Absolute alterity and the ethics of mutable boundaries: Nishida Kitarō’s ontology of creative negation

Abstract

This article proposes a rethinking of borders through the non-dualistic dialectic of Nishida Kitarō. Rather than treating borders as fixed lines separating pre-existing entities, it approaches them as relational articulations emerging from dynamic fields of self-determination. Drawing on Nishida’s logic of place (basho) and his notion of contradictory self-identity, the article argues that distinction and separation arise only within a shared field of relations and cannot be grounded in substance ontology. After examining the interpersonal structure of the I/Thou relation, the analysis extends to biological and ecological contexts, where recent theories of symbiogenesis and sympoiesis resonate with Nishida’s account of life as co-formation. The final sections focus on the historical world and the expressive body, showing how social and political borders are enacted through embodied practices rather than imposed from outside the relational field.