 As may be surmised from the foregoing explanation on Zen’s methodological stance, it is perhaps best to understand Zen as an anti-philosophy if the term “philosophy” is taken to mean the establishment of “the kingdom of reason.” That enterprise has been launched as an intellectual effort of the most brilliant minds in Europe since the modern period to find new ways to ground our conception of human nature, something beyond the traditional Christian dogmas that had incorporated classic Aristotelian and Platonic views. Since then, various Western philosophers have attempted to capture human nature with this goal in mind by using ego-consciousness as a starting point as well as a destination in philosophy. For example, human nature has been characterized in terms of ego-consciousness (Descartes), Reason, Personality, Transcendental Subjectivity (Kant and Husserl), Life (Dilthey), Existence (Existential philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Jaspers and Sartre) and Dasein (Heidegger). (See Yuasa 2003, 160–61.)