 This idea of “overcoming modernity” has proven to be both one of the more stimulating and one of the more controversial aspects of their thought. For some it promises to contribute an important East Asian perspective to debates over postmodernism in philosophy and postcolonialism in culture studies. Yet because the Kyoto School’s ideas of “overcoming modernity” developed in conjunction with their wartime political theories, theories which typically saw the nation of Japan as playing a key role in the historical movement through and beyond Western modernity, it has also proven to be one of the more often criticized aspects of their thought. (It is noteworthy in this regard that contemporary Japanese epigones of [Western] postmodernism have for the most part eschewed making the connection between their adoption of recent Western self-criticism of modernity/Eurocentrism and the Kyoto School’s earlier critique of these.) In any case, it is true that even after the Kyoto School ceased formulating the idea of overcoming modernity in political terms, the idea lives on in their postwar philosophies of religion and culture. Hence, a radical problematization of Western modernity can be considered an important aspect of their identity as a school of thought.