School of thought
Kyoto School
School
Classification
- Period
- c. 1913 CE onward
- Regions
- East Asia (origin)
- Domains
- Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind
Overview
The Kyoto School is the group of philosophers centered on Kyoto University who engaged Western philosophy — German idealism, phenomenology and existentialism — from within East Asian Mahayana Buddhist thought, and developed systems of their own out of that encounter. Nishida developed the concept of 'absolute nothingness' (zettai mu) as a more fundamental ground than Western Being, while Nishitani explored the relationship between nihilism and Buddhist emptiness.
Key ideas
- Absolute Nothingness: Nishida's key concept: the ground of reality is not Being (as in Western metaphysics) but absolute nothingness — the 'place' (basho) in which all determinations arise and return.
- Self-Awakening: True self-knowledge is not reflective consciousness but a direct, non-dual awareness — the self knowing itself in and through absolute nothingness.
- Overcoming Nihilism: Nishitani argued that Western nihilism can be overcome not by returning to theism but by passing through nihilism into the Buddhist experience of sunyata (emptiness) — a creative, affirmative nothing.
Key figures
Nishida Kitaro · Tanabe Hajime · Nishitani Keiji · Watsuji Tetsuro (associate)
Influenced by
- Existentialism
- Phenomenology
- Zen (Chan)
Nishida studied Western philosophy alongside a dedicated practice of Zen, and the school states in Western philosophical terms what Zen approaches through sitting: a nothingness disclosed when the division between knower and known gives way.
References
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Kyoto School
- Kyoto University, Research Activities 3:3 (2013), The Kyoto School of Philosophy and its Genealogy — Formation: Nishida's teaching at Kyoto Imperial University from 1910 and the circle that formed around it.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Kyoto School, §1 'Introduction' (Nishida's years of studying Western philosophy and Asian classics alongside a dedicated practice of Zen) and §3.2 'The Buddhist and Daoist Background for the Idea of Absolute Nothingness'
- An Inquiry into the Good — Nishida Kitaro
- Religion and Nothingness — Nishitani Keiji