Nishitani brought the Zen Buddhist concept of śūnyatā (emptiness) into direct dialogue with Western nihilism in "Religion and Nothingness" (1961), arguing that Nietzschean and existentialist nihilism could not be philosophically overcome from within Western categories alone. He proposed that passing through nihilism to the standpoint of "absolute nothingness" (zettai mu) - not a negative void but the field in which self and things are no longer held as separately substantial - offers a more radical resolution than Western philosophy had achieved on its own.
Intellectual setting
Nishitani wrote as the second generation of the Kyoto School, extending Nishida's philosophy of nothingness into direct engagement with European nihilism and existentialism absorbed during his study under Heidegger; his wartime association with Kyoto School discourse on "overcoming modernity" remains a subject of critical scholarly scrutiny.
Key ideas
Śūnyatā as the standpoint beyond nihilism
Nishitani argued that confronting nihilism fully, rather than merely resisting it, opens onto the Buddhist standpoint of emptiness (śūnyatā), where the self and things are seen as empty of fixed substantial existence, dissolving nihilism's despair rather than merely opposing it.
Absolute nothingness (zettai mu)
Building on his teacher Nishida, Nishitani held that a standpoint of absolute nothingness underlies and makes possible the relative distinctions between self and other, subject and object, a ground he distinguished sharply from mere negation or a void.
Legacy
Nishitani's "Religion and Nothingness" is a major text in comparative philosophy of religion, bridging Zen Buddhist thought and Western existentialism and nihilism, and he remains, alongside Nishida and Tanabe, one of the three central figures of the Kyoto School.