SOURCE: "The Problem of the Self in the Later Nishida and in Sartre," in Philosophy East & West, Vol. 44, No. 2, April, 1994, pp. 303-16.

In the following essay, Elwood discusses similarities between Nishida and Jean-Paul Sartre in their respective theories of theself.

I. Introduction

A curious little monograph titled Shuzo Kuki and Jean-Paul Sartre: Influence and Counter-Influence in the Early History of Existential Phenomenology was published, in 1987, for the Journal of the History of Philosophy.¹ In this monograph, Stephen Light reveals that in 1928 the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) had weekly discussions with the Japanese philosopher Kuki Shuzo (1888-1941). It seems that in 1976, a certain Professor Akio Sato discovered a notebook marked "Monsieur Sartre" while cataloging Kuki's papers. Apparently Kuki and the young Sartre engaged in conversations on the topic of modern French philosophy. Although it is not clear that Sartre exerted any special influence on Kuki, it is now...