Problems of Time and History in the Philosophy of Tanabe Hajime

Karelova Lyubov' Borisovna ORCID: 0000-0001-8207-801X PhD in Philosophy Senior Scientific Associate, Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences 109240, Russia, Moskva oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Goncharnaya, 12 str1. lbkarelova@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction (Short creative biography of Tanabe Hajime)

Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962) was a younger colleague and successor of the founder of the Kyoto School, Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), and at the same time his implacable critic. In 1928, he succeeded Nishida Kitaro as professor of the Department of Philosophy at Kyoto University and held it until 1945, having educated 4 graduates of students.

Tanabe initially studied mathematics at the University of Tokyo, but then became interested in philosophy. His first works on Lips' theoretical judgments and criticism appeared in 1910. In 1918, he defended his dissertation on the philosophy of mathematics at Kyoto University and became in fact Japan's first philosopher of science. In 1919, he was invited by Nishida to Kyoto University as an assistant professor. In 1922-24 . Tanabe is on an internship in Germany at the direction of the Ministry of Education of Japan. He first worked under the guidance of Neo-Kantian professor Alois Riehl in Berlin, then under the guidance of Husserl in Freiburg. At the same time, he meets the young Heidegger and takes private lessons in German philosophy from him. In 1925, he published his first book, Studies in the Philosophy of Mathematics (Suri Tetsugaku kenkyu). The subject of Tanabe's special interest in the early period was the problems of infinite duration, sequences of natural numbers, infinitesimal numbers, etc. These studies largely determined the further direction of Tanabe's philosophy. According to Makoto Ozaki, one of the leading Japanese researchers and biographers of Tanabe, "the central idea of his philosophy was the idea of the infinite duration of reality, which is realized through the inner duality inherent in human activity" ^{[1, p. 4]}. One of the mathematical theories that influenced the formation of his thought, including the concept of time, was Dedekind's theory of the section. The idea of duration, a sequence that is interrupted by a section dividing it into two parts and at the same time connecting them, influenced Tanabe's perception of time and reality. Then, like Nishida Kitaro, he devoted many years to the study of Hegel's philosophy. Tanabe's book specifically dedicated to Hegel's philosophy is "Hegel's Philosophy and Dialectics" ("Hegeru tetsugaku to bensho") (1932). From about this time on, he made the "dialectic of absolute mediation" his main method and began to criticize Nishida Kitaro for his static view of the world. And one of his most important concepts, the logic of species, was formulated in a number of journal articles from 1934-1937, largely written under the influence of Hegel. Among them are "The Logic of Social Existence" ("Shakai sonzai no ronri") (1934), "The Logic of Species and the scheme of the World" ("Shu no ronri to sekai zusiki"), "Explanation of the meaning of the logic of species" ("Shu no ronri no imi-o akiraka-ni su") (1937) and others. They were subsequently published as a separate book. By analogy with the classical definition in formal logic, where the category of species acted as a middle term in relation to the genus, in Tanabe, the species identified with the ethno-national community acts as an intermediary link between the individual and the state. The idea of the "logic of species" was that the "species" was presented by Tanabe as a kind of socio-cultural basis of human existence, through which the individual directly realizes himself in history or the absolute manifests itself through the specific activities of individuals.

Another key concept formulated by Tanabe during this period was the concept of absolute mediation, which formed the basis of his dialectical method, with which he tried to explain the mechanisms that set time and history in motion. Another important milestone of Tanabe's philosophical path was the concept of "philosophy as metanoesis" set forth in the book "Philosophy as the Path of Repentance" ("Dzangedo toshite no tetsugaku") (1946), where he formulates his critical approach to philosophy, and also considers the transformation of self-awareness as the basis mediating the embodiment of historical reality. The late post-war period of Tanabe's work includes such works as the book "The Dialectic of Christianity" ("Kirisuto kyo no bensho") (1948), the series of articles "Fundamental Problems of Philosophy" "Fundamental Problems of Philosophy" (1949-1952) and the book "The Development of Historicism in Mathematics" ("Surino rekisyugi tenkai") (1954), which also touched upon the problems of time and history in various contexts.

The whole path of Tanabe's philosophical quest was somehow permeated by an interest in the forces that set the historical process in motion, revealing the ontology of history. And each of the stages of his work was actually a step that brought him closer to this goal. The philosophy of time was undoubtedly also an important part of this project.

Discussion around the concept of "Absolute nothingness" of the Kyoto School and the problem of time

The concepts of Absolute nothingness and self-awareness, according to many historians of Japanese philosophy, are the key ideas that distinguished the Kyoto School ^{[2; 3, pp. 12-42; 4, pp. 31-56]}. The idea of Absolute nothingness was a rationalization of the Buddhist doctrine of "emptiness." The starting point of Tanabe's philosophical path was the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro.

For both, empirical reality is the "world of self–expression" and self-alienation of the Absolute universal or Absolute nothingness, which recognizes itself through the consciousness of individuals.The concept of Absolute nothingness has been developed by Nishida Kitaro since the 20s of the twentieth century. and remained the focus of his philosophy throughout his life. A distinctive feature of Nishida's understanding of Absolute nothingness was the idea of it as the ultimate "place" within which being and nothingness mutually define each other. At first, this concept had an epistemological perspective and Absolute nothingness was considered "as the ultimate field of self-awareness that unfolds, defining itself within itself and creating the world as self-objectification through individual conscious subjects" ^{[5, p. 193]}.

Acting within the framework of Nishida's general philosophical concept and using his terminology, Tanabe strongly objected to some of his specific provisions. The discussion between Tanabe and Nishida began in the 30s of the last century and was one of the most significant discussions in the history of Japanese philosophy, which influenced the further development of the philosophy of both thinkers [See: 6, pp. 99-123]. The problem was the approach to understanding the concept of Absolute Nothingness, which defined its interaction with the relative world. For Nisida, the absolute was an independently existing finite universality, encompassing and containing reality.

Within the framework of the concept of "a place of Absolute nothingness," Nishida interpreted the problems of time, the central of which was the problem of the relationship between time and eternity, or the problem of the "eternal now" as a source of time. Even in his early works, Nishida Kitaro considered time as a product of self-awareness. In the book "Self-comprehending Self-determination of Nothingness" ("Mu no jikakuteki gentei") ^[7], a spatial theory of time was formed, according to which Absolute nothingness manifests itself as eternity, forming a multitude of times that arise as properties of a multitude of self-consciousnesses. The "eternal now" or "eternal present" is represented by Isis as a place where self-determination of nothing takes place as the "I", generating its own past and future ^{[8, p. 188]}.

On the contrary, for Tanabe, Absolute nothing could be considered as such without being indirectly relative. The main position in which the two thinkers differed in their understanding of Absolute nothingness was as follows. Tanabe criticized the idea of the "place of absolute nothingness" as a static and spatial image of the absolute, detached from the dynamic process of mutual determination of being and nothingness taking place in it. Tanabe argues that nothing like the absolute can be comprehended by intellectual intuition, unlike many classical formulations of the absolute in the European metaphysical tradition, but we can always recognize its manifestations through the actions of an individual.

In contrast to Nishida's understanding, Tanabe sees Absolute nothingness as a continuous two-way dynamic process. Tanabe also likens nothing to the power of Another or Buddha Amidah, which, according to the teachings of the Japanese Buddhist thinker Shinran (1173-1263), is activated in a person when he completely abandons his own efforts and relies on the saving power of Buddha Amidah, becoming one with him. However, unlike Shinran, Tanabe's own strength and the strength of the Other actually coincide. Absolute nothingness and its manifestations in the world represent two sides of reality that mutually mediate each other: "Nothing, the absolute is an absolute mediation and, therefore, is constantly correlative to being; it is a cycle of incessant mediation. The absolute is not an ideal or a goal that ultimately removes the relative; rather, it is a principle that constantly supports us wherever we are and allows us to take authentic actions. This is not a point that lies forever beyond the reach of our progress, but the very force that drives us here and now. Wherever the relative exists, the absolute is there as its correlate. In the sphere of being, nothing always mediates and is mediated" ^{[9, p. 177]}.

This view predetermined a different interpretation of the relationship between time and eternity in Tanabe's philosophy, giving it a procedural and relational character.

The concept of "absolute mediation" by Tanabe Hajime

The concept of "absolute mediation" was formulated by Tanabe in articles devoted to the "logic of species" to describe its formal structure. The Japanese philosopher uses the term "species" to denote the particular, that is, what is more universal than the singular and more specific than the universal. At the same time, Tanabe's appearance is considered as the foundation (China, 基体) of social existence, uniting individuals and serving as a mediating link in their relationship to a community of a higher order. The idea of mediation was borrowed by Tanabe from Hegel, who used the concept of mediation (Vermittlung) to denote synthesis, stress relief. Tanabe's "absolute mediation" also acted as a way of representing the relationship between opposing terms. Initially, the logic of species was created by a Japanese philosopher in order to describe the structure of social existence as a relationship between an individual, a species (nation) and a clan (state). Further development and interpretation of the logic of species allows Tanaba to rethink it as a paradigm of the historical development of the world. In the article "The Logic of social existence" he gives the following definition of the concept of "mediation": "Absolute mediation means that one cannot exist without the mediation of the other. Thus, since one and the other mutually negate each other, absolute mediation is possible only through negation, as a way of any statement. As a negation-as-statement, absolute mediation presupposes that a statement can only be a statement through negation. Therefore, this completely eliminates any spontaneity. Even what we call the absolute cannot be established directly, without its mediation by the relative, which negates it" ^{[10, p. 21]}.

For Tanabe, the absolute, which is Absolute nothing, cannot exist without being mediated by something else. Thus he writes: "Nothing can exist directly, since what exists directly belongs to being..." ^{[9, p. 406]}.

In the book Philosophy as a Path of Repentance, Tanabe further develops the concept of mediation, emphasizing its role in the manifestation and affirmation of opposite sides of reality: "Mediation is not a relationship in which one side is subordinate to the other, on the contrary, it creates a condition in which each of the parties finds becoming thanks to the other" ^{[9, p. 407]}.

In Tanabe's subsequent works, the dialectic of absolute mediation became the key to understanding the problems of time and history.

Criticism and approaches to understanding time in Tanabe Hajime's work "Eternity, History, Action"

Time and eternity

In his work "Eternity, History, Action" ("Eien, rakishi, koi") (1940), Tanabe sets the task of "exploring the structure of time in order to find out the connection between history and eternity" ^{[11, p. 114]}. The object of his attention is the problem of the relationship between the present, the past and the future, in connection with which he turns to the "Confession" of Augustine, which has become an important source of formation of the concept of time for many Western thinkers, as well as his senior colleague Nishida Kitaro. According to Tanabe, although his ideas have received many interpretations since the time of Augustine, the general trend of reasoning on the topic of the structure of time continues to be in his direction. Agreeing that time cannot be understood if it is viewed as existing outside of us and independently of us, many philosophers such as Kant, Husserl, Heidegger and Bergson, despite the difference in approaches, agreed on one thing: "they connected the past with memory, the present with intuition, and the future with expectation."" ^{[11, p. 115]}.

He criticizes the approaches of Isis, in the person of Augustine. In Nishida, as in Augustine, from Tanabe's point of view, the past as memories and the future as expectations are parallel in the present without any internal connection. He points out the danger of completely losing connections in the structure of time if we consider the "eternal now" as a self-sufficient basis of time. He writes that this approach isolates the present, creates the risk of destroying the sequence of time. At the same time, it turns out that "eternity sweeps away time", "communicating with eternity, time moves towards eternity, but there is no reverse movement from eternity to time" ^{[11, p. 113]}.

One of Tanabe's key ideas, the idea of mediation, becomes the basis for solving this problem. Tanabe suggests considering time and eternity as mediating each other and flowing into each other ^{[11, p. 117]}. He writes that "without the manifestation of mediation, there can be no eternity in the form of absolute nothingness," "time and eternity are two sides of the same coin ... this is the dialectic of time" ^{[11, p. 117]}. Thus, Tanabe considers time and eternity as two sides of a single reality.

Tanabe creates a model in which eternity is a dynamic process that ensures the circulation of time – its movement through constant renewal. He was critical of the concept of Nishida, in which the static "place of Absolute nothingness" was interpreted as a transcendent eternity within which time unfolds. According to Tanabe, eternity cannot be considered as something self-sufficient, transcendent, existing outside of time. Eternity exists only by flowing into time through self-denial. He's writing: "Since eternity asserts time through negation and at the same time renews it as a mediation of itself, .. eternity simultaneously regains its temporality and makes its own meaning explicit in accordance with time" ^{[11, 118-119]}. In turn, eternity is necessary for the self-determination of time through self-denial. Tanabe analyzes the relationship between time and eternity as a process of mutual transition – the passage of time into eternity and the return of eternity to time. Eternity, as Absolute nothingness, endlessly renews time through action in the present. The present is the process of self–realization of eternity in a concrete story. According to Tanabe, "time arises as the return of eternal Absolute nothingness... thus, eternity, Absolute nothingness becomes manifested and represented in action in the present" ^{[11, 134-135]}. In this way, Tanabe's "eternal now" acquires the meaning of an effective manifestation of eternity.

At the same time, such apparent cyclicity, represented in this model, did not exclude the progressive movement of time. To reveal the process of circulation of time and eternity, Tanabe resorts to borrowing Buddhist concepts developed in the school of Jodo-shinshu and meaning "departure to the Pure Land" (往相 осо))))))))), thanks to the saving power of Buddha Amida, and "return from the Pure Land of Buddha Amida" (還相 г г))))))))). The meaning of these concepts and the related doctrine is set forth in the writings of Shinran, the founder of the Jodo-shinshu school, "Teaching, Asceticism, Faith and Testimony" ("Kegeshinse") and his follower Yuen (1222-1289), "Notes of a Mourner for Apostasy" ("Tannis"). The phase of the movement of time towards eternity is likened to the ascent to the Pure Land, and the phase of the reverse movement is the return from the Pure Land to this world as a Bodhisattva, leading to the salvation of other beings, i.e. returning in a changed capacity. However, unlike Shinran, who allowed for the achievement of Pure Land only in this life, the process of ascension and descent in Tanabe occurs continuously in this life. Using the Shinran representation only as a model of the mechanism of interaction between the Absolute and the world of concrete forms, Tanabe corrects it, making the absolute and relative two mutually defining sides of reality, and transfers this approach to understanding the relationship between time and eternity.

Later in the book Philosophy as a Path of Repentance, this topic is developed in more detail. "Ascent" and "descent" are presented as interrelated aspects of the time process, making it one, and a term appears expressing their identity (oso soku genso), which meant that an individual's own strength and the strength of Another are mutually identical. On the other hand, they express the nature of the relationship between time and eternity. Moreover, according to Tanabe, it is impossible to ascend from immanent temporal reality to transcendent eternity without moving backwards from eternity to immanent reality, i.e. to time. He expresses the actual identity of these processes as follows: "The eternal return of time is its ascent to eternity, and this is the constant renewal of its completion" ^{[11, p. 149]}.

The essay "Eternity, History, Action" is a text in which Tanabe expresses his philosophical position for the first time using the term "historicism". The eternal transcendence of which he reproaches Nishida should, in his opinion, at the same time return to history and be mediated by it, should manifest its transcendence as immanence in real history. Therefore, he calls his approach the "historicist theory of time" or the "historicist ontology of time" ^{[11, p. 121]}. Thus, according to Tanabe, there can be no transcendent eternity apart from the immanence of history. Therefore, eternity, in his understanding, cannot in any way absorb or include history without moving with it. Eternity, in his view, is not static, but dynamic, it manifests itself in real time and history, through the appearance and disappearance of phenomena, thereby demonstrating its discrete and continuous character.

The problem of the past and the future

In Nishida, as in Augustine, from Tanabe's point of view, the past as memories and the future as expectations are parallel in the present without any internal connection. He seeks to reveal the mechanism of the connection between the past and the future, which have a structural difference, since the past is associated with memories, and the future with anticipation. To this end, he again refers to the mechanism contained in his concept of mediation.

Tanabe dissociates himself from the view that time arises as a continuation of the past in memory. At the same time, he shares the idea that the center of the origin of time lies in the present. Like a number of other philosophers of the Kyoto school, he shared Nishida's ideas in the sense that he also perceives the instantaneous present as the basis of temporality. However, he sees the nature of the present in action, which makes the present fundamentally different from the past and the future. It is a mediating and transformative action. Action in the present, according to Tanabe, connects the past and the future through complete mutual negation. The mechanism described by Tanabe is called "mutual negative mediation." Here it seems appropriate to clarify exactly what Tanabe means by "action." A researcher of philosophy at the Kyoto School, Ritter Suarez, draws attention to the fact that the concepts of "action" and "activity" in Tanabe have a specific semantic connotation. He offers the following clarification: "Tanabe's term "activity" (or "practice") does not refer to how we conduct our daily lives, nor to extraordinary, heroic deeds. It implies an ethical, impersonal, or self-denying involvement in the "historical world," an involvement that plunges into deeper layers of an individual's existence, beyond his reasoning mind. Understood in this way, activity opens us for a moment to the absolute, the eternal. Tanabe strives to model his own dialectic of the dynamics of the active moment, in which the eternal touches the temporal, producing a synthesis of both. The true universal is not something known that stands above temporality; it is simply an absolute integrity that realizes itself ethically and religiously in an active moment that absolutely does not tolerate such a noematization.… In other words, the universal is, in fact, a great action manifested in an active moment.… Temporary, historical actions are considered full-scale manifestations of timeless Absolute nothingness" ^{[12, p. 153]}.

The problem of time reversibility

The problem of time reversibility is also raised by Tanabe following Nishida Kitaro. The latter, in his book Intuition and Reflection in Self-Awareness, tried, if not to refute the thesis of the irreversibility of time, then at least to show its unprovability. Nishida Kitaro proceeded from the idea of the functioning of consciousness as the movement of a self-conscious will that does not move in a straight line from the past to the present and is able to "make the past present" ^{[13, p. 270]}. Nishida cited, in particular, such an argument in the spirit of phenomenology: the feeling of uniqueness of time arises as a result of the fact that we compare objectified images of the "past self" and "present self" recreated in memory, however, the living consciousness of the subject does not lend itself to complete objectification, therefore, with absolute certainty, we cannot judge the uniqueness of each moment of our consciousness ^{[13, pp. 268-269]}.

In turn, Tanabe argued that the essential feature of time, temporality, is irreversibility, a focus from the past to the future. Tanabe justifies the irreversibility of time by demonstrating the asymmetry of the past and the future in the process of mutual mediation. In other words, the future, as a negation of the past, will never achieve stability. Expressing this feature, he notes that the future is "something that we can never fully assume from the perspective of the past, it is incomprehensible and causes us anxiety as unknown" ^{[11, p.128]}, it is "established in a practical premonition of anxiety and hope" ^{[11, p.125]}. Tanabe explains the higher status of the future as follows: "The reason for the irreversibility of a one-way flow from the past to the future, but not from the future to the past, lies in this place [the highest order of the future in relation to the past]" ^{[11, pp. 127-128]}. So how does understanding time in terms of the present lead to an asymmetry between the past and the future? In order for the past to be established, an active present is necessary, and action always contains a futuristic character.

If that's the case, then the future is exactly what makes the past manifest as the past. On the other hand, the future, mediating the past, transforms it. However, this does not negate the unidirectionality of time, but means "mediated temporality, which establishes the higher order of the future through a return to the past" ^{[11, p. 119]}.

Time and history in the book "Philosophy as a Path of Repentance"

Rethinking time in terms of the concept of "repentance"

The ideas expressed in the book Philosophy as a Path of Repentance highlighted the problems of time and history in a new perspective. This book was published in 1946 and was an attempt to find a way out of the spiritual crisis experienced by him personally, as well as by the entire Japanese people as a result of the defeat in World War II. The central concept of this book is the concept of "repentance." It should be noted that the idea of repentance, expressed by both the Japanese word dzange and the Greek word metanoia, received a peculiar development from Tanabe and acquired additional meanings. According to him, repentance presupposes not only regret for what he has done and the intention not to repeat any more actions, but also a complete rejection of his own "I" in order to regenerate him ^{[9, pp. 57-58]}. So he writes: "Although repentance is an act performed by the self, at the same time it is a breakthrough from one's own self, a renunciation of one's self" ^{[9, p. 58]}. For Tanabe, it was this second aspect of repentance that was particularly important, related to the rebirth and transformation of consciousness, which, in his opinion, occurred only under the condition of self-denial, activating the power of the Other, i.e., absolute nothingness. As a result, the mechanism of action of repentance was considered as a process of interaction between two mutually conditioning sides of reality – separate consciousness and Absolute nothingness. In this process, the absolute self-denial of relative existence is transformed into its affirmation as a vehicle through which the absolute or Absolute nothingness realizes itself in the world of time and relative.

The Japanese philosopher considers such transformations as a continuous chain of events: "The structure of metanoiesis is an endless spiral–shaped process" consisting of self-denial and self-affirmation ^{[9, p. 61]}. Tanabe uses the concept of metanoesis (the path of repentance) not only to substantiate the most appropriate way of philosophizing, from his point of view, which allows him to go beyond the usual coordinate system, but also extrapolates it to an understanding of time, in particular its structure. With this concept, Tanabe seeks to explain how the transformation of the past and future takes place in the present consciousness of the active self.

In the spirit of the idea of metanoesis, he substantiates the understanding of the present as an instantaneous action in which the past is denied and a new state is born, in which the future contributes to the formation of a renewed past. At the same time, Tanabe interprets the present as a "gap", a leap that marks the death of the past and rebirth. Tanabe refers to this transformation by the term 転換 tankan (transformation, turn), again borrowed from Shinran.

Tanabe represents the present as the axis around which time circulates: "Nothing, in accordance with the principle of absolute mediation, rotates around the eternal present as its axis, constantly manifesting itself in its unfolding and transformation of time" ^{[9, p. 176]}.

Criticism and ways of rethinking Western concepts of time and history

In the chapter "An Absolute Critique of Historicity," Tanabe consistently analyzes the concepts of time and history existing in Western philosophy, which helps him to formulate his own approaches more clearly.

Disagreeing with Kant that the laws of history are similar to the laws of natural sciences, he presents the following view of history: "Knowledge of history or self-awareness of the practical construction of history cannot be derived solely from universal principles... Knowledge of history moves towards understanding the essence of historical reality, establishing the circulation of "evolution–involution". In other words, history is not a linear process, but a circular one, which should be considered as “conservation-as-development.” This is the fundamental dynamics of history" ^{[9, pp. 131-132]}. This kind of view of history has deep foundations in understanding the structure of time. He writes: "To explain the fundamental structure of history through the structure of time, we must say that it represents a cycle in which a constant transformation aimed at the future is carried out in practice in such a way that there is a return to the past on a deeper level and the restoration of the original foundations in a more perfect form. The eternal present serves here as the axis around which the process of "revolution-as-restoration" moves... making history possible" ^{[9, p. 132]}. Thus, the basis for understanding history, according to Tanabe, is the "circular structure of absolute mutual relativity" [Ibid.].

Reflecting on history, Tanabe develops the theme of the past in the structure of time. An important characteristic of history, from Tanabe's point of view, is its randomness, and due to this circumstance, historical facts cannot be deduced from universal principles through the method of Kantian transcendental deduction ^{[9, p. 134]}.

At the same time, in interpreting the past as part of our existence, he tends to existential philosophy.: "Turning from historical facts to our existence, modern existential philosophy speaks of the randomness of historical facts as our 'abandonment' into a past existence.… The past is given to us, and therefore it is accidental. It is not something that we can define at will. We are thrown into history, and we have no other alternative but to accept it. This is the original randomness of our existence. And because our existence arises in this way, by its very nature it points to the past. Therefore, the past must encompass a part of our existence that we cannot control, but can only recognize as our destiny. This is an accident of the past, or, in other words, the nature of the past is determined by chance" ^{[9, p. 135]}.

Tanabe emphasizes the role of the past as a mediating factor in shaping the identity of our "I". At the same time, randomness, as well as freedom, belong to the subject: "Freedom exists only in the subject's awareness of himself as free. Only a subject who realizes freedom in his actions has freedom. Randomness is also recognized as randomness only by a free subject who perceives opposition to what he is. No random existence can determine its randomness. Only a subject who is able to perceive opposites can become aware of the state of randomness" ^{[9, p. 137]}.

Arguing with Kant, Tanabe puts forward a counterthesis that freedom exists in history, unlike in nature, and bases his idea of "the transformation of chance into freedom" on it [Ibid.]. At the same time, freedom and randomness, according to Tanabe, are two mutually mediating sides of the subject. Related to this attitude is the understanding of the past and the future and their relationship, proposed in the book Philosophy as a Path of Repentance. So he writes: "There is no self-awareness of abandonment as such. Since self-awareness belongs to the activity of a free subject, there can be no “abandonment” without a subject who projects himself into the future in order to freely determine his own being. If this were not the case, then consciousness of time would be impossible, and the "abandonment" and randomness of the past would never be able to reach consciousness" ^{[9, p.138]}. It is noteworthy that in this context, Tanabe puts forward the thesis that "without a subject designing himself and freely making plans, there can be no history of reality," which takes the form of the aphorism "history is the footsteps of freedom" ^{[9, pp. 138-139]}.

However, developing the theory of time, the Japanese philosopher sets out to show how specifically the "abandonment" of the past can be combined with the "project" of the future, so that a unified holistic image of time appears. In search of a solution to this problem, he resorts to the dialectic of mediation, which he proposed earlier, but presents it in a more detailed form: "The past and the future confront each other as opposites. They are equivalent in the sense that both of them do not exist in the present. However, it is not enough to simply assert their non-existence. It is also necessary to see that denial – their non–existence in the present - plays a mediating role, helping, on the contrary, to affirm their existence in the present" ^{[9, pp. 142-143]}.

Tanabe sees the value of Heidegger's approach to the problem of time in the fact that his philosophy contains the idea of the asymmetry of time, in contrast to Augustine's concept. Heidegger, defining the past in terms of "abandonment" and the future in terms of "project," was based entirely on the ontology of self-awareness. He writes that "only thanks to Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenology, which established a new ontology of self-awareness, it became possible to explain the essential structure of time" ^{[9, p. 144]}. About the advantage of Heidegger's approach over Augustine's, he says the following: "It seems to me that Heidegger abandoned the concept of eternity, which serves as a fixed point of mediation in Augustine's philosophy, mainly in order to provide a solid foundation for his "being of self-consciousness," and that he proceeded from the fact that in self-consciousness, defined by at the same time, it is decisive, thereby establishing the contradictory unity of the past and the present" ^{[9, p. 144]}.

Based on his understanding of the relationship between absolute and relative as non-existent independently of each other and manifested through mutual mediation, Tanabe critically evaluates the separation of time and eternity.: "If the point of view of absolute mediation is adopted, the absolute and the relative become simultaneous – there can be no temporary priority of one over the other..." ^{[9, p. 176]}.

The basis for Tanabe's understanding of time, which is the "fundamental structure of reality," as well as for the Kyoto School as a whole, was the fact that its essential feature is considered to be absolute inconsistency. The philosopher expresses this fundamental nature of reality as follows: "... in absolute contradiction, contradiction contains unity within itself, even though contradictions will not lose their contradictory character. Absolute unity contains a contradiction (or contradictions), despite the fact that it does not cease to be unity. In other words, we must understand that both contradiction and unity are affirmed through negation. And that each of them is so deeply connected with the other that the more it asserts itself, the more it denies itself" ^{[9, p. 140]}. According to Tanabe, the structure of Augustine's "eternal now", which unites all modes of time, had a substantial and contemplative character. According to him, "for Augustine, eternity is not nothing, but existence, which is something that transcends and "includes" all modes of time as the "eternal now"" ^{[9, p. 151]}. Thus, time turns into an immobile substance, in fact, it ceases to be time, since it easily transforms into space.

At the same time, Heidegger's concept, on the contrary, reflected the contradictory unity of self-awareness, which can only be realized in constant activity and self-movement, going beyond its own limits. It is a reflection of this contradictory nature that Tanabe finds and highly values in Heidegger's philosophy, where self-awareness appears as "a unity of contradictions arising in the process of transformation, where the negation of the self mediates its affirmation and what is defined becomes decisive" ^{[9, p. 145]}. According to Tanabe, the asymmetry of time follows from this principle of absolute inconsistency, which makes it possible to imagine its progressive nature.

Here is his line of reasoning: "Time is never horizontal, it always moves obliquely. If this is not the case, then it could not be called time.… The contradiction of time is closer to the asymmetry of a parabola than to the symmetry of an ellipse or hyperbola. That is, time is determined by the past and breaks through this certainty towards the future... ^{[9, p. 145]}.

An important idea for Tanabe was the transformation of self-awareness, which, in his opinion, was embedded in Heidegger's philosophy, since the state of "abandonment" already carried negation, which implied a further movement beyond the self-identity of consciousness. It is noteworthy that Tanabe also highlights and adopts the idea of escape as a key property of existence and the basis of temporality. He writes that "the time horizon must be ecstatic because time breaks through and overcomes the free and spontaneously acting self," and also that time has an "asymmetric, ecstatic dynamic character" (9, p. 147). At the same time, Tanabe notes that "the theory of time, presented by Heidegger, denies the understanding of eternity as a substrate" (9, p. 152).

In formulating his understanding of time within the framework of the concept of metanesis, Tanabe undoubtedly relies on Heidegger's ideas, but at the same time critically analyzes them and develops them in his own direction.

Tanabe Heidegger's criticism boiled down to the following points. So, he writes: "With regard to the fundamental structure of Heidegger's teaching, I have no doubt that his thought is in full accordance with my idea of transformation into Absolute nothingness through his mediation. However, for Heidegger, the mediation of “nothing” through action is seen as the mediation of being in the realm of interpretation by linguistic means. He did not understand how Absolute Nothingness, as the principle of absolute transformation, functions as a basis. For this reason, the present for Heidegger ... does not mediate Absolute nothingness, and the present becomes a being of self-awareness" ^{[9, p. 155]}.

According to Tanabe, "... the dynamics of time, which consists in the mutual transformation of being and nothing, cannot be explained in terms of motion arising in a homogeneous substrate" ^{[9, p. 153]}. In Heidegger's opinion, the "breakthrough" from the determinism of the past by means of projection "has not yet received dialectical development." His idea of a "breakthrough" as denial and transformation can be interpreted as a change occurring in a self-identical being ^{[9, pp. 153-154]}. He goes on to write: "It's hard to get rid of the impression that the logic of identity prevails in his thinking when it comes to the transition from the past to the future, from abandonment to design. The reason is that Heidegger's existential ontology remains within hermeneutics and does not achieve an understanding of self-awareness based entirely on its activity and functioning. Hermeneutics understands self-awareness in action in terms of interpretation in verbal expression" ^{[9, pp. 154-155]}. At the same time, according to Tanabe, "although existential philosophy demonstrated the effective nature of self-awareness, its fundamental difference from metanoetics was that it considered self-awareness as an activity based on its own power, whereas in metanoetics transformations of self-awareness occur due to the action of the "power of Another"" ^{[9, p. 145]}.

For Tanabe, metanoiesis, which is the principle of the functioning of the subject's self-awareness, involves the following: "Self-awareness arises in a circular process of development-as-return, where the direction of development is contradictory and based on denial, and the reverse movement is an affirmation and unification. What is called the subject is nothing more than the center of circulation, moving due to constant self-denial and at the same time constantly returning to unity" ^{[9, p. 149]}. Tanabe's understanding of the self-conscious self is essential for understanding the structure of time. It is clearly expressed in his following statement: "... self-awareness recognizes the "I" not as being, but as nothing. It recognizes the "I" not as self-identical, but as contradictory. That is, it does not establish personality as something immobile, but sets it in motion as a stream of activity. The "I" is not asserted as an acting subject with self-identity, but as something that is constantly and invariably denied" ^{[9, pp. 149-150]}. Another definition says: "Self-awareness is not the consciousness of a self-identical reality, but the awareness of a transcendent transformation taking place in the absence of the self. Self-awareness does not arise because there is an "I", but the "I" realizes itself as a unity because the Absolute nothingness that underlies the process of change represents a transcendent unity that mediates the transformation of the "I" into nothing" ^{[9, p. 405]}.

As for the understanding of activity, the activity of self-awareness, it means "not a change in the subject's qualities," but the fact that "Absolute nothingness manifests itself in such a way that being is transformed into nothing, and nothing into being."… Action implies pure movement without any fixed substrate" [Ibid.].

In Tanabe's concept, "the past is not just an abandonment into something that is already gone and beyond our control, but the present, which is constantly renewing its meaning and is in an endless cycle in accordance with the future that mediates it" ^{[9, p. 149]}. Thus, the past is something that is constantly being refined and rethought. The definition of the past depends on how it is mediated by the actor and makes sense through his attitude to the future. Moreover, Tanabe sometimes claims that "the past, mediated by the future, is transformed absolutely" ^{[9, pp. 366-367]}.

As for the present, for Tanabe, there is nothing fixed like "immovable now." In Philosophy as a Path of Repentance, the present is a moment of transformative activity of consciousness, mediated by Absolute Nothingness.

Another thinker whose ideas Tanabe carefully analyzed was Nietzsche. Tanabe was attracted by his ideas such as the concept of eternal return, the idea of accepting fate, a nihilistic approach and a reassessment of all Nietzsche's values. At the same time, Tanabe noted that "despite the motivational and structural similarities of their concepts, there are inevitable differences between the orientation of Nietzsche's thought and the path of meta-ethics" ^{[9, p. 192]}.. He refers to such differences as the fact that Nietzsche's ontology was based on the idea of life, which is actually a kind of idea of absolute being, as opposed to the position of "nothing" and absolute mediation, which Tanabe himself adhered to: "Instead of considering reason as a manifestation of Absolute nothingness, he proposes the affirmation of life, the essence of which is the will to power. which seeks to put all things under the control of the self" ^{[9, p. 193]}. Another significant point of difference between Tanabe and Nietzsche as a representative of Western philosophy was that for him, as well as for Heidegger and even Kant, due to their "egocentrism" it turned out to be "impossible to transition to the freedom of absolute non-existence by rejecting and letting go of even his noble self" ^{[9, p. 203]}. Nevertheless, Tanabe believed that "Nietzsche's thought indirectly testifies to the truth of metanoetics" [Ibid.].

Regarding the Nietzschean concept of eternal return, which is directly related to understanding the structure of time, Tanabe writes the following: "The essence of eternal return, as Nietzsche himself explains, lies in the eternal immutability and endless pre-existence of the past; and its conquest by the will to power means the redemption and overcoming of yesterday... The past becomes the past for this reason: on the one hand, it has already passed us by, and we can do nothing about it; on the other hand it constantly returns to the present, captures the present, suppresses the present… For Nietzsche, it is the will to power that carries out this process. Thanks to her, the present overcomes the past and achieves freedom: it becomes amor fati. The joy of freedom becomes greater as the burden of the past, which is an eternal return, becomes heavier. When this pressure reaches its peak, the wheels of time stop and finally stop turning. Life is turning into a state of stagnation and suffocation. But if life, faced with this most external limit, can go beyond itself, renounce itself and accept death, the time of the present, which has stopped, will be transformed into the fullness of the moment, bearing the burden of infinity. This is a manifestation of infinity that transcends life and death" ^{[9, pp. 198-199]}. In this way, Tanabe interprets the ideas of eternal return and amor fati in the spirit of meta-ethics.

In addition, Tanabe, as consonant with his own ideas, highlights Kierkegaard's idea of the instant as "the point where eternity touches time" [p.9, p.204]. The idea that time should be comprehended in a dynamic "present" was the core of Tanabe's understanding of time. For Tanabe, time was something that could not be conceived without this dynamic present, that is, the "moment." It is likely that the very idea of repentance originated with the Japanese philosopher under the influence of Kierkegaard.

The ontology of time in the book "The Development of Historicism in Mathematics"

In the 1950s, Tanabe returned to the problem of the ontology of time, using the resource of mathematics, which he had been interested in since his youth. He reflected on the connection between philosophy and mathematics in his first book, A Study in the Philosophy of Mathematics, in the preface to which Nishida Kitaro wrote: "Mathematical problems are based on deep problems of metaphysics"^{[14, p. 363]}. In 1954, his work "The Development of Historicism in Mathematics" was published, where the point of view of the "historicist ontology of time" (rekishisugiteki jikan sonzairon) was considered in detail. According to the historian of Japanese philosophy and philosopher Shimamura Toratoro, this work was not only a work on the philosophy of science, but also expressed the character of Tanabe's philosophy in a concise form and marked the completion of his system ^{[15, p. 581]}. Among the noteworthy issues raised in this work are Richard Dedekind's philosophical interpretation of the "section" principle, Gilbert's topological theories of continuity and Cantor's continuum, in which he found a structural similarity to the dialectic of historical mechanisms. Tanabe pays close attention to the theory of the Dutch mathematician Brauer, who came up with the idea of "freely becoming sequences," which makes it possible to imagine the mathematical continuum as an "environment of free becoming." According to Tanabe, "the epochal methodological originality of topology, of course, lies in its historicist structure, which has not yet been found in mathematics" ^{[16, p.344]}.

Let's take one example. The Dedekind section principle consisted in dividing the set of rational numbers into two subsets – left and right (or upper and lower), in which the number located on the border between them is always the largest in one row and at the same time the smallest in the other row. For Tanabe, this idea acquired a philosophical meaning, allowing him to model the discontinuous continuity of time.

The importance of Dedekind's theory for Tanabe was that the "section" appears in it as an element of duration, and he began to interpret it as an analogue of a single moment in time. Tanabe does not consider a section as a limit, just dividing a continuous series of numbers. For him, the cross section becomes an image of an instant in time, in which both opposite directions are mediated and transformed abruptly, symbolizing the past and the future, and which at the same time symbolizes the moment of realization of Absolute Nothingness in action. According to Tanabe, "since the action establishes being as the actualization of "nothing", it must be symbolically designated, the section in mathematics is exactly what corresponds to this" ^{[16, pp. 308-309]}. Tanabe interprets the "cross section" as a "moment of continuous renewal," an "act of absolute transformation," through which nothing reveals itself in being. At the same time, the act denoted by the symbol "section" is represented as "becoming or transformation, which is neither being nor nothing," but belongs to both at once. It is considered as a "birth–action", which "is not a natural birth, but a historical action" [Ibid.]. Speaking about the transformation, the leap (tenkan) that mediates the past and the future, as the driving force and the actual content of history, Tanabe means that it occurs through the actions of individual subjects. Time is always associated with the actions of the subject, in other words, a dynamic entity that negates the past and transforms it into the future.

Thus, Tanabe tried to show that mathematical formulas are, among other things, a formalized reflection of the historical process, denoting this by the term "historicism in mathematics." At the same time, it has become a way of confirming one's own theory by demonstrating that it can be described by mathematical means.

Problems of eschatology and progress in the books "Dialectics of Christianity" and "Fundamental Problems of Philosophy"

In 1948, the book "The Dialectic of Christianity" was published, in which Tanabe Hajime examines the problems of time, eternity and history, analyzing Christian teaching. Tanabe's approaches to the study of the doctrines of Christian teaching are similar to his approaches to Buddhism. The subject of the analysis is primarily the formal and structural aspect of certain provisions. Another object of Tanabe's interest is the phenomenon of faith as a mechanism that encourages actions aimed at the future.

For Tanabe, faith in the resurrection of Christ did not mean faith in the God that Jesus preached about. The incarnation of God in human form interested Tanabe as an example of mediation of the Absolute, and the death and resurrection of Christ as an expression of the circulation of time and eternity. At the same time, Jesus Christ was considered by him as a middle link, mediating the connection between the Absolute and the individual in a similar way to the "kind".

In the Dialectic of Christianity, Tanabe continues to develop the problems of time and history. Here, the temporality represented in his concept is considered as the "fundamental structure of history", as the "dialectical structure of reality" ^{[17, p. 261]}. Here, he shares the eschatological doctrines about the beginning and end of history inherent in religious teachings such as Christianity and Amidaism, and his philosophical understanding of time, where the beginning and end of time are interconnected and constantly reproduced in the moments of the present. Tanabe speaks about the eschatological concepts that take place in religious teachings as follows: "Defining the end of history at the end of linear time and saying that the last judgment of the world will take place when Christ returns to Earth is nothing but a myth.… This is similar to the belief in Pure Land Buddhism in the rebirth of Buddha Amidah in the Western Paradise.… In both cases, history is located on the linear axis of time, and its beginning and end are placed at both ends of the line, and thus its significance as a symbol of eternity, attested to by the active self-awareness of existence, is lost sight of" ^{[17, pp. 263-264]}. The philosophical approach to the problem of the end of history, which is here called "existential awareness of history", according to Tanabe, arises at the moment of experiencing the present, "when eternity intersects with time" and which "includes both the beginning and the end, since in it repetition is identical to creation, and creation is repetition" ^{[17, p . 264]}. Such a free, active present, understood as a "continuous cyclical, but at the same time progressive movement", is completely relative and can never have absolute beginnings or ends that are fixed on a linear axis [Ibid.].

Tanabe's idea of the movement of history differs from the idea of progress, which implies some kind of goal or divine plan that determines the direction of its movement. In his philosophy, history is not a process of self-realization of an unmediated ideal or movement towards an independently existing predetermined goal. The above concept of time gives reason to conclude that the ontological basis of history for Tanabe is the process of mutual definition of time and eternity, in which eternity, or Absolute nothingness, continuously and infinitely manifests itself in an indirect form through the actions of individual subjects. At the same time, the development of history is a spasmodic movement, an endless alternation of duration and discontinuities, as a result of which renewal occurs. Historical action is considered as an endless series of transformations in which the negation of the previous state and the affirmation of a new one occur through double negation. In this way, history is realized, following the logic and dialectic of "self-negating transformation."

The most expressive understanding of Tanabe's history was presented by his Japanese researcher and biographer Makoto Ozaki, who summarized his ideas: "Action is the returning presence or manifestation of Absolute Nothingness as eternity in the present. History does not arise without action, and action does not occur without an individual. But the individual, who is the subject of future negation, is mediated by a past substratum, such as tradition, and arises as a concrete subject of the transformation of opposites through mutual negation, as a result of which eternity manifests itself in every present... History is an area of returning development, manifesting the presence of eternity through the mediation of individual action, which elevates the existing society ... to the level of universal eternity humanity through turning into denial... In terms of the past, history must always be denied because of its degeneration into self-alienation... The purpose of history is not based on the eternally pre-existing side, but reaches its peak in action within history as the conversion of an old value into a new one, which should be considered a returning manifestation of absoluteness in the relative" ^{[1, p. 82; 11, p.167-168]}.

Also in his work "Eternity, History, Action," he writes: "Form cannot even be considered as the goal of becoming, as the eternally predetermined essence of an individual, on the contrary, it contains self-denial..." ^{[11, p. 147]}. The very construction of Tanabe's worldview does not imply the perception of the Absolute as the goal that history strives to achieve.

In the book "Fundamental Questions of Philosophy", the subject of his interest is to a greater extent the model of the historical movement, which is cyclical and at the same time progressive, and the associated image of time. The general idea of history is given here by the following expression: "History, being a linear progression, is at the same time absolutely cyclical. In other words, history is always dialectical (self-contradictory). It's a real story that we can't influence, but at the same time it's something that we create ourselves. And the fact that we are creating it should also mean that reality itself is developing" ^{[18, p. 92]}. According to him, "what in this case is called time, moving forward, returns back to the starting point, and going back, thereby moves forward" ^{[18, p. 93]}. The drawings given by Tanabe depict an expanding spiral in which each new turn is wider than the previous one. According to Tanabe, although the movement of history is progressive, it has no end like a multitude of numbers.

Tanabe highly appreciates Hegel, saying that for the first time he gave a concrete idea of history, combining its main features such as inconsistency and linearity, as a result of which a spiral model of history was created. Having adopted this model, Tanabe rejects the idea of goal-setting, characteristic of the Hegelian and Marxist philosophy of history.

Conclusion

Tanabe's philosophy of time and history was the fruit of a deep analysis and reinterpretation of philosophical and religious ideas both of Western origin and arising from the Japanese cultural tradition. The task of understanding history was implicitly or explicitly present in Tanabe's philosophy throughout his life and was reflected in almost every work. He sought to identify the ontological basis of history, the starting points for which he sought not only in philosophical teachings, but also in the doctrines and symbols of various religious traditions and trends. It may seem that Tanabe's philosophy was deeply religious in nature and represented only a modern interpretation of Shinran's teachings, especially since Tanabe himself called Shinran his "mentor and teacher." However, despite the widespread use of Shinran terms, upon closer reading it becomes clear that terms such as "one's own strength and the strength of Another", "ascent and descent", "transformation", were reinterpreted by him as philosophical concepts, and involved in connection with the fact that they contained meanings with the potential to solve philosophical problems, including problems of space and time.

Similarly, he used and interpreted elements of Christian theology, in particular to the incarnation and resurrection. Mathematics has also become a source of explanatory models used in the philosophy of time and history for Tanabe. He repeatedly used examples of mathematical concepts such as parabola, hyperbola, sequence, and finally section as a way to express his ideas more concretely and vividly, far from mathematics, and to some extent legitimize them by showing the possibility of applying mathematical axioms to them. In this, his intentions are similar to Pavel Florensky's attempts to find connections between the concepts of mathematics and ontology, as well as to use mathematical concepts as constructive concepts of the philosophy of time.

Tanabe creates a historical theory based on the concept of time, which centered on the problem of the relationship between time and eternity, absolute and relative. His dialectical method, which at first glance seems mystical, nevertheless makes it possible to demonstrate very clearly the dynamic two-way relationship between the past identity and the image of the future, when the creation of new values and attitudes entails a revision of the past. The ontology of mutual identity and mutual mediation underlying Tanabe's concept of time and history, which is based on Buddhist principles, is still awaiting reflection and evaluation in terms of its heuristic potential. Tanabe presents history as a self-organizing process driven by the constant destruction and rebalancing of the actors, thereby demonstrating a view close to the synergetic approach, which began to develop actively since the 80s of the last century and has not yet lost its popularity as an alternative to large historical narratives.