To Love Myself, to Love the World, to Love Someone

↓日本語バージョン:Japanese version

The identity of the self and the identity of the world being the same as the world are like the two sides of a coin, and as Katsuhito Iwai said about Dasein, they are in a circular argument. The fact that the world is no other than this world is based on “myself” being no other than this “myself,” and the fact “myself” is no other than this “myself” is based on the world being no other than this world. The world is this world because I was this “myself,” and I am this “myself” because the world was this world.

There’s no answer, but this circular reasoning, for the question of why I am this “myself” but not another, and why the world is this world but not another. This is because both questions are concerned with the totality of relations, i.e., I and the world. They are respectively questioning the fact that the world is this world, that my totality of relations is this totality of relations, and the fact that I am this “myself,” that I exist because of this totality of relations. For “myself,” there is no information outside the totality of my relations, and no physical relations. Therefore, this “myself” and this world, that totality of relations, is circularly based on that relationship itself.

To doubt all information (relations) through solipsistic skepticism is equal to losing either myself or the world, and necessarily to losing both. However, this circular reasoning is probably difficult to notice without going through solipsistic skepticism. Because without it, it is difficult to imagine an entire “other myself,” an entire other world. Solipsistic skepticism, its orientation toward the outside of relations, is skeptical against all relations, in that point, it shares the structure of the problem, the object of the question, which is the totality of relations.  The fact that I am this “myself,” and this world being this world is logically an absurdity, but creates the singularity of “myself.”

The world and “myself” seen in this way are undoubtedly singular, because the totality of relations is different and specific to each being in the world, and, for example, it cannot be replaced by that of another. It cannot be communicated in its entirety to others. It cannot be reduced to communication (the transmission from one end of a relation to another). Therefore it is outside of language, because that merely means I and the world exist in that way.  It is against the world of ideas (abstraction), because it does not abstract anything and takes all relations into account.

Moreover, based on the above, we can understand that people who love oneself are a person who loves the world, and people who affirm oneself are a person who affirms the world. This is because those people love all of the relations between oneself and the world (please note that they are not loving only oneself in isolation from the world; that would be hell). Affirming this world and affirming this “myself” are the same thing. Therefore, although there may be some differences depending on the object,  people who love oneself will necessarily have universal love for all others (the world). Conversely, people who cannot love oneself will not be satisfied by this world. If you love yourself, the world will inevitably be fulfilled, and if you love the world, you will inevitably be fulfilled. If you cannot love yourself, the world will inevitably not be fulfilled, and if you cannot love the world, you will inevitably not be fulfilled by yourself.

Or, based on the above, we can understand that the fact I am this “myself,” my singularity is outside of the relations for the other. Conversely, the fact someone is no other than someone,that is the other's singularity, is also outside of the relations for myself. In other words, loving someone else goes beyond the limits of logic (comparison).

Or, a love which does not acknowledge its own fundamental ignorance (the outside of the relations) does not know freedom.