010108 SE The Political Philosophy of the Kyoto School (2022W)

The Kyōto school (京都学派, Kyōto-gakuha) is the name given to a group of 20th-century Japanese thinkers who based their philosophies in creative recourse to the intellectual and spiritual traditions of East Asia, especially those of Mahāyāna Buddhism (Zen & Jōdo-Shinshū), as well as to the methods and content of Western philosophy. However, who specifically belongs to the Kyōto school and what gives rise to the thematic unity of this group remains controversial to this day. Neither did Kitarō Nishida (1870-1945) see himself as the founder of a separate school with a clearly defined group of students, nor did the thinkers of the Kyōto school ever establish their own academic institution or official organization. All accounts agree, however, that Nishida and Hajime Tanabe (1885-1962) constitute the first generation of the Kyōto school, while Keiji Nishitani (1900-1990) is generally regarded as the central figure of the second generation. Since the late 1980s, the issue of "Nishida and politics" has been so heated that it has given rise to an ongoing controversy that John C. Maraldo has called the "War over the Kyōto School." This war over the Kyōto School and the critical discussion of the supposed system-building stance of its three central representatives (Nishida, Tanabe, Nishitani) during Japanese ultranationalism is the topic of the seminar. In addition to reading the relevant texts of Nishida, Tanabe and Nishitani, we will comprehensively deal with the arguments of the apologists and critics.

Methods: Joint text reading with presentations and discussion; prior knowledge of the history of philosophy and religion is required for participation in the seminar. A comprehensive introduction to Buddhism, philosophy in Japan, and the Kyōto School, as well as Nishitani's late work in the philosophy of religion, What is Religion? published in 1961. (宗教とは何か, Shūkyō towa Nanika) can be found on my YouTube channel.