西田幾多郎の純粋経験概念と実証主義の認識論

Abstract

The concept of pure experience appeared first in an 1898 article by Genyoku Kuwaki and not in Kitarō Nishida's An Inquiry into the Good (1911). In addition, this article introduced a criticism of positivist epistemology. Although the concept of pure experience used in the article and Nishida's concept of pure experience share many similarities, they are not identical. Unlike Mach and Avenarius, for Nishida, thought is one of the unifying acts of pure experience and so is part of pure experience. This view may be understood as a response to the criticism of positivist epistemology introduced by Kuwaki. His article states that to construct a coherent epistemology, one must rely on thought in addition to pure experience rather than be based solely on pure experience, as is the case in positivism. In contrast, An Inquiry into the Good is a work defending the position that pure experience alone is the source of knowledge by arguing that thought is also included in pure experience. Nishida inherited the positivist concept of pure experience, which was criticized while adding his own twist to withstand the criticism introduced by Kuwaki.