The Kyoto school (京都学派)
The Kyoto school is a school of philosophy formed by Kitaro NISHIDA, Hajime TANABE, and philosophers learned from these two, while a group featured interdisciplinary research centered on Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, is called New Kyoto school to distinguish it from the Kyoto school or school of philosophy.
The Kyoto school (Philosophy)
Its detailed definition varies depending on the country/scholar and is an active research target in many countries of the world even now. The main members are Kitaro NISHIDA, Hajime TANABE, Seiichi HATANO, Keiji NISHITANI, Shin-ichi HISAMATSU, Yoshinori TAKEUCHI, Shizuteru UEDA, and others.
They held the position of Nishida philosophy expressed in "A Study of Good" and other books which aimed at the integrity of Western philosophy and Eastern ideology and searched how they could inwardly make terms with Western philosophy not just simply to accept it in Japan, eastern, but westernized. However, the position to reevaluate the East and search for it's own identity gradually approached the Great East Asian idea, "the West is a dead-end and the East should be the center." Therefore, the prewar Kyoto school was ruined after losing the war.
The Kyoto school (Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University)
Moreover, apart from the above, a group which frequently held collaborative research in the Institute for Research in the Humanities, Kyoto University, and actively held discussions after the war is also called the Kyoto school, but is not directly related with the above Kyoto school. Especially noted people in this side are Shigeki KAIZUKA, Zenryu TSUKAMOTO, and Akira FUJIEDA in East Asian history, Kojiro YOSHIKAWA in Chinese literature, Takeo KUWABARA in French literature, Sasuke NAKAO in botany, and Kinji IMANISHI who achieved the results widening from ecology to anthropology. As inferable from these members, the activity range of this Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, is interdisciplinary from narrow cultural science to natural science and IMANISHI also called his own academic field Physica. Moreover, Tadao UMESAO who moved the stage to the National Museum Ethnology (ecology to ethnology and anthropology), Takeshi UMEHARA (philosophy) who made an effort to establish an International Research Center for Japanese Studies, and others are also included in this Kyoto school.
East Asian History
The Kyoto school in the area of East Asian history is part of the Kyoto school in the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, but older and founded by Konan NAITO. Its characteristics are Periodization theory advocated by Konan. It includes a group of scholars for East Asian history in Kyoto University line, such as Ichisada MIYAZAKI, Kiyoyoshi UTSUNOMIYA, Kenji SHIMADA, Yoshio KAWAKATSU, Michio TANIGAWA, and others. That is, they developed research on Chinese history focusing on the method dividing the historical ages into four, namely, ancient times up to the Qin and Han dynasties, middle ages up to the Wei and Jin periods in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the Sui and Tang periods, recent times from the Northern Song Dynasty and later, and modern times from the Opium War and later. After World War II, they fiercely debated with the Tokyo school that had a method of dividing the historical ages based on a materialist view of history by the Historical Science Society of Japan headquartered in Tokyo University.
The Kyoto school (Study of the Constitution)
The school for Study of the Constitution centered on Soichi SASAKI, Yoshio OISHI, Teruya ABE, Koji SATO (constitutional scholars), and others. They were characteristically oriented towards legal analysis against political analysis by schools centered in Tokyo University.