 There has been considerable discussion surrounding the question of how to define the Kyoto School, and who to include as its members. By all accounts Nishida Kitarō is the School’s originator. (See the entry on  Nishida Kitarō.)   Yet it was  never his intention to institute a “school” based on his own thought; in fact he is reported to have always encouraged independent thinking in his students. Moreover, unlike Plato’s Academy or the Frankfurt School’s Institute for Social Research, the Kyoto School thinkers never founded an academic institution or formed an official organization (at least until The Nishida Philosophy Association was founded in 2003; see the website listed below). Their association was initially based merely on the fact that they studied and taught at Kyoto University and developed their thinking under the influence of Nishida as well as in dialogue and debate with him and with one another. Indeed the name “Kyoto School” only came into use by the “members” themselves much later, when at all.