No.271 Seminar ： What is Religion? — An Approach from the Kyoto School
- Assistant Professor Satoshi Urai, 15th batch, Graduate School of Letters
- 2025/07/08 4:45pm
- Research Administration Building, Basement Floor (Conference Rooms 1&2)
- Talk in Japanese, with slides in English
- Onsite and Zoom
Summary
The “Kyoto School” refers to a group of philosophers associated with Kyoto (Imperial) University. Centered around Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945) and Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962), the school rose to prominence from around 1930 to 1945. In order to clarify the characteristics of the school’s philosophy, this talk focuses on their understanding of “religion”— a notion tacitly shared by many of them. Religion played an important role in the philosophy of the Kyoto School, whether in a positive or negative sense. However, their notion of religion, while certainly connected to established religions, is at the same time entirely detached from them. From the perspective of scholars from other disciplines who study religion, this notion may appear strange—or even blasphemous. Through this concept, this talk aims to shed light on their framework for understanding the world and to explore its contemporary significance.