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Nature and HistoryMakoto Ozaki
*** There is no nature outside of history. Nature is nothing other than the negative aspect of historical actuality. Environment is the product of the reciprocal mediation of nature and the self considered as the agency of activity. Hence nature becomes actuality as the product of action and the content of history becomes actuality as the mutual unification of natural becoming and the production of the self. The world as the medium of a free subject can be integrated with historical actuality in terms of its subjectification as a whole. The aim of action is to realize eternity in history. Action is not merely opposed to nature, but also arises from the mediative conversion between the self and nature by way of their mutual identification. History is a shadow as well as a self-revelation of eternity. The realized eternity entails the actionless action in and through which the self returns to its original essence. *** Only by active mediation are
time and causality internally united, and the human act of producing something and natural
causality are mediated to each other. When the self works,
nature too works, and vice versa. In action, the self as the agency of
activity and nature as the object of activity are mutually
converted through negation, and in doing so, they become identical with each other.
Necessary causality without arbitrariness is freedom as the mediative aspect of action of
absolute conversion. The relation of causality and action is such that causal necessity in
nature is ultimately the same as freedom from the perspective of the self-awareness of
absolute freedom as an emancipated act. This is true with Spinoza, since for him, Natura
Naturata (God as effect) is identical with Natura Naturans (God as cause). Causality does
not exist before free action as if it came from outside. Natural causality is necessary
for the arising of human free action as the negative mediative aspect of it. In other
words, causality is what remains self-estranged after losing the self-affirmative
mediation of action. Therefore from the standpoint of concrete action, the temporal order
of before and after is the same as causality. The former is directly seen as a mere
distinction between the past and the future in terms of identity, and the latter is the
inseparable mediative unification of them which is seen as self-identical. Causality is
what is independently seen as the necessity which is negatively opposed to the acting
subject in such a way that the order of a producing act is negatively converted into the
order of natural becoming as a result of its abstraction from activity. Hence the
standpoint of causal arising is in nature, but the content of its order reflects the
subjective act of making. Causality does not arise by adding something external, but
rather it comes out of the abstraction and negation of action; the standpoint of nature is converted
into an independent existence from a negative
moment within and the order of the making act
is ascribed to it as causality. Here it is obvious that the concrete mediation comes forth
from the subjective conversion of Absolute
Nothingness, and it disappears from the phase
of the abstract and objective being. As a result, only natural causality can arise by and
in itself. In fact, however, the technical order of the act of making becomes the concrete
mediation of the causal order in nature. This is especially true in the case of art: art
is the typical exemplary of nature, and nature is rather a copy or imitation of art due to
its addition of more creation beyond nature. Indeed the very technique is the mediation of
natural becoming. Therefore the experimental act in natural recognition is significant in
that without the human act of making nature cannot disclose its own deep essence; nature
is unable to reveal its truth by itself. Nature is thus the negative moment of history.
Natural causality is an inner moment of
historical action. Causality arises in and through the mediation of history, but history
does not occur in causality. Causality can arise concretely only as being mediated by the
historical act as the negative moment of it. While natural phenomena, corresponding to
causality as independent of action and negating it, belong to the object as
anti-subjectively opposed to action, the relationship between natural phenomena and action
as such arises from the standpoint of the conversion of the producing act as a synthetic
unification of the mediation of them. Causality as relationship is what is negatively
abstracted in the direction of the identity of the objective substratum from the active
presence of Absolute Nothingness that is the converting unification of subject and object.
In short, we can say that in the judgement of causality the subject belongs to natural
substratum and the predicate pertains to the subjective action. Causality is that
subjectively active mediation in which the subjectivity is negated. The concept of
synthesis in epistemology is the principle of objectivity of recognition as the
unification through negative mediation in action of the conversion from subject to object,
and vice versa. The content of the producing act of the conversion-mediation results in
the concept of causality. While belonging to nature, causality has the principle of its
synthesis in the negative mediation of action, because nature as such is rather a negative
moment of subjective action. With the implication of the active mediation, in causality
activity and subjectivity are negated and converted into the anti-subjective nature. Technique is a return to the active
subject once more. It is, however, determined not by subjectivity itself, but in the
direction of negative moment as its medium, i.e., in the direction of nature. In technique
the active subject finds its natural determination to which it makes itself conform
negatively on the occasion of a producing act. Technique comes about when one sees action itself in
terms of the negativity of action. Here technique belongs to a subject and becomes
actuality only through the mediation of the subject. Technique in itself is still abstract
and remains possible as a negative determination of a subject. It is an abstract moment in
regard to the concreteness of ethics as historically constructive action. Conversely, the concrete actuality of
ethical action cannot neglect the recognition of natural causality as the negative mode or
mediative moment of it, and the negatively possible mediativeness of technique which is
determined by natural causality. Since the recognition of causality and technique belong
to the negative aspect of action and only when they are absolutely negated as well as
affirmed, does the actuality of action arise and its concretization does not occur by the
initiative of the abstract moment, but rather from the standpoint of Absolute Nothingness
in a way of conversion. The ethical content cannot
be determined by the technical recognition and their accumulations or associations. There
is the abyss of negation between ethics and
technique, and hence there cannot be a continuous transition between them. The antinomy
implied in science and technology leads to a self-negation of each, and only the
converting mediation of absolute negation as
affirmation can make them resume and resurrect. There the ethical action as the
manifesting presence of Absolute Nothingness stands by the position of absolute negation
of science and technology.From the perspective of active conversion, even such concepts as nature, causality and technique or technology are
further extended to the negative moments in general of historical ethical action. So,
historical nature, e.g., economics, is more concrete than material nature. Matter or
nature is nothing but the negative moment of the historical action as more abstractly non-temporal and non-historical. Action
transcends itself in the state of being negatively mediated by nature or matter, and
converts them into itself.This relation is parallel to that of the past and the future. The past corresponds to nature
or matter as the negative moment of the
present act. Matter and nature are past and endurable in
character, whereas the future is the aim of action and the creative object of hope as the manifesting presence of
eternity, that is, the future is active,
subjective and ethical in character. Were it abstracted from action and seen as a
continuous development of the past, the future would correspond to the objective and
historical development; causality and technique correspond to this, for they are seen as
abstracted from action which is essential in structure. That which endures from the past
into the future is the development which is abstracted from the mediation of action by the
causal change on the plane of the substrative identity of matter or nature. Technique, on
the other hand, represents the producing order which is to be further subjectified in the
direction of action, though limited but closer to action. They are seen to be mediated by
each other as the returning of eternity from the standpoint of the manifesting presence of
Absolute Nothingness in the present. If the past be seen as enduring into the future in
terms of the self-identical substratum, the past and the future would turn out to be
indistinguishable and co-existing, that is, they would lose temporality and become
contemporary existence. This is a spacialization of time. This is the reason why nature or
matter is substrative as abstracted from action, and its essential determination or
description lies in spaciality. History cannot arise without action in contrast to nature,
and action cannot arise without an individual person as a subject of action. *** The past is described as
having already existed and no longer existing, though enduring in memory and influential
in potency, while the future is described as having not yet existed. Here there is asymmetry between them,
and this entails the irreversibility of time from the past to the future. In other words,
the past is immediate, non-active and unmediated in character. Consciousness always arises
in the present, or the place where consciousness arises is the present, and the present is
the locus of action. Action starts from consciousness, transcends it in negation, and
returns to it. This is the reason that action is related to matter through a movement of
body. Matter is a negation of consciousness and a moment of negation of Absolute
Nothingness in which it is mediated to consciousness by action. Hence consciousness is the
self-awareness of this negative mediation, in which action is regarded as the manifesting
presence of Absolute Nothingness. The present, as the negative mediation of consciousness,
is the manifesting presence of eternity in which action arises in the form of the
coincidence of transcendence and immanence. Thus, eternal Abolute Nothingness becomes
manifest in action in the present mode of time. Time occurs as a return of the eternal
principle of Absolute Nothingness. The past as an immediately given being is opposed to
action, and in this sense it is outside and not mediated by action, whereas the future is
mediated by action. This difference engenders the one sided current, irreversibility of
time. Therefore in regard to both past memory and future hope, the repetition of the
present is an instant moment in which eternity touches time and transcendence is converted
into immanence. Here time arises as a return of eternity irreversibly. Eternity is only
indirectly exhibited as transcending time in that the past and the future are mutually
converted and become circular as an inner moment within the whole one direction of time.
Such a mediation occurs around each present
of action, and action is the ground of time. Eternity means the transcendent ground of
time, underlying the negative conversion of mediation, as Absolute Nothingness. The
endurance in the present of our spirit is a symbol of eternity. The present arises where
time crosses eternity. Eternity as Absolute Nothingness infinitely renews time at each
present.If time is the endurance of past memory, it signifies a projection of the
transcendent identity of eternity, to which time should go beyond, onto time. If time is
the anticipation of the future, it reflects an infinite renewal of eternity which should
return to time. Neither of them exhausts the full truth, but represents half of it. Both
of them should be mediated by one another in order for time to arise concretely. Thus the
centre of the arising of time lies in the active conversion of mediation between the past
and the future, whose transcendent ground is
nothing other than eternity as Absolute Nothingness. The
future is higher in dimension than the past, for the past is given as immediate being or
fact which is to be mediated by the coming future. The past is in the immediate and
unmediated mode of being as a given
fact. By contrast, the future contains negation within itself, and is potentially infinite
in content. As a result, the future, continuously becoming manifest and present in
actuality, mediates the returning movement of the eternal transcendent origin. The future
is not an immediate, finite being, but a mediating existence in which eternity as the
origin of all beings gets in touch with being in the direction of an infinite negation; it
is the moving point of eternity as creative advance in time, perpetually mediated by
subjective actions in succession. Here arises history.In contrast, there is some idea of
the eternal prototype of history, the primal history, which underlies actual history. The idea of primal history stems from Plato's eternal
Idea, and is applied to the eternal pre-existence of Jesus Christ by Karl Barth. To base
actual history on the primal history as the eternal archtype is apt to destroy the
historical character of history, i.e., the
temporality of history, due to its unilineral transcendent
eternity beyond the distinction of the modes of time. If eternity were the static place
which included the temporal changes within it and were indifferent in regard to time, then
there could be no irreversibility of time. On the contrary, eternity does not entail a
direct undifferentiation of time in terms of its contemporaneity or spacialization of
time. Eternity never exists in itself beyond time and space, but is rather involved in a
returning course of time as the resumption of the lost temporality in the higher
dimensions of the future through the mediation of the reversion and spacialization of
time. The fact that eternity is the ground or cause of time means that there is a moment
of space in time. What negatively synthesizes time and space is eternity. Eternity in the
transcendent realm comes down to the historical realm to prove itself as a returning
phenomenon in a way of self-negation. There is no eternity apart from such a self-negating
return to time. The present is the returning presence of eternity in time, whereby space
is converted into time and time becomes eternal. That the self acts, while the conversion
in mediation is being activated by the transcendent ground, is no less than action. Hence
the present, as a unification of the past and the future in the emergence of action, is
the returning manifestation or presence of eternity as a conversion of non-being of the
future into being. Only the future mediativeness of action in the infinite repetitions of
the present can explain the arising of history in relation to eternity. The active return
of eternity qua Absolute Nothingness is the principle of the historical development
oriented towards the future. With regard to the irreversibility of time, there is the difference between A.N. Whitehead and H. Tanabe. For
Whitehead, the irreversibility of time
is based on the accumulation of the past
entities which entail their objective immortality, despite
their perpetually subjective perishing, whereas for Tanabe the irreversibility of time arises from
the active mediation of the future
towards which eternity moves. *** The past is indirectly made
conscious of itself solely in the active mediation of the future in such a way that the
going towards eternity in the present action is at the same time the returning to the
future. That is, the present is made aware of
itself in the active structutre of the future. Eternity is made conscious of itself in accordance with the
future hope through conversion in repetition, and absolute negativity is made aware of
itself in the future-oriented structure of action. The past is a return of eternity in the
mediativeness of repentance and promise. Eternity cannot appear in consciousness without
mediation, but is believed through the mediation of the promise to already exist in the
past. Only in both promise and hope does faith
in eternity return to time in the direction of the past as well as the future. The promise
already existing requires to be proved in the active fulfilment of hope. The future hope
implies the past promise in faith. If the past is mediated by the future negation through
repentance and is unified through conversion with the future hope from the standpoint of
eternity, then the past becomes a promise which coincides with the future hope. Here is a
future return of faith and a temporal and moving extension of eternity. If hope is
cyclically related to the past in the negative mediation, then it demands that the
fulfilment of hope was promised in the past. Faith returns to hope towards the future,
while at the same time it must return to the promise towards the past as well. Rather,
faith returns to hope so as to be mediated by the past promise. Repentance is a return of
faith towards the past, and hope is the return of it towards the future. The former is
negative, and the latter affirmative. This shows a one way direction of time, asymmetry
between the negative past and the positive future. This is caused by the repetitive
present. Salvation or redemption as absolute conversion makes the negative conversion of
repentance arise, rather than repentance being a turning point of salvation. Eternity is
to be realized in history through action in such a way that while the self acts to
actualize its own eternal essence, the self is simultaneously made to act not by any
self-sustaining effort but by the transcendental power. This transcendental power refers
to absolute freedom as natural inactivity in the sense of Lao-zu, in which natural
necessity is no longer different from human
action. Such a state of action as inactive naturalness, i.e., actionless action, is what
eternity realizes itself as a consequence of the self-revelation of one's own original
nature. References Tanabe Hajime, Eternity,
History and Action, The Collected Works of Tanabe Hajime, Vol.7, Tokyo: 1963. Alfred North Whitehead, Process
and Reality, Corrected Edition, by D. Griffin & D. Sherburne, New York: The Free
Press 1978 This paper was originally
read at the International Conference on Time
and Value held at the Centre for the Study of Cultural Values, Lancaster University, U.K.,
April 10-13, 1997. The author also wishes to express many thanks for the travel grant from
the Japan International Cultural Exchange Foundation which allowed him to attend the Time
and Value Conference. |