Ontology of Production ─ 3 Essays

Agreeing with Marx that ontology is production and production is ontology, Nishida in these three essays—"Expressive Activity" (1925), "The Standpoint of Active Intuition" (1935), and "Human Being" (1938)—addresses sense and reason, language and thought, intuition and appropriation, ultimately arguing that in this concept of production, ideality and materiality are neither mutually exclusive nor oppositional but, rather, coimmanent. Nishida's forceful articulation of the radical nature of Marx's theory of production is, Haver contends, particularly timely in today's speculation-driven global economy. Nishida's reading of Marx, which points to the inseparability of immaterial intellectual labor and material manual labor, provokes a reconsideration of Marxism's utility for making sense of—and resisting—the logic of contemporary capitalism.

Nishida Kitaro (1870–1945), considered the founder of the Kyoto School of Japanese philosophy, was Professor of Philosophy at Kyoto University. His many books include An Inquiry into the Good; Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness; and Fundamental Problems of Philosophy. William Haver is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Binghamton University. He is the author of The Body of This Death: Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS.

William Haver is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Binghamton University. He is the author of The Body of This Death: Historicity and Sociality in the Time of AIDS.