Unlearning is a recurrent theme in Japan. To further understanding of what this entails, we focus on the view of learning laid out by a revered 13th century Zen-inspired playwright. For Zeami, learning involved a movement from the acquisition to unlearning of skills, punctuated by an experience of mushin, followed by creative reemergence. To deepen understandings of this unlearning model, we turn to draw comparison with recent discussions in the Western literature, focusing on Double-Loop Learning and Learning III, both inspired (...) by Bateson. Learning III, which Bateson utilized several Zen references to explicate, appears to gesture towards the alternative punctuation of learning envisaged by Zeami, although differences remain. We then shift to highlight empirical work on contemporary Japanese schooling, highlighting practices which suggest elements of a Zeami-like worldview continue to live on in Japan’s learning culture. Unlearning, when viewed as a living tradition embedded in culture, rather than merely a premodern past or future philosophical possibility, help sets the stage for a transnational, transdisciplinary dialogue on how we learn. We perform our own extended dialogue that led to this piece, a mode of engagement we view as methodological innovation, as we work to unlearn our past parochialisms. (shrink)

The topic of translation is in my view not only a linguistic problem, but also a problem in the philosophy of culture. In the lexicon of a foreign language we may find an unfamiliar word that designates an object that is unknown in the eyes of our own culture. Instruments employed in a religious ceremony of the Catholic church, for example, an “encensoir,”, “reposoir,”, or “ostensoir,” will have no corresponding word in the Japanese language. But you must translate words of (...) this type if you wish to translate Baudelaire’s poem “Harmonie du soir.” If these Catholic words are translated into Japanese, then we must use some traditional Japanese word as a rough equivalent of the original word, or we have to make up some new word in order to effect a translation. Through this, however, the single signans of the original word yields two meanings, since the new use of the old word or the new word must somehow carry the traditional meaning also. In the first case two meanings come to be involved, meanings derived from two different cultures. In the second case, the new word must somehow be explained in terms of Japanese, if it is to bear the new linguistic load. (shrink)

This essay introduces Walter Benjamin’s historical materialism to illuminate how history teachers may invoke a critique of the past and present through democratizing the production of knowledge in the classroom. Historical materialism gives students access to the means of knowledge production and entrusts them with the task of generating a critique of politics though encounters with historical objects. The rise of the alt-right, alternative facts, and fake news sites necessitates social studies methods that intervene into the fascist seductions of narrative (...) in history. A Benjaminian pedagogy emphasizes reading practices that acknowledge the political layers of history inscribed within the objects. This generates space for forms of pessimism and dialectic critiques of barbarism that students may experience with history beyond the teacher’s capacity for understanding. In the name of democracy over fascism, the article adds a political critique to students’ historical and critical thinking skills. (shrink)

This volume is a guide to two types of transcendence of academic borders which seem necessary for understanding and modelling brain function.

Today, at the close of the twentieth century, we are confronted by radical changes in the nature of intercultural relations. Those who in previous centuries were unable to venture far from their native villages are today able to visit foreign lands as a matter of course, not only as tourists but also for reasons of commerce or employment. A high degree of intercultural understanding is manifested thereby. But at the same time there arise cultural conflicts and friction. How is that (...) sort of understanding which transcends cultural frontiers possible at all? And what is the root of the different sorts of failure to achieve intercultural communication? These are pressing problems by which mankind as a whole is confronted, and they are problems which philosophers, too, are called upon to face. (shrink)

This essay retrieves the meaning and importance of renga, or linking poetry. Long forgotten, even in Japan, it was the form of which the great Bashō was the mater (not haiku as is now believed). When examining renga poetry, one can see that it is based not on authorial vision, but rather the trans-subjective mood that guides the different links made by the various poets who collaborate in the “rolling” of a renga. The radical implications of this form for both (...) aesthetics and ethics will be considered. (shrink)

Revisiting Guattari's visits to Japan in the 1980s during the country's ‘bubble economy’, this paper investigates from a personal perspective the Radio Homerun mini-FM station as well as other stops on Guattari's Tokyo ‘pilgrimage’. Guattari's reception and influence in Japan is contextualised through the writer Kõbõ Abe and philosopher Kiyoteru Hanada, in addition to the groundbreaking work of Tetsuo Kogawa, against the backdrop of the rise of postmodernism. Similarities between Guattari's sense of Japan and Brazil are then broached.

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

本書は、人間的営みとしての学びの広さ・深さ・自由さを確認していく。人間の成長、人間形成という視点から、学びの実践を通して「学び」の人間学的原理、学ぶ主体にとっての意味を考察。個人の具体的な経験を通して 、多様な学びのあり方を提示。日本人の学び方、教え方の伝統や特徴とその問題について考察。.

カミの言葉から人の言葉へ。声の伝達から文字による記録へ。思想はどのように記録され、何を媒介にして人びとに伝えられてきたのか。その実態と変遷をさぐる。.

秩序と規範はいかにもたらされ、どのようにいだかれるか。イエ、クニ、社会、「国家」など、さまざまな位相における秩序と規範のあり方、時代のなかでのその変容について検証する。.

「稽古」とはいかなる思想か。そこに秘められた「智恵」が意味するものとは。「稽古」を知の地平に解き放ち、こころとからだと世界のありかを探る、注目の書。.

文献的知識の皮相ではなく、内部にひそむ日本独特の悲哀の感情を読む梅原日本学。縁故をもつ著者達が回顧しつつ思想的意義を説く。.

Despite the police preventing special fraud victimisation of older adults, both the number of cases and the amount of damage have remained high in Japan. ‘Special fraud’, in Japan, is a crime in which victims are tricked by fraudsters who through phone or postcards impersonate the victims’ relatives, employees and other associates, to dupe the victims of their cash or other valuables. The number of recognised cases of special fraud has been turned to increase in 2021. Although police or consumer (...) affairs administrations have been conducting all-encompassing enlightenment or public education for prevention, it is also necessary to reach out to those who are vulnerable to fraud. In this study, we determine the psychosocial characteristics of victims of special fraud in Japanese older adults. We analysed the age, gender, education, residential status, household satisfaction, risk perception and scam vulnerability scale of 56 older adults aged 60 years or older who had been victims of special fraud and 99 older adults aged 60 years or older who had never been victims of special fraud. The study found that the victimised older adults were more likely to be females who live alone and go out less frequently than the non-victimised older adults. The total scores of the scam vulnerability scale were higher among the elderly victims of special fraud compared to those who had never been scammed, suggesting that the psychosocial characteristics of victims of special fraud among older adults are being female, living alone, going out infrequently, having high confidence against fraud victimisation and responding quickly to phone calls and unknown visitors. Therefore, government agencies or family members should take care of older women who meet these characteristics to reduce their contact with fraudsters. (shrink)

This paper studies the theory and practice of Minna in Manabi, as the Japanese concept of learning from the perspective of moral education. The Japanese word Minna, which means “all” or “everyone,” plays an important role in Manabi. The word “Minna” is often found in textbooks used in moral education classes, and great value is placed on “thinking about everyone.” Minna, a component of Manabi, not only makes the self (the learner) nothing and selfless, but also makes it possible to (...) enter all, everyone, and the world. This may create possibilities for inclusiveness, reciprocal harmony, hospitality, solidarity, and cooperativeness. This Manabi of “thinking about everyone” can be found in moral classes and in all aspects of learning (educational) activities in Japanese schools. Among them, in addition to being a traditional Buddhist practice dealing with Nothingness and Selflessness, Souji (cleaning time) is also very important in schools as a Japanese moral practice of “thinking about everyone.” The moral concepts developed in the West, such as democracy, community, solidarity, engagement, and citizenship, are not only realized through the establishment of the individual, self-realization, and perfection of personality, but by “thinking about everyone,” as expressed in Nothingness, Selflessness, and Minna. (shrink)

Translated into English for the first time, leading Japanese philosopher, Nishihira Tadashi, explores the deeply experiential philosophy of losing yourself in the reality of the present. He takes us on a tour through the history of Zen, the gatekeeper of the philosophy of no-mind D.T. Suzuki, the Noh theory of Zeami and Takuan's treatise on swordsmanship. Nishihira pulls together the threads of this genealogy of no-mind, showing the richness of the concept and its essential connection to the paradoxical task (...) of becoming fully human. (shrink)

「無心」は、最高のパフォーマンスをもたらす境地であり、それは憧れの対象であり続けた。達磨の禅、世阿弥の伝書、武道の教え、石田梅岩の心学、鈴木大拙の禅研究など、異なる時代、異なる文脈の中で、「無心」はど のように問われてきたのか。「無心」という言葉のもとに育まれた思考のいとなみを描き出すことで、柔軟でしなやかな心のあり方、その融通無碍な活力の深奥にせまる。.

The contemporary times are the era in which the natural sciences and technology are hyper-developed. Nowadays the future of mankind is not altogether filled with the light of hope. On the contrary the human beings are thrown into the difficult situations. What kind of critical situation is there in front of us then? Three points must be considered and inquired. 1) What is the recognition of the present condition? 2) From which does the critical situation arise? 3) On the base (...) of these two steps aforementioned, I would like to elucidate how it is possible for mankind to conquer and to overcome the crisis of human beings. A fundamental cause of this predicament is the concentrated will in the subjectivity and the voluntary constitution of the metaphysics since the Greek and Roman School of Stoic Philosophy and its successor, Descartes as its precursor. Therefore every one must achieve the self-negation of his own will not only for himself but also for the human society. (shrink)