An Inquiry Into the Good (善の研究)

"An Inquiry Into the Good" is a book of philosophy written by Japanese philosopher Kitaro NISHIDA. It was published in 1911.

This book depicts the earliest stage of Nishida's philosophy and the first creative work on philosophy in Japan.

The book was first planned with the title "Junsui Keiken to jitsuzai (Pure Experience and Realism)," but the publisher Kodokan opposed to the idea and the title was changed to "Zen no Kenkyu (An Inquiry Into the Good)."

Nishida regarded pure experience as the solution for the fundamental issues of philosophy such as the confrontation between idealism and materialism, he stated that the unification of objective and subjective phenomena was the foundation of knowledge, ethics and religion.

Together with Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," this book was a must read for students during the Meiji and Taisho periods.

[Original Japanese]