Post-war Philosophy of History of the Kyoto School and

Title

Post-war Philosophy of History of the Kyoto School and

Author

Chin-Ping LIAO

Page

275-300

DOI

Abstract

After the Second World War the Kyoto School philosophers Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962) and Ōshima Yasumasa (1917-1989) offered individual accounts of periodization principles with their own stances of philosophy of history. Exploring the periodization principles of human history and time, Tanabe and Ōshima advocated the possibility of "surpassing modernity." The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the two philosophers rethink and confront the issues of "surpassing modernity." First, this essay supplies an overview of Tanabe's notion of history, examining his dialectic positions on critiquing the philosophies of history of Hegel, Ranke, and Marx, and Tanabe's method of periodization. Second, this essay analyzes the ways in which Ōshima interprets the Babylonians', the Greeks', and the Israelis' views on history, and the Christian thinking that surpasses time. It further investigates how Ōshima established his own periodization principles by absorbing the Renaissance view on history. Finally, by comparing Tanabe's and Ōshima's discourses on "surpassing modernity," this essay investigates what kinds of philosophical resources the two different approaches to periodization can provide for our view on history.

Keyword

the Kyoto School, philosophy of history, periodization, surpassing modernity, the Renaissance

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