The Origins of Modern Japanese Philosophy: Nishida Kitaro and the Meiji Period (Bloomsbury Studies in World Philosophies)

The Origins of Modern Japanese Philosophy: Nishida Kitaro and the Meiji Period (Bloomsbury Studies in World Philosophies)
by: Richard Stone (Author)
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication Date: 13 Jun. 2024
Language: English
Print Length: 200 pages
ISBN-10: 1350346799
ISBN-13: 9781350346796
Book Description
Nishida Kitaro is widely considered as the first original philosopher in modern Japan. Addressing this claim, Richard Stone critically examines Nishida’s relation to his contemporary philosophers in the Meiji era (1868-1912), highlighting the continuity, difference and relationships between them.Stone reassesses the notion that Nishida’s An Inquiry into the Good (1911) was substantially more philosophically worthwhile than any preceding attempts at philosophy in Japan, whilst demonstrating how his early ideas were heavily influenced by the work of thinkers such as Inoue Enryo, Onishi Hajime and Miyake Setsurei. Heargues that original philosophy in Japan did not suddenly start with Nishida. Instead, it developed within a process of methodological refinement, wherein ideas starting from early Meiji philosophers were gradually given more rigorous treatment over the course of the era, eventually culminating in Nishida’s early philosophy.Providing an in-depth analysis of Nishida’s work that brings it into dialogue with his predecessors, The Origins of Modern Japanese Philosophy offers an engaging insight into the Meiji period as background to Nishida’s philosophical formation.