Neglected Themes and Hidden Variations

The growing scholarship on the Kyoto School of Japanese Buddhist philosophy has brought it to the attention of more and more people in the West, but in the process, the Kyoto School has acquired a fixed identity. It is usually depicted as centered around three main figures—Nishida Kitarō, Tanabe Hajime and Nishitani Keiji—and concerned with the philosophy of nothingness. In fact, however, as the thirteen scholars in this volume show, the Kyoto School included several other members beside the inner circle of three, and these members were concerned with a wide range of philosophical issues beyond the philosophy of nothingness. The range and variety of these essays give a much more realistic picture of the many fronts on which the Japanese encountered Western philosophy.