Nishitani Keiji
For Nishitani, modern nihilism can only be overcome by passing through it to the Buddhist standpoint of emptiness, where things are themselves at last.
Placement
Kyoto School thinker: confronts European nihilism with the Buddhist standpoint of emptiness (shunyata).
Key ideas
- Overcoming nihilism
- The field of emptiness (shunyata)
Teachers: Nishida Kitarō, Martin Heidegger
Influence
Influenced by 7
Dōgen
influenced by
Nishitani drew on Dōgen for the standpoint of emptiness in Religion and Nothingness (1961) and later gave extended lectures on the Shōbōgenzō (Shōbōgenzō kōwa). Nishitani Keiji, Shūkyō to wa nanika (1961), tr. J. Van Bragt, Religion and Nothingness (1982); Shōbōgenzō kōwa; SEP “Nishitani Keiji”
Evidence: AI draft
Dōgen › 1200–1253
Meister Eckhart
influenced by
Nishitani read Meister Eckhart’s breakthrough into the ‘ground’ of the Godhead as a Western counterpart to absolute nothingness (‘God and Absolute Nothingness’, 1948; Religion and Nothingness, 1961). Nishitani Keiji, Kami to zettai mu (1948); Shūkyō to wa nanika (1961); SEP “Nishitani Keiji”
Evidence: AI draft
Meister Eckhart › c. 1260–1328
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
influenced by
Nishitani’s thesis at Kyoto Imperial University, “The Ideal and the Real in Schelling and Bergson” (1924), began his work on Schelling, alongside Nietzsche and the mystics. Nishitani Keiji, thesis (Kyoto 1924); Nanzan Institute, Philosophers Database “Nishitani Keiji”
Evidence: AI draft
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling › 1775–1854
Friedrich Nietzsche
influenced by
In The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1949) Nishitani took up Nietzsche’s diagnosis of European nihilism and his attempt to overcome it from within, as a crisis reaching Japan too. Nishitani Keiji, Nihirizumu (1949), tr. G. Parkes & S. Aihara, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990); SEP “Nishitani Keiji”
Evidence: AI draft
Friedrich Nietzsche › 1844–1900
Henri Bergson
influenced by
The same thesis of 1924 paired Bergson with Schelling; Bergson was among the authors Nishitani studied most in his early years. Nishitani Keiji, thesis “The Ideal and the Real in Schelling and Bergson” (Kyoto 1924); Nanzan Institute, Philosophers Database “Nishitani Keiji”
Evidence: AI draft
Henri Bergson › 1859–1941
Nishida Kitarō studied with
studied with
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
Nishida Kitarō › 1870–1945
Martin Heidegger studied with
studied with
Nishitani studied with Heidegger in Freiburg from 1937 to 1939, when Heidegger was lecturing on Nietzsche and beginning to grapple with nihilism. SEP “The Kyoto School”; J. W. Heisig, Philosophers of Nothingness (2001)
Evidence: AI draft
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Works
Nihilism can only be overcome by passing through it to the standpoint of emptiness.
Position
Nishitani took European nihilism as seriously as Nietzsche and Heidegger did, and saw it as a crisis that had reached Japan as well. Modern science and technology, he argued, have emptied the world of meaning; the human self, cut off from things, faces an abyss. Yet nihilism cannot be overcome by returning to old certainties, only by passing through it. When the nothingness that nihilism uncovers is radicalized into the Buddhist standpoint of emptiness (shunyata), self and things appear in their true suchness, bound to one another without a fixed substance. Through Nishitani the Kyoto School entered dialogue with Western philosophy and theology.
Life & context
Nishitani was born in 1900 in Ishikawa Prefecture and studied in Kyoto under Nishida Kitarō, the founder of the Kyoto School. From 1937 to 1939 he attended Heidegger’s lectures in Freiburg. He taught for decades at Kyoto University; after the war he was barred from teaching for several years because of his wartime writings. He died in Kyoto in 1990.
Further main works
- The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1949)
As of November 2026 · Sources · Improve this page · How Agora is made