The Kyoto School of Philosophy and Nihilism: Nishitani Keiji

Abstract

The article presents brief analysis of the main points of the philosophical con­cept of representation of the Kyoto school Nishitani Keiji (1900–1990), one of the pupils of the eminent Japanese thinker, Nishida Kitaro. Nishitani’s main lifework What is Religion (English variation Religion and Nothingness) is de­voted to the problem of Nihilism. His interest in this trend of social thought arose among the Japanese scientist under the influence, first of all, of the ideol­ogy of Friedrich Nietzsche (in whose person nihilism acquired self-conscious­ness) as well as the worldview ideas of Dostoevsky. A large place in the works of Nishitani is given to the work of Jean Paul Sartre. One can state the two-vec­tor nature of the Kyoto school’s ideological principles: on the one hand, reliance on the Buddhist and Taoist traditions of metaphysics, and on the other hand, the use of the conceptual apparatus of Western epistemology. Hence, syncretism in an effort to create an authentic national philosophy. It is no coincidence that Nishitani Keiji devoted his work to the development of the aesthetic and reli­gions areas of philosophy as the most fully expressing the ideological features of Japanese spiritual culture. At the same time, he notes the fact that nihilism is a spiritual disease not only of the Western part of humanity, but also of Japanese society.