Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962)

Tanabe Hajime was a central figure of the so-called Kyoto School, and is generally acknowledged to be one of the most important philosophers of modern Japan. He held Kant in high esteem, and used a Neo-Kantian critical methodology in his early studies in epistemology. In the 1920s he was chiefly influenced by Nishida Kitarō’s original cosmological system. He adapted Nishida’s idea of ‘absolute nothingness’ to political situations and, in so doing, contributed much to establishing the foundations of what became the most influential philosophical school in Japan up until the end of the Second World War.