Paper short abstract:

This paper will trace the development of Chengguan's "fourfold dharma world" from the symbolism of Indra's net to Nishida Kitarō's concept of the "historical world" and Mutai Risaku's humanism. In a second step, this paper proposes an innovative theory of cosmopolitanism based on these ideas.

Paper long abstract:

The Mahāyāna Buddhist vision of Indra's net envisions a cosmos in which individuals are not only non-dualistically connected to Mahavairochana Buddha, but also to an infinite amount of other individuals. The Huayan philosopher Chengguan (738-839) expresses these vertical and horizontal dimensions of the human existence in his famous teaching of the "fourfold dharma world." Chengguan worked to clarify the relationship between self and the world as well as the connections among the various selves. What is interesting is that he expanded the notion of the non-dualistic relationship between self and cosmos, that was common to the Mahāyāna Buddhism of his time and introduced the notion of multiplicity into his system. This philosophical vision served not only Buddhist thinkers such as Dōgen (1200-1253) as the philosophical foundation of systems but also modern philosophers such as Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945) and Mutai Risaku (1890-1974) as the foundation of their political philosophies. Nishida was fascinated with the relationship between the oneness of the cosmos and the multiplicity of individuality and appropriated the Buddhist phrases "one-and-yet-many" to conceive of the "historical world." While Nishida's notion of the "historical world" remained woefully abstract, Mutai actually developed his teacher's paradigm into a philosophical humanism and, one could argue, a cosmopolitanism based on a modified version of Chengguan's fourfold dharma world. Mutai's social philosophy, while about 50 years old, strikes a surprisingly fresh and contemporary note in Nishida's analysis of the historical world, the moral self, and the role the constructed sense of national identity plays therein. This paper will trace the development of this concept from the symbolism of Indra's net to Mutai's humanism and, in a second step, propose a unique theory of cosmopolitanism based on these ideas. Using a non-essential metaphysics as envisioned by Chengguan and articulated by Nishida and Mutai, I will propose a new theory of identity formation and cosmopolitan ethics. At the heart of this philosophy lies a de-essentialist conception of the self who engages with the world and, most of all, a multiplicity of selves that not only have windows but stand in a continuous relationship with each other.