Raji C. Steineck

Time in Old Japan: In Search of a Paradigm

Various attempts have been made to systematize fundamental patterns of temporal organization and to establish links between these patterns and natural and cultural evolution. This paper compares three pertinent theories of time in the light of evidence from Japanese cultural history: the hierarchical theory of time by J. T. Fraser, the fourfold paradigm of time imageries by Y. Maki, and the social learning theory of time by G. Dux. It demonstrates that the “canonical forms of time” established by these authors can be brought into meaningful conversation with each other and that they suggest helpful methodologies for the analysis of temporal perspectives in Japanese history. At the same time, comparative analysis reveals reasons for caution against simplified evolutionary accounts of cultural history. From very early on, Japanese literary sources evince an acute consciousness of conflicting temporalities. At the same time, there is no unified “Japanese concept of time”—neither trans-historically nor at any given period.

Chronographical Analysis: an Essay in Methodology

In this essay I discuss the various ways time can be inscribed in texts below the level of explicit propositions about time. I argue that a full chronographical analysis needs to account for the dimensions of the theoretical, the practical, and the aesthetic. Taking Kant’s table of categories as a guide to the fundamental functions of chronographic determination, I propose a methodology of analysis that goes beyond the aspect of quantitative measurement, and includes typological, thetic, and modal information about time. Numerous examples from various textual domains such as poetry, historiography, science, and law illustrate the wide applicability of the proposed analytical categories. The full matrix of dimensions and determinative functions can be used to describe the chronographic signature of a text, which depends as much on its communicative purpose as on the technologies of calculating and describing time available to its authors.

Time Subsumed or Time Sublated

Rezensierte Publikation : Harry D. Harootunian: Marx after Marx: History and time in the expansion of capitalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015, 312 pp., ISBN 978-0-231-17480-0

‘Religion’ and the Concept of the Buddha Way: Semantics of the Religious in Dōgen

Abstract In recent decades, the concept of religion, and specifically its application to non-Western historic cultural formations has come unter critical scrutiny. This paper proposes the study of semantic fields as a method to explore the self-understanding of historic formations of what, in modern parlance, counts as religion, and thus, as a testing strategy for the concept of religion that is employed in scholarly analysis. It uses the said method to analyse three works by the medieval Japanese Buddhist monk Dōgen (1200–1253), who came to be revered as founder of the still extant Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism. By putting his notion of the ‘Buddha Way’ (butsudō) into strong relief, it provides a basis for comparison with modern concepts of religion. The conclusion is that Dōgen’s ideas conform to a surprisingly large extent with modern ideas. This may be one reason for his popularity in modern times. But Dōgen should not be taken to represent the general world-view of medieval Japan. Further comparative analyses of other corpora remain necessary to gauge the applicability of ‘religion’ as a category for the analysis of medieval Japanese culture.

Appreciating Conflict: Lessons from J.T. Fraser’s Theory of Time

Abstract Conflict is both a creative force in the establishment and a necessary condition for the sustenance of all higher modes of being. This, in short, I find to be one of the most ground-breaking insights of J. T. Fraser’s theory of “Time as a Hierarchy of Creative Conflicts.” As a consequence of this insight, I argue that to understand, with Fraser, the constitutive and creative function of some kinds of conflict will help us to accept, and even embrace, conflict not merely as a perpetual fact, as suggested by Stuart Hampshire, but as a necessary condition that makes possible whatever is of specific value in human culture. I go on to propose to distinguish between accidental and constitutive conflicts, and show how assessing conflicts accordingly can help to better manage them and avoid some destructive paths of action. The paper closes with some reflections on the limitations of the insight and its application.