The sword of the Samurai and the branch of Sakura

Abstract

At the fall of the XX century, both in Japan and in the West several concluding conferences on the problem of the Japanese cultural identity were held. They cast light upon insufficiency of the simplifying dichotomic approach to the problems of cultural identity, strongly criticized by Sugiyama-Lebra Takie and Hamaguchi Eshun. In this context cultural studies of eminent philosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) are emphasized in the article.