The reception of Hegel's Science of Logic in Japan is problematic, to say the least. Hiroshi Hasegawa's brilliant translations constitute the only beacon of hope.
The secondary literature contains many basic misreadings. For instance, Takehito Tatetchi's The System of Hegel's Science of Logic claims that the "being" which begins the Logic already contains all possible determinations and categories in principle. Tatechi also claims that the real starting point of the Logic is not being but essence, and the reason is because essence grounds being, and so the ground must come before the grounded. Here, Tatechi's work confuses the order of categories with the order of their deduction. In the order of the categories, essence is more basic than being, because essence is the truth of being. That is to say, the categories of being cannot "be" without positing itself against itself -- which sounds like nonsense on its own, but the job of secondary literature, especially the expository ones like Takeuchi's work, is to elucidate this thought. The order of knowledge in the logic begins with being, and for very good reasons.
Other books make false assertions as if they were facts accepted among scholars. For example, Hegel's Science of Logic: A Conversation written by Zenichi Ebisawa opens with the remark that "The Science of Logic is a work of metaphysics, that is to say, ontology." Wrong! Metaphysics is not ontology. Yet Ebisawa quickly equates the Logic with the "science of being." The book is presented as a conversation between a teacher and a student, and the student is constantly perplexed as to how one could make inferences about being. The student's intuition is on the right track, because there is no such thing as a science of being.
Another false assertion made by the teacher character in Ebisawa's book is that "Hegel prides himself to be the one who first discovered the method of dialectics." Wrong again! Hegel clearly states in the Introduction that in modern philosophy it was Kant who raised dialectics to its proper significance in philosophy. It is crucial to see that what Hegel is doing is not something alien to the rest of the philosophical tradition but rather is its most classical example. The idea of "Hegelian dialectics" is misleading, as if one should become a die-hard Hegelian in order to write anything in the way of dialectical logic.
The mess is discernible in the translations of Hegel's works, too. For example, "Sein" is translated as either 有 or 存在. Accordingly, the Doctrine of Being (Seinslehre) is translated as either 有の論, 有論, 存在論, or 存在の論. The problem is not so much the variation as the clumsy expressions that dominate the entire work. In general, trying to force all philosophical thoughts into noun-phrases is a bad idea, but that is unfortunately the norm in Hegel translation. I would argue that ある is the best translation for Sein, ない for Nichts, and なる for Werden, just because these hiragana expressions are much more familiar in everyday Japanese compared to 有, 無, and 成. One of the most important outcomes of studying philosophy should be that one uses one's everyday expressions in a different, self-conscious, true way. Hasegawa does an amazing job at allowing precisely this to happen. Other translations, not as much.
The reception (or non-reception) of The Science of Logic amongst Japanese philosophers fairs no better. All the stereotypes of Hegel appear in the writings of many well-known Japanese thinkers. The most popular stereotype is that for Hegel, history develops according to divine providence. The Absolute Idea pulls the strings of history and the cunning of reason uses the individuals to achieve some one divine plan. This is a gross misreading of the Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History. Another popular stereotype is that Hegel's Science of Logic somehow contains the germ for all forms of existence in the natural and spiritual worlds. Therefore, by simply studying the logic, one is supposed to learn everything that is needed in order to "deduce" nature and spirit from the Absolute Idea.
There are also scholars who present their ideas as somehow "overcoming" Hegel, and yet do not realize that what they are overcoming is a caricature of what is in fact written in Hegel's texts, and that what they present as original is a fragment of what is already found in Hegel or even in Kant. Such misunderstandings and false overcomings can be found in Nishida, Tanabe, and others. The claim that "absolute nothingness" is the basis of all existence, for example, is nothing new.
There are many reasons for being upset with this (non)reception of Hegel in Japan. For one thing, it discourages students from taking the great idealist's writings seriously. For another, it makes it difficult for prospective scholars to do research in certain areas. It is telling that Hiroshi Hasegawa, possibly the only good contributor to the study of Hegel's writings in Japan, works outside academia, that is, is not hired by a university.
Much of the problem seems to lie in the desire to look like one is saying something original. Therefore, it is tempting to try and coin new terms or distort the history of philosophy. The temptation is especially strong if one realizes that one can get away with it in Japan. I do not know whether this is a uniquely Japanese problem or is part of a wider tendency in the world. In any case, someone like Hasegawa, who translates not because he wants to rise above others in some academic competition, but rather because he simply finds it worthwhile both for himself as well as for others, still exists. Others should follow his lead.
Much of the problem seems to lie in the desire to look like one is saying something original. Therefore, it is tempting to try and coin new terms or distort the history of philosophy. The temptation is especially strong if one realizes that one can get away with it in Japan. I do not know whether this is a uniquely Japanese problem or is part of a wider tendency in the world. In any case, someone like Hasegawa, who translates not because he wants to rise above others in some academic competition, but rather because he simply finds it worthwhile both for himself as well as for others, still exists. Others should follow his lead.
