Orienting Philosophy 1: From Nietzsche Towards Asia (Studia philosophica)

© Chisokudō Publications 2026
This is the first of three volumes of essays on Orienting Philosophy, to be followed by vol. 2: Towards China, and vol. 3: Towards Japan. The project involves an initial orientation of philosophy towards Asia so as to gain a distance perspective on the Western tradition, and in the process directs philosophical attention to our situation on the Earth and our bodily interactions with what we encounter here.
In this volume, Nietzsche is the main point of departure for engagements with Indian Buddhist ideas, and then Chinese and Japanese philosophies. (In several essays Heidegger is more the point.) Compatibilities emerge between Nietzsche’s understanding of “the world as will to power” and various forms of “panpsychism” to be found in Europe as well as Asia. This prompts a rethinking of the relationship between the natural world and the divine, as well as our assumptions concerning time and mortality, the so-called “dead” world of rocks and stone, and the lives of “inanimate” things.
A better understanding of these issues can help us think more productively about our current environmental predicament, and dispose us more favorably towards philosophies that can offer orientation in these unsettling times.