Japanese philosopher of science who attempted to synthesize Buddhism, Christianity, Marxism, and scientific thought. He taught the philosophy of science at Tōhoku Imperial University in Sendai from 1913 and later at Kyōto Imperial University, where he succeeded the foremost modern Japanese philosopher, Nishida Kitarō.

After studies at the universities of Berlin, Leipzig, and Freiburg (1922–24), Tanabe wrote his major early work, Sūri tetsugaku kenkyū (1925; “A Study of the Philosophy of Mathematics”), which made him the leading Japanese philosopher of science. In the late 1920s and into the 1930s, he developed “the logic of the species”—the “species” signified the nation as a historical mediating force between the individual and mankind. Tanabe departed from Nishida's “logic of field,” which was thought to emphasize the individual to the detriment of the historical aspect of humanity. Tanabe's Shu no ronri no benshōhō (1947; “Dialectic of the Logic of the Species”) was published in the midst of the post-World War II turmoil.

Works on Tanabe's syncretic approach to Christian love and Buddhistic “nothingness” include Jitsuzon to ai to jissen (1946; “Existence, Love, and Praxis”) and Kirisutokyō no benshōhō (1948; “The Dialectic of Christianity”). In the postwar years,Tanabe developed his philosophy of metanoetics, which proposed that the only way to transcend noetics (speculative philosophy on the subjective aspect or content of experience) is to undergo a complete metanoia in the death-and-rebirth phenomenon of conversion.