The Origins of Modern Japanese Philosophy: Nishida Kitaro and the Meiji Period

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 ...