In Plato's "Hippias Major" 292e6-7, we can find a self-predication sentence; "The fine is always fine." (We have similar expressions in "Protagoras" 330c4-6, 330d8-el, "Lysis" 220b6-7.) How should we interpret this sentence? We cannot give it any metaphysical meaning drawn from Plato's own theory of Form, which is explicit in his middle dialogues. "The fine" here should be the logical cause, not the one of the metaphysical essentials (cf. Paul Woodruff's "Plateo Hippias Major", p. 150). So taking a sentence like (...) "parthenos kale kalon" (287e4), we can safely paraphrase it in Woodruff's manner: "a fine girl is a fine thing." This can avoid reading the metaphysical meaning into the text. And I would like to make a new proposal for reading of 292e6-7: "the fine thing is what is to be called fine." This is to emphasize the unique character of the self-predication sentences in the early dialogues. In the Socratic way of discourse, Socrates and his partner get involved into "trial and error" during their pursuit of the knowledge. What they can do then is to give their opinions which seem to them true (so-called alethes doxa", cf. "Meno" 85c), and to get close examinations of them. And in this way they are getting closer to the knowledge. My interpretation well describes these activities. (shrink)

西洋において、プラトンの哲学が後世に大きな影響を与え続けているが、日本においてそのような存在はいるのだろうか?空海について思索を重ねてきた著者は、空海思想の基本概念である「風雅・成仏・政治」を日本思想 理解のための基本的な視点(基本系)と捉え、さまざまな事例を通して論ずる。斬新で刺激的な日本思想論。.

現代における美への問いかけは、「モダン」「ポストモダン」を経て、いまや自然を友とする「風雅モダン」というありように深まり、現代日本の芸術的感性は、風雅モダンの延長線上にある「まぶさび」という言葉で語ら れるものとなっている。美術評論家や詩人としても活動する美学者が自己の現代芸術論を語り、それを作品に即して敷衍して論集。.

The concept of lifeworld as posited by Husserl and developed by Schutz reveals key aspects of human social life. What happens when organized forces of human control tear lifeworlds apart? Gebser warned that without a transformation of consciousness humans would destroy their world. Habermas pointed out that humans were destroying lifeworlds with little awareness of the consequences due to the predominance of rational/legal thinking, thus creating “Deathworlds”. Transformative Phenomenology has become a community-of-practice that is an antidote to Deathworld-Making. Transformative phenomenology (...) includes hermeneutics, somatics and leregogic practices and phenomenologists trained in this way exhibit ten qualities of being. We offer the Rising Sun project, a phenomenologically based social innovation, as a case example. The call to maintain and restore lifeworlds is the call to oneness and peace. In the era of growing Deathworlds, we, phenomenologists, are urged to respond and contribute to this call. (shrink)

The neuromodulatory effects of brain stimulation therapies notably involving repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on nocturnal sleep, which is critically disturbed in major depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders, remain largely undetermined. We have previously reported in major depression patients that prefrontal rTMS sessions enhanced their slow wave activity power, but not their sigma power which is related to sleep spindle activity, for electrodes located nearby the stimulation site. In the present study, we focused on measuring the spindle density to investigate cumulative (...) effects of prefrontal rTMS sessions on the sleep spindle activity. Fourteen male inpatients diagnosed with medication-resistant unipolar or bipolar depression were recruited and subjected to 10 daily rTMS sessions targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. All-night polysomnography data was acquired at four time points: Adaptation, Baseline, Post-1, and Post-2. Clinical and cognitive evaluations were longitudinally performed at Baseline, Post-1, and Post-2 time points to explore associations with the spindle density changes. The PSG data from 12 of 14 patients was analyzed to identify sleep spindles across the sleep stages II–IV at four electrode sites: F3, F4, P3, and P4. Statistical analysis by two-way ANOVA revealed that spindle density at F3 increased at Post-1 but decreased at Post-2 time points. Moreover, the local and transient increase of spindle density at F3 was associated with the previously reported SWA power increase at F3, possibly reflecting a shared mechanism of thalamocortical synchronization locally enhanced by diurnal prefrontal rTMS sessions. Clinical and cognitive correlations were not observed in this dataset. These findings suggest that diurnal rTMS sessions transiently modulate nocturnal sleep spindle activity at the stimulation site, although clinical and cognitive effects of the local changes warrant further investigation. (shrink)

Distracted attention is considered responsible for most car accidents, and many functional magnetic resonance imaging researchers have addressed its neural correlates using a car-driving simulator. Previous studies, however, have not directly addressed safe driving performance and did not place pedestrians in the simulator environment. In this fMRI study, we simulated a pedestrian-rich environment to explore the neural correlates of three types of safe driving performance: accurate lane-keeping during driving, the braking response to a preceding car, and the braking response to (...) a crossing pedestrian. Activation of the bilateral frontoparietal control network predicted high driving accuracy. On the other hand, activation of the left posterior and right anterior superior temporal sulci preceding a sudden pedestrian crossing predicted a slow braking response. The results suggest the involvement of different cognitive processes in different components of driving safety: the facilitatory effect of maintained attention on driving accuracy and the distracting effect of social–cognitive processes on the braking response to pedestrians. (shrink)