Kyoto School

The Kyoto School was a circle of Japanese philosophers of the twentieth century who brought East Asian thought, above all Mahāyāna Buddhism, together with the questions and methods of Western philosophy. Its progenitor was Nishida Kitarō, and its two other most prominent members were his colleague and critic Tanabe Hajime and his student Nishitani Keiji. It takes its name from Kyoto University, where they taught.

What unites them is less a doctrine than a central concept, “absolute nothingness”, which each of them worked out in his own way, arguing with Western philosophers and among themselves. Several members took part in controversial wartime symposia and wrote on Japan’s place in world history, and after the war they were criticised, and some purged from their posts, for supporting the war. During the war the same writings were attacked by nationalists as too cosmopolitan.