Nishida Kitarō

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Nishida Kitarō

1870–1945

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

For Nishida, before we split the world into a self and objects there is pure experience – and all things arise in a place of absolute nothingness.

Placement

East Asian Philosophy · East Asia · Metaphysics, Epistemology, Religion

Founder of the Kyoto School: pure experience and the logic of the place (basho) of absolute nothingness.

Key ideas

Pure experience
Basho
Absolute nothingness

Students: Nishitani Keiji

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Influence

Influenced by 5

Dōgen

influenced by
Nishida rarely cites Dōgen, so the link is uncertain; scholars compare his self-awareness of nothingness with Dōgen’s ‘to study the self is to forget the self’ (Genjōkōan). G. Kopf, Beyond Personal Identity: Dōgen, Nishida, and a Phenomenology of No-Self (2001); Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō, Genjōkōan (1233); Nishida Kitarō, “Bashoteki ronri to shūkyōteki sekaikan” (1945), tr. D. A. Dilworth, Last Writings (1987)
Evidence: AI draft
Dōgen › 1200–1253
Johann Gottlieb Fichte

influenced by
In Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness (1917) Nishida took up Fichte’s self-positing act (Tathandlung) to work out self-awareness as the unity of intuition and reflection. Nishida Kitarō, Jikaku ni okeru chokkan to hansei (1917), tr. V. H. Viglielmo et al., Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness (1987); SEP “Nishida Kitarō”
Evidence: AI draft
Johann Gottlieb Fichte › 1762–1814
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

influenced by
Nishida measured his logic of place against Hegel’s dialectic in ‘Hegel’s Dialectic as Seen from My Standpoint’ (1931), later reworking it as the dialectic of absolutely contradictory self-identity. Nishida Kitarō, “Watakushi no tachiba kara mita Hēgeru no benshōhō” (1931), in Mu no jikakuteki gentei (1932); SEP “Nishida Kitarō”
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
William James

influenced by
Nishida’s An Inquiry into the Good (1911) took up William James’s ‘pure experience’ and made it the sole reality, prior to the distinction of subject and object. Nishida Kitarō, Zen no kenkyū (1911), tr. M. Abe & C. Ives, An Inquiry into the Good (1990); W. James, “A World of Pure Experience” (1904); SEP “Nishida Kitarō”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
William James › 1842–1910
Henri Bergson

influenced by
In essays collected in Thinking and Experience (1915) Nishida discussed Bergson’s method and pure duration as a kindred account of experience before subject and object divide. Nishida Kitarō, Shisaku to taiken (1915); SEP “Nishida Kitarō”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Henri Bergson › 1859–1941

Influenced 1

Nishitani Keiji taught

taught
Nishitani entered Kyoto Imperial University in 1921 to study with Nishida, whose writings had drawn him to philosophy, and graduated in 1924 with a thesis on Schelling and Bergson. J. W. Heisig, Philosophers of Nothingness (2001); SEP “The Kyoto School”
Evidence: AI draft
Nishitani Keiji › 1900–1990

Criticism

Criticized by 1

Tanabe Hajime

criticised by
Tanabe criticised Nishida’s ‘place of absolute nothingness’ as a religious, Plotinian intuition that bypasses dialectical mediation, and later countered it with his ‘logic of species’. Tanabe Hajime, ‘Nishida sensei no oshie o aogu’ (1930); SEP “Tanabe Hajime”
Evidence: AI draft
Tanabe Hajime › 1885–1962

Works

1911An Inquiry into the Good
Pure experience as the origin of subject and object.

Position

Nishida sought to think Western philosophy through from an East Asian experience. His starting point was “pure experience”, an immediate awareness prior to the split into subject and object, in which knower and known are not yet separated. Later he developed the “logic of place” (basho): every being is situated in a field, and the ultimate field is “absolute nothingness”, which embraces and makes possible all oppositions. Reality is a “self-identity of absolute contradictories”. His work founded the Kyoto School and opened a dialogue between Buddhism and European philosophy; his wartime writings on the Japanese state remain controversial.

Life & context

Nishida Kitarō was born near Kanazawa and taught for many years at Kyoto Imperial University, where he founded what became known as the Kyoto School. He combined intensive Zen practice with the study of Western philosophy, from Hegel and William James to the Neo-Kantians. His Inquiry into the Good (1911) is often regarded as the first original work of modern Japanese philosophy.