今朝のテレビで大リーガーの日本人投手が三振を奪うシーンが繰り返されて映っていた。その時の現地のアナウンサーが、スウィニング イズ メッスと繰り返していたのが耳に残った。これは、swinging is messと言っているように聞こえるのだがおそらく、swinging is missと言っていると思った。missはミスを発音しがちだが、Google翻訳で発音を聞いてみると、ほとんどメスのように聞こえた。messとmissはメの発音が微妙に違うのだった。
The Inquiry into the Whereabouts of Freedom
The Whereabouts of Freedom
What then, in a nutshell, is the dominant motif or subject underlying this major work of Hegel? One may say this is the questfor the whereabouts of freedom. The modern age has thrown up very many individuals with inner freedom and who have in consequence been cut loose from former close ties with their own community.
それでは、一言で言えば、ヘーゲルのこの主要な著作の根底にある主要なモチーフまたは主題は何でしょうか? それは自由の行方の探求であると言えるかもしれない。 現代は、内なる自由を持ち、その結果、かつての自分たちのコミュニティとの密接な関係から切り離された非常に多くの人々を生み出しました。
They question and are concerned with the best kind of life to lead in the future and how best to get along with other people; accordingly, they are often quite critical about the current rules and institutions in their society. They embrace their own values and causes, and in general tend to believe they personally are superior to anyone else; yet are often devastated by their relative helplessness in actual life.
彼らは、将来どのような人生を送るべきか、そして他の人々とどのように仲良くやっていくのが最善かについて疑問を抱き、関心を持っています。 したがって、彼らは社会の現在の規則や制度に対して非常に批判的なことが多いです。 彼らは独自の価値観と大義を受け入れ、一般に自分が個人的に他の誰よりも優れていると信じる傾向があります。 しかし、実際の生活では相対的な無力さに打ちのめされることがよくあります。
This is the person being talked about in the Phenomenology. Hegel was fascinated by the human drama played out by individuals blessed by and yet struggling with their inner freedom. In the pre-modern age, there were few individuals with this freedom, save for a very limited number of intellectuals and tyrants. Old-time village communities in Japan, for instance, allowed their people to live only in the traditional, communal style of farming ancestral estates.
現象学で話題になっている人物です。 ヘーゲルは、内なる自由に恵まれながらも葛藤する人々が繰り広げる人間ドラマに魅了されました。 近代以前の時代には、ごく限られた知識人や暴君を除いて、このような自由を持った人はほとんどいませんでした。 たとえば、日本の昔の村社会では、人々は先祖伝来の農耕地という伝統的な共同体スタイルでしか生活することができませんでした。
First-born sons were taken for granted to be heirs and girls were to be handed over to other families for marriage. In short, everyone was given a precise role to enact within the community and family, making it difficult for someone to envisage any way of living other than given at the outset.
長男は相続人として当然のこととされ、女の子は結婚のために他の家族に引き渡されることになっていました。 要するに、誰もがコミュニティや家族内で実行するための正確な役割を与えられており、最初に与えられた以外の生き方を思い描くことが困難になっています。
This constraint is not merely an ancient one. Even in the 1960s, more than 30 percent of the Japanese population were self-employed farmers, fishermen and forestry workers living in the style mentioned. Hegel finds this manner of living, in which people dutifully enact their respective roles, exemplified in the polis of ancient Greece (see Chapter 4, IV: The Ethical Order). There, men fight as warriors to protect their home state. This is seen as natural. Women are meanwhile under the obligation of burying male relatives killed in war.
この制約は単に古くからあるものではありません。 1960年代においてさえ、日本の人口の30パーセント以上は自営業の農家、漁業者、林業従事者であり、前述のようなスタイルで生活していました。 ヘーゲルは、人々がそれぞれの役割を忠実に遂行するこの生き方が、古代ギリシャのポリスに例示されていると見いだします（第4章IV：倫理秩序を参照）。 そこでは男たちが祖国を守るために戦士として戦う。 これは自然なことだと考えられています。 一方、女性には戦争で亡くなった男性の親族を埋葬する義務がある。
This is likewise seen as natural. The community and its rules are so closely entwined they essentially exist for one another. Hegel observes how in the Greek world an innocent and beautiful harmony is thus established between the individual and an entire community.
これも同様に自然なことだと考えられます。 コミュニティとそのルールは密接に絡み合っており、本質的にはお互いのために存在します。 ヘーゲルは、ギリシャ世界では、このようにして個人と共同体全体の間に無邪気で美しい調和がどのように確立されているかを観察しています。
study Romain Rolland
World's Great Books Revival Projectより
蛯原徳夫「ロマン・ロラン研究」第三文明社、1981年刊をもとに、希有な作家ロマン・ロランを紹介します。
○ ロランが示した日常生活の規範
一、生活に目的を定めること、一つの仕事をおのれに課すこと
二、その目的に添うように、おのれの努力を方向づけ、意志を確定すること。
三、おのれの行動の対象を、おのれ自身の中に求めずに、おのれの外に求めること。おのれのための生活に専念せずに、おのれの生活の対象のために専念すること。
四、他に役立つものになること。それも抽象的、概念的、遊離的、「博愛的」でなしに、積極的で具体的にそうなること。善（たとえば施し、同情、寛容、親切など）を行なう一般的な機会を逃がすことなく、他人の誰かの幸福のために尽すことに、おのれの生活を捧げること。ーーおのれの慈悲心や愛を、あいまいな感傷におわらせないようにとくに心がけること。
五、真実を求めることをけっしてやめないこと（調和的すなわち全体的な真実。芸術においては美。行動においては善。）もし真実がえられたなら、それをできるだけ他人にも享受させること。ただしそれを他人に押しつけないこと。他人には他人の欲するもの、たとえば自尊心の満足とか愛情とかを与えること。そういうものは、真実（たとえささいな真実であろうとも）をえてそれを信じている者にとっては、与えたとてなにほどのものでもない（pp32-33）
○ Standards of daily life set by Rolland
1. Setting a purpose in life and assigning one task to oneself
2. To direct one's efforts and establish one's will in accordance with that purpose.
3. To seek the object of one's actions outside of oneself, rather than within oneself. To devote one's life to the object of one's life instead of concentrating one's life on one's own sake.
4. Become something useful to others. It should not be abstract, conceptual, free, or "philanthropic," but should be proactive and concrete. Devoting one's life to serving the well-being of someone else, without missing out on common opportunities to do good (e.g., almsgiving, compassion, generosity, kindness, etc.) --Be especially careful not to reduce your compassion and love to vague sentimentality.
5. Never stop seeking truth (harmonious or total truth; beauty in art; goodness in action). If truth is obtained, let others enjoy it as much as possible. However, don't force it on others. To give others what they want, such as self-esteem satisfaction or love. Such things are nothing to those who have obtained the truth (even a small truth) and believe in it (pp32-33)
トルストイの意志を継ぐ作家として、私はロマン・ロランにたどりついた。ロランはフランスの文学者であり、代表作は長編小説「ジャン・クリストフ」「魅せられたる魂」。ベートーヴェン、ミケランジェロ、トルストイの伝記三部作も残している他、日記、書簡、戯曲等著作多数。私はずっとロマン・ロランとヘルマン・ヘッセの区別がつかなかった。二人とも苗字と名前で韻を踏んでいるし、音感が似ているため、ロランが「車輪の下」や「デミアン」を書き、ヘッセが「ジャン・クリストフ」を書いたとあやふやな記憶を持っていた。ボードレールとボードリヤールのごとく似た音感を持つロマン・ロランとヘルマン・ヘッセは、戦争に言葉で闘った文学の盟友であった。
As a writer who inherits Tolstoy's will, I came to Romain Rolland. Rolland was a French literary figure, and his most famous works are the novels ``Jean-Christophe'' and ``The Enchanted Soul.'' He has written a trilogy of biographies of Beethoven, Michelangelo, and Tolstoy, as well as writing diaries, letters, plays, and other works. I have always been unable to distinguish between Romain Rolland and Hermann Hesse. Both of them rhyme with their last names and have similar pitches, so I vaguely remember that Rolland wrote ``Under the Wheel'' and ``Demien,'' while Hesse wrote ``Jean-Christophe.'' was. Romain Rolland and Hermann Hesse, who had similar tones like Baudelaire and Baudrillard, were literary allies who fought wars with words.
ロランは、フランス文学史の本を開いてもごく小さな扱いしか受けていないし、第二次世界大戦後の現代思想でも注目されていなかったので、私もさして注意を払っていなかった。「ジャン・クリストフ」を昔一度開いたことがあったが、描写のつたなさと、二十世紀小説なのに古くさい大河小説の構造に辟易して、冒頭部分しか読まなかった。
I didn't pay much attention to Rolland, as he received very little attention in books on the history of French literature, and he didn't receive much attention in modern thought after World War II. He had once opened ``Jean-Christophe,'' but he only read the beginning because he was fed up with the lackluster descriptions and the old-fashioned structure of a historical novel, even though it was a 20th century novel.
最近になってトルストイにどっぷりと集中した時、ロランとトルストイが往復書簡を交わしていたことを知り、トルストイ以降の道義的な作家としてロランを見出したのだった。ロランについて知識を深めていくうち、何故ロランが現代フランス文学史で黙殺されているのか原因がわかった。
When I recently concentrated on Tolstoy, I learned that Rolland and Tolstoy had exchanged letters, and I discovered Rolland as a moral writer after Tolstoy. As I deepened my knowledge of Rolland, I realized why he was ignored in modern French literary history.
ロランは二十世紀初頭フランスで起きていた新しい文学の流れを思想的な頽廃とみなしていた。彼はトルストイ同様にボードレール、ランボー、マラルメ、プルドンなど道徳を顧慮しない文学の歩みと同調しなかった。フランス現代文学、いや世界現代文学はボードレールのモダニズム、芸術至上主義から始まる。「芸術のための芸術」はプルースト、ジョイス、ナボコフ、ピンチョンといった文学の巨匠を生み出していくが、難解になりすぎた文学は一般大衆から遊離していく。トルストイは道徳的、教育的意義をなくしていく文学を批判した。晩年にはベートーヴェンやシェイクスピアまで批判することになるトルストイに、ロランは完全に同調するわけではないが、文学に賦与する精神的・道徳的意義は、トルストイに等しい。
Rolland regarded the new literary currents that were occurring in France at the beginning of the 20th century as ideological decadence. Like Tolstoy, he did not follow the path of literature such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, and Proudhon, which did not care about morality. Modern French literature, or rather, modern world literature, begins with Baudelaire's modernism and art supremacy. ``Art for art's sake'' produced literary masters such as Proust, Joyce, Nabokov, and Pynchon, but literature that became too difficult to understand became alienated from the general public. Tolstoy criticized literature for its lack of moral and educational significance. Although Rolland does not completely agree with Tolstoy, who would go on to criticize Beethoven and Shakespeare in his later years, he is on a par with Tolstoy in the spiritual and moral significance he bestows on literature.
モダニズムの流れにのらないロランは孤立していたかというと、全くそんなことはなく、全世界に向けて真摯なメッセージを発し続けていた。トルストイからくる絶対非暴力の平和主義を掲げるロランは、ヘッセ、マン、タゴール、ガンジーなど知の巨人たちと連帯して、世界大戦に飲みこまれていく二十世紀と対峙する。そんな彼が何故現在全く文学史に扱われないのか。二十世紀文学が、善悪の価値判断を放棄して小説を創ることで発展したのに対し、ロランはそれをデカダンと批判して、善を尊んだためである。
You might think that Rolland, who did not follow the trend of modernism, was isolated, but that was not the case at all, and he continued to send sincere messages to the whole world. Rolland, who upholds the pacifism of absolute non-violence derived from Tolstoy, joins forces with intellectual giants such as Hesse, Mann, Tagore, and Gandhi to confront the 20th century, which is being engulfed by world wars. Why is he not included in literary history at all? While 20th century literature developed by abandoning the value judgment of good and evil and creating novels, Rolland criticized this as decadent and respected the good.
彼の小説は技術的に優れたものではないし、かといってトルストイ流の十九世紀リアリズムで書かれたものでもない。『私は文学の作品を書いているのではない。信念の作品を書いているのである』（p144）とロランが言っている通り、彼の小説は全編詩のような、主観的かつ宇宙論的な詩法で書かれている。小説の登場人物は強烈な信念に基づいて現実社会と闘う人であり、主人公の闘争的生が、読む者に勇気を与える。図書館で唯一見つけたこの研究書に綴られた、ロランが生み出した小説の登場人物のあり方を引用しよう。
His novels are not technically excellent, nor are they written in Tolstoy's nineteenth-century realism. ``I am not writing a literary work. As Rolland says, ``I am writing a work of faith'' (p144), his novels are written in a subjective and cosmological style, like full-length poems. The characters in the novel are people who fight against the real world based on their strong beliefs, and the hero's combative life gives courage to the reader. I would like to quote the characters of the novel created by Rolland, which are written in this research book, which was the only one I found in the library.
『つねにより深いもの、より高いもの、より真実なものを、指向していなければならない。こういう自己の、より純一な秩序づけ、より高度な人間完成のいとなみは、もちろん、さまざまな要因によって妨げられ阻止される。人間として担う先天的な障害ーー本能、性格、病気などや、外部的な妨害、ーー時代や社会の無理解、貧困、他人の凝視などである。ゆえにその精神生活は必然的に闘いとなる。自分自身との闘い、および外部的なものとの闘いである。そしてその方向づけられた生活態度が強固であればあるほど、その闘いもまた深刻となる』（pp134-135）
You must always aim toward something deeper, higher, and truer. Of course, a more pure ordering of the self and a higher level of human perfection are hindered and prevented by various factors. There are congenital disabilities that humans have, such as instincts, personality, and illness, as well as external interference, such as the lack of understanding of the times and society, poverty, and the stares of others. Therefore, their spiritual life inevitably becomes a struggle. It is a struggle with oneself and a struggle with external things. And the stronger the attitude toward life, the more serious the struggle becomes. (pp134-135)
ロマン・ロランは学生時代トルストイに手紙を書いた。知識階級が楽しむ芸術は、肉体労働より遥かに劣るものだと喝破した後期の宗教哲学的トルストイに、若きロランは、芸術の意義はないのかと質問する。答えを得られないまま、ロランは返事を懇願する二通目の手紙をトルストイに送る。トルストイはロランの手紙に感動して、長文の返事を書く。
Romain Rolland wrote a letter to Tolstoy when he was a student. The young Rolland asks the late religious-philosopher Tolstoy, who argued that the art enjoyed by the intellectual class is far inferior to physical labor, whether there is no meaning to art. Without getting an answer, Rolland sends a second letter to Tolstoy begging for an answer. Tolstoy is moved by Rolland's letter and writes a lengthy reply.
『トルストイはまず肉体労働について答えた、「わたしはけっして肉体労働をそれ自身一つの原則と見なしているのではなく、それをただ道徳的原則の最も簡単で自然な適用だと見なしているのであり、その適用は誠実な人なら誰でもなによりも第一に経験することなのです」と述べ、われわれの堕落した社会、自称開化人の社会で、肉体的な仕事がわれわれに課せられるべき理由は、ただ、この社会の過去および現在までの主要な欠陥が、肉体労働を勝手に免れて、古代の奴隷と同じような奴隷であるとこの無知で不幸な貧民階級の労働を、無償で利用しているということだ、とする。（…）肉体労働は万人にとって義務でもあり幸福でもある。ところが精神活動ーー科学や芸術は、「その天職をもつ人にとってのみ、義務や幸福となるところの特別の労働」なのである。
その天職をもつ者とは、「現在の自分およびそうあらねばならない自分、またそうあらざるをえない自分について、深い確信をもつ者」のことである。そしてその確信は希れに見られるものであり、「その天職はただ、学者や芸術家がその天職を遂行するために自分の安楽や幸福を犠牲にすることによってのみ、認められ証拠立てられ」るのである。万人の道徳義務から逃がれ、科学や芸術を愛好するという口実のもとに、社会の寄生虫の生活に甘んじているような者は、偽りの科学や芸術しかつくりだすことはできない。そしてその天職をもつ人びとのつくりだすものは、なにも特別なものというわけではなく、ほかの肉体労働者たちのつくりだすものと同じように、おのずからに他人にとっての必要品なのであり、他人にとって利益となるものなのであって、なんら特権的な意味や権利などもたないのである。科学や芸術の特別な意味や権利を主張するのは、「みずから学者や芸術家と称する人たちが、自分のつくりだすものが自分の消費するものに比べて劣っていることを、よく承知して」いるからなのである』（p248-249）
Tolstoy first answered about manual labor: ``I do not consider manual labor a principle in itself, but only the simplest and natural application of moral principles.'' , its application is first and foremost the experience of every honest man.'' Why should physical work be imposed on us in our fallen society, the society of self-proclaimed enlightened people? However, the main flaw in this society, past and present, is that it has arbitrarily been spared manual labor, and that it has exploited the labor of this ignorant and unfortunate class of poor people, who are slaves like those of ancient times, for free. Suppose that this means that (…) Physical labor is both a duty and a happiness for everyone. However, mental activities, such as science and art, are ``special labor that becomes an obligation and happiness only for those who have that vocation.''
A person with this vocation is ``a person who has a deep conviction about who he is, who he must be, and who he must become.'' And that conviction is rare: "The vocation can only be recognized and evidenced by the scholar or artist who sacrifices his own comfort and happiness to carry out his vocation." It is. Those who escape from universal moral obligation and content themselves with the life of a parasite of society under the pretext of a love of science and art can only create false science and art. And what people who have this vocation create is not something special, but just like what other manual laborers create, it is naturally a necessity for others, and it is of benefit to others. It does not have any privileged meaning or rights. Claiming the special meaning and rights of science and art is because ``those who call themselves scholars and artists are fully aware that what they produce is inferior to what they consume. ``It's because there is'' (p248-249)
ここで注目すべきは、トルストイは芸術を労働より優れたものと考えているのでなく、ほとんどすべての芸術は労働よりはるかに劣ったものであり、百年に一人いるかいないかの芸術家の仕事のみが、労働と等しいほどの価値をかろうじて持つと言っている点である。巨匠の大傑作といえども、多くの人が言うように労働者の仕事よりはるかに優れたものではさらさらなく、生活必需品に等しい価値をようやく持っているにすぎないというのが、トルストイ的な皮肉である。
It should be noted here that Tolstoy does not consider art to be superior to labor, but rather that almost all art is far inferior to labor, only the work of an artist who comes around once every hundred years is said to have barely the same value as labor. The Tolstoyan irony is that even the great masterpieces of great masters are not, as many say, far superior to the work of the workers, but only have a value equal to the necessities of life It is.
この考えを現代に当てはめると少々齟齬が生じる。トルストイは民衆芸術を尊び、将来的に知識人階級からでなく、民衆から芸術家が出ることを期待したが、「民衆による民衆のための芸術」が商業に堕落しすぎているという危険がある。高度資本主義社会は生活に必要な商品ではなく、実際不要だが、差別化と利益を生み出すためだけの過剰な消費を高速促進する。高度大衆消費社会では芸術もまた、生活に本当に必要な糧ではなく、生産者にとっては利益を生み出し、消費者である読者にとっては気晴らしと差別化をもたらす商品となるにすぎない。高度大衆消費社会下の民衆芸術はトルストイが夢見たような、質素な福音書のようなものではなく、大変享楽的な娯楽に成り果てたのである。これは知識階級の慰みであった十九世紀芸術よりも地球と人類の歴史にもっと害悪をもたらすもので、少なくとも地球環境生活の維持向上にふさわしい内容を持っていない。
When this idea is applied to modern times, a slight discrepancy arises. Tolstoy respected people's art and hoped that in the future artists would emerge from the people rather than from the intellectual class, but there is a danger that ``art by the people, for the people'' has become too corrupted into commerce. . Advanced capitalist society rapidly promotes excessive consumption of goods that are not necessary for life, in fact unnecessary, but only for the sake of differentiation and profit. In an advanced mass consumption society, art is no longer a truly necessary sustenance for life, but merely a commodity that generates profits for producers and provides diversion and differentiation for consumers (readers). Folk art in a society of advanced mass consumption has become nothing like the humble gospel that Tolstoy had dreamed of, but a very hedonistic form of entertainment. This is more harmful to the earth and human history than the 19th century art that was the entertainment of the intellectual class, and at least it does not have content suitable for maintaining and improving global environmental life.
ロランは商業受けする芸術を書いたわけではない。トルストイからの返信に感激したロランは、芸術創作を通じてエゴイズムを肥大させないよう、作品が儲けを期待して通俗的にならないよう、学術的な仕事をしながら「ジャン・クリストフ」を書き続けた。芸術は労働より優れたものではないのだが、エゴイズムと束の間の快楽を肥大させるために働くことが究極的には悪いように、エゴと利益のために芸術創作することもまた文化の堕落を導く。現代文学史から消えてしまいそうなロマン・ロランの輝きを復活させることが私の役目の一つだと思った。
Rolland did not write commercially acceptable art. Moved by Tolstoy's reply, Rolland decided to write ``Jean-Christophe'' while working as an academic, in order to avoid inflating his egoism through his artistic creation and to prevent his works from becoming commonplace in the hopes of making a profit. continued. Art is not superior to labor, but just as working to enrich egoism and momentary pleasure is ultimately bad, so creating art for ego and profit also leads to the deterioration of culture. . I felt that one of my roles was to revive the brilliance of Romain Rolland, who seemed to be disappearing from modern literary history.
母親を毒殺した少女が書いたブログの噂、幼なじみと疎遠になったことを悔やんだ少年が少女を切り刻んだニュース、ホストに金を貢ぐ女性投資家、これらのマスメディアにきらめく報道を前にして、ロランなら、トルストイなら、ヘッセなら、ゲーテなら、アリストテレスなら、ソクラテスなら、キリストなら、仏陀なら何を考え、どう答えたのか。考える道をさぐるには、ただ己の内面にノヴァーリス的に深く沈静するだけだ。
Rumors of a blog written by a girl who poisoned her mother, news of a boy chopping up a girl because he felt estranged from his childhood friend, and a female investor giving money to the host.In the face of these glittering reports in the mass media, What would Rolland, Tolstoy, Hesse, Goethe, Aristotle, Socrates, Christ, and Buddha think and how would they respond? In order to explore the path of thinking, one simply has to sink deep into one's inner self, Novalis-like.
She told me "I was home now"
When you came home from tennis school,
still left the afterglow of your workout,
and told me "I was home now",
you were a girl and innocent.
I wanted to hug you with my eyes.
Her skin was smooth, firm and round.
How many years has it been like that?
No, it may be the first time.
Like the first time,
every new discovery feels like the first time.
You should be more interested and confident of yourself.
It's a problem if you have it too much.
It's been a long time since nothing unusual happened,
and only bad things happen all of a sudden.
But now that I'm doing well, your health is the most important gift.
Anyway, let's do what we need to do
in a small and sure way from the front.
Do my feelings support you?
The Phenomenology of Spirit
The Whereabouts of Freedom
The Phenomenology of Spirit, written in 1807 by G.W. Hegel while teaching at the University of Jena, is the philosopher's most celebrated work. It has had a strong influence upon very many noted thinkers, in particular on Karl Marx in his development of historical materialism.
Since its introduction into France in the beginning of the 20th century, it has exerted considerable influence upon, among others, George Bataille, J.P. Sartre, Jacque Lacan, and Merleau Ponty. Indeed, if one were to name the five most important books of European philosophy, Hegel's study would deservedly be included in that list. Despite its significance, however, few philosophical books have been as elusive in their true message as Hegel's, as his rather idiosyncratic style and use of language is painfully opaque, even more so than other difficult philosophers such as Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger.
Hegel is so abstruse, for most of his readers even the central issue he tackles remains obscure. Hegel's text is essentially a study of consciousness and freedom. ‘Consciousness’ is (rather fancifully) imagined as an adolescent, undergoing a series of experiences as it (‘he’) attains maturity.
Into this account are woven diverse human philosophical concerns (reflections on nature, on self and others, on community, on God or gods, and so on) to provide what Hegel claims to be nothing short of a complete history of the human mind.
In Hegel's expression, 'the history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom'. Hegel's hugely ambitious book offers us numerous intriguing episodes. To begin with, he describes how two people fight each other, each seeking to coerce the other to recognize the first as superior.
The winner of this potentially lethal struggle for one-sided recognition becomes a master or lord, and the loser a slave. This, Hegel argues, is the beginning of human history. We need existentially to have self-worth and to take pride in ourselves; yet this need requires us absolutely to seek a recognition and confirmation of this personal sense of self-worth by others.
Some of us (perhaps immaturely) may find this exact concern absurd, whereas in others it drives the ambition that is realized in romantic love, in rebellion, and in literature and art. One's view of Hegel's book is often formed in this fundamental way by the personality of the reader: is he writing about someone I recognize as myself or about someone I have heard of. As a writer and a thinker, Hegel appeals to each of us differently, which is part of his genius.
In this regard, one is reminded of Merleau-Ponty's remark that his book is quite as exciting as an exquisite novel.Intriguing as this issue of self-worth might be, it is not what most deeply concerns Hegel, whose real inquiry is only rarely appreciated. What this is, is implicit only in his full account; as while philosophical writings usually describe in their prefatory material the essence of the themes discussed, there is in Hegel no such concision.
He simply begins with the manifestation of 'the experience of consciousness'. What Hegel sought to question may probably be understood only by thoroughly reading the text up to the end of the book. It is accordingly a most burdensome book! Even so, we believe the task is worthwhile.
The present commentary is intended to simplify the task of reading and understanding Hegel’s convolute text, and to direct the reader to the core of his arguments; indeed, we are so bold as to suggest that, without such direction, the sense of the book is for most readers almost impossible to grasp.
to Hegel from Sartre
Sartre used to be the center of my philosophical interest. When I was a cliant of his, I was drawn into Marxism, and when I became familiar with the political movements of student power, I needed to have a position of my own.
Sartre also regarded Marx as the last (impossible to climb) philosophy, but whereas Marxism seemed to have a logic in which the subject was automatically required from the theory of objective situations, Sartre's philosophy was based on the freedom of the individual.
It seemed to provide an ideological position. Sartre seemed to be opening up a field in which I could question my own participation and solidarity. In China, participating in demonstrations against the government's coronavirus policies is itself a danger to one's life, and while the situation I was in as a student was not to that extent, I was still in danger.
Therefore, I was afraid that if I had a half-hearted idea, I would be affected. In certain situations, I needed to have a reason to remain silent. Actually, the truth was that I had no choice but to remain silent.
Now, I almost went back to reminiscing about my student days, but what I wanted to think about here was not about Sartre or Marx, but about Hegel's reality, which is really approaching me today.
The essence of this sense of reality is that the true nature of society (modern civil society) can only be seen once I am able to understand Hegel to a certain extent, but in the first place, we have not been able to grasp the structure of society with the weight of reality.
I have a feeling that it wasn't there. It seems that civil society was completely missing from the concepts of economy, individuals, classes, and nations. Therefore, rights, duties, laws, etc. were somehow unfamiliar to me.
I don't think I was familiar with the Japanese Constitution either. It's shocking to think that in such a conscious state, I used to say things that seemed to criticize society, but I can't help it because it seems to be true.
This does not mean, of course, that one cannot criticize society without reading Hegel. However, if you read it, you will become more self-aware and more confident in your own judgment. I plan to continue reading books by Hegel and Hegel scholars until the day I die, but I think I should just make it a hobby, just like learning English.
The book that made me want to study Hegel's philosophy was ``Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit,'' written by Naotake Kato. Or, to be more precise, that book made me feel like I understood Hegel's dialectic. Although I did not understand all of Naotake Kato's explanation, I felt that I was able to grasp the methodology of Hegel's philosophy.
This is because by making self-consciousness a substance (living and creating the foundation of all things), I thought that self-consciousness is the same as my own self-consciousness, and that if I could read and understand it, I would be able to recognize Hegel's absolute knowledge.
Absolute knowledge has become something that has absorbed the achievements of Western philosophy up to that point and the education of Europe since Christianity and Greece, and it is said that a single philosophical book has the content to understand Western culture.
For me, it was especially appealing to gain access to the cultural repository of education. Just as The Tale of Genji is a repository of Japanese culture, in the West it is Hegel's ``phenomenology of the spirit.'' The actual translation of "Phenomenology of Spirit" by Naotake Kato was not available, so I borrowed "Phenomenology of Spirit" translated by Musashi Kaneko and "Phenomenology of Spirit" translated by Hiroshi Hasegawa from the library and read a little.
Afterwards, I read ``Phenomenology of the Spirit, Second Edition'' translated by Noriyuki Makino, and decided to continue reading this book. After that, I read about half of Seitsugu Takeda's ``Conditions of Human Freedom'' as a research book, and realized that it was absolutely necessary for me to learn from Hegel.
Seiji Takeda's book is about how he was saved when he read ``Introduction to Philosophy to Know Yourself'' when he was on the verge of dropping out due to power harassment from his company president when he was an office worker, and I feel that he was guided in the same way by Hegel.
Seiji Takeda is known to have come to understand philosophy through Husserl's phenomenology, but it is clear from ``Conditions of Human Freedom'' that he has learned decisively from Hegel. The reason he is able to criticize even Michel Foucault is because he is deeply aware of Hegel's ``absolute spirit.'' Incidentally, he criticizes Marx for failing to grasp Hegel's ``moral self-consciousness,'' even though he started from the Hegelian left. I suspect that I was able to take this critical position because I was actually influenced by Kohjin Karatani's ``trans critic'' method.
To give birth to the subject that is me
I started thinking about breaking into my own fantasy swamp. Because it was an environment where nothing has changed even if I had been spending it like this until then. I came up with the idea of coming to the exit of society and following my youth age from "behind".
Perhaps every political activist had appeared until the 20th century. And they ran too far in their spirit,The World Spirit. I think we should rebuild from around 1848 in Europe. The Enlightenment of spirit should teamed up with the poet again from the crucible of thought.
We must create eternal charm and reason. To recreate things "with dignity of the universe instead of money" that avoids being obsessed with violence in a hurry. We have to come up with the reason to crawl up from the bottom of our soul. And therefore I will decide to get out of the current situation.
I feel a faint sprout of power in my body. This is something I haven't felt since I was this old. I wrote it down because I wanted to find out, but I also have a desire to write something "in it."
I feel a little bit of a feeling that I can't stop when I write it out. It may be said that it is a feeling that "I want to be crazy if I write down the good things that move my heart." I don't know the cause.
It suddenly came up. I was in my car in the parking lot of a supermarket in the evening. I noticed that feeling because the scenery around me felt more alive than usual. It seemed like a relaxed state, like a moment between work when I was a salaried worker.
It was a strange feeling, like going back in time. At that time, I was vaguely thinking about where I was going and where I was going.
I became a character in a movie and entered the landscape, and started a different life from what I am now... I am still young. Up until now, looking back on my youth, I remembered a scene I had forgotten. It was me in the past.
But what I feel now is that unlike my past self, I'm about to encounter a scene where I haven't experienced anything. I am completely another me. It is my new life. 、、、
It was. she remembered I have also written on this blog. English. I remembered setting the wild goal of becoming a different persona in English.
Since then, I have been concentrating on translating Japanese into English. I tried to match myself with the author of the Japanese text as much as possible. I thought it was my own words, and I was trying to feel that the English answers were my own English.
Thanks to that practice, my mind may have changed a little. But so far the guy is Japanese because he looks like me. His occupation seems to be something like a detective.
It seems that there are several informants who are also familiar with society behind the scenes. If he is a detective, he should have a client, but he doesn't know who the man is. There are many people in between and it is made not to know who is. Well, what kind of requests are coming?
