At the age of forty-three, Nishitani, like many
other Japanese academics, incurred difficulties with the wartime Ministry of
Education. Both Nishida and Tanabe encouraged him to speak out against the
irrational ideology of the time, which appeared to be leading Japan to war, but
he was unable to do so, unable to be decisive enough to act on their urgings.
He was appointed to the “chair” of the department of religion that same year,
and was awarded a doctorate, with the help and assistance of Nishida, two years
later. His doctoral thesis was titled “Prolegomenon to a Philosophy of
Religion.”
Nishitani received a severe
blow in December1946, after the defeat of Japan, when the occupation
authorities deemed him unsuitable for teaching. Not only could he not teach any
longer, but he was also barred from holding any public office. The charge
against him was that he had supported the wartime government. Needless to say,
he was crushed by this decision, but he found his support in Zen, as well as in
his wife. Heisig writes that “it was a difficult time for him, and his wife,
who would watch him spending whole afternoons watching lizards in the yard, was
afraid he would crack under the pain.” Nonetheless, during these years of
academic exile, he wrote A Study of Aristotle, and God And Absolute
Nothingness, and Nihilism, all of which Tanabe hailed as “masterpieces.”
Reflecting back to the war
years, Nishitani observed that during the war he was criticized for not
supporting Japan's turn toward militarism and rightist ideology and immediately after the war for having supported it in some way. He was damned
if he did support the war, and damned if he did not. Nevertheless, he was
eventually reappointed to the position he was forced to leave behind, just five
years later in 1952. (1743-1747/3699)
Carter, Robert E.. The
Kyoto School: An Introduction . State University of New York Press. 2013,
Kindle edition.
James W. Heisig documented those damned and fateful years, a la Heidegger, in more detail. This lesson taught us one should always refuse to speak for power, in the name of political philosophy.
Philosophers
of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School (Nanzan Library of Asian Religion
and Culture), by James W. Heisig, University of Hawaii Press,
2001, pp. 200-208
