 Nishitani wrote the following with regard to Nishida and Tanabe: “[Their] philosophies share a distinctive and common basis that sets them apart from traditional Western philosophy: absolute nothingness. … Clearly the idea of absolute nothingness came to awareness in the spirituality of the East; but the fact that it has also been posited as a foundation for philosophical thought represents a new step virtually without counterpart in the history of Western philosophy” (NKC IX, 225–26; Nishitani 1991, 161).