Background
Kitarō Nishida was born on 19 May 1870 in Ishikawa. He was a son of a distinguished family of the Kahoku district in Ishikawa Prefecture.
西田 幾多郎
Kitarō Nishida was born on 19 May 1870 in Ishikawa. He was a son of a distinguished family of the Kahoku district in Ishikawa Prefecture.
After completing the Ishikawa Normal School and Ishikawa Prefecture Special School (later the Fourth High School), he entered Tokyo Imperial University. He graduated from the philosophy course as a nonregular student in 1894 and returned to Ishikawa, where he became a middle and high school teacher.
In 1913 he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
in 1909 he had become a professor of the Peers’ School and later became an assistant professor and professor of Kyoto Imperial University.
He retired from teaching in 1928 and thereafter devoted his time to the systematizing of his philosophy, a process that around 1933-34 resulted in what has come to be known as the Nishida philosophy. It is important as the first original and independent system to emerge from Japanese philosophy, which had hitherto been completely dominated by systems of thought introduced from abroad.
Troubled by discord at home and in his work, he took up the practice of Zen Buddhism. On the basis of his Zen study, he produced in 1919 a work entitled Zen no kenkyu in which he established the principle of “pure experience.”