著者
石井 雅巳 Masami ISHII
出版者
島根県立大学北東アジア地域研究センター
雑誌
北東アジア研究 (ISSN:13463810)
巻号頁・発行日
no.29, pp.169-181, 2018-03

What made Amane Nishi translate western thoughts into Japanese employing Chinese character: kanji, whereas he was considered as one of strong advocates of the abolition of kanji? The purpose of this paper is to offer an integrated view on this seemingly conflicted attitudes of him. First, the present study compares his debate on the revision of national language and character with those of his contemporaries. This comparison demonstrates his linguistic view in the age of civilization and enlightenment. Second, this paper examines Nishi's approach to academic translation and it's impact on the current translation studies and philosophy of translation. In particular, we focus on his Japanese translation of the word philosophy. Our analysis will not simply juxtapose his academic usage of and the problematization of kanji. His intention was to create the national language and character in colloquial style that reflect the nature of spoken Japanese. His proposal on the abolition of kanji was a solution for fulfilling the goal. On the other hand, in his translation of academic concepts with kanji, he made a strong effort to preserve their original meanings (gi-yaku). He was particularly careful not to employ ancient Confucian expressions. It can be argued that Nishi seeked the establishment of modern Japanese avoiding the simple transcription of western language and the misappropriation of Chinese character coupled with its thoughts. Therefore, the paper proposes that his understanding of the nature of language and his linguistic practice, whether it is the debate on the revision of national language or the translation of western concepts with kanji, are the reflection of his consistent attempt at the creation of the new unified "modern Japanese". What we should not overlook is the fact that he unfailingly recognized the uniqueness of both western and Chinese thoughts.
著者
石井 雅巳
出版者
日本倫理学会
雑誌
倫理学年報 (ISSN:24344699)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.70, pp.147-160, 2021 (Released:2021-06-14)

Emmanuel Levinas emphatically reiterates his caustic critique of historiography in Totality and Infinity(1961). For Levinas, “[historiography]rests on the usurpation carried out by the conquerors, that is by the survivors,” and to him, it is a violence of totality that ignores the particularities of the individual and reduces them into a narrative convenient to the victors. In this paper, we first take up the text of Totality and Infinity, where Levinas most explicitly declares his critique of history, and lay out why history is the violence of totality. In doing so, we demonstrate that both ethics and fecundity are deployed as resistance to the violence of history. Secondly, we analyze how Levinas addresses the difficulties that the theory of history in Totality and Infinit faced, in his later works including Otherwise than Being and Beyond Essence( 1974). We summarize our engagement with the other found in the dimension of “trace,” focusing especially on discussions of “survival” and “books.” We then analyze the path of change in Levinas’s strict attitude toward history and the other in the past. The outcome of this series of readings that this paper gains is, first, to show that for Levinas, history and its violence were not just an example of totality to be critiqued, but an important concern closely linked to ethics. Secondly, by analyzing his later writings, this paper illustrates that wary of the violence of historiography, Levinas was seeking a positive relationship with the past and history and that he was once again grappling with the difficulties of the debate faced in Totality and Infinity.