ABSTRACT
My approach in this review of the ethical thought of Watsuji Tetsurō, Kuki Shuzo and Martin Heidegger has not been comparative, even though I discuss three philosophers from two different philosophical traditions. Rather, I have tried to make apparent themes in the texts of all three authors which have not usually come to light in the traditional readings. My goal has not been to provide an accurate, positivist interpretation of Japanese philosophy or of Heideggerian philosophy in the 1920s and 1930s. Rather, it has been to read the texts against each other, as well as against themselves, in order to address the nature of ethics in an original way. By negotiating these various texts, I have argued for my view of what ethics should be by demonstrating the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the various answers that the authors present and sometimes fail to present. In other words, I have tried to read the texts in order to creatively articulate a particular problematic.
