Abstract
Imanishi Kinji's (1902-1992) shizengaku, developed in his major work Seibutsu no sekai (The World of Living Things, 1941) and predominantly influenced by Nishida Kitarō's Zen philosophy, environmental sciences, and sociology, proposes a teleological, anthropomorphic interpretation of the living world. Imanishi s world of living things is a holistic system based on an undivided continuity of individual-nature non-dualism in which every organism and species originated from one thing.
In such a spatio-temporal world, both structure and function are manifested in every single organism. As every living thing has its bodily existence in this spatio-temporal structure, it is continuously in a state of gradual decay eventually resulting in death.
The world of living things does not consist only of individuals, however. Imanishi views it as a community or society of organisms, a sociological unit which is characterized as teleologically oriented towards self- completeness in wholeness.
This is what he calls species. Species develop, therefore we perceive evolution.
Evolution inevitably happens in space-time. Although we might contend that the temporal structure of the world again "opposes" evolution by limiting individuals lives, for species, time limits an indefinite continuation of species.
Once a species approaches closer to the summit of development, it begins to self- destruct and another one replaces it. Such a mechanism is noticeable in evolution from the beginning.
At this point Imanishi starts a discussion on history. Imanishi views the history of the world as the history of evolution, which is, in essence, the history of the rise and fall of leading species, i.e. the ruling class.
My paper analyzes temporal factors within Imanishi s theory of evolution related to various subjects in order to consider time and history from the perspective of biology.