In the present paper I try to show that ethical principles of medical activities in general can be adequately applied to medical activities for the patient in his terminal stage. For this objective, I shall argue first what are the principles and rules of medical activities in general, and then show how these can be applied to palliative medicine.

"All the essays published in this volume have been reviewed by members of the Bureau of the SIEPM"--T.p. verso.

Watsuji's Rinrigaku (literally, the principles that allow us to live in friendly community) has been regarded as the definitive study of Japanese ethics for half a century.

A pioneering philosophical exploration, this volume seeks to clarify the function of climate as a key factor within the structure of human existence. The author takes as his starting point the argument that the phenomena of climate should be treated as expressions of subjective human existence and not of natural environments. In developing his argument, Watsuji first examines the basic principles of climate and then proceeds to examine three types of climate in detail--monsoon, desert, and meadow--and their relative impacts on (...) human experience. As both a unique guide to Japan and her culture and a penetrating philosophical study, Climate and Culture will be enlightening reading for students and scholars of modern Japanese thought. (shrink)

In the performing arts, such as music and dance performances, people actively interact with each other and show their exciting performances. Some studies have proposed that this interaction is a social origin of the performing arts. Some have further investigated this phenomenon based on the synchronization and coordination theory. Though the majority of these studies have focused on the collaborative context, several genres of the performing arts, such as jazz sessions and breakdance battles, have a competitive context. Several studies have (...) suggested that, in this competitive context, performers actively interact with each other and construct some correspondence. Moreover, a few recent studies focusing on competitive conversations, such as debates, have shown that, compared to people's interactions in collaborative conversations, people in competitive contexts frequently coordinate their behaviors in complicated ways. However, the interaction and coordination among performers in these competitive contexts have not been sufficiently investigated. Therefore, we investigated the coordination of expert breakdancers in battle scenes and measured their rhythmic movements using a motion capture system. We calculated the relative phase of the rhythmic movements between two dancers to investigate their coordination. The results showed that the dancers' rhythmic movements tended to synchronize in an anti-phase fashion, which means that there were similarities as well as differences between the two dancers' rhythmic movements. Furthermore, this pattern of coordination changed dynamically as time elapsed, from an in-phase synchronization or leader-follower relationships to an anti-phase synchronization and then leader-follower relationships. (shrink)

武士道の代表的書とされる『葉隠』が世に広まったのは太平洋戦争直前、「忠臣蔵」はサラリーマン化した武士への庶民の面当て、卑怯な考えとして『孫子』を忌避した新井白石、殉死は江戸時代初期の異常現象―。太平記 、甲陽軍艦といった古典から橋川文三、三島由紀夫まで、武士道がいかに歪曲・誤解されてきたのかを様々なエピソードを交えて解説する、思いもよらぬ事実が満載の本。.

This paper is an attempt to probe the connection between Spinoza's philosophy and his excommunication from the Synagogue in 1656. It seeks, first, to show the decisive influence of the 1656 excommunication on Spinoza's life and thought, and to demonstrate that this event is the single most important key to understanding his entire philosophy. With this key, the paper seeks, secondly, to illustrate the development and transformation of Spinoza's thought through specific reference to his three major works, Korte Verhandeling, De (...) Emendatione, and Ethica. Underlying these two points is a third, namely, that the inherently dynamic and positive elements of ?experience?, which have not been fully appreciated thus far, should be given greater attention in the evaluation of Spinoza's philosophy. (shrink)

彼は、戦後民主主義の「虚妄」の方にかけたのか、東大全共闘に「ナチもしなかった」と言ったのか――丸山の戦後の軌跡を追う。.

この国の人々は選択的に外の思想を受け入れつつ、あるべき人間とは何かという問いを立ててきた。ではその根底にあるものは何だろうか。思想史を俯瞰してそれを探るには、日本の内と外の両側から眺める視点が必要であ る。そしてそのような内と外の意識こそ、古代からこの国で綿々と受け継がれてきたものだ。神話時代から現在までの各時代の思想に、外部的視点からの解釈を押し通すのではなく、内在的視点をもって丹念に光を当てる。 一人の思想史家による、初めての本格通史。.

The following essay is an attempt to a) bridge the gap between habit in the ordinary sense of the word and the concept of habit as described by philosophers, using the various characteristics of habitual behaviors that shape daily life as a clue and b) clarify what it means to question the meaning of habit in general. What philosophers from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas, to Ravaisson, to Dewey have regarded as habit is very different from the common usage of the (...) noun “habit.” The word “habit” commonly refers to automatically repetitive, nonreflective behavior that does not require the intervention of the will. In contrast, philosophers have regarded the essence of habit to be the free exercise of advanced abilities that require concentration and tension. The following essay confirms that 1) habits are a way of returning to ourselves and are impossible to imitate, 2) we should distinguish habits from "routines" and "rituals,” and 3) the problem of the formation of habit is one of “transcendence.”. (shrink)

This book addresses the philosophical question of "What is landscape?" From the birth of the genre of "landscape painting" in the 16th century, Western culture has valued landscapes in terms of their "picturesque" or "painterly" qualities. The creation of the "English landscape garden" was influenced by landscape painting, and "picturesque travel," which became popular in England in the 18th century, sought to recreate the experience of viewing landscape paintings in nature. 1. The book labels this view of landscape that seeks (...) the epitome of landscape in "picturesque" images reminiscent of landscape painting as "the aesthetics of spectacular scenery," traces its genealogy from the late 16th century to the early 19th century, and reveals its "anti-modern" character. 2. It asserts that the "aesthetics of spectacular scenery" is a dystopia of "hortus conclusus," drawing upon John Ruskin's criticism of the "picturesque." 3. The book then clarifies that landscape must be defined not as an "image," but as the "horizon." The "horizon" is the periphery of our consciousness, always present yet somehow perceived. However, certain stimuli draw our attention to this non-thematic object of consciousness. When the non-thematic becomes unexpectedly thematic, the landscape appears to us as the very "thing that was the horizon." The landscape is not an image or a physical structure. To experience a landscape is to receive "what was the horizon" exactly as it is given and to experience it in the context of the world as a whole. (shrink)

Dans la section de Rinrigaku intitulée «L’État», Watsuji Tetsuro définit l’État en tant que «communauté éthique des communautés éthiques». Ce qu’il entend par là, c’est que l’État, pour lui, est la communauté la plus englobante, celle qui n’a pas d’égoïsme et qui place chacune des communautés de rang inférieur dans une structure totalement éthique. Watsuji voit donc l’État comme la forme la plus achevée de communauté. Il considère aussi que l’État, en tant que communauté englobante, peut moralement utiliser la violence (...) pour imposer le respect des lois qu’il édicte, parce que cette violence vient de l’autorité morale de l’État. Enfin, pour Watsuji, l’État possède de lui-même un caractère sacré, qui lui vient de la prédominance de la communauté étatique sur les individus et sur les autres communautés. (shrink)

Fudo , publié en 1935, est l’ouvrage le plus célèbre de Watsuji Tetsuro , au-delà même de son oeuvre majeure, Éthique . Il a été reçu en effet principalement comme un essai sur l’identité japonaise. Mais définir l’identité japonaise n’était pas pour Watsuji l’objectif principal de ce livre. Fudo a été conçu en réponse à Sein und Zeit de Heidegger. À l’accent mis sur la temporalité par le maître livre, il répond en mettant l’accent sur la spatialité; et à l’historialité (...) heideggérienne , il répond par le concept de fudosei, qu’il définit comme «le moment structurel de l’existence humaine», c’est-à-dire la dynamique de la spatialité concrète où chaque être humain est engagé de par sa relation existentielle avec autrui et avec les choses de son milieu. Ce concept central, créé par Watsuji, est ici rendu par le néologisme médiance , qui exprime la dualité de l’humain concrètement replacé dans son milieu : une dimension individuelle et une dimension relationnelle , le couplage de ces deux «moitiés» de l’être s’incarnant dans l’être humain concret . La traduction porte sur le préambule et sur le premier chapitre de Fudo, où Watsuji présente puis expose sa théorie générale des milieux humains et de la médiance, ainsi que, à titre d’exemple, sur deux extraits où il interprète le milieu désertique et le milieu bucolique. (shrink)

Kei Yoshida’s recent book Philosophy of the Social Sciences: An Introduction is the first introductory textbook on the philosophy of the social sciences written in Japanese. It concisely expounds on a wide range of topics in the discipline, while its explication of those topics is not impartial or neutral as the author himself says. This paper gives a critical review of the book. The first half of it briefly overviews and assesses the book as a whole. The latter half of (...) the paper reconstructs the gist of the author’s exposition of the naturalism/interpretivism debate and criticizes it. (shrink)