Nishitani Keiji (1900–90)

Nishitani Keiji is generally regarded as the leading light of the ‘second generation’ Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy. Influenced by Zen thinkers from Chinese and Japanese Buddhism as well as by figures from the Western mystical and existential traditions, he is a pre-eminent voice in East–West comparative philosophy and late twentieth-century Buddhist–Christian dialogue. Primarily a philosopher of religion, Nishitani strove throughout his career to formulate existential responses to the problem of nihilism.