The Political Thought of Nishida Kitaro

Abstract

T NHE political commitment of Nishida Kitaro #H9P,B 1870-1945, Japan's foremost contemporary philosopher, has given rise to continuous controversy for close to forty years. The problem is similar to that of the support given by Martin Heidegger and Mircea Eliade to political views that would be identified with the extreme right in any liberal democracy. In the case of Nishida, the difficulties are no less, for condemnation of the extreme right and what is expected of intellectuals are about the same in both Japan and the West. From the moment a work is published, it no longer belongs solely to its author, but is shared by the entire society to which it is addressed. It is this second aspect that we propose to study here: not the relation of Nishida's thought and public commitment to his philosophy and personal development, but how these were situated within the political tendencies of his time. In other words, to which political leaning did Nishida Kitaro belong?'