 One point made by Tosaka early on, a point often repeated today, is that without Tanabe’s critical appropriation of Nishida’s thought there would be no tradition of the Kyoto School; we would have only successors of “Nishida Philosophy” and not a genuine school of mutually related yet independent thinkers. The question remains, however, just how independent a thinker can be with respect to Nishida’s thought and still be considered a member of the School. For even when subsequent figures in the School sharply questioned certain aspects of Nishida’s thought, they tended at the same time to appropriate and creatively develop other shared concepts and motifs. (A movement of self-critical development can in fact be seen in the ceaseless progression of Nishida’s own thinking. Nishida considered himself to be a “miner” who never managed to stay put in one place long enough to “refine the ore” he had unearthed.)