In the name of efficiency, the practice of education has come to be dominated by neoliberal ideology and procedures of standardization and quantification. Such attempts to make all aspects of practice transparent and subject to systematic accounting lack sensitivity to the invisible and the silent, to something in the human condition that cannot readily be expressed in an either-or form. Seeking alternatives to such trends, Saito reads Dewey’s idea of progressive education through the lens of Emersonian moral perfectionism (to borrow (...) a term coined by Stanley Cavell). She elucidates a spiritual and aesthetic dimension to Dewey’s notion of growth, one considerably richer than what Dewey alone presents in his typically scientific terminology. (shrink)

This study examined the ability to comprehend conventional and non-conventional implicatures, and the effect of proficiency and learning context on comprehension of implicature in L2 Chinese. Participants were three groups of college students of Chinese: elementary-level foreign language learners, advanced-level foreign language learners, and advanced-level heritage learners. They completed a 36-item computer-delivered listening test measuring their ability to comprehend three types of implicature: conventional indirect refusals, conventional indirect opinions, and non-conventional indirect opinions. Comprehension was analyzed for accuracy and comprehension speed. (...) There was a significant effect of implicature type on accuracy, but not on comprehension speed. A significant effect of participant group was observed on accuracy, but the effect was mixed on comprehension speed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT “Meister Eckhart’s Mysticism in Comparison with Zen Buddhism” originally appeared as the concluding section of Ueda Shizuteru’s first book, Die Gottesgeburt in der Seele und der Durchbruch zur Gottheit: Die mystische Anthropologie Meister Eckharts und ihre Konfrontation mit der Mystik des Zen-Buddhismus. It was first published in 1965 as an expanded version of Ueda’s doctoral dissertation, which was written under the supervision of Ernst Benz at the University of Marburg. Ueda’s careful analysis not only illuminates important (...) points of affinity between Eckhart and Zen, but also explains why Eckhart’s mysticism cannot be simply interchanged with Zen Buddhism. To allow the reader to read for themselves, I kept all interpretative notes to a minimum. The text is translated from the most recent edition of the German text, published in 2018 by Verlag Karl Alber, and edited by Wolf Burbat. The German pagination is interpolated in bold throughout the text. (shrink)

In April of 2006, the prominent cultural anthropologist Noriyuki Ueda sat down with the Dalai Lama for a two day conversation. This book is based on that long and lively conversation in Dharamsala.

dai 1-kan. Nishida Kitarō -- dai 2-kan. Keiken to jikaku -- dai 3-kan. Basho -- dai 4-kan. Zen, kongenteki ningen -- dai 5-kan. Zen no fūkei -- dai 6-kan. Dōtei "Jūgyūzu" o ayumu -- dai 7-kan. Maisutā Ekkuharuto -- dai 8-kan. Hi shinpi shugi -- dai 9-kan. Kokū/Sekai -- dai 10-kan. Jiko no genshōgaku -- dai 11-kan. Shūkyō to wa nani ka.

This paper offers a different approach to writing about oneself—Stanley Cavell's idea of philosophy as autobiography. In Cavell's understanding, the acknowledgement of the partiality of the self is an essential condition for achieving the universal. In the apparently paradoxical combination of the 'philosophical' and the 'autobiographical', Cavell shows us a way of focusing on the self and yet always transcending the self. The task requires, however, a reconstruction of the notions of philosophy and autobiography, and at the same time the (...) destabilising of our conceptions of self and language. Cavell seeks to achieve this through the idea of finding one's voice, understood as an autobiographical exercise. This necessitates both negotiation of the inheritance from the past and innovation for the future, initiation into the language community and deviation from it. What this amounts to, in ways that the paper seeks to explain, is a process of the self and language in translation. This is a sense of 'translation' that is broader than the conventional understanding of the term. Such a conception can, it is argued, exercise a therapeutic effect on the self, destabilising the myth of self-identity. The implications of this account for the contemporary vogue for narrative in educational research, as well as for classroom practice, are considered. (shrink)

The topic of this article is the self-less self (selbst-lose Selbst) and more particularly this self in its connection with the problem of language. There exists a movement of the self-less self from itself toward itself. This movement also occurs as the liberation from language toward language; language reaches into the core of being self because our understanding of self and of the world is linguistically constituted. Similarly the fundamental conversion - as the occurence of the breakthrough (by means of (...) the I-am-myself) to the truth of the self - is nothing else than an original word event. The self-less, the true self says at this moment: “I am myself by not being myself (Ich bin, indem ich nicht ich bin, ich).” In order to gain a better understanding we now start from the problem of language. (shrink)

ναξ and βασιλες are the two most important titles applied to the top stratum of Homeric aristocracy., usually translated as ′lord′ or ′master′, and βασιλες, usually translated as ′king′, often apply to the same individuals, and can at times appear to be very close in meaning, allowing translators to render ναξ as ′king′ and βασιλες as ′lord′. There are, however, significant differences between the two. As Lexikon des friihgriechischen Epos now conveniently summarizes for us, avat; can be divine or human, (...) can be a master of a state, of gods, of men, of animals, or of his household, and can be used as an address in the vocative, whereas fiaoiXevs is only applied to humans in Homer, often in a political context, and is never used in the vocative. (shrink)

Harmony is one of the most fundamental Japanese values. It is derived from Confucianism and encompasses a state of mind, an action process and outcomes of the action. This article draws on research data and discusses Japanese nurses’ perceptions of harmony as reflected in their everyday practice. The most important virtues for these nurses were reported as politeness and respect for other persons. The outcome from the nurses’ harmonious practice, it is claimed, benefited patients and created peaceful, harmonious relationships for (...) all. Because of the unique link between harmony and the location of interaction, the ideal ‘workplace harmony’ threatened some nurses’ professional decision making. These nurses confused harmony with conformity by superficial agreement. The Japanese seniority system could be a major factor contributing to this problem. Ethics education that includes traditional values and concepts in Japanese culture is strongly urged. (shrink)

フランス学研究者棚沢直子の思想はいかに形成されたか。その思想の構成要件とはなにか。.

Against the prevailing outcomes-based education and the instrumentalization of education, a movement has arisen towards holistic education. This aims to go beyond objective measurement of the outcomes of education in order to treat the student as a whole person. In this paper, we shall examine some strands of education in Japan which in some way or another feature the idea of the whole person. This includes the tradition of clinical pedagogy, which originated in Kyoto University, Yukichi Shitahodo’s educational anthropology (Kyoiku-Ningengaku), (...) Kuniyoshi Obara’s Zenjin Education (the education of the whole person) and holistic education. Notwithstanding the fact that such education is benevolent in intention, it can be miseducative in some respects. In the light of this, and with some reference to criticism of the idea of the whole person, we shall point to an alternative vision of education of the whole person following Cavell’s Emersonian moral perfectionism – a perfectionism that is thoroughly anti-foundationalist and that transcends self-entrapment in circulatory discourse on the whole. In critical dialogue between the rich traditions of Japanese thought and the critical voice of liberalism raised from within the West, we hope to find a more nuanced answer to the question of how being a whole might make sense. (shrink)

Exploring the possibilities of American philosophy from the perspective of translation, and in turn elucidating the dynamism and tension within American philosophy, this book invokes the idea of philosophy as translation as human transformation and presents a broader concept of translation as internal to the nature of language and of human life.

We critically examine pragmatism's approach to skepticism and try to elucidate its certain limits. The central questions to be addressed are: whether “skepticism” interpreted through the lens of problem-solving does justice to the human condition; and whether the problem-solving approach to skepticism can do justice to pragmatism's self-proclaimed anti-foundationalism. We then examine Stanley Cavell's criticism of Dewey's “problem-solving” approach. We propose a shift from the problem-solving approach's eagerness for solutions to a more Wittgensteinian and Emersonian project of dissolution.

Phoenix's speech in Book 9 of the Iliad is generally considered prophetic of what happens to Achilles later in the story. Many scholars have argued that Achilles is punished by Zeus through τη which causes the death of Patroclus, just as anyone who spurns the Litai in the allegory of Phoenix will be punished by Ate sent by Zeus. The Meleager episode is also regarded as reflecting almost exactly what happens later: the Achaeans have difficulty in the battle due to (...) Achilles' withdrawal, just as the Aetolians have when Meleager refuses to fight. Achilles, like Meleager, receives a set of three supplications to go back to the battle, and, just as Meleager loses his prize because he rejects the supplications, Achilles loses Patroclus because he does not listen to the pleas of the Embassy. This seems to be, in outline, the present orthodoxy. (shrink)

How can we build a path from the binary of gender to the unity of common humanity? What kind of difference can the “different voice” of feminism make as a human voice? In this article, Naoko Saito argues that the way we talk about the difference of a “different voice” needs to be radically transformed. To envision a route to such a transformation, she explores an alternative possibility of feminism in the American transcendentalism of Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo (...) Emerson. First, Saito critically examines the politics of recognition and suggests a susceptibility to binary thinking in its approach. Second, as a way of transcending the binary mode of thinking, Saito introduces the humanist feminism of the nineteenth-century American transcendentalist Margaret Fuller. Third, as a way of elucidating the radicality of Fuller's transcendentalist feminism, Saito introduces the feminine voice of two male philosophers — Ralph Waldo Emerson and Stanley Cavell — as her conversational partners. By radically converting the way we talk about difference of voice, the transcendentalist feminism of Fuller, Emerson, and Cavell provides a third way that lies beyond the politics of recognition and care ethics. In conclusion, Saito proposes that the cultivation of the feminine subject requires an alternative political education that resists assimilation into political realism. This would realize our common humanity and, in its crossing of divides between men and women, would create democracy from within. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to gain an in-depth understanding of the eating lives of low-income single mothers in Japan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine low-income single mothers living in the three largest urban areas (Tokyo, Hanshin [Osaka and Kobe] and Nagoya) in Japan. Framed by the capability approach and sociology of food, their dietary norms and practices, as well as underlying factors that impact the norm-practice gap were analysed across nine dimensions: meal frequency, place of eating, meal (...) timing, duration, persons to eat with, procurement method, food quality, meal content and pleasure of eating. These mothers were deprived of various types of capabilities, extending not only from the quantity and nutritional aspects of food, but also to spatial, temporal, qualitative and affective aspects. Aside from financial constraints, eight other factors (time, maternal health, parenting difficulties, children’s tastes, gendered norms, cooking abilities, food aid and local food environment) were identified as influencing their capabilities to eat well. The findings challenge the view that food poverty is the deprivation of economic resources required to ensure a sufficient amount of food. Social interventions that go beyond monetary aid and food provision need to be proposed. (shrink)

Beyond a monolingual mentality and beyond the language that is typically observed in the prevalent discourse of education for understanding other cultures, this article tries to present another approach: Stanley Cavell's idea of philosophy as translation . This Cavellian approach shows that understanding foreign cultures involves a relation to other cultures already within one's native culture. Foreshadowing the Cavellian sense of tragedy, Emerson's 'Devil's child' helps us detect the sources of repression and blindness that are hidden behind the foundationalist approach (...) to other cultures. The child represents the human condition in which the self and language are simultaneously in the process of translation. On the strength of this I propose a possibility of understanding other cultures that is crucially related to language education, one that can point us beyond monolingualism . Cavell's view of language and the self envisions a way of releasing, not repressing, the desire to express one's inner light as a crucial source of the revival of one's native culture from within, while at the same time cultivating an eye for the other, the stranger, who is already here within oneself. This is to find alterity in the human condition in terms of the translation that is inherent to language and the immigrancy of the self. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 55, Issue 1, Page 226-228, February 2021.

This book takes Stanley Cavell's much-quoted, yet enigmatic phrase as the provocation for a series of explorations into themes of education that run throughout his work - through his response to Wittgenstein, Austin and ordinary language ...

A robot that is easy to teach not only has to be able to adapt to humans but also has to be easily adaptable to. In order to develop a robot with mutual adaptation ability, we believe that it will be beneficial to first observe the mutual adaptation behaviors that occur in human–human communication. In this paper, we propose a human–human WOZ (Wizard-of-Oz) experiment setting that can help us to observe and understand how the mutual adaptation procedure occurs between human (...) beings in nonverbal communication. By analyzing the experimental results, we obtained three important findings: alignment-based action, symbol-emergent learning, and environmental learning. (shrink)

Amartya Sen’s work has contributed to shifting our focus from food availability to food access and utilisation, together called ‘nutritional capability’. Existing food insecurity instruments have been informed partially by the capability approach, but remain focused on material deprivation and its economic sub-dimensions. This narrow focus has become problematic, particularly in high-income countries, where material deprivation is largely overcome and food poverty manifests itself differently from that in low-income countries. Food poverty in high-income countries should thus be approached from a (...) ‘food capability’ perspective that fully recognises the multidimensionality of eating lives and the multiple factors that affect their dietary standards. To demonstrate the usefulness of this perspective, the Alkire-Foster method for multidimensional food poverty was utilised to analyse food poverty in Japan. The Alkire-Foster measure has a dual cut-off approach and its adapted method can produce a multidimensional food poverty index by setting reasonable food deprivation and poverty thresholds. The national data used for empirical demonstration was obtained from a web-based questionnaire conducted in Japan, to which 973 participants (aged 20–60 years) responded. The measurement identified a 20.6% food-poor population and inequalities in food capabilities among subgroups. Although economic deprivation was tightly linked to food poverty, the results suggested that gender- and age-based inequalities were larger than socioeconomic status-based ones, which reflected much wider societal problems in Japan than growing economic poverty, such as gender inequality and population ageing. The proposed measurement is effective for monitoring food policy impacts and complementing existing food insecurity assessment tools. The results will be useful for promoting social debate about what the minimal dietary standard should be in high-income societies. (shrink)

Climate change is often tackled via a two-pronged approach of behaviour change and technological advancement. Policy studies and social sciences generally take ownership of influencing behaviours, while natural sciences and engineering tackle generating newer, more efficient technologies. Fusion of these methodologies is severely lacking. Engineers are uniquely situated to contribute to positive environmental action in both technological and behavioural realms. This article explores the psychological mindset of engineers as they make decisions to dissect factors that undermine sustainable behaviour. The Theory (...) of Planned Behaviour, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis and the Health Belief Model are applied to engineering decision making to develop a methodology for engineers to modify their behaviour to consistently make more sustainable choices, and in turn, assist others by making actions towards sustainability more convenient. (shrink)

There is a widely held view that visual representations (images) do not depict negation, for example, as expressed by the sentence, “the train is not coming.” The present study focuses on the real-world visual representations of photographs and comic (manga) illustrations and empirically challenges the question of whether humans and machines, that is, modern deep neural networks, can recognize visual representations as expressing negation. By collecting data on the captions humans gave to images and analyzing the occurrences of negation phrases, (...) we show some evidence that humans recognize certain images as expressing negation. Furthermore, based on this finding, we examined whether or not humans and machines can classify novel images as expressing negation. The humans were able to correctly classify images to some extent, as expected from the analysis of the image captions. On the other hand, the machine learning model of image processing was only able to perform this classification at about the chance level, not at the same level of performance as the human. Based on these results, we discuss what makes humans capable of recognizing negation in visual representations, highlighting the role of the background commonsense knowledge that humans can exploit. Comparing human and machine learning performances suggests new ways to understand human cognitive abilities and to build artificial intelligence systems with more human-like abilities to understand logical concepts. (shrink)