- Lived:
- 1889–1960 · Himeji, Tokyo, Kyoto, and a decisive year in Berlin
- Tradition:
- Modern Japanese philosophy; ethics in the orbit of the Kyoto School, on its own path
- The Big Idea:
- A human being is not a self-contained individual but a "between-person" — we become who we are inside relationships, and ethics is the study of keeping that between healthy.
- In their words:
- "We feel the cold" — together, before we ever feel it alone.
- If you remember one thing:
- The Japanese word for "human being," ningen, is written with two characters: person and between. Watsuji built an entire ethics out of that second character.