Play
not the opposite of seriousness, but a disciplined freedom in which thought can move.
Yuko Ishihara · 石原 悠子
Playing with reality.
Japanese philosophy, phenomenology, and the practice of attention.
Yuko Ishihara is a philosopher and Associate Professor at Ritsumeikan University. Her work moves between Kyoto School philosophy, Zen Buddhism, phenomenology, epoché, and play as a serious way of opening experience.
a note
Philosophy here is less a system than a way of attending: a pause, a crossing, a small experiment with how reality shows itself.
The work gathers Japanese philosophy, classical phenomenology, Zen Buddhism, intercultural dialogue, and play.
Epoché
a pause in judgment that lets experience appear differently.
Intercultural phenomenology
a movement between worlds without reducing one tradition to another.
Kyoto School philosophy
Nishida, Nishitani, Ueda, and the transformation of subject-object metaphysics.
book
Intercultural Phenomenology: Playing with Reality
With Steven A. Tainer. Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. A practice-oriented introduction to phenomenology, Japanese philosophy, Zen Buddhism, epoché, Nishida, Gadamer, and Bashō.
writings
2024
Intercultural Phenomenology: Playing with Reality
Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies
2022
Different Ways of Attending to Experience: Formalizing the Phenomenological Epoché to Translate Between Science and Philosophy
In Access and Mediation: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Attention, De Gruyter Saur, pp. 135-160
2020
Heidegger and Nishida's Transformations of Transcendental Reflection
Tetsugaku Companion to Phenomenology and Japanese Philosophy, Springer, pp. 77-94
conversations
July 26, 2023
Nishida Kitarō's theory of basho
video · Qualia Structure Grant meeting
Public recording
Beyond Infinite Reflection: Nishida's Mathematical Models of Self-Consciousness
video · Mathematical Consciousness Science
June 18, 2024
From Intentionality to Basho
video · Qstr Summer School
teaching
Liberal arts as serious play: intellectual risk, openness, imagination, and movement between cultures.