Period
Modern Japanese
1868 – present
From the Meiji Restoration, as Japan took up Western philosophy and Nishida Kitarō and the Kyoto School brought it into dialogue with Buddhist thought.
By convention the modern period begins with the restoration of the emperor in 1868. To avoid falling victim to Western imperialism, Japan set out to modernise quickly, and its intellectuals took up positivism, utilitarianism and liberal political thought in what they called the “Meiji Enlightenment”. In the twentieth century Nishida Kitarō and the Kyoto School drew on Mahāyāna Buddhism as well as Western philosophy, while Watsuji Tetsurō rebuilt ethics around the relations between people.
- Traditions
- Japanese
Philosophers
- Nishida Kitarō1870–1945
- Tanabe Hajime1885–1962
- Watsuji Tetsurō1889–1960
- Nishitani Keiji1900–1990
Sources
- Thomas Kasulis and Raquel Bouso, Japanese Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Bret W. Davis, The Kyoto School, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy