  Nishida is often called the father of the Kyoto School of philosophy because of his influence on a group of thinkers who were his students or younger colleagues. Best known outside Japan are his colleague and critic, Tanabe Hajime, frequently considered the School’s co-founder, and his student Nishitani Keiji. As a “school” the group comprises a rather fuzzy set that includes Marxist-leaning former students such as Miki Kiyoshi and Tosaka Jun, more nationalistic students like Kōyama Iwao and Kōsaka Masaaki, and lesser known but close disciples like Mutai Risaku and Shimomura Toratarō. Other colleagues, students and friends on the fringes of the School proper nevertheless show the impact of Nishida’s ideas: the Zen Buddhist scholar-teachers D. T. Suzuki and Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, the ethical theorist Watsuji Tetsurō, and Kuki Shūzō, the interpreter of Japanese aesthetics and culture. A third generation of the School includes Tanabe’s student Takeuchi Yoshinori, Nishitani’s student Ueda Shizuteru and Hisamatsu’s student Abe Masao, who have been especially effective in introducing Nishida’s philosophy in Europe and North America and in applying Nishida’s thought to inter-religious Buddhist-Christian dialogue.