Welten der Philosophie Ki (気), Fühlen und Empfinden Eine linguistische Phänomenologie vorprädikativer Erfahrungsformen

This book is an edited version of the author’s doctoral dissertation, accepted at the institute of philosophy at the University of Hildesheim, which the author primarily worked on in Germany and France while pursuing a graduate degree. One possible translation of the title is “Ki, Sensing, and Feeling: A Linguistic Phenomenology of Pre-predicative Experience Forms”. Nonetheless, it is still a fair question to ask what the book is specifically about.
 
“Ki” is a word rooted in ancient Sinitic language. At the same time, it is a term whose range of meanings has gradually broadened over more than a dozen centuries since the adoption of Sinitic characters into Japan. The everyday spoken Japanese language is filled with words and expressions featuring this small term: Phrases such as “How are you?” (お元気ですか), “Before I knew it...” (気がつくと...), and “Take care” (お気をつけて) naturally slip out of a Japanese speaker's mouth without them even realizing it. It is an incredibly familiar presence, yet if asked, “What is this ki?”, they often find themselves at a loss for words. Perhaps this loss of words is precisely because it is too familiar to them, as a semantic field.
 
The title of the book also includes the term “pre-predicative experience forms”. What does this refer to? Let us first begin with the word “predicative” without the “pre”. In philosophy, predicative (“prädikativ” in German and “prédicatif” in French). In philosophy, it is often used to mean something “expressed/expressive in words”. By adding the prefix ‘pre’, such words could be understood as “before it is assigned words.” In other words, it suggests that the issue at hand is an <experience before it is assigned verbal expressions>. Waking up in the morning, opening the curtains, feeling the warmth of the sunlight, moving to the bathroom to take a shower in a half-asleep state, even these everyday actions can be performed prior to thinking, along with perceptive judgments or assessments such as “It’s a beautiful day today,” “It’s getting cold,” or “I feel kind of sluggish,” which unfold without necessarily being expressed verbally (though one might mutter them in their head). Unbeknownst, these pre-predicative actions and perceptive judgments or/and assessments—indeed, the broader realm of <what one feels>—unfold in domains where words cannot keep up. They spread their wings, even without being fully rationally understood. The author posits that the experiential domain indicated by “ki”(気), in spoken Japanese, consists of certain patterns—guiding forms—born and developed to articulate some of the instances from these countless experiences beyond words. These patterns of one’s movements, sensations, and feelings, though limited, have been expressed and shared with others through verbal communications where the term “ki” appears.
 
Since this book is written in German, its readers are primarily German speakers. German does not have a word with exactly the same meaning as “ki,” just as there are countless German words that cannot be directly translated into Japanese. Drawing inspiration from L. Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, M. Merleau-Ponty, H. Schmitz, G. Böhme, R. Elberfeld, and A. Heller, the author regards these <untranslatable> experiences as part of the realm of experiences that precede language(s), questioning one’s perspective on the perceptual and sensory world that one always already takes for granted as “self-evident”. This book highlights the potential for transformation of how one relates to one’s own bodymind-self, other-selves, the environment, and nature, but not for the purpose of self-optimization. As the term “linguistic phenomenology” suggests, this transformation seems to occur when each individual, as a living being immersed in the historical legacy and the constraints of language(s) and culture(s) that have developed in relation to others, examines or re-reflects on both their own, personal verbal usage and their pre-predicative experiential domains.
 

(Written by KUWAYAMA Yukiko, Lecturer, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / 2025)