The Kyoto School (京都学派, Kyōto-gakuha) is the name given to the Japanese philosophical
movement centered at Kyoto University that assimilated western philosophy and religious
ideas and used them to reformulate religious and moral insights unique to the East Asian
cultural tradition.
However, it is also used to describe postwar scholars who have taught at the same university,
been influenced by the foundational thinkers of Kyoto school philosophy, and who have developed
distinctive theories of Japanese uniqueness.
To disambiguate the term, therefore, thinkers and writers covered by this second sense appear
under The Kyoto University Research Centre for the Cultural Sciences.
Beginning roughly in 1913 with Kitarō Nishida, it survived the serious controversy it garnered
after World War II to develop into a well-known and active movement.
However, it is not a "school" of philosophy in the traditional sense of the phrase, such
as with the Frankfurt School or Plato's Academy.
Instead, the group of academics gathered around Kyoto University as a de facto meeting place.
Its founder, Nishida, steadfastly encouraged independent thinking.
According to James Heisig, the name "Kyoto School" was first used in 1932 by a student
of Nishida and Hajime Tanabe.
Jun Tosaka (1900–45) considered himself to be part of the 'Marxist left-wing' of the
school.
Afterwards, the media and academic institutions outside Japan began to use the term.
By the 1970s it had become a universally accepted term.
== History == Masao Abe writes in his introduction to a
new English translation of Nishida's magnum opus that if one thinks of philosophy in terms
of Kant or Hegel, then there is no philosophy taking place in Japan.
But if it is instead thought of in the tradition carried out by Augustine and Kierkegaard,
then Japan has a rich philosophical history, composed of the great thinkers Kūkai, Shinran,
Dōgen, and others.The group of philosophers involved with the Kyoto School in its nearly
100-year history is a diverse one.
Members often come from very different social backgrounds.
At the same time, in the heat of intellectual debate they did not hesitate to criticise
each other's work.
The following criteria roughly characterize the features of this school:
Teaching at Kyoto University or at a nearby affiliated school.
Sharing some basic assumptions about using Asian thought in the framework of Western
philosophical tradition.
Introducing and rationally investigating the meaning of "nothingness" and its importance
in the history of philosophical debate.
Expanding on the philosophical vocabulary introduced by Nishida.Generally, most were
strongly influenced by the German philosophical tradition, especially the thought of Kant,
Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.
In addition, many employed their cultural resources in formulating their philosophy
and bringing it to play to add to the philosophical enterprise.
While their work was not expressly religious it was informed significantly by it.
For example, Tanabe and Keiji Nishitani wrote on Christianity and Buddhism and identified
common elements between the religions.
For this reason, some scholars classify the intellectual products of the school as "religious
philosophy."
Although the group was fluid and largely informal, traditionally whoever occupied the Chair of
the Department of Modern Philosophy at the University of Kyoto was considered its leader.
Nishida was the first, from 1913 to 1928.
Hajime Tanabe succeeded him until the mid-1930s.
By this time, Nishitani had graduated from Kyoto University, studied with Martin Heidegger
for two years in Germany, and returned to a teaching post since 1928.
From 1955 to 1963, Nishitani officially occupied the Chair.
Since his departure, leadership of the school crumbled — turning the movement into a very
decentralized group of philosophers with common beliefs and interests.
== Significance of its notable members == The significance of the group continues to
grow, especially in American departments of religion and philosophy.
Since the mid-1980s, there has been a growing interest in East/West dialogue, especially
inter-faith scholarship.
Masao Abe traveled to both coasts of the United States on professorships and lectured to many
groups on Buddhist-Christian relations.
Although Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki was closely connected to the Kyoto School and in some
ways critical to the development of thought that occurred there — he personally knew
Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani — he is not considered a true member of the group.
=== Kitaro Nishida ===
Nishida, the school's founder, is most known for his groundbreaking work An Inquiry into
the Good and later for his elucidation of the "logic of basho" (Japanese: 場所; usually
translated as "place," or the Greek τόπος topos).
This brought him fame outside Japan and contributed largely to the attention later paid to philosophers
from the Kyoto School.
Nishida's work is notable for a few reasons.
Chief among them is how much they are related to the German tradition of philosophy since
Schopenhauer.
The logic of basho is a non-dualistic 'concrete' logic, meant to overcome the inadequacy of
the subject-object distinction essential to the subject logic of Aristotle and the predicate
logic of Kant, through the affirmation of what he calls the 'absolutely contradictory
self-identity' — a dynamic tension of opposites that, unlike the dialectical logic of Hegel,
does not resolve in a synthesis.
Rather, it defines its proper subject by maintaining the tension between affirmation and negation
as opposite poles or perspectives.
Nishitani describes East Asian philosophy as something very different from what the
Western tradition of Descartes, Leibniz or Hume would indicate.
It is 'intuitive and practical,' with its emphasis on religious aspects of experience
not lending themselves readily to theoretical description.
True wisdom is to be distinguished from intellectual understanding of the kind appropriate to the
sciences.
The 'appropriation' of Nishida's thought,...'embraces difficulties entirely different from those
of intellectual understanding'...and those who 'pretend to understand much but do not
really understand, no matter how much they intellectually understand' are the object
of his scorn.
Nishida wrote The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview, developing more fully the religious
implications of his work and philosophy through "Absolute Nothingness," which "contains its
own absolute self-negation within itself."
By this Nishida means that while the divine is dynamically paradoxical, it should not
be construed as pantheism or transcendent theism.
Nishitani and Abe spent much of their academic lives dedicated to this development of nothingness
and the Absolute, leading on occasion to panentheism.
=== Hajime Tanabe ===
=== Keiji Nishitani ===
Nishitani, one of Nishida's main disciples, became the doyen in the post-war period.
Nishitani's works, such as his Religion and Nothingness, primarily dealt with the Western
notion of nihilism, inherited from Nietzsche, and religious interpretation of nothingness,
as found in the Buddhist idea of sunyata and the specifically Zen Buddhist concept of mu.
=== Masao Abe ===
=== Shizuteru Ueda === A disciple of Keiji Nishitani.
=== Eshin Nishimura ===
== Criticism ==
Today, there is a great deal of critical research into the school's role before and during the
Second World War.
Hajime Tanabe bears the greatest brunt of the criticism for bringing his work on the
"Logic of Species" into Japanese politics, which was used to buttress the militarist
project to formulate imperialist ideology and propaganda.
Tanabe's notion is that the logical category of "species" and nation are equivalent, and
each nation or "species" provides a fundamental set of characteristics which define and determine
the lives and outlooks of those who participate in it.
== Members == Kitaro Nishida: 1870-1945 (KU Philosophy Dept.
1910-13, Chair 1913-28) Hajime Tanabe: 1885-1962 (KU Philosophy Dept.?,
Chair, 1928-35?)
Tomonaga Sanjūrō Keiji Nishitani: 1900-1990 (KU Philosophy
Dept. 1928-35, Chair 1935-63) Masao Abe
Miki Kiyoshi Hisamatsu Shinichi
Shizuteru Ueda Saneshige Komaki
Yamanouchi Tokuryu Takeuchi Yoshinori
== References ==
== Suggested reading == Scholarly booksThe Buddha Eye: An Anthology
of the Kyoto School.
Edited by Frederick Franck.
New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1982.—Seventeen essays, most from The Eastern Buddhist, on
Zen and Pure Land Buddhism.Kyoto School Philosophy: A Call for a Paradigm Shift in Philosophical
Thoughthttp://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications/Bulletin_and_Shoho/pdf/16-Horo.pdf, by HORO Atsuhiko.
Nanzan Bulletin 16, 1992, pp. 15–32.
The Philosophy of the Kyoto School, edited by Fujita Masakatsu. 2001.—Anthology of
texts by Kyoto scholars themselves, with additional biographical essays.The Thought of the Kyoto
School, edited by Ohashi Ryosuke. 2004.—Collection of essays dealing with the history of its
name, and its members contributions to philosophy.Philosophers of Nothingness by James Heisig.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001.
ISBN 0-8248-2481-4—Excellent introduction to the School's history and content; includes
rich multilingual bibliography.Absolute Nothingness: Foundations for a Buddhist-Christian Dialogue,
Hans Waldenfels.
New York: Paulist Press, 1980.—Good early work, focuses mostly on Nishitani's relevance
for the perspective of Buddhist-Christian dialogue.James W. Heisig, John C. Maraldo
(Ed.): "Rude Awakenings.
Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Nationalism", Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994.Journal
articles"The Religious Philosophy of the Kyoto School: An Overview," by James Heisig.
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies Vol.17, No.1, (1990), p51-81.
"Heidegger and Buddhism," by T. Umehara.
Philosophy East and West, Vol.20 (1970), p271-281.
"Nishida's Philosophy of 'Place'," by Masao Abe, International Philosophical Quarterly
Vol.28, No.4 (Winter 1988), p. 355-371.
"In Memoriam: Keiji Nishitani (1900-1990)," by E. Kawamura-Hanoka.
Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol.12 (1992), p241-245.
=== Readings by members === For further information, see the Nanzan Institute's
Complete Bibliography for all Kyoto School membersKitaro Nishida, An Inquiry into the
Good, translated by Masao Abe and Christopher Ives.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987 (1921).
——, Art and Morality, translated by D. Dilworth and Valdo Viglielmo.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1973.
——, Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness, translated by Robert Schinzinger.
Westport: 1958.
Tanabe, Hajime, "Demonstratio of Christianity", in Introduction to the philosophy of Tanabe:
According to the English translation of the seventh chapter of the demonstration of Christianity,
translated by Makoto Ozaki, Rodopi Bv Editions, January 1990, ISBN 90-5183-205-2,ISBN 978-90-5183-205-1,
ASIN B0006F1CBU.
--, "The Logic of The Species as Dialectics," trns.
David Dilworth; Taira Sato, in Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1969, pp. 273–288.
[Available as pdf through JSTOR] --, Philosophy as Metanoetics (Nanzan studies
in religion and culture), Yoshinori Takeuchi, Valdo Viglielmo, and James W. Heisig (Translators),
University of California Press, April 1987, ISBN 0-520-05490-3.
Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, Berkeley: University of California Press,
1982.
ISBN 0-520-04946-2 ——, The Self-overcoming of Nihilism, translated
by Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.
Yoshinori Takeuchi, The Heart of Buddhism, translated by James Heisig.
New York: 1983.
=== Secondary sources on members === Nishida Kitaro, by Nishitani Keiji, translated
by Yamamoto Sesaku and James Heisig.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
The Religious Philosophy of Tanabe Hajime, edited by Taitetsu Unno and James Heisig.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
The Religious Philosophy of Nishitani Keiji, edited by Taitetsu Unno.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
== External links == Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
The Fascist Next Door?
Nishitani Keiji and the Chuokoron Discussions in Perspective, Discussion Paper by Xiaofei
Tu in the electronic journal of contemporary Japanese studies, 27 July 2006.