SOURCE: "Comparative Dialectics: Nishida Kitaro's Logic of Place and Western Dialectical Thought," in Philosophy East & West, Vol. 41, No. 2, April, 1991, pp. 163-84.

In the following essay, Axtell explains Nishida's theory of the "unity of opposites," using the notion as grounds for a comparative analysis of Eastern and Western thought.

I. Introduction: Contrariety and Comparative Philosophy

An emerging theme of Nishida Kitaro's later works was expressed in the complex phrase "iettai mujunteki jikodoitsu, " variously translated by Schinzinger as "absolute contradictory self-identity," "the self-identity of absolute contradictories," or more simply as "oneness" or "unity" of opposites. The theory of contrariety or opposition that Nishida (1870-1945) worked out between 1927 and 1945 can be taken as a stimulus for East/West comparative thought. This is so because of the special significance of Nishida's thought, but also more generally because contrariety is itself a prime subject for comparative philosophy.

The eminent philosophical anthropologist Mircea Eliade...