The Denomination "Kyoto School” in the Work of Tsuchida Kyōson (1891-1934) Contemporary Thought of Japan and China (1926, 1927)

Abstract

This paper refutes that the first written document in which the name "Kyoto school" is found corresponds to the article written by Tosaka Jun (1900-1945) and published in 1932 with the title "The philosophy of the Kyoto school". It will be shown that it was another thinker, Tsuchida Kyōson (1891-1934), who in his Contemporary Thought of Japan and China, a book originally written in Japanese in 1926 and then in English in 1927, includes Nishida and Tanabe under the name "Kyoto school", thus years before Tosaka's text. The inclusion of this unnoticed source contributes to the question about the historical significance of the designation of the "school" in the lifetime of its most famous members.