 It should be clear by this point that the philosophical stakes involved in the Kyoto School’s thought are high—indeed they invite us to rethink many of our most basic concepts and ways of experiencing the world and ourselves. For this very reason Kyoto School thinkers promise to be especially valuable partners in any post-Eurocentric forum of philosophical dialogue. Genuine philosophy, after all, thrives on the opportunity to call its fundamental presuppositions into question, even if stubbornly Eurocentric philosophers fail to heed this crucial calling of their discipline. Unfortunately, the world of politics tends to be a far less self-critical and thus less genuinely dialogical forum of intercultural relations. The history of Western imperial domination of Asia is well documented (see Panikkar 1969), and post-colonial critique of Western imperialism plays a prominent role in contemporary academia. At the same time, in the field of East Asian studies, Kyoto School thinkers are frequently accused of contributing to the political ideology of Japanese imperialism in the 1930s and early 1940s. However, we need to carefully examine the sense in which and the extent to which the political thought of the Kyoto School is deserving of its tainted reputation in this regard.