Everything about The Kyoto School totally explained
The
Kyoto School 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." . It is used however also of the many postwar scholars from various disciplines 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 will be treated under
The Kyoto University Research Centre for the Cultural Sciences.
Beginning roughly in
1913 with
Nishida Kitaro, it survived the serious controversy it garnered after
W.W.II to develop into a moderately well-known and active movement today. However, it isn't 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, and as its founder, Kitaro steadfastly encouraged independent thinking. According to James Heisig, the name "Kyoto School" was first used in
1932 by a student of Kitaro and Tanabe,
Tosaka Jun (1900-45) - himself considered to be part of the '
marxist left-wing' of the school. Afterwards, the media and other academic institutions outside of Japan began to use the moniker, and by the 1970s it had become a universal title - practically by default.
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 and
Hegel, then there's no philosophy taking place in Japan. But if it's instead thought of in terms of the tradition carried out by
Augustine and
Kierkegaard, then Japan has a rich philosophical history, composed of the great thinkers
Kūkai,
Shinran,
Dogen and others.
The group of philosophers involved with the Kyoto School in its nearly 100 year history (so far), is a diverse one. Individual members would sometimes come from very different backgrounds, and were not hesitant to criticise each others' work. However, to be formally accepted as a member of the movement, one had to:
- either be teaching at Kyoto University or at a nearby affiliated school,
- share Nishida's basic assumptions regarding metaphysics and the concept of "nothingness", and
- use the same philosophical vocabulary as Nishida.
Generally, most were strongly influenced by the German philosophical tradition, especially through the thought of
Nietzsche and
Heidegger. In addition, all had strong ties to the Buddhist religion, and while their work wasn't expressly religious, it was informed significantly by it.
Although the group was fluidic and largely informal, traditionally whoever occupied the Chair of the Department of Modern Philosophy at the university 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 and since his departure, leadership of the school has crumbled - turning the movement into a very
decentralized group of philosophers with common beliefs and common 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, now the most well-known living member, has traveled to both coasts of the
United States on professorships, and lectured to many groups on Buddhist-Christian relations.
In addition, although
Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki was closely connected to the Kyoto school and in some ways critical to the development of thought that occurred there—indeed, Suzuki personally knew Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani—he isn't considered a true member of the group.
Nishida Kitaro
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 topos) - which brought him fame outside of 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 however is how much they're 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, doesn't resolve in a synthesis, but rather 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,
Before his death, Nishida wrote
The Logic of Place and the Religious Worldview, developing more fully the religious implications of his work and philosophy through "Absolute Nothingness." God or the Absolute, he says, is best understood by absolute nothingness because it "contains its own absolute self-negations within itself." Meaning, that while the divine is dynamically paradoxical, it shouldn't be construed as
pantheism, or
transcendent theism. Both Nishitani and Abe have 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, would become 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.
Criticism of the Kyoto School
Today, there's a great deal of critical research into the school's role prior to 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, supporting the intellectual culture in being prepared for a modified version of colonialism and "manifest destiny" beliefs. However, it should be noted that some Western writers think this criticism misplaced, and have defended the school and its major thinkers as fundamentally right in their reading of the historical logic of Japan's long war against the imperialist 'White' world.
Members
Nishida Kitaro: 1870 - 1945 (KU Philosophy Dept. 1910-13, Chair 1913-28)
Tanabe Hajime: 1885 - 1962 (KU Philosophy Dept. ?, Chair, 1928-35?)
Nishitani Keiji: 1900 - 1990 (KU Philosophy Dept. 1928-35, Chair 1935-63)
Abe Masao
Miki Kiyoshi
Hisamatsu Shinichi
Ueda Shizuteru (Shizuteru Ueda)
Saneshige Komaki
Yamanouchi Tokuryu
Takeuchi Yoshinori
Suggested Reading
» Scholarly Books
The 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.
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.
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 individual members
» :For further information, see the Nanzan Institute's Complete Bibliography for all Kyoto School members
Kitaro 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.
Hajime Tanabe, Philosophy as Metanoetics, translated by Yoshinori Takeuchi. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
——, Logic of the Species (no English translation yet)
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 Aiharo. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.
Yoshinori Takeuchi, The Heart of Buddhism, translated by James Heisig. New York: 1983.
Secondary sources on individual 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.Further Information
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