Nishida, Kitarō [西田 幾多郎] (1870–1945)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Van Overmeire
Keyword(s):  
Pacific War ◽  
Kyoto School ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Meiji Era ◽  
Pure Experience ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Nishida Kitaro ◽  
Foreign Ideas ◽  
East West

Arguably the most important Japanese philosopher of the 20th century, Nishida Kitarō was one of the first thinkers to engage deeply with the sudden massive influx of foreign ideas that characterized the Meiji era, while still maintaining a distinctive place for Asian ideas. Beginning with An Inquiry into the Good (1911), Nishida’s lifelong philosophical goal was to identify the foundation of consciousness and existence, something he later called the "place" [basho]. Successive works identified this foundation as "pure experience," "absolute will," and, finally, "absolute nothingness." All these "places" have in common the fact that they lack any distinctive features: being fields (another term Nishida employs) that contain oppositions (such as subject-object, me-you, knowledge-feeling), they cannot of themselves have distinguishable qualities. Although Nishida’s actions during the Pacific War have been the subject of significant debate, his influence is uncontested: the so-called Kyoto School of Japanese philosophy comprises those building on or reacting to his ideas. Because he valued both Christian and Buddhist traditions, Nishida has also been a pivotal figure in East-West religious dialog.

The Place of God in the Philosophy of Tanabe Hajime

2014 ◽  
pp. 430-446
Author(s):  
James W. Heisig
Keyword(s):  
Religious Faith ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
Kyoto School ◽  
Regular Feature ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
Cultural Specificity ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Idea Of God

Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962) was one of the pivotal figures in the Kyoto School. The present essay focuses on his idea of God as a gateway to understanding the unfolding of his major philosophical ideas. Despite criticisms of the Christian God, Tanabe gradually transformed the notion in the light of his rediscovery of Buddhist thought and the elaboration of ideas of absolute nothingness, the cultural specificity of rationality, and historical praxis. After a brief capitulation to nationalist thinking during the Pacific War, he undertook a radical rethinking of the philosophical vocation and took a more conciliatory approach to religious faith. His idea of God transformed into a “nothingness-in-love” and the appeal to supporting Christian ideas became a regular feature in his writings. The essay concludes with an attempt to locate an underlying motivation for Tanabe’s concern with the idea of God.

Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945)

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Chia
Keyword(s):  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Process Philosophy ◽  
Organization Studies ◽  
Kyoto School ◽  
Lao Tzu ◽  
Pure Experience ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
Kyoto School Of Philosophy ◽  
Social Entities ◽  
Nishida Kitaro

Nishida Kitarō, the most significant and influential Japanese philosopher of the twentieth century, was the founder of the Kyoto School of Philosophy which focuses on the notion of pure experience or absolute nothingness. According to this worldview, the existence of social entities such as individuals, organizations, and societies is preceded by actions, relations, and experiences. Nishida’s work contributed to the emergence of a unique Japanese philosophy that combines Anglo-European philosophy with ancient Asian sources of thought such as Zen Buddhism and the philosophy of Lao Tzu. His thinking has profound implications for contemporary process organizational theorizing and especially for a revised comprehension of consciousness, self, world, and organization that is compatible with process philosophy. This chapter examines Nishida’s Zen-based philosophy and its relevance to self and process in organization studies.

scholarly journals THE ‘GHOST’ OF THE ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE: AN EXAMINATION INTO HISTORICAL MYTH-MAKING

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 811-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTONY BEST
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Subject ◽  
War Memoirs ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Right

Even though the argument runs counter to much of the detailed scholarship on the subject, Britain's decision in 1921 to terminate its alliance with Japan is sometimes held in general historical surveys to be a major blunder that helped to pave the way to the Pacific War. The lingering sympathy for the combination with Japan is largely due to an historical myth which has presented the alliance as a particularly close partnership. The roots of the myth lie in the inter-war period when, in order to attack the trend towards internationalism, the political right in Britain manipulated memory of the alliance so that it became an exemplar of ‘old diplomacy’. It was then reinforced after 1945 by post-war memoirs and the ‘declinist’ literature of the 1960s and 1970s. By analysing the origins of this benevolent interpretation of the alliance, this article reveals how quickly and pervasively political discourse can turn history into myth and how the development of myths tells us much about the time in which they were created.

Modern Japanese Philosophy: Historical Contexts and Cultural Implications

2014 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
Yoko Arisaka
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
Kyoto School ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Meiji Restoration ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Cultural Implications ◽  
Contemporary Context

AbstractThe paper provides an overview of the rise of Japanese philosophy during the period of rapid modernization in Japan after the Meiji Restoration (beginning in the 1860s). It also examines the controversy surrounding Japanese philosophy towards the end of the Pacific War (1945), and its renewal in the contemporary context. The post-Meiji thinkers engaged themselves with the questions ofuniversalityandparticularity; the former represented science, medicine, technology, and philosophy (understood as ‘Western modernity’) and the latter, the Japanese – ‘non-Western’ – tradition. Within the context, the question arose whether or not Japan, the only non-Western nation to succeed in modernization at the time, could also offer a philosophy that was universal in scope? Could Japanese philosophy offer an alternative form of modernity to the global domination of Western modernity? In this historical context, the philosophies of Kitaro Nishida and Tetsuro Watsuji, two of the tradition's most prominent thinkers, are introduced. Nishida is considered the ‘father of modern Japanese philosophy’ and his followers came to be known as the ‘Kyoto School’. The essay ends with a brief reflection on the influence of philosophy on culture, focusing on the aftermath of the tsunami catastrophe in 2011.

The Kyoto School

2017 ◽  
pp. 366-388
Author(s):  
Ryōsuke Ōhashi ◽  
Katsuya Akitomi
Keyword(s):  
Historical Overview ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
Philosophical Critique ◽  
Kyoto School ◽  
The Pacific

In this chapter, the authors aim to provide an introduction to the Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy. The chapter begins with a historical overview of the formation of various images of the School. It then briefly examines the controversial political engagements of members of the School during the Pacific War. The central sections of the chapter introduce the main figures and ideas of the first, second, and third generations of the School. The chapter concludes with some reflections on how the School may contribute to a contemporary philosophical critique of technology and to a renewed dialogue between Eastern and Western traditions.

Watsuji Tetsurō (1890–1960)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Odin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Kyoto School ◽  
Nishida Kitaro ◽  
East West

Watsuji Tetsurō stands out as the leading thinker on ethics in twentieth century Japanese philosophy. He is regarded as a peripheral member of the ‘Kyoto School’ of philosophers centring around the thought of Nishida Kitarō. Like Nishida and the Kyoto School, the thought of Watsuji can be characterized by the effort to formulate a syncretic East–West philosophy developed within the framework of a Buddhist metaphysic of ‘emptiness’. At the same time, Watsuji established his own highly distinctive system of ethics. He must rank as one of the most creative and profound thinkers in modern Japanese philosophy.

Dialetheism in the Work of Nishida Kitarō

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-142
Author(s):  
Yasuo Deguchi ◽  
Naoya Fujikawa
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
East Asian ◽  
The Self ◽  
Kyoto School ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Nishida Kitaro

This chapter shows that the 20th-century Kyoto School philosopher Nishida Kitarō was committed to dialetheism. We show that he argues both that the subject must be knowable as an object and that it cannot be known as an object. We also show that he argues that the self both is and is not identical to the world and to itself in the relation he calls “contradictory self-identity.” This chapter demonstrates that East Asian dialetheism persists in the 20th century.

Japanese Army Factionalism in the Early 1930's

1962 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
James B. Crowley
Keyword(s):  
Japanese History ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Prewar Period ◽  
Modern Japanese History ◽  
The Military

In recent years, the influence of the military on modern Japanese history has been the subject of several excellent analyses.1 Since these studies have sought to explain the major events of the prewar period, they concentrated more on the significance of army factionalism vis a vis political developments, than on the nature of this factionalism. The purpose of this article is to explore the tangled web of factionalism within the Imperial Army in the 1932–36 period. Since this topic presents many complex problems, it may help to review briefly the sources of information on army factions that appeared immediately after the end of the Pacific War.

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