「地獄に落ちても後悔しない」――親鸞が比叡山を捨ててまで求めた、法然の教えとは!? その教えと歩みを探った、著者渾身の一冊。.

日常においてはいつも素通りされている豊かな経験の世界がある―。“自明”であるがゆえに眼を向けられることのないこの経験の世界を現象学は精査し、われわれにとっての「現実」が成立する構造を明るみに出す。創始 者フッサール以来続く哲学的営為の核心にあるものは何か。そしていまだ汲みつくせないその可能性とは。本書は粘り強い思索の手触りとともに、読者を生と世界を見つけなおす新たな思考へと誘う。.

本書の第1部は近代日本の思想家がグリーンの理想主義をどのように受容し、それをどう批判し、日本の伝統的思想とどのように融合させ、独自の思想を展開してきたかを中心問題とする。とりあげられる思想家・学者は中 島力造・高山樗牛、綱島梁川、西田幾多郎、河合榮治郎の五人である。第2部はグリーンの形而上学、道徳哲学、政治哲学、宗教思想の中心問題を永遠意識の視点から体系的に再検討することを目的とした。.

Early modern humans developed mental capabilities that were immeasurably greater than those of nonhuman primates. We see this in the rapid innovation in tool making, the development of complex language, and the creation of sophisticated art forms, none of which we find in our closest relatives. While we can readily observe the results of this high-order cognitive capacity, it is difficult to see how it could have developed. We take up the topic of cave art and archeoacoustics, particularly the discovery (...) that cave art is often closely connected to the acoustic properties of the cave chambers in which it is found. Apparently, early modern humans were able to detect the way sound reverberated in these chambers, and they painted artwork on surfaces that were acoustic “hot spots,” i.e., suitable for generating echoes. We argue that cave art is a form of cross-modality information transfer, in which acoustic signals are transformed into symbolic visual representations. This form of information transfer across modalities is an instance of how the symbolic mind of early modern humans was taking shape into concrete, externalized language. We also suggest that the earliest rock art found in Africa may constitute one of the first fossilized proxies for the expression of full-fledged human linguistic behavior. (shrink)

西田幾多郎の中心概念「永遠の今」を外部の多様な言説に向けて開放することで、西田哲学の新たな可能性を切り開く。プラトン、アウグスティヌス、ハイデッガー、九鬼周造、デリダ、アガンベン、木村敏といった西洋哲 学、宗教学、現代思想、精神病理学の代表者たちの議論と西田の言説を突き合わせ、その緻密な解釈と検証を通して、これまで時間論で見逃されてきたカイロスの系譜とその意義を照らし出す。既成の西田研究に問題を投げ かける著者十年の集大成。岩波現代文庫オリジナル版。.

The phylogenetic position of the hagfish remains enigmatic. In contrast to molecular data that suggest monophyly of the cyclostomes, several morphological features imply a more ancestral state of this animal compared with the lampreys. To resolve this question requires an understanding of the embryology of the hagfish, especially of the neural crest. The early development of the hagfish has long remained a mystery. We collected a shallow‐water‐dwelling hagfish, Eptatretus burgeri, set up an aquarium tank designed to resemble its habitat, and (...) successfully obtained several embryos. By observing the histology and expression of genes known to play fundamental roles in the neural crest, we found that the hagfish crest develops as delaminating migratory cells, as in other vertebrates. We conclude that the delaminating neural crest is a vertebrate synapomorphy that seems to have appeared from the beginning of their evolutionary history, before the splitting away of the hagfish lineage. BioEssays 30:167–172, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Many functional glycoproteins are expressed on the lymphocyte cell surface. Some of them carry O-linked oligosaccharides (O-glycans), which are conjugated through serine or threonine residues. During various biological processes, including T-cell activation, a tetrasaccharide on the T-cell surface is dramatically converted to a branched hexasaccharide, called core2 O-glycan. The same structural change in O-glycans is also found on the lymphocytes from patients with immunodeficiency conditions such as Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome and AIDS. Several studies revealing the roles of core2 O-glycans in immune (...) responses show that this is a biologically significant change. In particular, core2 O-glycans expressed on the cell surface reduce cell–cell interactions, thereby regulating immune responses. Furthermore, core2 O-glycan is a key backbone structure in forming selectin ligands. Thus, O-linked oligosaccharides, in particular those containing core2 branches, play vital roles in immune responses and may play dual roles in certain situations. This review will summarize the results obtained from various studies investigating the roles of O-glycans in immunological processes. BioEssays 23:46–53, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Many functional glycoproteins are expressed on the lymphocyte cell surface. Some of them carry O-linked oligosaccharides (O-glycans), which are conjugated through serine or threonine residues. During various biological processes, including T-cell activation, a tetrasaccharide on the T-cell surface is dramatically converted to a branched hexasaccharide, called core2 O-glycan. The same structural change in O-glycans is also found on the lymphocytes from patients with immunodeficiency conditions such as Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome and AIDS. Several studies revealing the roles of core2 O-glycans in immune (...) responses show that this is a biologically significant change. In particular, core2 O-glycans expressed on the cell surface reduce cell–cell interactions, thereby regulating immune responses. Furthermore, core2 O-glycan is a key backbone structure in forming selectin ligands. Thus, O-linked oligosaccharides, in particular those containing core2 branches, play vital roles in immune responses and may play dual roles in certain situations. This review will summarize the results obtained from various studies investigating the roles of O-glycans in immunological processes. BioEssays 23:46–53, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Pockett has drawn an alternative conclusion from the data of Libet, Alberts, Wright, and Feinstein , and suggested that it takes 80 ms, rather than 500 ms, for the sensation evoked by a stimulus to enter awareness. Here, I suggest that our conscious sensation evolves over time, during the period from 80 to 500 ms after a stimulus, until the sensation is stably localized in space.

Using artificially synthesized stimuli, previous research has shown that cotton-top tamarin monkeys easily learn simple AB grammar sequences, but not the more complex AnBn sequences that require hierarchical structure. Humans have no trouble learning AnBn combinations. A more recent study, using similar artificially created stimuli, showed that there is a neuroanatomical difference in the brain between these two kinds of arrays. While the simpler AB sequences recruit the frontal operculum, the AnBn array recruits the phylogenetically newer Broca’s area. We propose (...) that on close inspection, reported vocal repertoires of Old World Monkeys show that these nonhuman primates are capable of calls that have two items in them, but never more than two. These are simple AB sequences, as predicted by previous research. In addition, we suggest the two-item call cannot be the result of a combinatorial operation that we see in human language, where the recursive operation of Merge allows for a potentially infinite array of structures. In our view, the two-item calls of nonhuman primates result from a dual-compartment frame into which each of the calls can fit without having to be combined by an operation such as Merge. (shrink)

We revisit the EPR problem and make clear what is a correct comprehension of its problem. When one applies the quantum mechanics correctly, it will be shown that there is no paradox. According to these lines of thought, a quantum teleportation scheme without resort to the von Neumann projection postulate is presented.