point that cannot be reached even by nihilism that overcomes nihilism, even

though this latter may tend in that direction."50 Though it would be illumi-
nating to consider Nishitanik reasons here, as well as those irrrplicd by his
discussions of Nietzsche and Heidegger in his later masterwork Religion
and Nothingness, it must suffice simply to note the important place he as-
signs these figtlres in the contemporary elaboration of Mahayana thinking
(as practiced, presumably, by the Kyoto School of philosophy).ii
Nevertheless, Nishitani distinguishes among three significant traits in Eu-
ropean nihilism that he considers relevant t o the situation in p a s m a r
Japan-and that seem no less relevant fifty years later. The first is that a con-
sideration of European nihilism can disclose the "hollowness in [the] spiri-
tual foundations" of modern Japan and stinaulate refleaion on the historical
process (extremely complex in the Japanese case) whereby the culture has
become dislocated from its tradition.52 Second, such analysis can thus
prompt a rediscovery of the tradition from the perspective of the new hori-
zons opened up by Japan's westernization--an undertaking that is by no
means ""aturning back to the way things were," since modernization has
rendered the tradition profoundly problematic," And third, an engagemerlt
with European nihilism can enable contemporary Japanese thinkers "to re-
cover the creativity that mediates the past to the future and the future to the
past" in the context of their o m philosophical traditiorrs. When set in the
context of the "creative nihifism" developed by tlle Gcrnlan thinkers, "the
tradition of oriental culture in general,*and ;he Buddhist standpoints of
' e q t i n ~ ~ s'nothingness,'
,' and so forth in particular, become a new prob-
lem." Nishitani concludes the chapter by exhorting his contemporaries, in
light of the examples of Dostoevsky's and Nierzsche's anticipations of ni-
hilism, to find their w n means to engage nihiiism. so that "the spiritual cul-
ture of the Orient which has been ]landed down through the ages [may] be
revitalized in a new transformation."""
There m s surely no expectation on Nisfrifanik part, when he delivered his
talks on llihilism is1 1949, that the text would ever be translated into English
or be considered a cotzrrfbutiun to Nierzsche schularship in the West. But
even if the ELtracentrism of much of that scholarship prevents a general ac-
knowledgment of Nishirani's contribution, we can acknowledge that it high-
lights an important aspect of Nietzsche's thinking about the self's relation to
traditional culrure, For while Nietzschc emphasizes tbe impossibitily of a
consewatiwe retursl to earlier cultural. conditions, in his abiding coslcerll to
raise the level of cufture he also advocates a judicious enhancement of the
"plastic slrength" that imorgorat-CSthe past-and of "the will to tradition, to
authority, to responsibility ranging over centuries, to solidarity of chains of
generations forwards and backwards ad itlbnitum."55 But since Nietzsche
also remarks (in the ltphorism just cited, which bears the title "Crilique of
Modernity") that "the whole of the West no longer possesses the instincts