Born in 1870 as the eldest son of Nishida Yasunori, former village headman in Unoke, Ishikawa District, Kaga Province (today Kahoku, Ishikawa). At the Fourth Higher Middle School he became classmates with Suzuki Daisetz and made a lifelong friend of him. He graduated from the Elective Course in Philosophy of the College of Letters of Tokyo Imperial University in 1894. He then taught at Yamaguchi Higher School, the Fourth Higher School, and elsewhere, deepening his grasp of Eastern thought through zazen at Myoshin-ji and Engaku-ji. In 1910 he became associate professor at the College of Letters of Kyoto Imperial University, and professor the next year. In 1911 he published his representative work, 'An Inquiry into the Good' (Zen no Kenkyu), presenting original concepts such as 'pure experience,' 'the logic of place,' and 'absolutely contradictory self-identity' through a fusion of Western philosophy (especially William James, Bergson, and Neo-Kantianism) with Zen thought; as Japan's first systematic philosophical work it won international recognition. In 1928 he retired on reaching the age limit at Kyoto University, moved to Kamakura, and continued his research. He trained Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keiji, Kosaka Masaaki, Miki Kiyoshi, and others, forming the 'Kyoto School.' During the war he kept a distance from militarism while presenting his own view of the state. On June 7, 1945, he died of uremia at Kamakura at 75, two months before the end of the war.

An introspective thinker who loved solitude. Over his life he experienced many sorrows — deaths of wife and children — and spun an original philosophy from a deep grief. A rare thinker who studied Western philosophy thoroughly without letting go of the spirituality of the East (Zen). Gentle, he loved his disciples, and his study at Kyoto University became a sacred place of the school. That the disciples of the 'Kyoto School' looked up to him as master was not only for his intellectual excellence but also for the depth of his character.

Nishida's philosophy is a monument as Japan's first systematic philosophy at world level, bringing Eastern thought onto the stage of world philosophy. Heidegger too is said to have taken an interest in Nishida, and translation and research continue among Western philosophers today. The 'Kyoto School' was carried on by Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keiji, Hisamatsu Shin'ichi, Ueda Shizuteru, and others and became the mainstream of modern Japanese thought. On the other hand, some of his wartime statements are criticized as nationalist. The 'Philosopher's Path' near Kyoto University, the walk on which Nishida went lost in thought, is still loved by many today. Near the site of his Kamakura residence a monument stands.