This article introduces English translations of Tanabe’s two essays entitled “Moral Freedom” and “On Moral Freedom Revisited.” In these essays, Tanabe tries to understand the unity of the contradictory division between freedom and necessity, while remaining truthful to the moral experience. Freedom is ultimately characterized as ideality that we ought to realize in reality, while the stage of religion constitutes the ultimate end of such moral struggles. Tanabe does not clearly work out how the continuity of the freedom-necessity discontinuity is (...) possible in these essays. Nevertheless, we can gain insight into the early stages of Tanabe’s practical metaphysics that culminate in his mature works on the philosophy of religion. The translators’ introduction will highlight these points and also provide a brief description of the historical background in which the publication of these texts took place in 1917. (shrink)

1. Kodai shisō -- 3. Chūsei shisō -- 4. Kindai shisō -- 5. Tōzai bunka no kōryū -- 6. Shōtoku Taishi -- 7. Kinsei Nihon no hihanteki seishin -- 8. Nihon shūkyō no kindaisei.

This paper presents the first English translation of one of Tanabe’s early essays on Kant. Tanabe marks the occasion of the first translation of the Critique of Practical Reason into Japanese by providing his reflections on Kant’s theory of freedom in this essay. This creative essay by Tanabe represents the hallmark Kyoto School interpretation of Kant. Tanabe weaves his account of Kant with elements from other philosophers in an attempt to think systematically about the nature of freedom. He agrees with (...) Kant that morality itself “rises and falls” with the idea of freedom; however, Tanabe also tries to rescue some of the pitfalls he sees in Kant’s theory by reconstructing Kant’s account. In this brief, but rich essay, Tanabe unfolds one of the more creative aspects of his philosophy through Kant. (shrink)

During brain development, neural precursor cells (NPCs) in different brain regions produce different types of neurons, and each of these regions plays a different role in the adult brain. Therefore, precise regionalization is essential in the early stages of brain development, and irregular regionalization has been proposed as the cause of neurodevelopmental disorders. The mechanisms underlying brain regionalization have been well studied in terms of morphogen‐induced expression of critical transcription factors for regionalization. NPC potential in different brain regions is defined (...) by chromatin structures that regulate the plasticity of gene expression. Herein, we present recent findings on the importance of chromatin structure in brain regionalization, particularly with respect to its regulation by Polycomb‐group proteins and chromatin accessibility. (shrink)

This article introduces the first English translation of one of Tanabe’s early essays on metaphysics. It questions the relation of the universal to the particular in context of logic, phenomenology, Neo-Kantian epistemology, and classical metaphysics. Tanabe provides his reflections on the nature of the concept of universality and its constitutive relation to phenomenal particulars through critical analyses of the issue as it is discussed across various schools of philosophy including: British Empiricism, the Marburg School, the Austrian School, the Kyoto School, (...) and Platonism. In this essay, Tanabe reveals his ability to think metaphysically the ground for the possibility of reasoning and dares to voice his own thought beyond references to the most prominent thinkers of his time from distinct intellectual traditions in both the east and the west. This essay, therefore, demonstrates that his strong tendency to move beyond the received epistemology and phenomenology of the European intellectual tradition to metaphysics was already present in the early days of his academic life and thereby marks a more general contribution of the Kyoto School of Philosophy to distinct European schools of thought in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

How are the various classically equivalent definitions of compactness for metric spaces constructively interrelated? This question is addressed with Bishop-style constructive mathematics as the basic system – that is, the underlying logic is the intuitionistic one enriched with the principle of dependent choices. Besides surveying today's knowledge, the consequences and equivalents of several sequential notions of compactness are investigated. For instance, we establish the perhaps unexpected constructive implication that every sequentially compact separable metric space is totally bounded. As a by-product, (...) the fan theorem for detachable bars of the complete binary fan proves to be necessary for the unit interval possessing the Heine-Borel property for coverings by countably many possibly empty open balls. (shrink)

‘Gender ’ is a troublesome loanword in Japan. While this term has been prevalent in feminist and scholarly circles, it has evoked confusion in the government and stimulated a backlash from the ultra-conservatives against gender equality. Japanese reactionaries have attacked the concept of gender because of their anxiety about cultural destruction – I thus call them the ‘old guard’. Focusing on a dispute over the term ‘gender’ between feminists and the old guard, this paper examines the changes in the term's (...) usage and meanings in the Japanese political context. I first shed light on Japan's reaction to the newly arrived term ‘gender’, outlining different attitudes towards gender between the feminist/scholarly circles and the government. Secondly, I discuss the old guard's condemnation of the concept of gender, in which they distort its significance in order to diminish its positive impact on society. I then scrutinize the old guard's reasons behind their attack on the concept of gender. My findings reveal that the old guard, whose political cause is to protect traditional Japanese culture, asserts that gender equality damages this culture. Moreover, I refute their emphasis on Japan's uniqueness, demonstrating that Japanese women's traditional virtues under the patriarchal family system are not peculiar to Japan. To gauge how the concept of gender has been interpreted politically, I highlight legislative debates about the term ‘gender’. In doing so, I elucidate the extent to which the concept of gender has infiltrated Japanese society through the dispute.Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

西が中心に据える〈虚〉という概念に注目し、「平和・和解」理論としての可能性を問うた。.

Dans cet article, Tanabe reprend une question kantienne : quelle place la liberté, entendue comme « volonté auto-législatrice », peut-elle avoir dans un monde régi par les lois nécessaires de la causalité? Tanabe rappelle, avec Kant, que, comme noumène, ayant une cause spontanée, la liberté est « théoriquement possible », mais soutient que pour qu’elle soit concrètement réalisée, est nécessaire un dépassement de toutes les « limitations individuelles » à travers l’unification du sujet moral agissant avec la « valeur absolue (...) » qu’est. (shrink)

We will overview the results in an informal approach to constructive reverse mathematics, that is reverse mathematics in Bishop’s constructive mathematics, especially focusing on compactness properties and continuous properties.

This paper offers an explanation of how collaboration leads to abstract and flexible problem solving. We asked the individual and paired subjects to indicate 3/4 of 2/3 of the area of a square sheet of paper and found that (1) they primarily folded or partitioned the paper rather than algorithmically calculating the answer, (2) they strongly tendened to backtrack and confirm their proto‐plans on externalized traces such as creases on the paper, and (3) only the paired subjects shifted to the (...) mathematical strategy in their second trials. Based on these results, we propose that two factors, individuals' activeness in choosing and confirming the initial strategies and the frequent role exchange between task‐doing and monitoring in collaborative situations, interact in collaboration to generate various solutions differing in the degree of abstraction, which are then reflected upon by the participants to lead them to abstraction. (shrink)

Dans son premier article, Tanabe soutient que le jugement n’est pas seulement un acte secondaire de la pensée : il est aussi l’acte par lequel l’objet est posé et sur lequel la connaissance se fonde, lorsqu’un acte d’attention se tourne vers le contenu de l’expérience pure. Dans celle-ci, objet et sujet sont encore indistincts. Ce jugement thétique fondamental diffère des autres jugements en ceci qu’en lui, il n’y a pas de décalage entre exigence et reconnaissance. Il est donc toujours affirmatif (...) et ne devient pas clairement conscient. Tanabe entend éviter ainsi l’idéalisme subjectif. (shrink)

In order to represent legal knowledge adequately, it is vital to create a formal device that can freely construct an individual concept directly from a predicate expression. For this purpose, a Compound Predicate Formula (CPF) is formulated for use in legal expert systems. In this paper, we willattempt to explain the nature of CPFs by rigorous logical foundation, i.e., establishing their syntax and semantics precisely through the use of appropriate examples. We note the advantages of our system over other such (...) systems and discuss the significance of CPFs with regard to the formalization of legal reasonings using examples from the United Nations Convention for the International Sale of Goods. (shrink)

This paper presents the first English translation of one of Tanabe’s early essays on Kant. Translated by Takeshi Morisato.

In this note, we prove that certain theories of (many‐sorted) intuitionistic predicate logic are closed under the independence of premiss rule (IPR). As corollaries, we show that and extended by some non‐classical axioms and non‐constructive axioms are closed under IPR.

Consider the problem which set V of propositional variables suffices for whenever, where, and ⊢c and ⊢i denote derivability in classical and intuitionistic implicational logic, respectively. We give a direct proof that stability for the final propositional variable of the (implicational) formula A is sufficient; as a corollary one obtains Glivenko's theorem. Conversely, using Glivenko's theorem one can give an alternative proof of our result. As an alternative to stability we then consider the Peirce formula. It is an easy consequence (...) of the result above that adding a single instance of the Peirce formula suffices to move from classical to intuitionistic derivability. Finally we consider the question whether one could do the same for minimal logic. Given a classical derivation of a propositional formula not involving ⊥, which instances of the Peirce formula suffice as additional premises to ensure derivability in minimal logic? We define a set of such Peirce formulas, and show that in general an unbounded number of them is necessary. (shrink)

Classically, weak König's lemma and Brouwer's fan theorem for detachable bars are equivalent. We give a direct constructive proof that the former implies the latter.

Constructive mathematics – mathematics in which ‘there exists’ always means ‘we can construct’ – is enjoying a renaissance. Fifty years on from Bishop’s groundbreaking account of constructive analysis, constructive mathematics has spread out to touch almost all areas of mathematics and to have profound influence in theoretical computer science. This handbook gives the most complete overview of modern constructive mathematics, with contributions from leading specialists surveying the subject’s myriad aspects. Major themes include: constructive algebra and geometry, constructive analysis, constructive topology, (...) constructive logic and foundations of mathematics, and computational aspects of constructive mathematics. A series of introductory chapters provides graduate students and other newcomers to the subject with foundations for the surveys that follow. Edited by four of the most eminent experts in the field, this is an indispensable reference for constructive mathematicians and a fascinating vista of modern constructivism for the increasing number of researchers interested in constructive approaches. (shrink)

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the special workshop "Truth and Objectivity in Law and Morals," held at the 26th World Congress of the IVR. The papers deal with diverse but correlated issues such as the search for truth in and through legal argumentation; the intelligible character of rules inside theories of interpretation which guarantee the coherence and the integrity of law; the role of hermeneutic analysis in the construction of the objectivity of law; the procedural and (...) contextual aspects of objectivity in legal reasoning; the role of objectivity in the distinction between the context of justification and the context of discovery; the problem about truth of normative propositions and legal statements; the incompatibility of non factualism with the traditional account of validity and legality; as well as the possibility of objectivity in morals. (shrink)

"Tanabe's agenda was not religious but philosophical in that he tried to integrate Eastern and Western insights in order to acquire a cross-cultural philosophical vision for the post-war world community.... This book shows his superior philosophical originality.... It is high time that Tanabe's thought should be introduced to the West."—Joseph Kitagawa, University of Chicago.

Consistency with the formal Church’s thesis, for short CT, and the axiom of choice, for short AC, was one of the requirements asked to be satisfied by the intensional level of a two-level foundation for constructive mathematics as proposed by Maietti and Sambin From sets and types to topology and analysis: practicable foundations for constructive mathematics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005). Here we show that this is the case for the intensional level of the two-level Minimalist Foundation, for short MF, (...) completed in 2009 by the second author. The intensional level of MF consists of an intensional type theory à la Martin-Löf, called mTT. The consistency of mTT with CT and AC is obtained by showing the consistency with the formal Church’s thesis of a fragment of intensional Martin-Löf’s type theory, called \, where mTT can be easily interpreted. Then to show the consistency of \ with CT we interpret it within Feferman’s predicative theory of non-iterative fixpoints \ by extending the well known Kleene’s realizability semantics of intuitionistic arithmetics so that CT is trivially validated. More in detail the fragment \ we interpret consists of first order intensional Martin-Löf’s type theory with one universe and with explicit substitution rules in place of usual equality rules preserving type constructors -rule which is not valid in our realizability semantics). A key difficulty encountered in our interpretation was to use the right interpretation of lambda abstraction in the applicative structure of natural numbers in order to model all the equality rules of \ correctly. In particular the universe of \ is modelled by means of \-fixpoints following a technique due first to Aczel and used by Feferman and Beeson. (shrink)

The history of the Vedanta school is well known since the time of Sankaracarya on, and its prehistory before Sankara is quite obscure. However, from the time of compilation of major Upanisads to Sankara there is a period of thousand years, and the tradition of Upanisads was not lost; there appeared many philosophers and dogmaticians, although their thoughts are not clearly known. The author has made clear the details of the pre-Sankara Vedanta philosophy, utilizing not only Sanskrit materials, but also (...) Pali, Prakrit (Jain), as well as Tibetan and Chinese sources. In this respect this is quite a unique work. For this work the author was awarded the Imperial Prize by the Academy of Japan. Some sections of this work were already published in Indian as well as European and American journals in English. This work is a complete English translation of the entire book. The English translation was done with the financial aid by the Harvard-Yenching Institute, and the final touch was given by Mr. Trevor Leggett, the British writer, who is well-versed in Sanskrit as well as in Japanese. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is an axiomatic study of the interrelations between certain continuity properties. We deal with principles which are equivalent to the statements "every mapping is sequentially nondiscontinuous", "every sequentially nondiscontinuous mapping is sequentially continuous", and "every sequentially continuous mapping is continuous". As corollaries, we show that every mapping of a complete separable space is continuous in constructive recursive mathematics (the Kreisel-Lacombe-Schoenfield-Tsejtin theorem) and in intuitionism.

We will overview the results in an informal approach to constructive reverse mathematics, that is reverse mathematics in Bishop’s constructive mathematics, especially focusing on compactness properties and continuous properties.

Many existence propositions in constructive analysis are implied by the lesser limited principle of omniscience LLPO; sometimes one can even show equivalence. It was discovered recently that some existence propositions are equivalent to Bouwer's fan theorem FAN if one additionally assumes that there exists at most one object with the desired property. We are providing a list of conditions being equivalent to FAN, such as a unique version of weak König's lemma. This illuminates the relation between FAN and LLPO. Furthermore, (...) we give a short and elementary proof of the fact that FAN is equivalent to each positive valued function with compact domain having positive infimum. (shrink)