Do Time and Language Matter in IR?: Nishida Kitaro’s non-Western discourse of philosophy and politics

Abstract

The Kyoto School of philosophy has recently come to be seen as one of the sources that gave rise to non-Western international relations (IR). Despite the high regard with which this philosophy is held, there is a dark side to the School’s history; this is especially important in terms of critically engaging in IR as an academic discipline because it supposedly provides a cautionary tale to the contemporary literature of alternative IR theories, and non-Western IRT in particular. This paper strives to clarify Nishida Kitaro’s involvement in the wartime regime with a particular focus on the inherent and contradictory relationship between being and language. I will do so by critically investigating Nishida’s experience of involvement in the wartime regime by utilising his very concept of the eternal present. In other words, I will criticise Nishida’s politics by employing his philosophy.