人間の現在 --哲学的省察-- (承前,四)

Abstract

This is the fourth part of a series of studies on the philosophical meditation on the meaning of human beings in the present situation of the world. In the preceding chapters we examined the essential problems of man in the present age and characterized our time as time of actualized nihilism which Friedrich Nietzsche had prophesied one hundred years ago. In this section we argue that nihilism is the loss of the place of heart which should be the primary ground and the ultimate aim of human life. Nietsche named this event "the death of God". That God is dead means that all things including men themselves are dead, that all things have lost the meaning of their being. The development of science and technology and its results are then, from this viewpoint, nothing but retreat from the problem of nihilism, i.e. escape from nothingness at the bottom of our existence. In the present situation of the world, we should newly ask the question "What is human being?". The way of traditional anthropology, such as natural or cultural as well as philosophical anthropology, is not suitable in the present situation.