 As discussed in subsection 2.2, the Kyoto School participants spoke of an overcoming of modernity that can take place only by way of passing through modernity, a stance that represented a countertendency to the rejection of modern Western rationality by the Japanese Romantic School and other participants in the symposium. In other words, the Kyoto School participants did not lament the modernization/Westernization of Japan, nor did they nostalgically plea for a return to a pre-modern age; rather, they called for a further step forward, but one that would involve creatively recovering viable elements of Japanese tradition at the same time as building on the best of what could be learned from the West. This stance shows up clearly in Nishitani’s debate with Kobayashi Hideo, who argued for a rejection of modernity and a return to the pre-modern Japanese classics (see Kawakami &amp; Takeuchi 1979, 217ff.). Throughout his career Nishitani consistently spoke of overcoming modernity only by way of passing through it, and in this process tradition was to be creatively appropriated, not conservatively retreated to. He wrote: “There is no turning back to the way things were. … Our tradition must be appropriated from the direction in which we are heading, as a new possibility” (NKC VIII, 183; Nishitani 1990, 179); and: “Simply put, the backward looking return to tradition is straightaway to be forward looking” (NKC XIX, 104). Later in life Nishitani continued to stress that Japanese Buddhist organizations need to embrace their historcality, which means to modernize and then postmodernize; only in this way can they continue to play a vital role in Japanese society as well as offer the possibilities of their ways of life to the wider world (Nishitani 2006, 36–38).