Fundamental Research into "The Kyoto School" Based on the Newfound Materials - From NISHIDA Kitaro to SHIMOMURA Torataro

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In our research, We tried by examining the circle's human relations to make clear what is essentially "the Kyoto School", one of the most-disputed questions in the history of Japanese modern philosophical thoughts. The School's founder is Nishida Kitaro and his successor is Tanabe Hajime, but he is also well known as a sharp critic of Nishida's philosophy. Other members are those who received professional instructions in philosophy from them at Kyoto Imperial University.We study each other's human relations in stead of logical connections among their thoughts, because we never consider "the Kyoto School" as organisation or genealogy where master's doctorines are explained and followed and developed. It is an intellectual and academic network formed in a gentle and spontaneous manner among the professors and former students. There they excite and develop their intellectual faculties one another by showing their individualities to the full for each of them to build his original philosophy in his own field. It was around Nishida and Tanabe that the most creative flow of Japanese philosophical thoughts was whirling.Yet our idea was a hypothesis to be verified. In 1995, Shimomura Torataro who is regarded as the last philosopher of the Kyoto School passed away and behind him left a geat deal of valuable documents : unpublished letters of Nishida and Tanabe, letters from other philosophers to Tanabe and Shimomura, diaries of Shimomura and so on. At the end of our struggle with these vast newfound materials, we have come to recognize that our hypothesis is true.In this report are expressed, together with a few pieces of material, some fresh insight and knowledge obtained through our humanly oriented study.