Antonio Florentino Neto
He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Freie Universität Berlin, a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the Federal University of São Carlos, and postdoctoral research experience at the Federal University of Uberlândia and the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Revista de Filosofia Modernos Contemporâneos at IFCH/UNICAMP, Academic Editor at PHI Publishing, and President of the Brazilian Nishida Society. He is a Full Collaborating Professor in the Social Sciences Doctoral Program—China/Brazil area—at UNICAMP, where he supervises doctoral theses on China. He is a member of the Brazil/China Study Group (DERI-UNICAMP). His research interests include Chinese Philosophy, Japanese Philosophy, Eastern Philosophy, Phenomenology, Comparative Philosophy, Heidegger and Eastern Thought, Reception of Eastern Thought in European Philosophy, Leibniz and Chinese Thought, the Influence of Eastern Thought on Western Philosophy, Philosophical Foundations of Confucianism, Taoism and (Zen) Buddhism, and the Epistemology of Sinology.
The Logic of Shoku-hi in Kitarō Nishida and its Relation to Chinese Huayan Buddhism
In 1938, Nishida delivered a series of lectures known as Problems of Japanese Culture. The analyses he developed during this period are essential for understanding the conception of logic that permeates his entire philosophy, although this logic only became explicit in his final text, The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview, completed in 1945, two months before his death. I refer here to the logic of shoku-hi, the foundation of some of the most important texts of Mahayana Buddhism and which undoubtedly constitutes the philosophical basis of Nishida. It was only in his final text that Nishida explicitly acknowledged the centrality of this logic to his philosophy. In turn, this logic can only be adequately understood from the central elements of Indian Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese Huayan Buddhism. By highlighting these affiliations, I also assume the thesis that Nishida's philosophy is fundamentally a Buddhist philosophy — and that only from these references is it possible to understand the logic underlying all of his work.
©2025 by The XI International Conference of Eastern Philosophy at Unicamp
Brazil-China Study Group