Before the word
Dogen (1200-1253) is the place to start, and he's the deepest thinker in the tradition. He founded Soto Zen in Japan and wrote the Shobogenzo, which is a philosophical work by any standard: sustained argument about time, being, practice and language.
His central move is that practice and enlightenment aren't separated as means and end. Sitting isn't a technique for becoming enlightened later; sitting is the thing itself. His essay on being-time (uji) argues that time isn't a container things exist in, and that you don't have time, you are it.
He's hard. Start with a selection rather than the whole Shobogenzo. Kazuaki Tanahashi's editions are the standard English route.
| Thinker | Dates | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Kukai | 774-835 | Founded Shingon. Language, symbol and embodiment. The earliest systematic Japanese thinker. |
| Dogen | 1200-1253 | Shobogenzo. Practice as enlightenment; being-time. The tradition's deepest work. |
| Motoori Norinaga | 1730-1801 | Kokugaku: native studies. Mono no aware, the pathos of things. |
| Nishida Kitaro | 1870-1945 | Founded the Kyoto School. Pure experience, basho (place), absolute nothingness. |
| Watsuji Tetsuro | 1889-1960 | Ethics as aidagara, betweenness. The self as constituted by relationships, not prior to them. |
| Nishitani Keiji | 1900-1990 | Religion and Nothingness. Nihilism worked through with Zen and Nietzsche together. |
Nishida and 'absolute nothingness'
Nishida Kitaro is the founder of modern Japanese philosophy. His first book, An Inquiry into the Good (1911), starts from what he calls pure experience: the moment before you split it into a subject perceiving and an object perceived. He argues that split is a later construction and that Western philosophy built everything on it.
His later idea of basho, place or field, asks what has to be the case for anything to appear at all. His answer, absolute nothingness, isn't a claim that nothing exists. It's closer to the condition in which things can show up, which by definition can't itself be one of them.
It's Buddhist emptiness rebuilt with the tools of German idealism, and it's genuinely a synthesis rather than either one translated.
The wartime question
This has to be part of any honest introduction. Several Kyoto School figures participated in wartime symposia on "overcoming modernity" and on Japan's role in Asia, and some of that writing lent philosophical dress to imperial ideology.
How culpable each of them was is genuinely contested. Some, including Nishida, also worked to restrain the militarists and were distrusted by them. Others went further towards the regime than any charitable reading survives.
The parallel with D.T. Suzuki and the Zen-and-nationalism debate is direct, and neither case is settled. Read the philosophy, and know the context.
Where to start
Tanahashi's Dogen selections. Nishida's An Inquiry into the Good in the Abe and Ives translation. For an overview, the Heisig, Kasulis and Maraldo sourcebook Japanese Philosophy is comprehensive and expensive; libraries have it.
Related: what is Zen, wabi-sabi, and 365 Days of Zen, which draws on Dogen among 1,500 years of sources. 365 Days of Philosophy includes Nishida and Nishitani.
Common questions
What is Japanese philosophy?
A tradition running from Kukai and Dogen through the Edo-period native studies movement to the modern Kyoto School. The word 'philosophy' was only coined in Japanese in the 1870s, but the work long predates it.
Who is the most important Japanese philosopher?
Dogen (1200-1253) for depth, and Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) as the founder of modern Japanese philosophy and the Kyoto School.
What is absolute nothingness?
Nishida's term for the condition in which anything can appear at all, which therefore can't itself be one of the things that appear. It's Buddhist emptiness reworked with the tools of German idealism, and it isn't a claim that nothing exists.
What is the Kyoto School?
The philosophical movement founded around Nishida at Kyoto University, including Tanabe Hajime and Nishitani Keiji, working between Buddhist thought and Western philosophy.
Did the Kyoto School support Japanese militarism?
Some members lent philosophical cover to imperial ideology in wartime symposia. Individual culpability is contested, and Nishida also worked to restrain the militarists. It belongs in any honest account.