This paper will focus on bicorporates, the enigmatic composite animals with one head and two bodies which have been left rather outside of scholastic attention. The first known bicorporates appeared on Mesopotamian cylinder seals around the third millennium BCE. They subsequently appeared in Minoan, Greek, Etruscan and Roman art. In mediaeval Europe, they flourished in Romanesque churches, especially, Southern Europe and Scandinavia. Furthermore, they also emerged in India and Southeast Asia and China. Bicorporates exist across a remarkably wide geographical and (...) chronological range. Even though a small number of scholars carried out some research on them, most of their focus was trying to trace the migration route of the images. No previous study had focused on answering the most intriguing question, how these enigmatic images came about and the reason why they spread and recurred beyond geographical and chronological borders. Therefore, this paper will focus on the questions and seek to provide the answers, by applying neuropsychological reading and analytical psychology. The findings of this study suggest that Lewis‐Williams' neuropsychology and Jung's analytical psychology are intertwined and both offer explanations for the origin and widespread occurrence of bicorporate images. However, the contrast between these two theories lies in the fact that Lewis‐Williams' theory relies on the perspective of materialistic science, implying that these images are solely products of the human brain and nervous system. In contrast, Jung's theory allows for the possibility of exploring the invisible or esoteric realm, which cannot be disproven or proven by current materialistic science. (shrink)

Context Autopsy is a useful tool for understanding the cause and manner of unexpected patient death. However, the attitudes of the general public and physicians in Japan about clinical autopsy are limited. Objective To describe the beliefs of the general public about whether autopsy should be performed and ascertain if they would actually request one given specific clinical situations where patient death occurred with the additional variable of medical error. To compare these attitudes with previously obtained attitudes of physicians practising (...) at Japanese teaching hospitals. Design, setting and participants We conducted a cross-sectional study of the general public. We sent standardised questionnaires in 2010 to a randomly selected non-physician adult population using a survey company for participant selection. Respondents gave their opinions about the necessity of autopsy and how they might act given various clinical scenarios of patient death. We compared these results with those of a previous survey of Japanese physicians conducted in 2009. Results Of the 2300 eligible general adult population, 1575 (68.5%) responded. The majority of the general public indicated they believed an autopsy was necessary. However, in cases of unclear medical error or unclear cause and effect relationship of medical care and patient death, the general public were much less likely to indicate they would actually request an autopsy than were physicians (p<0.0001). Currently in Japan the debate about the role autopsy should play in the case of error related to death is underway. The results from this study will be important in informing related decisions. (shrink)

This book departs from the premise that context represents a complex relational configuration which can no longer be conceived as an analytic prime but rather requires a parts-whole perspective to capture its inherent dynamism. The edited volume presents a collection of papers which examine the connectedness between context, contextualization and entextualization. They address the questions how meaning and speech acts are situated in context, how both are influenced by context, how context influences speech acts and meaning, how context is imported (...) into the discourse, and how context is entextualized in discourse. The papers cover institutional and non-institutional contexts, the language of Greek laws, political discourse, confrontational media discourse and task-oriented face-to-face and back-to-back interactions. They reflect current moves in pragmatics and discourse analysis to cross disciplinary and methodological boundaries by integrating relevant premises and insights, in particular cognition, adaptive action, negotiation of meaning, sequentiality, recipient design and genre. (shrink)

BackgroundPrevious studies have found that the decision-making process for stored unused frozen embryos involves much emotional burden influenced by socio-cultural factors. This study aims to ascertain how Japanese patients make a decision on the fate of their frozen embryos: whether to continue storage discard or donate to research.MethodsTen Japanese women who continued storage, 5 who discarded and 16 who donated to research were recruited from our infertility clinic. Tape-recorded interviews were transcribed and analyzed for emergent themes.ResultsA model of patients’ decision-making (...) processes for the fate of frozen embryos was developed, with a common emergent theme, “coming to terms with infertility” resulting in either acceptance or postponing acceptance of their infertility. The model consisted of 5 steps: 1) the embryo-transfer moratorium was sustained, 2) the “Mottainai”- embryo and having another child were considered; 3) cost reasonability was taken into account; 4) partner’s opinion was confirmed to finally decide whether to continue or discontinue storage. Those discontinuing, then contemplated 5): the effect of donation. Great emotional conflict was expressed in the theme, steps 2, 4, and 5.ConclusionsPatients’ 5 step decision-making process for the fate of frozen embryos was profoundly affected by various Japanese cultural values and moral standards. At the end of their decision, patients used culturally inherent values and standards to come to terms with their infertility. While there is much philosophical discussion on the moral status of the embryo worldwide, this study, with actual views of patients who own them, will make a significant contribution to empirical ethics from the practical viewpoint. (shrink)

The paper proposes a theoretical analysis of A Pale View of Hills, using a psycho-literary approach to the themes of Japaneseness-Englishness, displacement, and the hybrid individual as they emerge from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel. Etsuko’s pidgin identity results from the main character’s existential migration, which, in turn, stems from her experiencing and witnessing gender inequality, domestic abuse, and war trauma along with the gaping rift between generations. In line with Freud and Jung’s oneiric theories, the paper investigates Etsuko’s post-traumatic (...) stress disorder in order to explain why the protagonist fails to face the suicide of her elder daughter, Keiko, whose avoidant-insecure behaviour might have worsened after her forced uprooting and immigration to England. Although the middle-aged expatriate Etsuko is willing to find new motivation for living, based on the unusual habit of the subconscious to get used to repetitive traumas, her pidgin identity, impossible to recalibrate, may affect her ability to heal. (shrink)

Do you know the Japanese equivalent for "philosophy"? That word, "tetsugaku", was coined after the Meiji Revolution. Do you know when the standard philosophy of science, in the form of the logical empiricism, was introduced into Japan? After the World War II, around 1950. Do you know whether or not the philosophy of science, especially its "hardcore", is studied seriously in Japan? Very few people are studying the philosophy of space and time, the philosophy of quantum mechanics, the philosophy of (...) evolution, the philosophy of probability, or the philosophy of social sciences. Do you know how many HPS departments exist in Japan? Only three, one is founded in 1951 and its graduate program was extended in 1970, and the other two were founded around 1993. Now, with these preparations, you are beginning to understand what I am going to talk about---Is Philosophy of Science alive in Japan? I will briefly outline the history of the philosophy of science in Japan, and discuss some of its peculiarities. And from this discussion, I wish to point out what is needed for the philosophy of science in Japan. Here is an Outline: " 1. Three Basic Facts 2. Taketani's Doctrine of the Three Stages 3. Logical Empiricism 4. Scientists and Philosophers 5. "New" Philosophy of Science 6. What is needed for Japanese Philosophy of Science? ". (shrink)

The problems of the social responsibility of the scientist became a subject of public debate after the World War II in Japan, thanks to the activities and publications of Yukawa and Tomonaga. And such authors as J. Karaki, M.Taketani, Y. Murakami, and S. Fujinaga continued discussion in their books. However, many people seem to be still unaware of the most important source of these problems. As I see it, one of the most important treatments of these problems was the (...) Franck Report (June 11, 1945) submitted to the US government by James Franck (chairman) toward the end of the war. This Report contains many important ideas and suggestions as regards the responsibility of the scientist, the morality of the use of atomic bombs, the prospective nuclear armaments race, and the possibility of international control of nuclear power. However, I should like to concentrate only on the first topic in this paper. Why did Franck and his committee at Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago feel the urgent need for writing and submitting this Report? According to the Report, "in the past, scientists could disclaim direct responsibility for the use to which mankind had put their disinterested discoveries. We cannot take the same attitude now because the success which we have achieved in the development of nuclear power is fraught with infinitely greater dangers than were all the inventions of the past." (I. Preamble) This passage seems to contain the crux of our problem: These scientists clearly recognize the "new" responsibility for them, and the ground of this responsibility is also clear enough; i.e., when a new scientific discovery or invention turns out to have grave bearings on human interests, the scientists who became aware of that are responsible for notifying people of this and advise to look for suitable means for avoiding prospective dangers. In the rest of the paper, I elaborate the reasoning behind the preceding passage, and confirm that basically the same idea and reasoning has been repeated and developed in Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955), by Pugwash Conferences (first in 1957), by Tomogana, and by Rotblat (the long-time Secretary of Pugwash, who received the Nobel Peace Prize together with the Conference in 1995). (shrink)

Recently, mathematical models based on quantum formalism have been developed in cognitive science. The target articles in this special issue of Topics in Cognitive Science clearly illustrate how quantum theoretical formalism can account for various aspects of human judgment and decision making in a quantitatively and mathematically rigorous manner. In this commentary, we show how future studies in quantum cognition and decision making should be developed to establish theoretical foundations based on physical theory, by introducing Taketani's three-stage theory of (...) the development of science. Also, implications for neuroeconomics (another rapidly evolving approach to human judgment and decision making) are discussed. (shrink)