 After an introductory section, this article will focus on four questions: How should the Kyoto School be defined? What is meant by its central philosophical concept of “absolute nothingness,” and how did the Kyoto School philosophers variously develop this Eastern inspired idea in dialogue and debate with Western thought and with one another? What are the basics of their political writings, and the basis of the controversy surrounding them? What is the legacy of the Kyoto School for cross-cultural thinking?