Philosophers + Path

Yesterday morning I had the chance to stroll on the Philosopher's Path with Dr. Sebastian Greve, a philosopher based at Peking University who was visiting Kyoto to give a talk. This was my first time walking on the Philosopher's Path with another philosopher.

Despite the name of this blog, I have not yet posted about the history behind the naming of the Philosopher's Path. The path follows the canal for a couple of miles as it passes through the eastern edge of Kyoto, with a series of temples and shrines between the canal and the wooded hills. Visitors often assume that the path is named after some Buddhist sage from many centuries ago, but in fact the path takes its name from a philosopher named Kitaro Nishida who flourished in the first half of the 20th Century and died in 1945:

Nishida was a leading member of the Kyoto School of philosophy, that drew both on Japanese philosophical traditions and on the phenomenology of German philosophers such as Husserl and Heidegger. Widely considered to be Japan's greatest philosopher, Nishida would walk every day along and nearby the canal that ran from Ginkakuji (the Silver Temple) in the north to Nanzen-Ji temple in the south.

One of Nishida's students, Keiji Nishitani, wrote the following description:

Not long after Nishida was appointed to the Philosophy faculty at Kyoto Imperial University (now Kyoto University), he began his regular walking habit. According to his biographer, Michiko Yusa:

(The literal translation of tetsugaku no michi is "Path of Philosophy", but it is more commonly rendered in English as "Philosopher's Path.")

Finally, here is the concluding paragraph of a recent article in Kyoto Journal about Nichida and his connection to the Philosopher's Path:

The photo below shows the rock, right by the canal, with the poem in Japanese inscribed on it: