Kuki Shuzo was a philosopher at the margins of the Kyoto School; his most significant contribution was the short work 'Iki' no kozo, in which he located Japanese uniqueness in the Edo demimonde aesthetic of iki, style or chic. This thesis surveys the major Western critiques of Kuki's aesthetics, focussing particularly on the work done by Peter Dale, Leslie Pincus, and Harry Harootunian revealing Kuki's borrowing from European modernism, especially fascist modernism, and attempts to uncover an alternative genealogy for Kuki in Japanese Pure Land thought. It finally asserts that Kuki's valorization of resignation, and his own retreat into the aesthetic, can be read as a form of resistance to Japanese nationalism.
