Kyoto U Interdisciplinary Conference “La nature pense-t-elle ?” Juichi Yamagiwa (Kyoto U) June, 2019

Merci d'écouter le résumé simultané en français.
This is a simultaneous interpretation. Please treat it as an overview.
音声は同時通訳です。概要としてお聞きください。

Kyoto U Interdisciplinary Conference “Does Nature Think ?/La nature pense-t-elle ?”
Simultaneous interpretation in French

June 8th “Sensitive Intelligence of the Living”
Keynote address:

"Japanese Concepts on the World of Living Things"
Juichi Yamagiwa (President at Kyoto University, Primatology)

00:00 | Kitaro Nishida and Kinji Imanishi
15:34 | Prediction for the Origin of the Human Family
25:40 | Why did the human brain grow?
34:37 | Mesology by Berque
44:32 | What We Must Do for Our Future

Both Kitaro Nishida and Kinji Imanishi stated that the essence of living things is characterized by synchronization of time and space, structure and function, subjectivity and objectivity, which we can feel physically and mentally but not logically. To live is to respond proactively to environments which afford the sense of living things. However, science based on logos and language percept the world spatially with linear time and enable us to understand the nature only partially. Modern science has led us to objectivity so as to control our environments, and rapid development of technology leads us to fatal destruction of natural environments beyond the planetary boundaries. Since humans differentiated from the common ancestor with the great apes, we have expanded community networks with creating fictions. Language contributed to expansion of culture, and we are now living in the fictions relying heavily on the virtual world. However, culture and nature should not be separated but be integrated into ‘Milieu’ (FUDO), as Augustin Berque pointed out. Imanishi proposed Natural Study with holistic approach, instead of Natural Science with reductionism. Japanese culture produced the concept of ‘Aida’ which belongs both side. For example ‘Satoyama’ is located between forest (mountain) and village (plain), and it belongs both. It tolerates both humans and wild animals and excludes neither. Reincarnation connects the world of living and after death, and river or bridge usually constitute ‘Aida’. Humans and animals are regarded as transformable with similar soul. These traditional ways of thinking has cultivated emotion unique to Japanese people, and has led us to coexistence with nature, rather than management of nature. We should now reconsider on such intuitive conception with tetra lemma in order to keep harmonious relationships with nature on the earth.

2019 June 8th
Maison de la Culture du Japon à Paris, France