Keiji Nishitani

The Kyoto School of Philosophy

…at Kyoto University.
Topics
Shinran Buddhism Logic of Basho • Nothingness • Zen Mu • Kenosis • Metanoetics • Sunyata Interfaith dialogue
Individuals
D.T. Suzuki • Tanabe Hajime Abe Masao • Nishitani Keiji H. Shin'ichi • Nishida Kitaro
Historical background
Meiji Restoration • Nationalism & WW II Occupation of Japan • Post-occupation

Keiji Nishitani (西谷 啓治, Nishitani Keiji^?, February 27, 1900 - November 24, 1990) was a Japanese philosopher of the Kyoto School and a disciple of Kitaro Nishida. In 1924 Nishitani put forward his dissertation Das Ideale und das Reale bei Schelling und Bergson and studied under Martin Heidegger in Freiburg during 1937-9.

He became the principal chair of religion at Kyoto University around 1943, and, according to James Heisig, after his being banned of holding any public position by the United States Occupation authorities in July 1946, Nishitani refrained from drawing "practical social conscience into philosophical and religious ideas, preferring to think about the insight of the individual rather than the reform of the social order."^[1]

Thought

Because the nature of Nishitani's philosophy was expressed more religiously and subjectively, he felt ideologically closer to the existentialists and the mystics, namely Søren Kierkegaard and Meister Eckhart, than to the scholars and theologians who were aimed at more objectively expressing their ideas. Nishitani, "the stylistic superior of Nishida," brought Zen poetry, religion, literature, and philosophy organically together in his work to help lay the difficult foundations of breaking free of the Japanese language in a similar way as Blaise Pascal or Friedrich Nietzsche.^[1] Furthermore, unlike Nishida, who had focused on building a philosophical system and who, towards the end of his career, began to focus on political philosophy, Nishitani focused on creating a standpoint "from which he could enlighten a broader range of topics," and wrote more on Buddhist themes towards the end of his career.^[1]

Bibliography

• Religion and Nothingness (ISBN 0-520-04946-2), Nishitani Keiji, Translated by Jan Van Bragt
• The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (Modern Japanese Philosophy Series), Nishitani Keiji

Further reading

• Philosophers of Nothingness (ISBN 0-8248-2481-4), James Heisig

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} James W. Heisig. Philosophers of Nothingness. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001.

Persondata
Name	Nishitani, Keiji
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1900
Place of birth
Date of death	1990
Place of death