Placing the concept of reification at the centre of Marx’s thought, Hiromatsu demonstrates across a number of areas — history, the understanding of society, and the understanding of philosophy — the philosophical and practical change in worldview which this concept brings about.

Le présent article a pour but d’expliciter le caractère d’existence de la signification du point de vue de la sémantique. Il est ici prouvé que la signification ne peut être en tant que telle ni psychique, ni physique, ni même métaphysique, ce qui nous pousse à nous opposer à toutes les vues qui ont eu cours sur la signification. Car la signification consiste, en soi et pour soi, dans le rapport quadripartite...

1960年代以後、日本の思想・哲学に大きな影響力をもった廣松渉(1933‐94)。この独自な哲学者の人と思想と時代と影響関係の全体を思想史上に位置づけ、その思考過程を精密に追跡した、気鋭の書。.

田辺は自己の生を包摂する時代の趨勢と真摯に対峙し、廣松は「近代」の陥穽を注視し絶えず他者との協働を考察し続けた。この二人の視座から「啓蒙の弁証法」の陥穽に落ちた日本社会と日本人の「生の姿」を考えていく 。.

丸山眞男の政治思想史と廣松渉の哲学は「現代の人間世界における人間性の運命とは」を「問う」たのであった。今、だからこそ惰性となった現実主義を「醒めた目」で捉える必要がある。つまり、丸山と廣松の両者のよう に「“鉄のように堅い殻”」の歴史内部で退動する「弁証法的緊張」を把握しなくてはならない。二人が生涯を賭けた思想史と哲学の探求は、人間の歴史的現実に対する私たち自身の課題なのである。.

Hiromatsu Wataru’s philosophical thought revolves around an analysis of what he calls the “fourfold structure.” According to Hiromatsu, all phenomena in the world are structured in such a fourfold manner that “a given presents itself as something to someone as Someone,” and these four moments of the phenomenon are not independent elements, but exist only as terms of the functional relationship. This paper surveys and critically examines this theory of the fourfold structure, and shows, in particular, how this theory, (...) while largely presented as synchronic structural analysis, contains some conceptual motifs going beyond the synchronic framework. Specifically, with a focus on the process in which there arises a meaning common to different phenomenal givens and to different knowers, my analysis suggests the way in which phenomena are dynamically structured and thereby displaced in meaning as well as in the knowers’ role relationship. (shrink)

In his project of going beyond the “modern worldview,” Hiromatsu Wataru attached great importance to Ernst Mach’s philosophical thought and Einstein’s theory of relativity as challenging the premises of modern philosophy, which he characterized as substantialist and bound by the subject / object schema. This paper surveys Hiromatsu’s analysis of Mach’s phenomenalist element-monism, specifically his critique of Mach’s insufficient break with modern philosophy; his inquiry into Einstein’s relativity theory with a focus on its intersubjective cognitive structure; and the way (...) he extends his views on these themes to a general ontological-epistemological theory of the “fourfold structure.” Finally, it examines questions about Hiromatsu’s arguments regarding the tension between the dimensions of synchronic structure and structuring movement. An earlier version of this paper can be found as “Philosophers” in John T. Blackmore, Itagaki Ryōichi, and Tanaka Setsuko, eds., Ernst Mach’s Influence Spreads, 425–76. (shrink)

The article deals with the differences of the notion of 'object' or 'thing' in natural languages, concluding that some languages are by their structure more object-biased while others are more event-biased and proceeds to analyse how two common Japanese words, mono and koto , both meaning 'thing', have been treated in 20th-century Japanese thought, notably in the philosophical works of Watsuji Tetsurô, Ide Takashi, Hiromatsu Wataru and Kimura Bin. All of these thinkers represent different schools and trends (Watsuji could (...) be called a cultural particularist, Ide was an Aristotle scholar, Hiromatsu a Marxist and Kimura is a psychiatrist), but come to similar conclusions in this respect, allowing us to regard event-biased and object-biased linguistic constructions as manifestations of two different, but equally necessary cognitive faculties. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Guest Editor’s IntroductionNakajima Takahiro 「東京学派」とは聞きなれない名称であろう。日本研究において「京都学派」は大変よく知られている。たとえ「京都学派」が、「無の論理は論理ではない」と述べた上で、戸坂潤が発明した批判的な概念であったとしても 、現在ではそれは西田幾多郎や田辺元を中心とした一大哲学運動として世界的に認知されている。ところが、西田にしても田辺にしてももともとは東京帝国大学で学んだ学生であった。また、戦前においては、井上哲次郎か ら桑木厳翼へと続く東京帝国大学哲学科の流れは、当時の社会状況と相互に影響しあって、一定の意義を示していたのである。また、大森荘蔵、廣松渉、坂部恵といった戦後の東京大学の哲学者たちは、「京都学派」の問題 系を乗り越えることを重視していた。 この特別号では、発見的概念として「東京学派」を用いて、戦前・戦後におけるその意義と広がりを探究することにした。それは東京大学もしくは東京帝国大学に限定されたものではなく、それ以外の東京圏の大学との相互 交流も含まれるものである。「京都学派」に対しては、政治との距離をどう測るかがしばしば議論されてきたが、「東京学派」は政治により密着したものである。日本の近代の哲学の有している政治性そして倫理性を考える のであれば、やはり「東京学派」の議論は避けて通る ことのできないものである。 無論、「学派」というほどのまとまりを「東京学派」が有しているわけではないことも確かである。西田幾多郎が「京都学派」で果たした中心性は、「東京学派」にはない。そこで、トマス・カスリスが示唆するように、「 学派」の代わりに「サークル」や「スタイル」という言葉を使った方がより正確かもしれない。それでも、あえて「東京学派」と呼ぶのは、「京都学派」に比べて関心を持たれることの少ない、しかし当時は圧倒的な影響力 を有し、戦後決定的に忘却されていった東京の哲学者たちに光をあて、近代日本の哲学の総体を明らかにしたいからである。「東京学派」の研究は緒についたばかりである。今後、国際的な研究の高まりを期待しながら擱筆 する。The “Tokyo School” may be an unfamiliar term to readers. The Kyoto School is very well known in Japanese studies. Even if the Kyoto School is a critical concept invented by Tosaka Jun, who stated [End Page 2] that “the logic of nothingness is not logic,” it is now recognized worldwide as a major philosophical movement led by Nishida Kitarō and Tanabe (...) Hajime. However, both Nishida and Tanabe were originally students at Tokyo Imperial University. In addition, before the war, the output of the Department of Philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, from Inoue Tetsujirō to Kuwaki Gen’yoku, had a certain significance because it interacted with the social conditions of the time. In addition, postwar philosophers at the University of Tokyo, such as Ōmori Shōzō, Hiromatsu Wataru, and Sakabe Megumi emphasized overcoming the problematics of the Kyoto School.In this special issue, we use the Tokyo School as a heuristic concept to explore its significance and spread in the prewar and postwar periods. It is not limited to the University of Tokyo or Tokyo Imperial University but includes interactions with other universities in the Tokyo area. While the Kyoto School has often been discussed in terms of how to measure its distance from politics, the Tokyo School is more closely connected to politics. If we consider the political and ethical dimensions of modern Japanese philosophy, we cannot avoid discussing the Tokyo School.Of course, it is true that the Tokyo School is not as coherent as a “school.” The central role that Nishida fulfilled in the Kyoto School is perhaps lacking in the Tokyo School. Therefore, as Thomas P. Kasulis suggests, it might be more accurate to use the term “circle” or “style” instead of “school.” Nevertheless, I dare to call it the Tokyo School because I would like to shed light on the Tokyo philosophers who were less popular than those of the Kyoto School but whose influence was overwhelming at the time and who were definitively forgotten after the war, so as to clarify the totality of philosophy in modern Japan.Research on the Tokyo School has only just begun. I am writing this introductory note in anticipation of further international research on the Tokyo School. [End Page 3]Copyright © 2023 State University of New York Press... (shrink)

Many years the academic community has been discussing issues of a universal metalanguage as the general conceptual framework of modern social and humanitarian research, especially of philosophy. The article questions the claim that the language of Western philosophy was already accepted as a unified tool in the 20th century. The peculiarities of perception and further application of Western philosophical terminology in Japan in late 19th – first half of the 20th centuries are investigated here as a factual evidence base of (...) argumentation. Special attention is given to examples of translation and interpretation of some concepts of Western origin, such as metaphysics, ethics, logic, substance, subject, etc., as observed in the works of eminent thinkers Nishi Amane, Inoue Tetsujiro, Nishida Kitaro, and Watsuji Tetsuro. The paper provides examples of new original concepts developed by modern Japanese philosophers, such as Kimura Bin, Hiromatsu Wataru et al. The author concludes that the general conceptual framework that modern philosophy operates with is a very dynamic and open system, capable of transforming in different cultural contexts and in keeping with newly emerging issues that require analysis. The article identifies factors that provide philosophical communication between different cultures at the conceptual level, that is, the presence of a common circle of problems and presence of partial overlap between the key concepts. The author poses the problem of the emergence of new approaches and ideas in a situation of “conflicting interpretations,” or incomplete equivalence of similar notions when used by the parties in a dialogue, casting doubt on possibility, necessity and reasonability of exact reproduction of meanings and “complete domestication” in other cultures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ōmori Shōzō and Kotodama Theory: How Can We Overcome the Need for Bodily Encounters?Maki SatoIntroductionŌmori Shōzō is known for his theory of tachi-araware monism. Tachiaraware monism is his attempted counter-argument to the Cartesian dualism of the object–subject divide, or in his words, a divide between physical (butsuri, mono, science, object) and non-physical consciousness (ishiki, koto, perception, incident), perception (chikaku, 知覚) and conception (shikō, 思考). His concept of Kasane-egaki is (...) also often cited as a core concept of his theory of time.1 The main aim of this paper is to first overview the works of Ōmori since there is only a limited amount of his translated work so far.2 Consecutively, the paper focuses on Ōmori’s theory of kotodama and its related arguments with an intention to expand his concept of Kowaburi into the ethics of online encounters during the pandemic.The world in 2020 was suddenly forced to face the pandemic caused by COVID-19. What COVID-19 alerted us to is tremendous, and there are countless problems that the invisible virus has revealed. Among those are the hidden problems of contemporary society, not limited to the discrimination among races, gender, and jobs (white-collars versus essential workers), the problem of zoonosis, and the related environmental problems (climate change and intrusion into wild nature) caused by over-exploitation of nature. In developed countries, most students and those serving as intellectual workers face their daily lives being overly occupied with online lectures and meetings. COVID-19 worked to normalize remote work, which further normalized and forced our everyday life to shift to cyberspace. [End Page 101]In introducing and overviewing Ōmori’s philosophy, this paper attempts to see the current situation through Ōmori’s philosophy to draw out some ethical implications related to non-physical online encounters and how we can perceive human interactions and relationships under such conditions. Under the constraints caused by COVID-19, humans’ limitless desires to interact with others are expanding more so to the sphere of cyberspace, leading to technological development, such as VR. In short, first, the paper overviews Ōmori’s philosophy. Second, through the overview of Ōmori’s philosophy, the paper seeks adaptable philosophy of his that may work as soft binding grounding ethics for cyberspace encounters where substantial bodily encounters are void. In doing so, the paper intends to draw out weak binding ethics implied in Ōmori’s philosophy that may work to empathetically engage with others in cyberspace where embodied encounters with others are dissolved.Ōmori Shōzō and His Philosophy: A Short Introduction and OverviewIn his short essay introducing the Japanese philosophy of the 1970s, Yasuo Kobayashi coined the term “Komaba quartet” by selecting four active eminent philosophers based on the Komaba campus at the University of Tokyo.3 Among them is Ōmori Shōzō (1921–97), aligning with Hiromatsu Wataru (1933–94), Sakabe Megumi (1936–2009), and Inoue Tadashi (1926–2014). Ōmori is the oldest of the Komaba quartet and received higher education before World War II. He served at the Naval Technology Institute Mitaka Laboratory during the war with his physics degree from the Tokyo Imperial University.4 After the war, he studied philosophy at the University of Tokyo with an interest in phenomenology, leading him to study at Harvard and Stanford in the United States.During his professorship at the University of Tokyo, he inspired countless students who are now leading the philosophy academy in Japan, such as Noe Keiichi (1949–) and Noya Shigeki (1954–). In the round-table discussion titled “Explanatory Round-Table on the Charm of Ōmori’s Philosophy,” four of his former students—Iida Takashi and Tanji Nobuharu, in addition to Noe and Noya—worked on selecting his works. It is impressive to read that all four [End Page 102] of them recall how exciting and inspiring it was to take his classes.5 Iida recalls that Ōmori’s classes were exceptional since philosophy courses were all about reading, with might and main, the texts written in a language other than Japanese at the University of Tokyo. However, Ōmori, with his postwar American education, welcomed discussion with the students and was keen on questioning... (shrink)

Buddhism has gradually reclaimed its place as the most important spiritual tradition to the extent that modern Japanese philosophers no longer even mention Confucian thought, especially since the birth of a Japanese style of philosophy represented by the Kyoto School. Against this historical background, it may seem questionable if anything like an effective interaction between Japanese Buddhist-inspired philosophy and Confucianism ever existed. This essay concentrate on the two occasions in the history of modern Japanese philosophy when the problem of morality (...) gained crucial importance. The first concerns the issue of morality among the second generation of Kyoto School philosophers, culminating in the theme of “overcoming modernity,” and its discussion of how to go beyond modernity, thereby transforming society and the world. This discussion is clearly inspired by Confucian ideas. Since this theme is based on the evaluation of past philosophies and thoughts, it is inseparable from a modern version of doctrinal classification conceived by KŌYAMA Iwao 高山岩男. The second occasion we will examine in this essay is the postwar Marxist critique of this theme. Inheriting this theme of the Kyoto School, HIROMATSU Wataru 廣松渉 proceeds to criticize modern Japanese Buddhist philosophy and Buddhism itself from a practical point of view in order to surpass their shortcomings. In both cases, the question is how such notions as morality and morals are problematized in modern Japanese philosophy, or, more specifically, what the place of morality and practice in Buddhist philosophy is? This is the question that will enable us to see the modern version of interaction between Buddhism and Confucianism. (shrink)

Although it seems natural to consider the last fifty years the contemporary period, because this year (1995) punctuates a historical period celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Pacific War, this essay will limit the term “contemporary” roughly to the last twenty‐five years. The reason for this demarcation is that at the beginning of the 1970s, we witnessed a new philosophical mood emerging in Japan. Prior to that period, the Japanese philosophical scene was dominated by the study of (...) European thinkers, such as Husserl, Heiddeger, Sartre, and Merleau Ponty. The end of the students' movement in the early 1970s also marked the end of the ideological disputes launched by Marxism since the early 1930s. Instead, it appears that the Japanese intelligentsia in the early 1970s began to acutely sense problems inherent in the Eurocentric philosophy which had served as a foundation for Western science and technology. This occurred largely through a recognition that scientific technology had yielded, as its unexpected byproduct, a “mind/heartless” society, pollution, and global ecological crises, which had permeated almost all parts of the Japanese archipelago to threaten the psyche of the Japanese people and their mode of living. In this essay, I should like to briefly introduce three representative contemporary Japanese thinkers who have addressed some aspects of these problems in their writings. They are Nakamura Yujiro, Sakabe Megumi, and Yuasa Yasuo. (Because of the limitations of space, this article will restrict itself to these three thinkers, but this should not suggest that there are no other representative thinkers in Japan. Consider particularly those belonging to the neo Kyoto school, such as Nishitani Keiji, Kosaka Masaki, Koyama Iwao, Umehara Takeshi and Ueda Shizuteru. Nishitani's works are well known in the English speaking world, along with those of Abe Masao. Out side of the Kyoto school, we can also mention other thinkers, such as Matsumoto Masao, Hiromatsu Wataru and Ichikawa Hiroshi.). (shrink)

This paper delves into the dispute surrounding “overcoming modernity” in Japanese philosophy, which arose before and during Japan’s Pacific War (the “Greater East Asia War”) in the late 1930s and its impact on the postwar period. Nishida Kitarō’s philosophy provided the foundation for “overcoming modernity,” and the “Oriental” logic of “nothing” emerged as a counterpoint to the rationalist spirit of the West. This logic has persisted from the postwar period to the present day via postmodernism. Takeuchi Yoshimi and Hiromatsu (...) class='Hi'>Wataru, both discussed in this paper, played a crucial role in the discussions about this issue in the postwar era. Mainly, this paper focuses on the state of philosophy in Japan during the 1970 and 1980 s, highlighting the divergence in thinking about “nothing” by examining Nakamura Yūjirō and Karatani Kōjin. Focusing on these two thinkers shows that “nothing” transformed into a diverging movement in this period. Additionally, this paper explores the intellectual continuity between the 1930 and 1960 s that paved the way for this era. Through these historical reflections, the paper sheds light on the divergence between the ideas of “nothing” relating to capitalism and those relating to life systems, which occurred in the deeper layer of the intellectual culture of this period (1970-1980 s). This divergence is generally overlooked as a resistance of the “postmodernist” or “new academism” in Japan against the modernist intellectual tides. The purpose of this paper is to offer a fresh perspective on the historical evolution of Japanese philosophy in terms of “nothing”. (shrink)

The present volume is the latest example of what scholars of Japanese philosophy have been up to in recent years. The papers collected here, most of them presented at conferences held in Barcelona and Nagoya during 2016, have been arranged in four thematic parts. The first two parts cover the history of Japanese philosophy, as their topics extend from premodern thinkers to twentieth century philosophers; the last two parts focus on Nishida and Watsuji respectively.

Long before the origins of agriculture human ancestors had expanded across the globe into an immense variety of environments, from Australian deserts to Siberian tundra. Survival in these environments did not principally depend on genetic adaptations, but instead on evolved learning strategies that permitted the assembly of locally adaptive behavioral repertoires. To develop hypotheses about these learning strategies, we have modeled the evolution of learning strategies to assess what conditions and constraints favor which kinds of strategies. To build on prior (...) work, we focus on clarifying how spatial variability, temporal variability, and the number of cultural traits influence the evolution of four types of strategies: (1) individual learning, (2) unbiased social learning, (3) payoff-biased social learning, and (4) conformist transmission. Using a combination of analytic and simulation methods, we show that spatial—but not temporal—variation strongly favors the emergence of conformist transmission. This effect intensifies when migration rates are relatively high and individual learning is costly. We also show that increasing the number of cultural traits above two favors the evolution of conformist transmission, which suggests that the assumption of only two traits in many models has been conservative. We close by discussing how (1) spatial variability represents only one way of introducing the low-level, nonadaptive phenotypic trait variation that so favors conformist transmission, the other obvious way being learning errors, and (2) our findings apply to the evolution of conformist transmission in social interactions. Throughout we emphasize how our models generate empirical predictions suitable for laboratory testing. (shrink)

The conflict between Platonic realism and Constructivism marks a watershed in philosophy of mathematics. Among other things, the controversy over the Axiom of Choice is typical of the conflict. Platonists accept the Axiom of Choice, which allows a set consisting of the members resulting from infinitely many arbitrary choices, while Constructivists reject the Axiom of Choice and confine themselves to sets consisting of effectively specifiable members. Indeed there are seemingly unpleasant consequences of the Axiom of Choice. The non-constructive nature of (...) the Axiom of Choice leads to the existence of non-Lebesgue measurable sets, which in turn yields the Banach-Tarski Paradox. But the Banach-Tarski Paradox is so called in the sense that it is a counter-intuitive theorem. To corroborate my view that mathematical truths are of non-constructive nature, I shall draw upon Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems. This also shows the limitations inherent in formal methods. Indeed the Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem and the Skolem Paradox seem to pose a threat to Platonists. In this light, Quine/Putnam’s arguments come to take on a clear meaning. According to the model-theoretic arguments, the Axiom of Choice depends for its truth-value upon the model in which it is placed. In my view, however, this is another limitation inherent in formal methods, not a defect for Platonists. To see this, we shall examine how mathematical models have been developed in the actual practice of mathematics. I argue that most mathematicians accept the Axiom of Choice because the existence of non-Lebesgue measurable sets and the Well-Ordering of reals open the possibility of more fruitful mathematics. Finally, after responding to Benacerraf’s challenge to Platonism, I conclude that in mathematics, as distinct from natural sciences, there is a close connection between essence and existence. Actual mathematical theories are the parts of the maximally logically consistent theory that describes mathematical reality. (shrink)

The projection pattern of the existential/uniqueness presupposition of a wh-complement varies depending on the predicate that embeds it. This variation poses problems for existing accounts that treat the presupposition as a semantic contribution of an operator merging with the wh-complement or of the embedding predicate. I propose that the problems can be solved if the existential/uniqueness presupposition is contributed by the propositions corresponding to the answers of the embedded question, under the Hamblin/Karttunen semantics for questions.

Reconsideration-proofness is a solution concept proposed by Kocherlakota :33–54, 1996) for infinite horizon single-player problems in which time inconsistency is important. Kocherlakota’s definition has a limitation: it is not applicable to environments with state variables. The limitation is important because many time-inconsistent problems have state variables. This paper displays a natural generalization of reconsideration-proofness to environments with state variables, and shows that it leads to nonexistence in three examples. Such nonexistence contrasts with the general existence theorem obtained in environments without (...) state variables in Kocherlakota. In the first two examples, existence can be recovered with a modification in the solution concept. In the last example, nonexistence occurs even with the modified solution concept. Insights about further research are derived from these nonexistence results. (shrink)

As the internet becomes the basic resource of information, not only texts but images retrieval systems have been appeared. However, many of those supply only a list of images, so we have to seek the expecting images one by one. Although, image labeling is one of the solutions of such a problem, various words are labeled to an image if the words are extracted from only one Web page. Therefore, this paper proposes an image clustering system that labels images by (...) words related to a search keyword. This relationships are measured by Web pages in WWW. By the experimental results, users were enabled to find the intended images more faster than the ordinal image search system. (shrink)

We recently described a novel form of stress‐associated bidirectional plasticity at GABA synapses onto hypothalamic parvocellular neuroendocrine cells (PNCs), the apex of the hypothalamus‐pituitary‐adrenal axis. This plasticity may contribute to neuroendocrine adaptation. However, this GABA synapse plasticity likely does not translate into a simple more and less of inhibition because the ionic driving force for Cl−, the primary charge carrier for GABAA receptors, is dynamic. Specifically, stress impairs a Cl− extrusion mechanism in PNCs. This not only renders the steady‐state GABA (...) response less hyperpolarizing but also makes PNCs susceptible to the activity‐dependent accumulation of Cl−. Accordingly, GABA synapse plasticity impacts both the robustness of GABA voltage response and dynamic Cl− loading, imposing nonlinear influences on PNC excitability during circuit activities. This theoretical consideration predicts roles for GABA transmission far more versatile than canonical inhibition. We propose potential impacts of GABA synapse plasticity on the experience‐dependent fine‐tuning of neuroendocrine stress responses. (shrink)