Lecture on “Kitarō Nishida's Logic of Place”
On Friday, January 16, 2026, Yūjin Itabashi (Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Letters, Rissho University), gave a lecture titled “Kitarō Nishida’s Logic of Place: His Confrontation with the Neo-Kantian Philosopher Rickert” at Soka University Global Square. The lecture was held as part of the Faculty of Letters course “Introduction to Philosophy and Religions Studies,” in cooperation with the Ikeda Research Institute for Soka Education.
Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945), known for works such as An Inquiry into the Good, is a leading philosopher of modern Japan and is internationally acclaimed. The 2025 academic year marked the 80th anniversary of his passing, and thus brought renewed attention to the intellectual significance of Nishida’s philosophy. Prof. Itabashi is a philosopher highly regarded both in Japan and abroad for his research on Nishida’s thought.
In the lecture, Prof. Itabashi offered a clear and detailed explanation of Nishida’s central concept of “the place;” he used ibasho (“a place where one feels a sense of belonging”), which is a familiar concept in Japan, as a point of entry. Based on the concept of “place” and ibasho, Prof. Itabashi showcased the fundamental inquiry of the way in which we exist in the world and form our thoughts about it.
Within the historical context of philosophy, the lecture discussed the way in which Nishida’s thoughts on “place” took shape in engagement with Neo-Kantian philosophy and Rickert’s Philosophy of Value. Drawing from the original texts, Prof. Itabashi explained that Nishida’s philosophy is not confined to the framework of Japanese thought but developed as a distinctive thought that formed as a result of direct confrontation with modern Western philosophy.
Prof. Itabashi has also contributed a chapter titled "Transcendent Place: Kitarō Nishida's Response to Rickert's Philosophy of Value" to Neo-Kantian Philosophy and Modern Japan: Reception and Reinterpretation (provisional translation of 『新カント派の哲学と近代日本――受容と展開』; edited by Takao Itō, published by the Institute of Oriental Philosophy).
In addition to students enrolled in the course, many faculty, staff, and students from across the university attended, making the lecture a meaningful opportunity to reflect on the relationship between Japanese and Western philosophy.
