Background
Hatano, Seiichi was born in July 1877 in Matsumoto (Nagano refecture), Japan.
Hatano, Seiichi was born in July 1877 in Matsumoto (Nagano refecture), Japan.
OLyo Imperial University. BA thesis, 'Hyurnu ga £anto ni oyoboseru eikyo’ [Hume’s influence on *vant] and then under R. Kaeber at the graduate *-h°ol. Infla: Kant.
Taught the history of estern philosophy at Wascda University.Tokyo,1900-1917. Christened 1902; visiting scholar, Berlin and Heidelberg. 1904-1907; Professor of Philosophy of Religion.
Kyoto Imperial University, 1917-1937. After retirement, served from 1947 as President of Tamagawa Gakuen University until his death. 1949, Membership of the Japan Academy.
Main publications:
(1901) Seiyo tetsugaku shiyo [Outline of the History of Western Philosophy].
(1908) Kirisutokyo no kigen [Origin of Christianity).
(1943) Toki to eien [Time and Eternity] (English translation by Ichiro Suzuki, Japan National Commission for UNESCO, 1963).
(1968-1969) Hatano-seiichi zenshu [Complete Works of Hatano Seiichi], 6 vols. Tokyo: Iwanami-shoten.
Secondary literature:
Germany. C. H. (1965) Protestant Theologies in Modern Japan, Tokyo: I1SR Press.
Hamada. Y. (1949) Hatano shukyo tetsugaku [Hatano’s Philosophy of Religion], Tokyo: Tamagawa University Press.
Ishihara. K. (1954) Shukyo to tesugaku tono konpon ni aru mono. Hatano seiichi hakushi no gakugyo ni tsuite [The Fundamental in Religion and Philosophy: On Dr Hatano’s Scholarly Achievements], Tokyo: Iwanami-shoten.
Michalson, C. (1960) Japanese Contributions to Christian Theology, London: Westminster Press, especially chapter 4.
Wood. R. (1968) ‘Philosophy and theology in "Time and Eternity"’, a paper given in the International Department of Waseda University.
The philosophical activity of Hatano consists mainly of three parts, corresponding to the three periods of his scholarship. The first is his early historical study of Western philosophy. With his Seiyo tetsugaku shiyo (1901) he contributed to the popularization of philosophical studies, especially of Hegel, in Japan.
The second is his middle-period work on the history of western religious thought: his Kirisutokyo no kigen (1908) is a unique pioneering contribution to Japanese study of the history of Christianity and ancient Greek philosophy. The third and most original of his scholarly achievements lies in constructing a system of philosophy of religion. While using Kantian and neo-Kantian criticism to distinguish the philosophy of religion from deism or supernaturalism, he insists on distinguishing metaphysics from religious history, religious psychology, etc.
Hatano’s representative work from this third period. Toki to eien (1943) has its basis in his jinkaku-shugi: that God is neither the object nor the idea of human cognition, but the real other, the essentially loving God. and that the true religion is a personal, endless cooperation of life with such a God. This book makes clear how these aspects of human life, through natural life, cultural life and philosophical meditation, are finally rendered eternal, defeating time and death.
Not the endlessness of objective, philosophical time, but love is the proof of the true eternity, by which is meant radical revolution of the whole of one’s life. It must be the selfless agape donated by the creative God. because eros remains mere self-realization, and thus neither stable nor free from the bounds of time. Only at this stage does the subject become free from destruction into the past, where only the future can be conserved and death as a factor gains an entirely new meaning.
Time and Eternity, translated into English in 1963 at the request of the Japan National Commission for UNESCO, attracted wide attention abroad.