Abstract
Imanishi Kinji's shizengaku developed in his major work Seibutsu no sekai, is considered to provide a substantial basis for discussions on the relationship between humanity and the natural world that challenges the contemporary approaches to natural ethics. His thought was predominantly influenced by Nishida Kitarō's Zen philosophy, Kyōto School, environmental sciences, anthropology and sociology.
The broad knowledge of these disciplines shaped his view of nature as a society of organisms interrelated in a holistic system which is based on an undivided continuity of individual-nature non-dualism. Imanishi views the living world as devoid of subject-object dichotomy and considers organisms as integrated functional structures that originate from one reality and, in the process of living, expand their recognition of their environments, which means that they constantly teleologically oriented towards the wholeness from which they once emerged.
The organisms are socially related and they interact with and within their environments representing parts of a continuum of nature. The interaction of organisms within the natural continuum is characterized by an active interrelation of equal sentient beings as well as the intrinsic value of integrity.
The integrity is developed in the process of evolution, whereby sentient beings expand their own environment, i.e. recognized world. As a result, this expansion extends the scale of their integrity and intensifies it.
To introduce sociality as a structural principle of Imanishi's holistic view of the world, my paper focuses on his concept of integrity and recognition of world comprising of both structure and function. I will argue that for Imanishi, reaction of organism's body within the environment is an expression of recognition of mind, mind is an expression of integrity and integrity is ultimately an expression of the wholeness of body and mind.