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U. Edward McDougall
Department of Philosophy, Durham University
edward.mcdougall@gmail.com
The sacred or holy is central to Heidegger’s later writings, “The Thing” (TT) and
“Building Dwelling Thinking” (BDT) taking it as their focus. This aspect of his phi
losophy is often viewed as lacking in coherence1 or an attempt to return to Ancient
Greek religion.2 Heideggerian notions of the gods or the sacred have frequently been
dismissed or neglected, with even sympathetic commentators like Julian Young play
ing down their importance.
Heidegger’s later thought, however, represents one of the most radical attempts
to critically rethink divinity in Western thought, presenting the possibility of dialogue
with the non-Western notions of divinity. Focusing on the Shinto notion of divinity,3
in this essay I will compare the sense of the sacred found in Heidegger’s later writings
with the understanding of kami (gods) and the practice of the shrine, illustrating how
his criticism of the tradition of Western metaphysics provides an opportunity to re
consider Shinto as a religion. Along such lines, concerning East Asian tradition as a
whole, Nishitani Keiji, Heidegger’s contemporary, comments: “the tradition must be
rediscovered from the ultimate point where it is grasped in advance as the end (or
eschaton) of our Westernization and of Western Civilization itself.”4
Linking Shinto with Heidegger’s later religious thought may appear an unortho
dox reading. Although his personal interest in aspects of East Asian thought is already
well attested to,5 the present essay does not aim to continue this project of tracing
Heidegger’s sources, but to extend his dialogue with the East Asian World. Heidegger
himself presents the dialogue between East Asia and the West as incomplete, describ
ing it as “some steps along a course.” Heidegger never explicitly refers to Shinto in
any published writing. He may not have had direct awareness of Shinto, and herein
I will not imply otherwise. However, I will set up a dialogue between Heidegger’s
later religious thought and Shinto, focusing on important but often neglected aspects,
including the nature of the gods and the fourfold, which I will compare with the na
ture of the kami in Shinto and the presence of the sacred in the shrine. This approach
of continuing a dialogue with non-Western traditions of religion and philosophy is
consistent with Heidegger’s own claim that his thought was a preparation for “dia
logue with the East Asian World.”6 Through drawing out resonances between Shinto
and Heidegger, this essay will show that Shinto can provide an archetype for Hei
degger’s thought through a living religion rather than a set of speculations. Even if he
did not have any direct personal awareness of it, the religion strongly harmonizes
with principles in Heidegger’s later thought, providing a religious basis for a non-
nihilist, Heideggerian approach to modern life.7
Philosophy East & West Volume 66, Number 3 July 2016 883–902 883
© 2016 by University of Hawai‘i Press
I will begin by outlining the nature of Heidegger’s later philosophy of religion,
first with a look at the nature of the non-Platonic notion of the gods and the sacred,
followed by an outline of notions of dwelling and the fourfold put forward in Hei
degger’s essays, TT, BDT and Why Poets (WP). Subsequent to that I will consider the
significance of the kami in Shinto and how they parallel the role of the gods in
Heidegger’s later writings. In the last section I will compare the Shinto shrine to the
Heideggerian notion of gathering and the fourfold. From this I will show that Shinto
provides a model for the sense of the sacred that the Heideggerian project seeks
to preserve.
The fourfold8 of gods, mortals, earth, and sky referred to in Heidegger’s later writings
can appear abstruse because of Heidegger’s reference to the gods, a term that ap
pears incongruous, esoteric, and alien to a large part of mainstream modern Western
religious discourse.
This often obscured role of the gods is imperative to any understanding of the
fourfold, with gods and the absence of gods being central concerns of Heidegger in
this stage of his writings, as illustrated in his work “The Age of the World Picture,”
where the ‘loss of the gods’ (Entgötterung )9 is listed as one of the defining features of
modernity. He discusses further his concern with the gods in WP, TT, and BDT. How
ever, as noted, the notion of ‘gods’ in Heidegger is played down in commentaries.
Julian Young interprets ‘gods’ as equivalent to the ‘divine laws,’ or ‘heritage.’10 Such
a reading would present the gods in Heidegger as a poetic metaphor. However,
Heidegger rejected anthropocentric understandings of the gods based on historio
graphical or psychological interpretations of myth as symptomatic of the ‘flight of the
gods’ in the modern world.11 Views of religion that take a reductionist position, see
ing religiosity as part of a human need and the divine as merely projections of human
archetypes (meaning that the gods are reduced to embodiments of human virtues),
deny the possibility of encountering their true mystery. If the gods are merely arche
types of human values then people would understand exactly what the gods are,
because they are encountering an aspect of themselves.12 It is the mystery attached
to the ‘gods’ that for Heidegger gives them their significance as ‘holy,’ standing out
of the ordinary. To take his position seriously, therefore, it is necessary to move away
from the view of the gods as any kind of anthropic projection or poetic metaphor.
However, while Heidegger rejects the modernist view of the gods as projections
of human archetypes, he does not embrace any kind of transcendental view of the
divine as representing a high state of reality in the sense of Platonism or classical
Western theism. Central to the whole project of Heidegger’s later philosophy is a
rejection of Western Platonic metaphysics. All Platonic metaphysics for Heidegger
necessarily rests on a two-world doctrine,13 where one world is seen as definitively
real while the other is dismissed as merely apparent. This, for Heidegger, is the defin
ing feature of metaphysics, which represents a particular type of understanding of
This next section will look at practices preserving the sense of the sacred in Heideg
ger. To do this it will focus specifically on the short but significant essay TT, which
explores further the notion of the sacred as associated with gathering, previously re
ferred to in OWA,23 where particular great works of art make manifest an underlying
order of existence.24 In place of great works of art, TT considers the apparently every
day wine jug, which becomes the focal point for the sacred, that Heidegger associ
ates with gathering.25
Thus, TT can be interpreted as an attempt to think through the notion of sacred
ness within the everyday. Heidegger draws attention to the “nearness” of the wine jug
to show that it is something that can routinely be encountered within daily life and
might easily be overlooked. Heidegger challenges what he calls the “annihilation of
the thing,”26 meaning that modernity denies the sacred within the everyday because
the thing is reduced to another commodity in the flow of resources, presented as its
use or value, which would make the wine jug merely another consumer product. It
has the role of holding wine as a resource standing in reserve waiting to be con
sumed by people, who in turn become “human resources,” themselves standing in
reserve in the process of production and consumption.
What does it mean for Heidegger to recover this sense of the sacred within the
world, viewing “the thing” in a way that is open to its mystery, and non-technocratic
in that it does not view the wine jug in reductive terms? While Heidegger rejects the
completely functional use of an entity like the wine jug, at the same time he does not
wish to view the thing through disinterested (“present-at-hand”27) contemplation
along the lines of Schopenhauer’s understanding of aesthetic contemplation seeking
to be a “faithful mirror”28 detached from practice. Separating “the thing” from any
use, as might happen in a museum, will take away its significance. The thing be
comes the thing through festive involvement around it in which mortal humans par
ticipate, becoming part of the fourfold exemplified by the offering of libations to the
gods in which “the pouring jug occurs as the giving gift.”29 In this seemingly simple
Introduction to Shinto
The earliest references to Shinto as a distinct practice go back to the time of the writ
ing of the Kojiki, the earliest known text to be written in Japanese, which contains
reference to the mythical origins of certain Shinto practices, notably misogi,34 while
the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan) in the eighth century c.e. refers directly to
Shinto as a specific tradition, when it became necessary to distinguish Shinto as the
way of the gods (kami) from the recently introduced religion of Buddhism (the way of
the Buddhas).35 However, elements of the religion may originate more distantly in
Japan’s prehistory during the Yayoi period 300 b.c.e. to 300 c.e., with certain aspects
going back even further.
Historically, Shinto has encompassed a wide variety of different traditions. The
focus here will be on Folk Shinto, which may often be practiced in conjunction or
direct syncretism with other religions, notably Buddhism, while remaining distinct
from the sectarian doctrinal systems such as Tenrikyo, which are loosely based on
traditional Shinto and centralized State Shinto.36 Thus, unless otherwise stated, when
referring to Shinto the emphasis will be on Folk Shinto, a form far older than the
other forms, which is centered on the various localized practices associated with
different shrines rather than on any fixed doctrine or sacred text.37 The central con
cern of the remainder of this essay will be to concentrate on a sense of the sacred
conveyed through Shinto practices, first outlining the nature of the kami, then con
sidering the nature of the shrine.
In Folk Shinto, the presence of the kami is associated with particular places, generally
called jinja in Japanese, translated into English as “shrine,” although there are more
Shrines themselves cannot be considered without some relation to the natural beauty
which traditionally has surrounded them. Shrine worship is closely associated with a
keen sense of the beautiful — a mystic sense of nature.66
Conclusion
It is thus possible to see how Folk Shinto ties in with the philosophical project of the
later Heidegger, providing a basis for “openness to mystery,”74 seen as fundamental
to a way of living that is an alternative to Western modernity with its tendency to view
the earth in technocratic terms as “ordered resources standing in reserve.” This
“openness to the sacred” in Shinto is based on an immanent yet ineffable sense of
the presence of the kami that is cultivated through the practices associated with the
shrine. These aspects of Shinto directly parallel a non-Platonic understanding of the
gods and the practice of dwelling in the later Heidegger’s religious philosophy,
breaking with a large part of prior Western philosophy of religion. Shinto can thereby
provide a paradigm for Heidegger’s religious thought as a practical way of life that
Notes
1 – This view, put forward by Herman Philipse, asserts that Heidegger’s philosophy
is a failed religion because it has not set out a single fixed creed (Philipse 1998,
p. 301).
2 – This view is advanced by John Caputo, who claims that the entire religious
project of the later Heidegger can be understood as an effort to revert to a puri
fied version of Ancient Greek religion without later Judeo-Christian develop
ments (Caputo 1993, p. 184).
3 – Elements of this notion of divinity may also be found within other Asiatic poly
theistic traditions, such as the native religion of the Ryukyu Islands, Korean
Shamanism, or Balinese folk religion, which may also resonate with Heideg
ger’s thought. However, these traditions may significantly differ from Shinto,
and a full discussion of Heidegger’s thought in relation to these customs goes
beyond the scope of this essay, but would be a worthwhile topic for further
research. What makes Shinto stand out from these other traditions is that it
continues to be practiced within a high-tech society, whereas other religions
with such an understanding of divinity tend to be associated either with less
industrialized societies or, as in the case of Korean Shamanism, have severely
declined with modernization. Shinto thus ties with the central project of
Heidegger’s later thought of responding to technology by preserving non-
technocratic modes of existence. This is arguably the central motivation in
Heidegger’s more general interest in Japan, which Heidegger himself expresses
in “A Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer” (Heidegger
1971b).
4 – Nishitani 1990, p. 179.
References
Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall. 2003. Dao De Jing: “Making This Life Significant”:
A Philosophical Translation. “Historical Introduction,” pp. 1–10. New York: Bal
lantine Books.
Boyd, James W., and Ron G. Williams. 2005. “Japanese Shinto: an Interpretation of a
Priestly Perspective.” Philosophy East and West 55, no. 1 ( January): pp. 33–63.
Caputo, John D. 1993. Demythologizing Heidegger. Bloomington and Indianapolis:
Indiana University Press.
Chamberlain, Basil Hall, trans. 1982. A Translation of the “Ko-ji-ki,” or “Records of
Ancient Matters.” [Attributed to Ō no Yasumaro.] Boston: Tuttle, 1982. Originally
published in 1919.
Crowe, Benjamin D. 2008. Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Religion: Realism and
Cultural Criticism. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Confucian Role Ethics and Relational Autonomy in the Mengzi John Ramsey 903
Whether role-ethics interpretations of early Confucianism possess the resources
to identify and redress gender inequality and oppression is examined here.
Argued for is a conception of Confucian autonomy, grounded in Mengzi’s
remarks about zhi 智 (wisdom), that is a substantive account of autonomy
competency: substantive because renyi 仁義 guide junzi 君子 in determining
right and wrong; a competency because it emphasizes a repertoire of skills
and capabilities that include duan reactions, reflection, extension, and self-
realization through renyi. Finally, it is explained how zhi autonomy helps the
role ethicist address gender oppression.