’sidea of art as isolation through framing.

The fundamental aesthetic doctrine of Sòseki’s Grass Pillow is thatthe traditional Japanese sense of beauty as yûgen, or “mysterious dark-ness,” is itself a function of hininjò: “detachment from human emo-tions.” With his theory of hininjò, Sòseki is clearly reformulatingstandard principles in the thousand-year-long yûgen tradition of Japa-nese aesthetics wherein detachment from emotions has always beenregarded as an essential element of art. Just as the beauty of yûgen wasapprehended through the meditative practice of shikan (calm and con-templation) in Shunzei’s waka poetics and through riken no ken (psy-chic distance) in Zeami’s nò theater, in Sòseki’s Grass Pillow it is dis-closed through hininjò, “detachment from human emotions.” By meansof the disinterested attitude of hininjò the painter of Grass Pillow en-deavors to distance himself from life in order to transform ordinaryscenes of nature into sublime events in a nò drama, a haiku poem, or asumie painting—all of which manifest the traditional Japanese aes-thetic ideal of yûgen: the ethereal beauty of “shadows and darkness.”

The protagonist of Grass Pillow describes his sojourn into the tran-quility and solitude of the mountains as a “journey of hininjò” (hininjòno tabi) (1972:25)—that is to say, a “journey of detachment,” which inthis context specifically refers to a poetic journey into nature under-taken for the purpose of transcending all “human emotions” (ninjò)through artistic detachment so as to attain Zen satori: sudden enlight-enment. Elsewhere, again underscoring his key notion of hininjò, theartist-hero of Grass Pillow states: “The purpose of departing on thisjourney was to achieve a detachment from human emotions” (hininjò oshi ni dekaketa tabi [no] tsumori) (p. 14). The young painter-poet saysthat at the age of thirty-five he is now exhausted by love, hate, anger,sadness, and other human passions (pp. 12–13). He complains thatWestern plays, poems, and novels are like stimulants that arouse these


feelings. Hence while he enjoys such Western literary figures as Shake-speare, Shelley, and Goethe, he finds them limited insofar as they areunable to transcend the world of human emotions. In contrast, hethinks that Eastern poets have achieved complete detachment fromhuman emotions and have therefore entered into a world of purepoetry (p. 13). The Eastern poet, he says, has become completely freeof self-interest since he abandons all considerations of personal advan-tage and disadvantage or profit and loss (p. 13). Thus the artist-heroof Grass Pillow asserts: “I would like to assimilate directly from naturethe atmosphere of T’ao Yuan-ming’s and Wang-wei’s poetic world,so as to wander, if only for a short while, through a realm of hininjò—complete detachment from human emotions” (p. 14). He goes on toconfess that since he is only human, he probably cannot abide contin-uously in the “realm of hininjò” (hininjò no tenchi): after all, not evenT’ao Yuan-ming could gaze at the southern hills year in and year out.Nonetheless, he says, he will attempt to dwell in the sublime detach-ment of hininjò for as long as possible (p. 14).

Throughout Grass Pillow the theme of transforming life into art bymeans of hininjò or “detachment from human emotions” is developedin terms of the notion of objectivity. By this view, artistic detachmentalways involves a shift from self-centered to object-centered percep-tion. Hence the painter of Grass Pillow states that anything can be-come “aesthetic material” (bijutsu no zairyò) or a “subject for art” (gei-jutsu no daimoku) if one only becomes “distanced from the self” (onore ohanareru) so that all events are seen “objectively” (kyakkanteki ni).When seen objectively, he says, anything can “become a poem” (shi ninaru) or “turn into a painting” (e ni naru). In the painter-poet’s words:

Although something might be frightening, if you stand back and observe it simply as a shape, it can turn into a poem. If you become distanced from the self, even something dreadful can turn into a painting. It is exactly the same with lost love, when it becomes a subject of art. Ifyou can view them objectively . . . then you have aesthetic, literary material. [p. 33]

At other times, Sòseki’s artist-hero speaks of the detached, selfless,and objective standpoint of hininjò as the “position of a disinterestedbystander” (daisansha no chii). It is only from this disinterested stand-point that one can really delight in the beauty of art, he claims, sinceit is only from this position that “self-interest is abandoned” (jiko norigai wa, tana e agetiru). In the words of the painter from Grass Pillow:“In order to appreciate poetry, you must adopt the position of a dis-


interested bystander. If one adopts the position of a disinterestedbystander, a play or a novel becomes truly enjoyable because all self-interest is abandoned” (p. 12). The term “daisansha,” which can betranslated as “disinterested person,” also denotes such closely relatedmeanings as “third party,” “bystander,” or “onlooker.” Hence the “posi-tion of a disinterested bystander” is the third-person standpoint—or,as it were, the perspective of a detached onlooker. Thus Sòseki’s notionof daisansha signifies the “detached resignation” (teinen, akirame) ofthe uninvolved onlooker or disinterested bystander (bòkansha) in theself-portrait-of-the-artist stories of Mori Ògai. Yet the difference isthat while Ògai usually thematizes the impartial onlooker’s detachedobservation of human events in society, Sòseki’s novel focuses almostexclusively on disinterested contemplation of beauty in nature.

Elsewhere Sòseki’s artist-hero describes the objective standpoint ofa disinterested “onlooker” (daisansha) as the position of a tanin—asimilar term that likewise denotes “third party” or “bystander.” Atone point the painter in Grass Pillow laments that although he had onoccasion been privileged to witness a poetic world of supreme ele-gance, he had of late become excessively analytical and fallen fromthe lofty realm of hininjò to the level of an insensitive person of thecommonplace world who tramples on even the most delicate thingsin nature possessing fûryû, elegant windblown beauty (p. 34). Heremarks: “Because of this, my claim to having achieved detachmentfrom human emotions (hininjò) was utterly without value. I wouldtherefore have to undergo more self-cultivation (shugyo) before an-nouncing my qualifications as a poet or an artist” (p. 34). Consonantwith the Japanese Buddhist religio-aesthetic tradition of geidò or the“tao of art,” the protagonist insists that an aesthetic experience ofyûgen requires the artistic detachment of hininjò and this state of de-tachment itself requires shugyo (self-cultivation). The painter, nowwishing to regain the “poetic standpoint” (shiteki na rikkyakuchi)acquired only through the detached attitude of hininjò, must thereforeonce again adopt the objective position of a tanin or third-party by-stander. In the painter’s words: “At that time I wondered how onecould return to the poetic standpoint. I decided that it could beachieved only if you set your feelings in front of you, and then retreat-ing from them to give yourself the space of a bystander (tanin), therebyto inspect them calmly and honestly” (p. 34).

At the end of chapter one, the artist describes one of his most spec-tacular acts of hininjò:


If I regard being drenched in the rain by countless diagonal silver streaks in a vast black-ink-colored world as something which is happening to someone else, then it would become an excellent poem. Only when I completely forget myself and view myself from a purely objective stand-point can I, as a figure in a painting, preserve the beautiful harmonyof my natural surroundings. However, the moment I become uneasy about the falling rain or I begin to suffer from exhaustion while hiking, then I am no longer a character in a poem or a figure in a painting, andI go back to being an ordinary man in the street as before. I am theneven blind to the charm of the passing clouds, nor can I feel sympathy with the scattering blossoms or the cry of birds, much less appreciatethe beauty of myself walking completely alone in the spring moun-tains. [p. 17]

In this situation, the artist is feeling great displeasure from his exhaust-ing hike up the steep mountain trails in the pouring rain. He thenremembers to adopt the disinterested attitude of a poet—through thedetached, selfless, and objective standpoint of hininjò—whereupon henow transmutes the event into a vast monochrome sumie inkwash land-scape painting so that the deluge is seen as a downpour of countlesssilver streaks upon the canvas of nature. In the words of the painter,he can observe this situation from an aesthetic point of view only whenhe “completely forgets himself” (onore o wasuretsukusu) and views him-self “purely objectively” (jun kyakkan ni) as if he were a “character in apoem” (shichû no hito) or a “figure in a painting” (gachû no hito).

In a passage from chapter one, the protagonist of Grass Pillow ex-presses his aspiration to transfigure all that he sees into the atmosphereof a nò drama through the detached contemplation of hininjò. He muses:

I wonder how it might be if I were to regard the events arising on my short journey as comprising the plot in a nò play and the people I meet as if they were nò actors. Since this trip is essentially concerned with poetry, I would like to approximate the atmosphere by abandoning all human feelings (ninjò) as far as possible, even if I cannot achieve the level of complete detachment from human feelings (hininjò). [p. 15]

Hence while the first chapter of Grass Pillow concludes with thepainter transmuting the mountain scenery into a vast monochromesumie landscape painting through the exercise of disinterested aestheticcontemplation, in the opening of chapter two he once again adoptsthe impartial, neutralized, and uninvolved attitude of hininjò, “detach-ment from human feelings,” now to metamorphose an ordinary tea-shop into a nò theater in which a sublime drama is about to unfold.


After he has been waiting unattended in the teashop for a long time,finally a screen door slides back and an old woman makes her entrance.He thinks to himself: “I found this detachment from human feelingmost interesting (Kokora ga hininjò de omoshiroi). Moreover, I found theold woman’s face delightful” (p. 18). As the next few passages reveal,the painter uses the detached, selfless, and objective standpoint ofhininjò to imaginatively transform the old woman into a figure in a nòdrama so that her face now appears as if it were an elegant and grace-ful mask worn by a nò actor. The painter now recounts his experienceof several years ago when he saw a famous nò play by Zeami calledTakasago at the Hosho theater in Tokyo. He still has a vivid memoryof the elderly woman’s face on stage as she stood in front of an oldman holding a broom over his shoulder. Then he describes the exquis-itely carved mask that made even an old woman appear beautiful:

From my seat I could clearly see the old woman’s face, and I thought how beautiful she looked. At that moment her facial expression was indelibly imprinted in the camera of my mind. The resemblance between theold woman in the teashop and that picture in my mind was so close that it took my breath away. [pp. 18–19]

Just as he uses his capacity for artistic detachment to transform eventsinto moments in a painting, a poem, or a play, he now views the scenebefore him as a black and white photograph: his memory of the oldwoman’s face is a “picture” (shashin) imprinted in the “camera of themind” (kokoro no kamera). The painter continues gazing at the scene asa disinterested spectator until the mental picture of a beautifully carvedmask worn by an actor in a nò drama is superimposed onto the oldwoman’s face in the teashop, whereupon they fuse into a single, com-posite image. Through the detached contemplation of hininjò, hethereby reconstitutes his experience of a mundane teashop into agrand performance of Zeami’s play Takasago that is permeated withthe boundless hidden depths of yûgen, the ethereal beauty of mysteryand darkness. The shift from human emotion (ninjò) to detachmentfrom human emotion (hininjò) in Sòseki’s novel becomes the functionalequivalent of what Zeami calls the transition from “ego perception”(gaken) to “detached perception” (riken no ken). In such a manner,then, Sòseki’s idea of hininjò becomes a modern reformulation ofZeami’s principle of riken no ken: the aesthetic attitude of satori con-sciousness required for the evocation of yûgen or ethereal beautyrequired both by the playwright as well as the nò performers and theaudience.


There is another important side to Sòseki’s doctrine of hininjò—theelement of humor, an aspect that is important not only to the con-struction of Grass Pillow as a novel but also to Sòseki as an author andto the haiku tradition of Bashò in the classic literary tradition of thehaiku travel diary from which this haiku-novel derives. Detachmentfrom humanity is not always achieved by austere discipline of Zenpractice; it can be attained, as well, through lightness, laughter, andhumor. Sòseki’s novel is filled with humor—as when he imaginesMillais’s image of Ophelia drowning with a traditional Japanese shi-mada hairstyle. Again, Nami the heroine meets a young priest whofalls in love with her. In front of everyone she throws her arms aroundhim and says: “If you love me so much, let’s make love here beforethe Buddha!” Humor is important to Sòseki as an author, as well, inthat even today his most popular novels in Japan are Botchan (LittleMaster) and Wagahai wa neko de aru (I Am a Cat): two comic, ironic, andcritical parodies of Japanese life written about the same time as GrassPillow. Indeed, the objective and literally “nonhuman” standpoint ofnarration is first achieved in Sòseki’s I Am a Cat when the comicaspects of Japanese academic life are critically observed through theeyes of an animal, namely, the pet cat owned by a university professor.

Humor is emphasized in Bashò’s haiku theory by the notion of“lightness” (karumi). Ueda Makoto writes: “Lightness is the qualitythat detaches a man from worldly concerns while he is immersed inthe mire, and that is precisely what makes humor possible” (1967:169). Elsewhere Ueda explains how “lightness” represents a dialecticaltranscendence of that complete detachment from humanity signifiedby Bashò’s aesthetic ideal of sabi or impersonal loneliness: “Sabi urgesman to detach himself from worldly involvements; ‘lightness’ makesit possible for him, after attaining that detachment, to return to themundane world” (1982:34). According to Ueda, poets like Bashò whohave attained a high stage of enlightenment “take suffering with adetached, light-hearted smile” (1967:169). On his exhausting haikujourneys there were times when Bashò became sad: “But then he de-tached himself from the sadness and composed a poem with light-heartedness” (1967:169). In the first chapter of Sòseki’s Grass Pillow(p. 15), the wandering artist-hero makes reference to a famous poemfrom Bashò’s haiku diary titled Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku nohosomichi), saying that Bashò found even the sight of a horse urinatingnear his pillow elegant enough to inspire a haiku. When Bashò reachedNorigo hot springs in the Tòhoku area, he was forced to spend threedays and nights in a dull retreat due to bad weather. His haiku about


a horse urinating near his pillow with fleas and lice all around is anexample of achieving detachment from suffering by way of “light-ness”—not only a technique of poetry but a universal solvent forhuman misery. It is at this point in the story that the painter of GrassPillow resolves to take after Bashò. He will now begin seeing every-thing with detachment as if it were a haiku poem, a sumie picture, or anò play—indeed, as if it were an unraveling picture scroll as he walksalong the mountain trails using an artistic attitude of detachment inthe imaginative transformation of life into art.

The Central Problematic: Detachment vs. Sympathy

At the conclusion of the first chapter the protagonist of Grass Pillowsays he has gone somewhat too far in the direction of hininjò. Hence inthe final sentence of chapter one, Sòseki’s artist-hero asserts: “It seemsthat I had carried detachment from human emotions a little too far”(Hininjò ga, chitto tsuyosugita yò da) (1972:17). The painter of GrassPillow thereby comes to anticipate the final epiphany of the novel: therealization that total detachment apart from human sympathy is anti-thetical to art. The central problem here is the dialectical tensionbetween artistic detachment and human sympathy in aesthetic expe-rience. This is made clear in chapter ten, where the painter again be-comes interested in painting Nami when he sees her floating in a pondfilled with camellia blossoms. Although Nami is otherwise a perfectsubject for such a painting, he says that she is somehow missing some-thing. Finally he comes to realize that her face is lacking an essentialfactor: the emotion of aware—human sympathy, pity, or compassion.He thinks to himself: “I had forgotten that among the many humanemotions there is one known as compassion (aware). Although it isunknown to the gods, compassion is the emotion that can raise human-ity closest to the level of a god. Yet there was not even the slightesthint of compassion in Nami’s facial expression” (p. 109). This insightis fully realized only in the disclosure on the final page of Grass Pillow.Although the painter knows of Nami’s extreme indifference to herformer husband, upon seeing him leaving for the Russo-Japanese Warshe reveals for the first time a human feeling of pity. The painter ob-serves the emotion of aware she had lacked and realizes that only nowcan he complete a portrait of her ideal beauty (p. 149). Hence the epi-phany at the end of Grass Pillow is this: while artistic detachment is anecessary condition for aesthetic experience, it is not in and of itself


sufficient; beauty requires compassion just as art requires an elementof human feeling.

Sòseki’s problematization of the conflict between artistic detach-ment (hininjò) versus emotional sympathy (aware) in aesthetic experi-ence draws upon a long history in traditional Japanese literature. TheTale of Genji attributed to Murasaki Shikibu, perhaps the first novel inworld literature, is the source text of Japanese literary images, symbols,and motifs. This work depicts the aristocratic court of the Heianperiod as a world preoccupied with the aesthetic experience of miyabior “courtliness” as an aesthetic attitude of total detachment under-stood in terms of a refined, elegant, and graceful beauty through thecultivation of heightened artistic sensitivity. The eighteenth-centuryJapanese scholar Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) pointed out that thecentral theme of The Tale of Genji is what in the Heian aesthetic ofperishability was termed aware (sympathy) or mono no aware (sympathywith things). Although the character for “aware” or sad beauty of im-permanent things is different from the “aware” or compassion of Sòseki’shaiku-novel, phonetically it is the same and denotes a similar mean-ing. Motoori Norinaga, developing his insight into a generalized aes-thetic theory, argues that the essential function of Japanese literatureis to express mono no aware: sympathy with things. Norinaga explains:“For instance, if a man, viewing beautiful cherry-blossoms in fullbloom, appreciates them as beautiful . . . he is moved by it. That is, heis sensitive to mono no aware” (cited in Matsumoto 1970:44–45).

Originally the Heian literary ideal of aware indicated an emotionalsympathy with events that move the “heart-mind” (kokoro) and thecreative expression of natural human feelings. Because impermanenceand death move the heart-mind most deeply, the idea of aware cameto denote especially the notion of pathos—the “tragic beauty” ofperishable things in the universal flux of becoming. Norinaga writes:“Aware is in essence an expression for deep feeling in the heart. Inlater periods, this word has been used to refer merely to a sad feeling,but that is only one facet of the term” (cited in Matsumoto 1970:43).In The Tale of Genji, the Heian aesthetic of perishability expressed bythis literary ideal of mono no aware is depicted through poetic imagesof impermanence—scattered cherry blossoms, fading autumn leaves,dew falling from clover—all symbolic of the frailty of human lifeitself. Although the idea of aware has an obvious affinity with theBuddhist doctrine of mujò, “impermanence,” Norinaga strongly criti-cized Buddhist indifference as being antithetical to aware. As explained


by Matsumoto Shigeru in his book Motoori Norinaga (1970), for Nori-naga aware cultivates human sympathy with impermanent eventsthrough aesthetic feeling, whereas Buddhism cultivates nonhumaninsensitivity to events through complete detachment. In this contextNorinaga undermined the otherworldliness of Buddhism as aiming totranscend or repress natural feelings of the heart to the extent of totaldehumanization. Norinaga writes: “The Way of the Buddha is a waywhich cannot be practiced by one who is tender-hearted and sensitiveto mono no aware. Therefore, a monk pursues the way by cultivatinginsensitivity to mono no aware” (cited in Matsumoto 1970:54).

For Norinaga, the emotional sympathy of mono no aware as ex-pressed by Lady Murasaki is a distinctly “feminine” ideal of beauty incontrast to the “masculine” ideals of beauty appreciated through de-tached contemplation developed later by Buddhist monks (see Matsu-moto 1970:49). Norinaga’s basic criticism of this masculine ideal ofBuddhist indifference is that it is “in disharmony with, or hostile to,the natural human feelings involved in mono no aware” (Matsumoto1970:55). At the same time, Norinaga differentiated between the Bud-dha and Buddhism itself. According to Norinaga, Buddhism “origi-nated with the Buddha, who, deeply sensitive to mono no aware, feltpity for men tied up by the affections of the world and unable to escapefrom life and death” (cited in Matsumoto 1970:55). Therefore: “Al-though the Way of the Buddha is a way to abandon mono no aware, itoften reveals mono no aware” (p. 55).

This shift from the Heian literary ideal of aware, or emotional sym-pathy of the heart-mind, to the medieval Buddhist literary ideal ofyûgen, or profound mystery evoked by an aesthetic attitude of disinter-ested contemplation, and the dynamic tension arising between themis expressed in a famous waka poem by Fujiwara no Teika:

miwataseba Gaze out far enough,hana mo momiji mo beyond all cherry blossomsnakarikeri and scarlet maples,ura no tomaya no to those solitary huts by the shoreaki no yûgure fading in the twilight of autumn dusk.

While the Heian poets express sensitivity to mono no aware with color-ful images of transitoriness like cherry blossoms and autumn leaves,the Kamakura poets suggest the profound mystery and depths ofyûgen with monochrome images of twilight darkness. Through themeditation practice of shikan, “tranquility and insight,” the poet cul-


tivates an aesthetic attitude of disinterested contemplation in order tosee beyond the color, form, and emotion of aware to the colorlessness,formlessness, and detachment from emotion designated by yûgen. Al-though in the foregoing poem Teika evokes the standard classical Japa-nese images of beauty for spring and fall—cherry blossoms and mapleleaves—they do not elicit the pathos, gentle melancholy, and emo-tional sadness of mono no aware. The observer in this poem does notfocus on the blossoms and maple leaves but “gazes beyond” (miwa-tasu) them into the distance, so that “the cherry blossoms and mapleleaves have vanished” (hana mo momiji mo nakarikeri). In phenomeno-logical terms, this poem involves a radical shift of attention fromfocus to field—away from the colored blossoms and maples articu-lated in the foreground to the monochrome darkness of the void in thenonarticulated background.

Other waka poems manifesting the aesthetic quality of yûgen revealthe difficulty of transcending the melancholy feelings of aware. Anacclaimed poem by Saigyò reads:

kokoro naki Thought I was freemi ni mo aware wa of passions, so this melancholyshirarekari comes as surprise:shigi tatsu sawa no a woodcock shoots up from marshaki no yûgure where autumn’s twilight falls.

As William LaFleur (1983:103) clarifies in his analysis of this poem,although Saigyò regards himself as a Buddhist monk who has tran-scended all human feelings, emotions, and passions of mono no aware,“this pretentious posture collapses when a powerful feeling (aware),undoubtedly of melancholy, rises within him.”

Thus in the history of Japanese poetics the conflict between emo-tional sympathy and contemplative detachment in aesthetic experi-ence was represented by the inherent tension between the feminineliterary ideal of aware and the masculine literary ideal of yûgen. It isprecisely this yin/yang (J. inyò) polar contrast between the emotionalsympathy of tragic beauty and the artistic detachment of dark mys-tery that is again taken up in Sòseki’s Grass Pillow. But at the sametime Sòseki’s haiku-novel represents a creative synthesis of Easternand Western literary themes so that the aware versus yûgen conflict ofJapanese aestheticism is further developed in terms of the sympathyversus detachment conflict elucidated in classic portrait-of-the-artistnovels of British aestheticism.


Sòseki’s Theory of Psychic Distance

Sòseki develops hininjò or “detachment from human feeling” as thekey aesthetic notion of Grass Pillow in a letter to Morita Sòhei dated30 September 1906 (1925:XII, 507–510). This letter clarifies thedeeper theoretical dimension of artistic detachment portrayed sodramatically through the images of literary imagination in Sòseki’shaiku-novel. Sòseki begins his letter by telling Morita that the idea ofhininjò in Grass Pillow denotes a kind of “sensuous beauty” (kankaku-teki-bi) devoid of all sympathy, emotion, or human feeling. He thendistinguishes the ordinary standpoint of ninjò, “human feeling,” fromthe artistic standpoint of hininjò, “detachment from human feeling.”Sòseki writes:

1. Nature does not contain ninjò [human feeling]. A person who observes nature also does not contain ninjò. There is only beauty.

2. It is the same if we see the human being as part of nature.3. When people become emotional, they exhibit ninjò in abun-

dance. [p. 507]

Sòseki proceeds to clarify the three basic “attitudes” (taido) for the spec-tator of a theatrical drama:

There are three kinds of attitudes the audience manifests while see-ing a play:

(a) One completely abandons ninjò [human feeling] and sees the play with the same attitude as one sees pine trees and apricot trees. (When one sees a play, it is seen with the same attitude as when seeing nature as described in numbers 1 and 2 above.)

(b) One cannot completely abandon ninjò in that sympathy or antipathy arise. Yet this sympathy or antipathy is different from that in the real world. In other words, this sympathy or antipathy is not related to one’s self-interest; it is a situation in which one can see the event with pure sympathy or pure antipathy without any concern for personal gain or loss. (This is the case when we see an ordinary play.)

(c) In this situation one sees the activity of human beings from the point of view of sympathy and antipathy arising in the real world. (Spectators in the theater sometimes jump on the stageand attack the actors. There was an incident in France where some-one in the audience shot the actor who was playing Othello.) [pp. 507–508]


Thus Sòseki develops an explicit aesthetic attitude theory whereina certain mental “attitude” (taido) on the part of the beholder is re-quired for the experience of beauty in a work of art. Moreover, in hisdistinction between three basic attitudes of the spectator of art—inthis case a theatrical perfomance—he specifies that the first attitude(a) is characterized by hininjò, “detachment from human feeling”or “dehumanization.” In other words: the highest level of aestheticattitude is completely disinterested. The second attitude (b) is stillattached to ninjò or human feeling since it is related to sympathy(dojò) and antipathy (handò). Although it is not of the same exaltedlevel as hininjò, it is nevertheless an aesthetic attitude insofar as it is ahuman feeling of sympathy or antipathy without any concern for self-interest (jiko no rigai). Hence the second attitude (b) is also to someextent disinterested. The third attitude (c) is, strictly speaking, un-aesthetic in that it is based on ordinary human feelings of sympathyand antipathy accompanied by self-interest as concern for personalgain and loss. Thus in his threefold analysis of the aesthetic attitudein relation to the standard of hininjò, Sòseki clearly introduces a notionof the degree or variability of distancing. Sòseki’s threefold schemerepresents a graduated hierarchy of distancing that ranges from lowdistancing to mid-distancing to high distancing. Whereas the firststandpoint (a) is an aesthetic attitude that has completely distanceditself from life and the second standpoint (b) is only partly distanced,the third standpoint (c) has no distance factor at all.

Sòseki’s letter goes on to apply this scale of distancing to the pro-tagonist of Grass Pillow. He states that the painter-poet in his noveltries to see events of nature from position (a)—namely, the aestheticattitude of hininjò or complete detachment from human feelings. Evenif he is not always able to see events from position (a), he tries not tostand in position (b). In position (b), one cannot completely transcendninjò or human feelings since it is related to sympathy and antipathyto events. Yet this is not the level of ordinary human feeling as repre-sented by position (c) in that sympathy and antipathy are still to someextent free of self-interest. Hence according to Sòseki, the artist-heroof Grass Pillow oscillates back and forth between positions (a) and (b)(p. 508).

To clarify the dialectical tension between artistic detachment versusemotional sympathy in his novel Grass Pillow, Sòseki’s letter nextexamines the relationship between hininjò (detachment from humanfeeling) and aware (compassion). Specifically he applies the threefold


scale of aesthetic distancing to the artist’s perception of aware orcompassion expressed by Nami on the final page of Grass Pillow.When the artist-hero of the novel observes compassion on Nami’sface, it comes in the form of an epiphany—namely, the realizationthat he has brought the artistic detachment of hininjò too far andtherefore has failed in his efforts to complete a portrait of Nami. Hethereby comes to the insight that while detachment is a necessaryprecondition for aesthetic experience, it is not in itself sufficient: atleast some element of sympathy, human feeling, and compassion isnecessary to the act of artistic creation.

In this context, Sòseki’s letter presents yet another threefold anal-ysis. (i) First, in accordance with position (a) Sòseki describes theartist-hero’s observation of aware or compassion on Nami’s face whileremaining in the purely disinterested, detached, or dehumanized stand-point of hininjò. He writes: “Even if [the painter] is in position (a), hecan still see aware (compassion) appearing on the woman’s face. . . .Although aware is a part of hininjò (detachment from human feeling),if the painter stays in this attitude, then his attitude of observationis also pure hininjò” (p. 508). (ii) Second, in accord with position (b)Sòseki describes Nami’s feeling of aware or compassion as a kind ofsympathy without any concern for self-interest. He asserts: “The ex-pression of aware (compassion) appears on her face, and it is for herhusband so it is admirable. She is a woman that people should sym-pathize with deeply. Therefore, the painter should also involuntarilyhave sympathy for her. (Probably the painter in Grass Pillow did notstand in this position.)” (p. 508). (iii) And third, he describes a thirdlevel of seeing aware in Nami’s face from a more worldly standpointcharacterized by sympathy and antipathy with regard for self-interest(p. 508).

Sòseki then compares the mental attitude of the artist-poet in GrassPillow with that of Shakespeare in relation to Hamlet. Here Sòseki isno doubt thinking about the “Ophelia drowning” motif in Hamlet asit relates to problems of aesthetic distance in Eastern art, especiallyJapanese drama. He writes:

I don’t know Shakespeare’s thinking when he wrote Hamlet, but I am sure that he was not in position (i) and, of course, not position (iii). Probably he was in position (ii) (the same position as the audience’s while watching Hamlet). Therefore the attitude of the painter in Grass Pillow is different from Shakespeare’s. One may not distinguish their standpoints clearly, but the tendency of their viewpoints is different. Shakespeare had a ten-dency to return to position (ii), while the painter [of Grass Pillow] had a


tendency to return to position (i). Draw (i) and (ii), showing the direction with an arrow. Then the attitude of Shakespeare is signified by → and that of the painter by ← [(ii) ← Shakespeare in Hamlet; the painter in Grass Pillow → (i)]. Both sides want to establish a distance. [p. 509]

In Sòseki’s comparison between the aesthetic attitudes of Shakespeareand the painter of Grass Pillow, he underscores the point that bothseek at least some degree of distance from life. As he states in the pre-ceding passage: “Both sides want to establish a distance” (Ryòhò tomo,hanaretagatte iru). But according to Sòseki’s analysis, while Shakespearemoves in the direction of the second level of aesthetic attitude—thatis to say, ninjò or human feeling related to sympathy and antipathywithout concern for self-interest—the painter in Grass Pillow movesin the direction of the first level of aesthetic attitude—namely, hininjòor complete detachment from human feeling. Yet when the paintersees a trace of compassion (aware) on Nami’s face in the last scene, heis close to Shakespeare’s position.

At the conclusion of his letter on hininjò, Sòseki summarizes hisdiscussion as follows:

The painter [in Grass Pillow] is hininjò. Shakespeare is “pure ninjò.” And ordinary people who make a difficult living struggling for their meals are “vulgar ninjò.” . . . The painter scorns the “vulgar ninjò” and especially despises the “vulgar ninjò” of the twentieth century. He even came to dislike the “extreme pure ninjò” of plays. He became completely exhausted [of all human feeling]. Therefore he decided to take a “journey of detachment from human feelings” (hininjò no tabi), drifting here and there for a little while. Even if he could not persist to the end in the position of hininjò, he tried to observe people in the closest position to hininjò. (This is the same feeling as when he watched a drama). [p. 509]

Establishing once again a sliding scale of aesthetic distance, he firstdescribes the ascending levels of ninjò or “human feeling,” which movesfrom the “vulgar human feeling” (zoku ninjò) of ordinary people in thecommonplace world, to the “pure human feeling (jun ninjò), repre-sented by Shakespeare, finally arriving at the wholly dehumanizedstage of hininjò or “detachment from human feelings,” the lofty aes-thetic attitude realized, if only sometimes, by the artist of Sòseki’sown novel. The upshot is that for Sòseki, while the greatest of Westernartists sometimes achieve artistic detachment, they never realize thelevel of hininjò representing total detachment from human feelingsattained by Eastern artists—which is the ideal of the Japanese painter-poet of Grass Pillow.


Hininjò and Western Theories of Psychic Distance

Having examined Sòseki’s doctrine of hininjò it is now possible to ob-serve parallels with various Western philosophical theories of artisticdetachment. Kant’s idea of beauty as disinterested pleasure influencedSòseki’s thought at least indirectly through the novelist’s study ofEnglish literature. Hence Sòseki often characterizes the aesthetic atti-tude of hininjò as being disinterested. Sòseki’s artist-hero’s standpointof hininjò designates the third-person objective standpoint of a dis-interested bystander (daisansha). It is only from this disinterestedstandpoint that one can really delight in the beauty of art, since it isonly from this position that “self-interest is abandoned” (jiko no rigaiwa, tana e agetiru). In the painter’s words from Grass Pillow: “In orderto appreciate poetry, you must adopt the position of a disinterestedbystander. If one adopts the position of a disinterested bystander, aplay or a novel becomes truly enjoyable because all self-interest isabandoned” (1972:12). Again, in his 1906 letter to Morita, Sòsekiemphasizes that the ideal of hininjò is complete detachment fromhuman emotions of sympathy (dojò) and antipathy (handò) withoutany concern for self-interest (jiko no rigai) through personal gain andloss.

In a chapter titled “Distance and Dehumanization” from his anthol-ogy A Modern Book of Aesthetics (1960), Melvin Rader includes selec-tions from three works representing innovative developments of Kant’saesthetic attitude theory of the beautiful as a mental function of dis-interested contemplation: “ ‘Psychical Distance’ as a Factor in Art andan Aesthetic Principle” (1912–1913) by Edward Bullough, The De-humanization of Art (1948) by José Ortega y Gasset, and The Nude(1959) by Kenneth Clark. In a subsequent chapter he also includes thereformulation of Kant’s theory in terms of “isolation” by framing asarticulated in The Principles of Art Education by Hugo Münsterberg. Itis remarkable how Sòseki’s doctrine of hininjò anticipates all thesemajor developments of Kant’s notion of disinterested beauty in twen-tieth-century Western aesthetics.

Sòseki and Bullough on Psychic Distance. Sòseki’s hininjò theory of artis-tic detachment, formulated in 1906, clearly anticipates the theory ofdistance formulated by Edward Bullough in his classic article “ ‘Psy-chical Distance’ as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle” in 1912.Sòseki not only anticipates Bullough’s celebrated notion that aestheticexperience involves a specifiable “mental attitude” characterized by


psychic distance, but he also discusses the variability of distancing,the degrees of distancing, and the fundamental problems of under-distancing and overdistancing. As in Bullough’s theory of psychic dis-tance, Sòseki clarifies how the experience of beauty requires as its pre-condition a certain “attitude” (taido) and claims that this aestheticattitude is characterized by distance. Just as Bullough argues that psy-chic distance is a factor in all art and aesthetic experience, the painterholds that art requires him “to be distant from” (hanareru) events inlife. He “wants to establish a distance” (hanaretagatte iru) from allhuman emotions to see everything like a work of art. The artist mustalways be “distanced from the self” (onore o hanareru) to experiencethings objectively as one does a picture, a poem, or a play. Bullough’sarticle on psychic distance has become famous not only for its theo-retical contributions but also for its imaginative use of concreteexamples to illustrate the acts of “transformation by distance” as wellthe “loss of distance” through overdistancing and underdistancing. Inhis most celebrated example Bullough (1977:93) asks us to imagine a“fog at sea.” For most passengers on a ship a fog at sea is a source ofacute unpleasantness if not dread or terror. But a fog at sea can alsobe a source of intense relish and aesthetic enjoyment through “inser-tion of Distance . . . between our own self and its affections” (p. 94).Bullough adds: “Thus, in the fog, the transformation by Distance isproduced in the first instance by putting the phenomenon, so to speak,out of gear with our practical, actual self . . . in short, by looking atit ‘objectively’ ” (p. 95). He concludes: “Distance is a factor in allart” (p. 95).

The artist-hero of Sòseki’s Grass Pillow makes exactly this samepoint: “Although something might be frightening, if you stand backand observe it simply as a shape, it can turn into a poem. If you becomedistanced from the self, even something dreadful can turn into a paint-ing. . . . If you can view them objectively . . . then you have aesthetic,literary material (1972:33). Here as elsewhere throughout Grass Pillow,the protagonist explicitly asserts that in any situation, no matter howunpleasant or frightening, if you become “distanced from the self”(onore o hanareru) and view events “objectively” (kyakkanteki ni), any-thing can “become a poem” (shi ni naru) or “turn into a painting” (e ninaru). Moreover, like Bullough, Sòseki’s haiku-novel presents dramaticexamples of transformation by distance. At the end of chapter one, aswe have seen, the protagonist of Grass Pillow is suffering great unpleas-antness from the downpour of a spring rain as he hikes up the moun-tain trail: but upon regaining the detached, objective, and selfless atti-


tude of hininjò through insertion of distance between the self and itsaffects, the pounding rain and ominous clouds are transformed intothe silver streaks and vast gray expanse of a sumie inkwash landscapemanifesting the boundless hidden depths of yûgen. The novel providesmany such examples of ordinary events transformed by distance intomoments in a painting, a poem, or a play. Indeed, the central motif ofSòseki’s Grass Pillow is precisely the transformation of life into art byinsertion of distance. Briefly stated: the theme of Sòseki’s haiku-novelis transformation by distance.

One of Bullough’s major contributions to aesthetics was his recog-nition that the factor of distance in art is not a fixed relation. Indeed,he says there are “degrees of Distance” (1977:121), or a “variability ofDistance” (p. 102), including both the extremes of underdistancing(p. 103) and overdistancing (p. 104). Bullough points out that whileterms like “detachment” and “objectivity” are inflexible and exclusiveof their opposites, the idea of distance admits of degrees (p. 100).Likewise, we have seen how Sòseki’s theory of distance involves a slid-ing scale ranging from hininjò (complete detachment from emotion)to jun ninjò (pure human feeling without self-interest in personal ad-vantage or disadvantage) to zoku ninjò (vulgar human feeling withself-interest in personal advantage and disadvantage). Hence for Sòseki,as for Bullough, there is not one correct mode of distance but vari-ability and degrees ranging from low distance to high distance.

Moreover, both Sòseki and Bullough examine the problem of over-distancing and underdistancing. Sòseki’s illustration of the problemof underdistancing by reference to a performance of Shakespeare’sOthello makes the parallel all the more striking. Here we should recallBullough’s example of the jealous husband who, at a performance ofOthello, fails to insert the due amount of psychic distance into his expe-rience of the play and therefore undergoes a reversal—whereupon heno longer sees Othello apparently betrayed by Desdemona but seeshimself in an analogous situation with his own wife (1977:99). Accord-ing to Bullough, insofar as the jealous husband suffered a “loss of dis-tance” the aesthetic attitude was diminished or lost. That is to say,while an onlooker who is concerned mainly with the technical detailsof the play’s presentation is overdistanced, the jealous husband at theOthello performance is said to be underdistanced. Likewise, in his1906 letter on hininjò Sòseki describes the complete loss of distanceby underdistancing that can cause spectators in the theater to jumpon the stage and attack the performers.

At the start of Sòseki’s haiku-novel, the goal of the painter is great


distance as represented by position (a); but he oscillates between thegreat distance of attitude (a) and the mid-distance of attitude (b).Usually the painter of Grass Pillow regards himself as having aban-doned the complete artistic detachment of hininjò resulting in under-distancing: “Because of this, my claim to having achieved detach-ment from human emotions (hininjò) was utterly without value. Iwould therefore have to undergo more self-cultivation (shugyo) beforeannouncing my qualifications as a poet or an artist” (1972:34). Yet atother times the painter recognizes that he has overdistanced to thepoint of dehumanization. At the end of chapter one, for example, hesays: “It seems that I had carried detachment from human emotions alittle too far” (Hininjò ga, chitto tsuyosugita yò da) (p. 17). This insight atthe end of chapter one anticipates the final epiphany on the last pagewhen he realizes that both compassion (aware) and detachment (hininjò)are required for art. He must now try to strike the mean between toomuch distancing and too little. Or as Bullough puts it: the aestheticideal is the “antinomy of Distance,” understood as “the utmost de-crease of Distance without its disappearance” (1977:107).

Sòseki and Ortega y Gasset on the Dehumanization of Art. Sòseki’s doc-trine of hininjò also shares many points in common with José Ortega yGasset’s theory of artistic detachment. When Sòseki’s notion of hininjòis translated as “nonhuman” or “unhuman,” it at once signifies a “de-humanization of art” similar to Ortega y Gasset’s view. In his Englishtranslation of Sòseki’s haiku-novel under the title The Three-CorneredWorld, Alan Turney often renders hininjò by “detachment,” althoughat times he also translates it by “nonhuman” (Sòseki 1965:12). Turney’stranslation distinguishes the term “nonhuman” (hininjò) to denote theobjective, impartial, and detached attitude of an artist from the “in-human” (funinjò) or coldheartedness of a ruthless person (p. 124).Indeed, Sòseki’s Kusamakura was first translated into English by Taka-hashi Kazutomo under the title Unhuman Tour (1927)—thereby ap-proximating the title of Ortega y Gasset’s work appearing decadeslater, The Dehumanization of Art (1948). Takahashi’s title, UnhumanTour, is intended to reflect the central purpose of the artist-hero’s pil-grimage into the tranquility of nature as a “journey of hininjò” (hininjòno tabi) (1972:25), which can alternatively be translated as a “journeyof detachment,” a “nonhuman voyage,” or an “unhuman tour.” Theaim of this “unhuman tour” is to achieve Zen satori by entering therealm of pure poetry far beyond human emotions of sympathy andantipathy. The hininjò or “nonhuman” art of Sòseki’s novel is precisely


what Ortega y Gasset calls “dehumanized art.” The hininjò or “non-human” style of beauty, like the dehumanized art of Ortega y Gasset,is art purged of all human emotion, feeling, or sympathy.

In contrast to Bullough who advocates an antinomy of distanceunderstood as “the utmost decrease of Distance without its disappear-ance,” Ortega y Gasset defends the extreme increase of detachment inmodern art. For the protagonist of Grass Pillow, as for Ortega y Gasset,the goal of art is “absolute distance,” distancing to the point of de-humanization, a complete removal of the human component of art. InThe Dehumanization of Art, Ortega y Gasset gives a phenomenologicaldescription of varying degrees of emotional distance placed betweenvarious persons, a wife, a doctor, a reporter, and a painter, and thetragic event they all witness (1948:13–18). Starting from the minimaldistance of the wife, the distance continues to increase until it arrivesat the maximum distance of the painter. Ortega y Gasset asserts: “Inthe painter we find a maximum of distance and a minimum of feelingintervention” (p. 17). He says that the painter who observes the eventwith maximum distance is so uninvolved, impersonal, aloof, and un-feeling that to others he appears “inhuman” (p. 16). But for Ortega yGasset this absolute distance to the point of complete “dehumaniza-tion” is the ideal of abstract modern art and the high point of moderncivilization (p. 26).

For Sòseki’s artist-hero, as for Ortega y Gasset, there is a range ofdistancing from low to high. And since Sòseki’s artist-hero is himselfa painter, he upholds the ideal of dehumanized art distanced to themaximum degree with minimum intervention of feeling. As we shallsee, there is an even closer proximity to Ortega y Gasset’s dehuman-ization theory of art in that the painter of Grass Pillow is preoccupiedwith achieving maximum distance from death by viewing it as a non-human picture with all tragic feelings of sorrow, fear, or pity removed.But of course the difference is that Sòseki develops his theory of de-humanized art with critical irony in the form of a novel and is awarefrom the very start that such a view is inadequate. Hence the finalepiphany of Sòseki’s haiku-novel leads the painter of Grass Pillow toradically modify his hininjò or “nonhuman” ideal of art as somethingcompletely detached, uninvolved, and impersonal. For with the real-ization that great art needs compassion (aware) as well as detachment(hininjò) comes the insight that the ideal picture must itself be pro-foundly human.

The dehumanized perspective of Sòseki’s artist-hero is deeply linkedto the haiku poetics of Bashò. Indeed, the very concept of Sòseki’s


“haiku-novel” (haikuteki-shòsetsu) is inspired by the classic haiku diariesof Bashò and others. Likewise, the “unhuman tour” (hininjò no tabi) ofthe painter-poet in Sòseki’s haiku-novel (1972:25) is also reminiscentof Bashò’s archetypal haiku journey of detachment from emotion inthe solitude of nature. Hence in the first chapter of Sòseki’s GrassPillow (p. 15) the artist-hero cites a famous poem from Bashò’s NarrowRoad to the Deep North and says that like Bashò he would from now onlike to view everyone from the detached, objective, impersonal, or non-human standpoint of hininjò so that they appear as figures in a haikupoem, a nò drama, or a sumie painting against the canvas of nature.Ueda Makoto emphasizes precisely this “unhuman” element in Bashò’spoetry. According to Ueda, Bashò takes detachment from humanemotion to the point of complete dehumanization not only in hispoetry and literary theory but also in his own life. Ueda (1967:149)explains that while Bashò’s poetic ideal of sabi means “loneliness,” itis not a personal emotion but an impersonal atmosphere: an “objec-tive, nonemotional loneliness.” He adds:

Such a dissolution of personal emotion into an impersonal atmosphere constitutes the core of Bashò’s attitude toward life. . . . Bashò was quite determined in keeping this attitude, so much so that he at times looked coldhearted, even inhuman. . . . It was not that Bashò was inhuman; rather, he was un-human. He tried to overcome his grief by transforming it into something impersonal. [p. 151]

In the Heian poetic ideal of aware or sympathy there is an expressionof personal human feelings like gentle melancholy, bittersweet sorrow,or enjoyment of transitory beauty tinged with sadness. In Bashò’s “un-human” poetic ideal of sabi, however, “the feeling of sadness is univer-salized” (p. 154) or “depersonalized into an object of nature” (p. 156).The poetic ideal of sabi is evoked through a process whereby humanfeelings of grief or sadness are universalized, impersonalized, and de-humanized into “the atmosphere of impersonal nature, and not anemotion of human life” (p. 153). In Bashò’s technique of verse compo-sition, total detachment from human emotions is achieved through aprocess whereby personal feelings of sorrow are universalized into animpersonal atmosphere of sabi: loneliness. The Japanese haiku poeticsof Bashò is therefore analogous to the classical Indian poetics of Abhi-navagupta: aesthetic experience (Skt. rasa) requires an artistic attitudeof disinterested delight achieved through a “universalization process”(sâdhâranikarana) whereby personal emotions are deindividuated intoan aesthetic emotion that is impersonal, universal, and general.


In Bashò’s idea of poetic inspiration one must achieve completedetachment from the self and enter into the heart of a thing to sympa-thize with its unique quality—followed immediately by the sponta-neous expression of that quality in a verse. Bashò’s most famous state-ment about poetic inspiration is recorded by his student Dohò: “TheMaster said: ‘Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about abamboo plant from a bamboo plant.’ What he meant was that the poetshould detach the mind from his own self . . . enter into the object,perceive its delicate life, and feel its feeling, whereupon a poem formsitself” (cited in Ueda 1967:157). Ueda emphasizes how Bashò’s theoryof poetic inspiration requires complete objectivity, impersonality, anddetachment: “Here is a strong plea for objective, impersonal poetry.The poet’s task is, not to express his emotions, but to detach himselffrom them and to enter into the object of nature” (p. 158). Further-more, Ueda underscores the “unhuman” standpoint of Bashò’s theoryof poetic inspiration in that it requires detachment from human feel-ings to the extent of complete dehumanization of art. Ueda writes: “Itis no easy matter to enter into the innermost life of an external object.It presumes the poet’s complete dehumanization, the dissolution of allhis emotions. . . . The poet could dehumanize himself, but only for abrief period of time, perhaps only for a few moments at most” (p. 157;italics added). Thus Sòseki’s haiku-novel Grass Pillow must finally beunderstood against its literary background in the classic Japanese haikujournals of Bashò and others that recorded the quest for Zen enlight-enment through detachment from personal emotions in an unhumantour to a world of pure poetry achieved by deindividuation of humanfeelings into an objective, impersonal, and nonhuman art.

Ueda Makoto clarifies the eighteenth-century scholar Mootori Nori-naga’s criticism of medieval Buddhist poetics that attempts to denymono no aware in order to become “unhuman.” The medieval Buddhistideal of dehumanized art is the polar opposite of the Heian-period lit-erary ideal of mono no aware, which aims to express the spontaneousoverflow of natural human feelings from the inmost depths of the sen-sitive open heart when moved by the elegant beauty of events in life.Ueda writes:

Buddhism rejects mono no aware. . . . It aims at the unhuman, precisely the opposite of human feelings. It renounces grief over death, love between men and women, and anything else that is human. But here lies the weakness of Buddhism, for no man can be completely unhuman. As Norinaga says, even the most holy priest cannot but be moved at the sight of a beautiful cherry blossoms, or of a lovely lady he happens to


meet in the street. “If there is a priest who has no such feeling,” Norinaga writes, “he is more heartless than birds and insects—he is, we should say, no better than a rock or a tree.” This is a view diametrically opposed to that of the medieval Japanese. [1967:201]

It can therefore be seen how the thematic conflict between hininjò(detachment) versus aware (compassion) in Sòseki’s Grass Pillow is areworking of precisely the same problematic addressed by MootoriNorinaga in terms of the “unhuman” medieval Buddhist yûgen poeticsversus the Heian literary ideal of mono no aware.

On the Eastern side, the ideal of Sòseki’s haiku-novel—hininjò asan aesthetic attitude of detachment from human emotions represent-ing the dehumanization of art—has itself appropriated a long Japa-nese tradition expressed in the unhuman ideal of sabi (impersonal lone-liness) in Bashò’s haiku poetry. Motoori Norinaga undermines thisZen tradition of dehumanized art by holding that the Japanese idealof beauty is mono no aware—the antithesis of unhuman art purged offeeling. Although Sòseki’s novel seems at first to advocate total detach-ment from human emotion, it goes on to show the limitations of thisidea by arguing that true beauty involves both detachment and sym-pathy. Hence while Ortega y Gasset’s notion of beauty as dehuman-ization of art has been exhaustively investigated by Sòseki’s novel hecomes to see the limitations of this idea and ultimately argues for aJapanese notion of beauty as polar tension between two extreme states:hininjò as artistic detachment, resulting in the dehumanization of art,and aware as compassion resulting in maximum intensity of humanfeeling.

Sòseki and Clark on the Nude as Art. Sòseki’s hininjò theory of artisticdetachment can also be related to Kenneth Clark’s The Nude. In thiswork Clark argues that dehumanization is an extreme notion insofaras no one can wholly divest themselves of their essential humanity orcut themselves off from their body and its natural instincts (and noone should try). For Clark the erotic appeal of the nude form heightensits aesthetic value as a work of art. Summarizing Clark’s study of thenude as an art form in relation to the aesthetic attitude of psychic dis-tance, Melvin Rader writes: “The ideal of the oneness of the spirit andbody stimulated the Greeks to their highest artistic achievements.The esthetic attitude, so interpreted, is neither an intense participa-tion nor an absolute detachment—it is neither low nor high distance—it is a balance between the two, a synthesis of contraries” (1960:393).


A similar rejection of dehumanized art as an aesthetic ideal is to beseen in Sòseki’s depiction of a woman’s nude figure at the hot-springbath in chapter seven of Grass Pillow (1972:83). Like Bullough’s theoryof psychic distance, Sòseki’s theory of hininjò accounts for the variabilityof distance based on the distancing power of the artist and the char-acter of the object. Too much formalism leads to overdistancing; toomuch naturalism results in underdistancing. From this standpointSòseki is able to create a remarkable effect in the bathhouse scenewhere the artist is contemplating a woman in the nude yet sustaininga degree of distance. The voyeuristic description of a nude woman dis-robing in the hot spring while the artist quietly watches is intendedto evoke an erotic mood. Yet because the woman’s figure is not fullyrevealed like most nudes, but partly concealed by the atmospherichaze of swirling mist, a degree of distance is established. Moreoverthe artist himself makes a further effort to insert psychic distance intothe event, though not to the point of total dehumanization. By strik-ing a golden mean between low and high distance, the painter thusconjures up this extraordinary scene of the heroine in the nude—yetsurrounded by an aura of mystery and darkness as if she were a figurein a sumie inkwash painting that manifests the Buddhist ideal of beautyas yûgen: hidden depths.

Grass Pillow and British Aestheticism

The themes of British aestheticism, as noted earlier, were codified bythe portrait-of-the-artist genre of literature: Roderick Hudson by HenryJames, Marius the Epicurean by Walter Pater, The Picture of DorianGray by Oscar Wilde, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by JamesJoyce, and others. Sòseki’s Grass Pillow can be regarded as a novel inthis genre based on an East-West literary synthesis of British and Japa-nese aestheticism. Indeed, Sòseki was Japan’s foremost Meiji-periodscholar of English literature and from 1900 to 1903 spent three yearsstudying in London. Like portrait-of-the-artist novels in British aes-theticism, Sòseki’s work emphasizes such recurrent themes as art forart’s sake, the imaginative transformation of life into art, the cultiva-tion of an aesthetic attitude of detached contemplation, the achieve-ment of artistic detachment through isolation by framing, psychicdistance as an essential factor in art, the recording of satori-like epi-phanies as moments of illumination evoked by disinterested contem-plation, the problem of overdistancing to the point of alienation, thedehumanization of art, the elevation of art to a religion of beauty, the


conflict between aesthetic detachment versus human sympathy, andintegration of the negative or inhibitory elements of distance, detach-ment, and dehumanization with the positive or constructive act ofcreative imagination.

In the tradition of British aestheticism in general and the portrait-of-the-artist genre in particular, the mechanism for transmuting lifeinto art is that of cultivating an aesthetic attitude of disinterestedcontemplation by an insertion of psychic distance. Thus British aes-theticism can be traced back directly to Kant’s notion of beauty asdisinterested pleasure. To repeat the words of M. H. Abrams: “Aes-theticism, or ‘the Aesthetic Movement,’ was a European phenomenonduring the latter nineteenth century. . . . Its roots lie in German theory,proposed by Kant (1790), that the pure aesthetic experience consistsof a ‘disinterested’ contemplation of an aesthetic object” (1981:2).

Like the classic novels of British aestheticism, the protagonist ofSòseki’s Grass Pillow attempts to imaginatively transfigure everydaylife into art through the aesthetic attitude of detached contemplation.The difference is that Sòseki’s haiku-novel is a portrait of the artist inJapan. Thus the cultural ideal of beauty is that of yûgen, “profoundmystery,” while the aesthetic attitude of hininjò, “detachment fromhuman emotions,” is systematically cultivated through Zen-like dis-cipline of equanimity devoid of craving or aversion. Sòseki’s idea ofhininjò—the dehumanization of art—is an exercise in ironic detach-ment, disinterestedness, and distancing from life that is summarizedby Miyoshi Masao (1974:35):

When Sòseki called [Grass Pillow] a “haiku novel,” he was thinking of a narrative movement . . . reinforced by the narrator’s actual and metaphor-ical journey from Tokyo and his “real life” involvement with noise and paradox to an obscure mountain village and an aesthetic experience of “uninvolvement.” . . . He will keep his distance and irony in relation to life: the “non-human tour” will be an exercise in disengagement.

Miyoshi underscores that Sòseki’s theme of “nonhuman art” throughmaximum distance from life inevitably leads to the problem of over-distancing:

Thematically, it is a familiar story. The English Romantics and post-Romantic writers Sòseki quotes in Pillow of Grass—from Shelly to Wilde—have argued time and time again: art needs distance from life. Like Latmos in Keat’s Endymion, Nami will give the protagonist a glimpse of Ideal Beauty. . . . To grasp it, however, the artist must first forgo life. Although this position is almost always reversed in the end—


as it is in Pillow of Grass, too—with the disinterested artist turning back into the thick of paradox, at the beginning at least, distancing to the point of alienation is the sine qua non of modern art. [1974:66]

As Miyoshi Masao point out, Sòseki’s concept of aesthetic distancealong with the related problem of overdistancing to the point ofalienation derives partly from various British romantic and post-romantic writers—including those quoted in Grass Pillow, like Shelley,Wilde, and Keats. Just as on the Asian side Sòseki’s notion of hininjòhas been deeply influenced by the Japanese yûgen tradition of art andliterature running through the “shikan aesthetic consciousness” ofearly Kamakura-period waka poetics and the riken no ken or “seeing ofdetached perception” of Zeami’s nò drama, so on the Western side hereceived inspiration from the closely linked British movements ofPre-Raphaelitism, aestheticism, and romanticism. As in the traditionof British aestheticism, the protagonist in Sòseki’s Grass Pillow acquiresdistance from life through isolation by framing: each event is seen as amoment in a painting, a poem, or a play. Through insertion of dis-tance the protagonist moves through life as an indifferent bystanderwho views everything like a work of art in a museum, an exhibit in agallery, or a performance in a theater. But insofar as Sòseki’s haiku-novel represents an original synthesis of both Japanese and Englishforms of aestheticism, the imaginative transfiguration of life into artthrough insertion of distance is diversified to include both Asian andEuropean ideals of beauty. Hence in Grass Pillow the commonplaceevents of life are on some occasions transformed by the disinterestedattitude into a sumie inkwash landscape painting by Sesshû, a haikupoem by Bashò, or a nò drama by Zeami; on other occasions they aremetamorphosed into a Neo-Raphaelite painting by Millais, a romanticnature poem by Shelley, or a tragic drama by Shakespeare, resulting inthe total aesthetic recreation of experience into an exotic internationalgallery of art.

The central motif from British aestheticism used to illustrate thefunction of hininjò in Sòseki’s novel is the image of drowned Opheliafloating downstream in an elegant gown with an expression of sub-lime tranquility on her face. The motif of “Ophelia drowning” has itsorigins in the greatest tragic play of Elizabethan drama, Shakespeare’sHamlet. Ophelia, it should be recalled, was the daughter of Poloniusand sister of Laertes; forced to obey her father and brother, she rejectsHamlet’s advances, though she loves him; after Hamlet kills her father,she goes mad and drowns herself (Hamlet 1.3). The English painter Sir


John Everett Millais (1829–1896), a founder of the Pre-RaphaeliteBrotherhood, precursor to the British movements of aestheticism andromanticism, depicted this tragic event in his most famous painting:Ophelia (1852). Moreover, inspired by Shakespeare’s play and Millais’spainting, the Pre-Raphaelite writer Algernon Swinburne composeda well-known poem on the death of Ophelia. In turn, this image ofOphelia drowning becomes a leitmotif in Sòseki’s Grass Pillow.Throughout Sòseki’s haiku-novel the painter-poet gradually builds upa montage of juxtaposed images of the heroine called Nami as he triesto capture her ideal beauty from multiple points of view. The painterfirst hears about Nami in chapter two during a conversation betweenthe teahouse woman and the packhorse driver in which they remi-nisce about her wedding. In a sequence of imagistic transmutationsthe painter visualizes the bridal procession and expresses it in a haikuthat suddenly turns into an image from Millais’s painting of Opheliadrowning, although humorously depicted by Sòseki in Orientalfashion with a high geisha-like shimada hairstyle worn by traditionalJapanese brides (1972:24). The teahouse woman then compares Namito the legendary maiden of the ancient Man’yòshû anthology who cen-turies earlier, unable to choose between suitors, had drowned herself.In chapter three, when the painter arrives at the hot-spring inn, heenters a surrealistic flow of reverie and dreams of the legendary maidenin a bridal gown, again in the form of Millais’s Ophelia (p. 30). Laterin chapter seven, when the painter is soaking in a hot-spring bath, hedescribes the feeling of blissful detachment, tranquility, and self-forgetfulness as he floats in the water—and again is reminded ofMillais’s painting as well as the poem on Ophelia drowning by Swin-burne. The painter now thinks to himself:

From such a point of view even the idea of drowning has refinement and elegance. It was Swinburne who, in one of his poems, describes a drowned woman’s feeling of joy at having attained eternal tranquility. When observed in this way, Millais’s Ophelia, which had always been troubling to me, becomes a thing of great beauty. I used to wonder why Millais had painted such a disturbing scene, but now I understood that it was after all a good subject for a picture. The vision of a woman floating along with the current is indeed aesthetic. [pp. 77–78]

The painter continues his reflections. If Ophelia’s expression in Millais’spicture or Swinburne’s poem was that of agony, he thinks, it wouldhave ruined the whole aesthetic effect. But since her face is peacefuland devoid of any outward expression of human emotion, it is exquis-


itely beautiful (p. 78). Finally, still floating in the hot-spring bath, hecomposes a poem of his own to depict the aesthetic quality of drown-ing when viewed from a stance of disinterested observation (p. 78).

The idea underlying this motif of Ophelia drowning—both forSòseki’s haiku-novel and for works of British aestheticism—is thateven the sorrow of death becomes an occasion of elegant beauty whenseen from the objective standpoint of a disinterested onlooker whoperceives it with calm detachment. The tragic sight of a drownedwoman floating down a stream would ordinarily arouse horror, fear, orpity in the observer. But if one becomes an indifferent bystander andsees it as a moment in a play, a painting, or a poem, then even deathitself is transformed into an experience of aesthetic delight, a perfectsubject for literature and art. Through insertion of psychic distance,the tragic drowning of a young woman can be aesthetically recreatedinto a work of art so as to become a theatrical scene from a drama byShakespeare, a painting by Millais, or a poem by Swinburne. By maxi-mum distancing, one sees death itself as a “nonhuman” work of artpurged of all human emotions like pity, sorrow, or sadness. Thus theOphelia motif at once raises questions about overdistancing to thepoint of dehumanization. This issue is clarified by another referenceto the Ophelia motif in one of the major works of British aestheti-cism: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Sòseki was thoroughlyfamiliar with the writings of Wilde and even refers to them at theoutset of chapter twelve of Grass Pillow (1972:126). We have alreadyseen how the conflict between sympathy versus detachment in aes-thetic experience is a fundamental motif of Wilde’s novel. When theShakespearean actress Sibyl Vane commits suicide, Dorian remainsindifferent and explains that her death can be transformed into an actof great beauty if observed with detachment as a moment in one ofShakespeare’s tragic dramas. Referring to the suicide of Ophelia inHamlet, he asserts: “Mourn for Ophelia if you like. . . . But don’t wasteyour tears over Sibyl Vane” (1985:116). Those listening to Dorian areshocked by his lack of “pity” (p. 122). In this way, the Ophelia motifreflects a fundamental theme in the literature of aestheticism bothEast and West: the dialectical tension between psychic distance andhuman sympathy in the aesthetic attitude of an artist. In the case ofSòseki’s Grass Pillow, Ophelia drowning comes to designate the fun-damental conflict between the artistic detachment from human emo-tions represented by hininjò versus the emotional sympathy of aware.

If one traces this “detachment versus sympathy” theme back to itssource in the Western novel, it must be Walter Pater. As we noted


earlier, it was Pater’s novel Marius the Epicurean that became the proto-type for the portrait-of-the-artist novel in British aestheticism. Whileat the outset of this work Marius adopts the philosophy of aestheti-cism (Cyrenaicism) as a Stoic religion of beauty, in a later chaptertitled “Second Thoughts” he undergoes a dramatic reversal andnow says that aestheticism is a philosophy of youth: narrow, one-sided,fanatical, limited to one aspect of experience—the beauty of life (1985:181). Through preoccupation with the aesthetic, the imaginative, thebeautiful side of things, they “sacrifice of a thousand possible sympa-thies, of things only to be enjoyed through sympathy, from whichthey detached themselves” (p. 185). The major insight of the novel isthat the philosophy of aestheticism based on artistic detachment mustbe enlarged to include moral sympathy: “It defined not so much achange of practice, as of sympathy—a new departure, an expansion, ofsympathy” (p. 188). Thus in Marius the Epicurean we find the Westernarchetypal pattern underlying Sòseki’s haiku-novel with its funda-mental conflict of aware versus hininjò.

Sòseki’s effort to integrate compassion and detachment within aunified act of psychic integration, realized by the aesthetic attitude ofhis artist-hero, parallels the ideal of a disinterested observer presentedby Henry James in his fiction, essays, and letters. And as is clearlydemonstrated by his collected works, Sòseki was very familiar withthe writings of Henry James. James’ ideal aesthetic attitude is perhapsbest represented by Lambert Strether in The Ambassadors, who is de-scribed as having “a double consciousness. . . . There was detachmentin his zeal and curiosity in his indifference” (1907–1917:XXI, 5). Wehave seen, too, how in Ivory Towers and Sacred Founts (1964), MauriceBeebe uses the titles from two of James’ novels as archetypal ideals ofthe artist-hero: the Ivory Tower symbolizing detachment, disinterest-edness, and distance; the Sacred Fount symbolizing participation,sympathy, and involvement. As Beebe (pp. 197–231) points out inhis chapter on “Henry James: The Ideal of Detachment,” both the IvoryTower and the Sacred Fount are combined in James’ twofold aestheticideal of an artist-hero with a double consciousness of disinterestedcuriosity or detached engagement. Furthermore, as James explains inone of his famous letters, an attitude of detachment adopted by anartist of genius results in transmutation of ordinary life into momentsof revelation by alchemical imagination: “There is . . . no beautifulreport on the novelist’s or painter’s part unless a particular detach-ment has operated, unless the great stewpot or crucible of the imagi-nation, of the observant and recording and interpreting mind in


short, has intervened and played its part” (1920:II, 181–182). Fromthis it can be guessed that Sòseki’s artist-hero, like Henry James’ideal, represents a dual consciousness of artistic detachment and moralsympathy—or, as it were, the disinterested contemplation of the IvoryTower and the emotional involvement of the Sacred Fount.

Just as Natsume Sòseki is regarded as the foremost novelist ofmodern Japanese literature, so James Joyce is considered to be themaster of modern English literature. Although at the time Grass Pillowwas published in 1906 Sòseki was familiar with such masterworks ofBritish aestheticism as Pater’s Marius the Epicurean, Wilde’s Portrait ofDorian Gray, and James’ Roderick Hudson, Joyce’s Portrait of the Artistas a Young Man had not yet been published. Yet insofar as both novelsincorporated the tradition of British aesthetics in similar ways, it ismost illuminating to consider them in juxtaposition. Grass Pillow byNatsume Sòseki and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by JamesJoyce are both classic portrait-of-the-artist novels that embody theirown aesthetic, religious, and cultural heritage. Both novels describethe process of becoming a creative artist through progressive detach-ment from life and meanwhile formulate their own aesthetic theorieswherein beauty is a function of detachment.

Sòseki’s artist-hero develops the profound atmospheric beauty ofyûgen as a function of hininjò or “detachment from human emotions”—thereby reappropriating the tradition of Japanese Buddhist literaryarts including Shunzei’s waka poetics, for which a vision of yûgen re-quires the “tranquility and insight” of shikan meditation, and the nòdrama of Zeami wherein the aesthetic experience of yûgen requires the“detached perception” of riken no ken. Joyce’s protagonist StephenDedalus, by contrast, develops an aesthetics based on the Catholicdoctrine of Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, Part I, Question 39,Article 8), wherein beauty is described as having three elements:wholeness (integritas), harmony (consonantia), and radiance (claritas)(1981:212). The “radiance” in the disclosure of its “whatness” (quid-ditas) (p. 213), which in Joyce’s Stephen Hero is also called an “epiphany”(p. 288). Moreover, the mental attitude whereby an object achieves itsepiphany of beauty is a “luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure” (p.213). Stephen asserts: “The feelings excited by improper art arekinetic, desire or loathing. Desire urges us to possess, to go to some-thing; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. . . . Theesthetic emotion (I use the general term) is therefore static. The mindis arrested and raised above desire and loathing” (p. 205).

Hence just as Sòseki distinguishes the vulgar attitude of ninjò


(human feeling of sympathy and antipathy) from the aesthetic atti-tude of an artist as hininjò (detachment from human feeling of sym-pathy and antipathy), Joyce’s theory distinguishes the attitude of kinesis(based on feelings of desire and loathing) from the aesthetic attitudeof stasis wherein the mind is elevated beyond all feelings of desire andloathing. While for Sòseki the artistic detachment of hininjò results ina holistic vision of the beauty of yûgen as an epiphany of hiddendepths, for Joyce the “luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure”culminates in a perception of beauty as the wholeness, harmony, andradiance whereby an object achieves its epiphany. Whereas Sòseki’sprotagonist seeks Zen satori by transforming everyday life into art,Joyce’s protagonist abandons his ambition to become a Jesuit and electsinstead to become “a priest of eternal imagination, transmuting thedaily bread of experience into the radiant body of everliving life” (p.121). The painter of Sòseki’s novel induces myriad satori-like epipha-nies as he transfigures the heroine into poetic images via the insertionof distance. In his new vocation as artist-priest, Stephen Dedalusbeholds his first epiphany when through detachment and imaginationa girl is transmuted as if by magic into an angelic figure (p. 171).Both protagonists are thus artist-priests of imagination whose goal isaesthetic recreation of life into art through transformation by distance.

Both Sòseki and Joyce, it must be noted, shift away from the aes-thetic to the social-psychological dimensions of human existence intheir subsequent writings. Wayne Booth (1981:464) points out thatA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was not recognized by its firstreaders as an ironic work. It was only after the appearance of Ulysses in1922, where Stephen Dedalus is depicted as the fallen Icarus with hiswings clipped, that readers came to understand its critical, satiric, andironic character. In James Joyce: The Citizen and the Artist (1977:345),C. H. Peake demonstrates how it is only upon reading Joyce’s Ulyssesas a sequel volume to Portrait that it becomes clear how the detach-ment of Stephen’s narrow aestheticism leads to moral bankruptcy unlessit is accompanied by human sympathy. The transition from Portrait toUlysses thus reveals that the Artist must also become a Citizen in theprocess of self-realization through achievement of psychic wholenessby union of opposites. In the vocabulary of Maurice Beebe (1964), itis this shift from Portrait to Ulysses that reconciles the Divided Self ofthe artist through unification of the Ivory Tower representing “detach-ment from life” and the Sacred Fount representing “participation inlife.”

In a letter to Suzuki Miekichi dated 26 October 1906, Sòseki’s


critical attitude toward the narrow aestheticism of his artist-hero isstated explicitly: “To live aesthetically, that is, to live poetically, maybe a part of life but I still think it is a trivial part. It is therefore nogood to be like the hero of Grass Pillow” (1925:XIV, 429). An internalcritique of aestheticism is already implicit in the overall narrativestructure of Sòseki’s haiku-novel insofar as it ends with a realizationthat art requires sympathy (aware) as well as detachment from humanemotions (hininjò). But for Sòseki, as for Joyce, the critical and ironiccontent of his early novel on aestheticism is disclosed by his laterfiction, especially in retrospect. Grass Pillow is Sòseki’s only work focus-ing on the Japanese sense of beauty. In later works Sòseki is best knownfor his detailed psychological depictions of neurotic characters andtheir complex interpersonal relationships as in Sore kara (And Then,1909), Mon (The Gate, 1910), Kokoro (Heart, 1912), and Meian (Lightand Darkness, 1916). In his article “The Concept of Nature in theWorks of Natsume Sòseki,” V. H. Viglielmo (1975) points out that incontrast to the narrow aestheticism of Sòseki’s haiku-novel Grass Pillow,which focuses almost exclusively on the beauty of nature, in his finalwork, Meian, he returns to the social world of human nature. Viglielmoconcludes that in Meian “Sòseki has rediscovered the sublime world ofKusamakura [Grass Pillow] in the unlikeliest of places, the true natureof man, from whom he had fled with such aversion a decade earlier”(1975:153).

Hence like the transition from Portrait to Ulysses in the writings ofJames Joyce, the transition from Kusamakura to Meian in NatsumeSòseki’s fiction represents a parallel shift from the aesthetic to the socialdimensions of human experience—thereby showing that beauty re-quires not only artistic detachment but also moral sympathy, that theArtist must also become a Citizen, and that the calm Apollonian atti-tude of disinterested contemplation must be supplemented by theemotional Dionysian attitude of intoxicated rapture. Psychic distancefrom life, as symbolized by the Ivory Tower, must be paired with fullparticipation in life as symbolized by the Sacred Fount.

Glos sary

akirame (= teinen): resignation ˙fl

aware: pathos; sad beauty £Í

aware: compassion ˜Í

bigaku: aesthetics ¸w

bitai: eroticism Z‘

bokansha: onlooker; bystander Tœ“

chanoyu: the tea ceremony ÉÃí

datsuzoku: detachment E≠

do: the way (Ch. tao) π

fuga: windblown elegance óÎ

furyu: windblown elegance ó¨

geido: the tao of art |π

hininjo: detachment from human feeling; nonhuman ÒlÓ

hishiryo: without-thinking Òv?

iki: chic à

ikuji: pride; valor ”Cn

ku: emptiness; voidness; openness Û

ma: negative space ‘

miyabi: courtliness; gracefulness Î

mu: nothingness ≥

muga: no-self; non-ego; selflessness; ecstasy ≥‰

mukanshin: disinterested ≥÷S

281

mukanshin-sei: disinterestedness ≥÷S´

mushin: no-mind; empty mind; non-ego; the unconscious ≥S

mushujaku: detachment ≥∑Ö

ridatsu: detachment £E

riken no ken: seeing of detached perception £©Ã©

sabi: impersonal loneliness ‚

sado: the tao of tea Éπ

shibumi: subdued elegance; astringency; understatement a›

shikan: tranquility and contemplation ~œ

shikanteki biishiki: shikan aesthetic consciousness ~œI¸”Ø

shiori: subdued beauty fiË

sotaiteki mu: relative (negative) nothingness äŒI≥

teinen: detached resignation ˙O

wabi: rustic beauty Ã—

wu-wei: not-doing; noninterference; letting-be ≥◊

yojo: overtones of feeling ]Ó

yugen: beauty of shadows and darkness or mystery and depth H∫

zettai mu: absolute (positive) nothingness ‚Œ≥

282 — Glos sary

283

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Bullough, Edward, 7, 9, 10, 12,15, 24, 29, 41, 50–53, 55,57, 62, 76, 77, 88–91, 94,95, 174, 178, 182, 250, 264–268

Burke, Edmund, 27, 50, 130Buson, Yosa, 243–247

Carlson, Allen, 69, 96–98, 245Cassirer, Ernst, 88Castaneda, Carlos, 187Chaudhary, Angraj, 15Chekhov, Anton 221Chih-i,, 107, 118Chikamatsu, 12Chòmei, Kamo, 20, 103, 117, 118,

173, 187Chuang-tzu, 17, 150Clark, Kenneth, 271Confucious, 59Conrad, Joseph, 200Croce, B., 84

Dale, Peter, 22, 144, 167, 168d’Aurevilly, Barbey, 22, 123, 167,

168, 201Daushyu Yekai, 145Derrida, J., 97Dewey, John, 10, 65, 69, 78–88, 92,

93, 188Dickie, George, 69, 94–96Dilworth, D., 218, 238

292 — Index of Names

Dògen, 20, 105, 109–111, 144, 173, 182, 184, 187, 191–195

Doi Takeo, 164–166, 238

Eckhart, Meister, 121, 127, 195Endò Shûsaku, 234

Fichte, J. G., 40Flaubert, Gustave, 7, 11, 201Foucault, M., 97Freud, S., 88Fry, Roger, 91

Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 49Goenka, S. N., 105Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 7, 9,

11, 12, 23, 30, 40, 45, 129, 132, 182, 215, 216, 225, 251

Hampshire, Stuart, 7, 84Hartmann, N., 216, 227–229Hasegawa Izumi, 215, 217, 218, 222,

223Hegel, G. W. F., 44, 84Heidegger, M., 7, 9, 12, 22, 31,

45–49, 71–74, 120, 132, 157, 158, 160, 161, 167, 171,174, 182, 185, 186, 192, 195,196

Heine, Steven, 109, 116Herrigel, Eugen, 157Hisamatsu Sen’ichi, 158Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, 21, 22, 121–

125, 128, 135–140, 142, 143, 154, 155, 159, 163, 173, 183, 187, 196, 229

Hobbes, Thomas, 29Humboldt, W., 40Hutcheson Francis, 27

Ihde, Don, 46, 47, 176, 177, 181, 186, 187

Ingarden, Roman, 7, 55–58, 189, 190

Ippen, 20Izutsu Toshihiko, 99, 247

James, Henry, 7, 11, 12, 23, 201, 202, 205–208, 212, 234, 239, 272, 277, 278

James, William, 10, 62, 64, 85, 136Joyce, James, 7, 11, 12, 23, 182, 184,

188, 199, 202, 209–213, 234, 239, 242, 272, 278–280

Jung, C. G., 88

Kant, I., 1–4, 6–12, 21–23, 30–42, 44–46, 49–51, 56–72, 81, 84, 85, 88, 92, 114, 117, 119, 120, 122, 123, 128–131, 134, 135, 137, 138, 154–156, 165, 167, 170, 174, 176–180, 182, 196, 199–205, 209–213, 215, 219, 229, 249, 250, 264, 273

Kapleau, Philip, 143Karatani Kòjin, 97, 244–246, 249Kasulis, T. P., 191–193Kawabata Yasunari, 23, 103, 219, 234Keats,, 273–274Kenkò, 118Kerouac, Jack, 143Konishi Jin’ichi, 107Korsmeyer, Carolyn, 69, 75–78Kuki Shûzò, 22–24, 121–123, 125,

128, 156–169, 183, 194, 196

LaFleur, William R., 107, 247, 259Langer, Susanne K., 7, 10–12, 69,

88–94, 188Lao-tzu, 150, 170, 182Laycock, S. W., 184Lewis, C. I., 7, 10, 64–67, 85–86,

88, 92Light, Stephen, 157

Mainlaender, Philipp, 228Marra, Michele, 117–120Marshall, H. R., 130, 131

Index of Names — 293

Masaoka Shiki, 97, 243, 245, 246Mathur, Dineth, 15McClellan, Edwin, 238Mead, G. H., 10, 85Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 185Millais, John, 274–276Misaki Gisen, 19, 104, 106, 109, 111,

117, 190, 191, 194Mishima Yukio, 23, 103, 219, 232–

234, 248, 249Miyoshi Masao, 273, 274 Moore, G. E., 7, 60, 84Mori Ògai. See Ògai, MoriMoritz, Karl Philipp, 7, 31–34, 45,

134Motoori Norinaga, 3, 119, 165, 257–

259, 270Mumon, 192Münsterberg, Hugo, 7, 10, 12, 62–

64, 67, 101, 182, 250Murasaki Shikibu, 257, 258Musò, 20

Nakae Chomin, 124Natsume Sòseki. See Sòseki, NatsumeNeville, Robert C., 173Nietzsche, F., 9, 30, 45, 46, 49, 69–

73, 79, 85, 216, 219–222, 228, 232, 233, 237

Nishi Amane, 124, 216Nishi Minoru, 113Nishida Kitarò, 21, 99, 121–124,

127–136, 138, 140, 142, 143, 152, 154, 155, 157, 161, 165, 183, 194–196, 214, 219

Nishitani Keiji, 21, 32, 121, 125–127, 143, 195–196

Northrop, F. S. C., 87Nose Asagi, 113

Òe Kenzaburo, 234Ògai, Mori, 23, 122, 124, 183, 214–

240, 252Ogden, C. K., 10, 58, 60, 77

Ònishi Yoshinori, 108, 124Ortega y Gasset, J., 7, 10, 12, 24,

53–54, 62, 73, 74, 182, 250,267–271

Ozaki Yoshie, 217, 224Ozu Yasujirò, 238, 239

Pater, Walter, 7, 11, 23, 200, 201, 207, 212, 272, 276, 277, 278

Peake, C. H., 213Peirce, C. S., 10, 65, 85Pepper, S. C., 10, 65, 85, 92, 188Pilgrim, Richard B., 112, 113, 141,

153Pirsig, Robert M., 87, 88Plato, 40Polanyi, Michael, 7, 10, 12, 66–68,

100, 101, 182Prall, David W., 7, 10, 69, 86, 88, 92Proust, M., 200Pyrrho, 170, 221

Rader, Melvin, 53, 96, 180, 264, 271Richards, I. A., 7, 10, 12, 58–60, 68,

77, 101, 182Rickert, Heinrich, 157Rikkyû, 183, 243Rimer, J. T., 23, 215, 218, 220, 222,

225, 237Rorty, Richard, 84Royce, Josiah, 62, 64Ruskin, J., 244Ryòkan, 110

Saichò, 108Saigyò, 107, 150, 243, 259Santayana, George, 7, 62, 64, 81Sartre, Jean-Paul, 157Saso, Michael, 109Saxena, Sushil Kumar, 94, 96Schiller, F., 7, 9, 30, 40–42, 45, 50,

58, 62, 90, 91, 219, 229Schopenhauer, Arthur, 7, 9, 12, 19,

30, 42–46, 49, 61, 62, 70–73, 91,

294 — Index of Names

95, 120, 132, 135, 174, 182, 216, 219, 220, 228

Schusterman, Richard, 84, 85Sextus Empiricus, 170, 221Shaftesbury, Lord, 7, 8, 27–32Shakespeare, W., 52, 251, 262, 263,

274–276Shaner, David E., 193Sherburne, Donald W., 93Shunzei, Fujiwara, 20, 103, 105, 107,

117, 152, 173, 182, 187, 243, 250, 278

Small, Ian, 199, 203Sòseki, Natsume, 23–25, 97, 103,

122, 173, 183, 184, 187, 214, 215, 219, 234, 240–280

Spinoza, B., 219Stolnitz, Jerome, 7, 8, 11, 27–31, 74,

95, 134, 174Starr, R., 232, 233Stone, Lynda, 73Strawson, Peter, 7, 60, 61, 84Suzuki, D. T., 17, 21, 22, 113, 121–

123, 125, 128, 134, 136, 138, 141–156, 183, 187, 196, 228, 237

Suzuki Miekichi, 279Swinburne, Algernon, 275, 276

Takeuchi Yoshinori, 125Takuan, 150, 151Tanabe Hajime, 125, 157Tanizaki Junichirò, 23, 103, 185,

219, 234, 248T’ao Yuan-ming, 247, 251Teika, Fujiwara, 20, 107, 117, 123,

187, 243, 258

Toshimitsu Hatsumi, 102Turney, Alan, 241, 267

Ueda Makoto, 112, 124, 218, 229, 246, 255, 269, 270

Ueda Shizuteru, 125, 127

Van Gogh, V., 74Viglielmo, V. H., 143, 280Vivas, Eliseo, 54, 55, 66, 95, 174,

182

Wang Kuo-wei, 16, 18, 135, 182Watsuji Tetsurò, 125, 194Watts, Alan, 143Whitehead, A. N., 10, 11, 65, 66, 85,

88, 92–94Wilde, Oscar, 7, 11, 23, 200–202,

208, 209, 212, 272–274, 278Wittgenstein, L., 180Wolfe, Thomas, 199Wolff, J., 69, 73–75Wood, James, 10, 58, 60, 77Woodmansee, Martha, 31–33Wordsworth, H. L., 7, 12, 65, 99,

174, 182, 199

Yasuda, K., 188–190Yeats, William Butler, 212Yusa Michiko, 114–116, 142, 153,

154

Zeami, 20, 21, 103, 105, 110–117, 142, 152–154, 182, 187, 243, 250, 254, 274, 278

Zenchiku, 103, 111, 112

295

Abou t t h e Au th o r

Steve Odin is professor of philosophy at the University of Hawai‘i atMânoa, where he teaches Japanese and comparative philosophy. Hehas spent five years studying in Japan and one year in India. He is alsothe author of The Social Self in Zen and American Pragmatism (1986)and Process Metaphysics and Hua-yen Buddhism (1982).

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