SOURCE: "Experiential Ontology: The Origins of the Nishida Philosophy in the Doctrine of Pure Experience," in International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. XXX, No. 2, June, 1990, pp. 173-205.

In the following essay, Feenberg and Arisaka examine Nishida's doctrine of pure experience as influenced by William James.

I. Introduction: the Discovery of Experience

The early twentieth century was a time of gathering crisis in the European intellectual world. In the previous generation only isolated thinkers challenged the dominant naturalistic and neo-Kantian paradigms. Nietzsche, for example, argued that Western philosophy was still a tributary of decaying Christian theology and the old Aristotelian metaphysics of substance. But signs of general breakdown multiplied as the turn of the century neared. A rising generation of philosophers challenged the prevailing consensus in the name of new doctrines of life and experience.

These new doctrines were as opposed to empiricism, with its emphasis on the epistemological function of...