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School · 1870 CE–1990 CE

Kyoto School

Philosophers associated with Kyoto brought Buddhist and East Asian resources into critical encounter with European idealism, phenomenology, religion, and philosophies of history.

Shared questions

  • Can experience prior to subject-object division ground a transformed philosophical method?

Internal disagreements

  • How Buddhist emptiness, self-awareness, historical action, and political responsibility should be related.

Key texts

  • An Inquiry into the Good · 1911 — Nishida's first book, which the school's later work on absolute nothingness develops and departs from.
  • Religion and Nothingness · 1961 — Nishitani's confrontation of nihilism with the Buddhist idea of emptiness.