Abstract
Since Descartes and Newton embodiment and place as philosophical and phenomenological categories for describing and understanding being and mindfulness have been in retreat in Western philosophy, science and culture. The growing biological and cultural homogenisation of the world, the spread of invasive species and diseases - that for example are killing Ash trees in Denmark and the UK - indicate the extent to which the modern industrial economy no longer recognises geographical boundaries and the distinctive ecosystems that they sustain. These essays by Japan’s foremost twentieth century philosopher expound a philosophy of life - basho - in which being and consciousness are understood as ‘concrete situatedness’, and existence is described as embodied and emplaced being in history and across time. Written in the context of the rise and fall of Japanese imperialism, and Japan’s more recent global rise as an economic power, they demonstrate that eastern philosophers, like western philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Edward Casey, have strained to articulate a philosophical description of the life world which resists the homogenising and place-corrosive tides of Western industrial modernity and its philosophical antecedents.