Ontology of Production: Three Essays - Paperback

by William Haver (Translator), Nishida Kitaro (Author)

Ontology of Production presents three essays by the influential Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945), translated for the first time into English by William Haver. While previous translations of his writings have framed Nishida within Asian or Oriental philosophical traditions, Haver's introduction and approach to the texts rightly situate the work within Nishida's own commitment to Western philosophy. In particular, Haver focuses on Nishida's sustained and rigorous engagement with Marx's conception of production.

Agreeing with Marx that ontology is production and production is ontology, Nishida in these three essays--"Expressive Activity" (1925), "The Standpoint of Active Intuition" (1935), and "Human Being" (1938)--addresses sense and reason, language and thought, intuition and appropriation, ultimately arguing that in this concept of production, ideality and materiality are neither mutually exclusive nor oppositional but, rather, coimmanent. Nishida's forceful articulation of the radical nature of Marx's theory of production is, Haver contends, particularly timely in today's speculation-driven global economy. Nishida's reading of Marx, which points to the inseparability of immaterial intellectual labor and material manual labor, provokes a reconsideration of Marxism's utility for making sense of--and resisting--the logic of contemporary capitalism.

Author Biography

Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945), considered the founder of the Kyoto School of Japanese philosophy, was Professor of Philosophy at Kyoto University. His many books include An Inquiry into the Good; Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness; and Fundamental Problems of Philosophy. William Haver is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Binghamton University. He is the author of The Body of This Death: Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS.

William Haver is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Binghamton University. He is the author of The Body of This Death: Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS.