Philosopher
Hisamatsu Shin'ichi
1889–1980
Also known as Hisamatsu Shinichi
Kyoto School philosopher who brought Zen practice as well as Zen thought into philosophy, and spoke of absolute nothingness as 'oriental nothingness'.
Hisamatsu Shin’ichi is one of the figures everyone accepts as belonging to the Kyoto School. With Nishitani, Abe Masao and Ueda Shizuteru, he related his thought primarily to Zen, and philosophised explicitly from a Zen standpoint.
Among his students was Abe Masao, who carried the Kyoto School into interreligious dialogue in North America.
Key ideas
- Oriental nothingness
- Hisamatsu called absolute nothingness ‘oriental nothingness’, meaning that Asian traditions were the first to grasp the idea clearly.
- Zen practice in philosophy
- More than Nishida, he set out to bring Zen practice, not only Zen thought, into relation with philosophy.
- A Zen thinker from the start
- Unlike some Kyoto School philosophers who passed through Western philosophy first, Hisamatsu understood himself from early on as a Zen thinker.
- Tradition
- Japanese
- Region
- Kyoto, Japan
- Schools
- Kyoto School
- Period
- Modern Japanese
Sources
- Bret W. Davis, The Kyoto School, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy