<p>&nbsp; While it is obvious to the native Japanese speakers and some non-Native Japanese speakers, the names of the characters in Dragon Ball series can be both entertaining and, more importantly, informative about some of the dynamics of the interplays among the characters in the series. I have laid out some of the most important [&hellip;]</p>

<p>It is 5:30 am, and yet another sleepless night has passed. I am on a sleeping pill, but it has not kicked in. I kept thinking about my newly flared up motivations for academic writings and things I could accomplish with them. It is truly an exciting thing to think about – just not at [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Enryō Inoue (井上円了) 1858-1919 was a philosopher and a pioneer of occult studies in early modernity in Japan. His views on occult, or Yōkai, was unique in that he categorized anything supernatural or superstitious as well as natural things that are simply unexplained as Yōkai. His aim in occult studies, or henceforth Yōkai studies, was [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The Dragon Ball series, broadly speaking, illustrates the interrelations among the individuals whose actions are dictated by the lust for power. And this desire for power manifests itself in the quest for the Dragon Balls, which are said to grant wishes of anyone who has collected all seven of them. The Dragon Ball series, then, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>On January 19th, 2015, two Japanese journalists, Haruna Yukawa (42) and Kenji Goto (47) were taken hostage by ISIS. The extremist group demanded Japanese government to pay 200 million dollars – the same amount of money the Prime Minister Abe promised to give to aid the countries fighting against ISIS when he was visiting the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>           Having spoken of the scientific attitude in pre-modern Japan through the eyes of Ninja, who supposedly possessed supra human knowledge of the human behavior and natural medicine, it is now time to delve further into the Buddhist conception of how the world operated. In the first part of my research, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Having spoken of the scientific attitude in pre-modern Japan through the eyes of Ninja, who supposedly possessed supra human knowledge of the human behavior and natural medicine, it is now time to delve further into the Buddhist conception of how the world operated. In the first part of my research, I discussed the ways in [&hellip;]</p>

<p>[following is a chapter summery of Hiro Hirai&#8217;s book, Medical Humanism. Quotations are all from the primary sources quote in the book] Daniel Sennert (1572-1637), a professor of medicine at University of Louvain worked largely on the early seventeenth-century intersection of matter theory and life sciences, focusing on and developing a corpuscular interpretation of the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Chapter 5 discusses the theory of spontaneous generation by both the Renaissance Platonists such as Ficino and the Italian philosopher and scientist Fortunio Liceti. On the one camp, Platonists argue for the abiogenesis as evidence for the theory of universal animation and the existence of World-Soul, while on the other camp, a quasi-Corpuscularian doctor Liceti, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>[below is a summary of the chapters 1, 2 and 4 of Medical Humanism by Hiro Hirai. I chose these 3 chapters because of the thematic similarities they share, leaving out the chapter 3 on Schegk as somewhat distinct from the others.] The chapters 1, 2 and 4 of this book examine the interpretations of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>[the following is a chapter summary of Medical Humanism by Hiro Hirai; feedbacks are welcome; all the quotations are from quotations in the book] Jacob Schegk (1511-1587) advanced the theory of the plastic faculty, which imposed much influence upon later thinkers such as Daniel Sennert, William Harvey and even Leibniz. What this plastic faculty is [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Chapter 2 turns to the French physician Jean Fernel (1497-1558), and his interpretation of Galen in the neo-Platonic flavour. Contrary to Leoniceno via Simplicius, Fernel draws upon Marsilio Ficino to argue for the divinity of the soul. This chapter’s primary aim is to establish Fernel’s position on the status of the soul as essentially divine [&hellip;]</p>

<p>[The following is a summary of the book by Hiro Hiral, Medical Humanism and Natural Philosophy (Brill Publishing, December 30th, 2011). Work in progress, and feedbacks are more than welcome.] Chapter 1 discusses about the historiographical survey of the concept of formative power by the humanist physician Leoniceno (1428-1524). Leoniceno’s embryological treatise, On Formative Power [&hellip;]</p>

<p>*Work in progress (feedbacks welcome) Introduction Dragon Ball Z has attracted so many people around the world, and it could rightly be described as one of the anime that represents the Japanese popular culture in the 90’s when anime began to be an iconic feature of Japan as promoting its unique national identity. In this [&hellip;]</p>

<p>アリストテレス（紀元前３８４〜３２２）はプラトンの弟子で、後の西洋哲学に多大な影響を与えました。残念ながら、日本語ではあまり読まれていなく、出版されているアリストテレスの訳本はありますが、言葉が哲学の専門用語ばかりで日本人には一般になじみにくい印象があります。よって、ここでは、専門用語をなるべく使わず、重要な概念を分かりやすく説明していきたいと思います。さらに、このシリーズでは主に哲学者の基本的な思想を理解するのが目的なので、細かい論点などの議論は避けようと思います。もし、私のアカデミックな記事・見解をもっと詳しく知りたい人は、同じブログ上の英語版記事を参照してください。 &nbsp; さて、シリーズ第１回目の今回は、アリストテレスの自然科学、物理学における生命や自然の産物の発生原因を説明していこうと思います。 &nbsp; 自然の産物の存在理由・原因は４つあるとアリストテレスは言います。この４つの原因となるものが重なり合い、自然の生き物は生まれて来るのです。 &nbsp; ①材料（何で？） ②形式やフォーム（どんな？） ③動力の源（どのよ

<p>By the time Buddhism reached Japan in the 9th century, the Hindu astrology had already been incorporated into its teachings, and its practice was consequently spread as an esoteric form of understanding the religion by such Buddhist pioneers in Japan as Kukai and Saicho. Thus transmitted, the peculiar and localized form of the Hindu astrology [&hellip;]</p>

<p>During the medieval period, both the Arabic and the Scholastic philosophers tackled the account of generation and that of substantial change, advancing various interpretations drawn from the texts of Aristotle. In this section, I will 1) lay out the accounts offered by Avicenna, Averroes, Aquinas and Suarez in order to better understand the philosophical background [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Actions and passions play a significant role in Descartes’ conception of the union between mind and body. Having explained to Princess Elizabeth that to conceive of the mind-body union is nothing but to conceive the mind as material and to Mersenne that the fact that the mind cannot be imagined does not render the union [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I “…the distinction drawn since the Enlightenment between the universal and the particular was revealed to be false, because what had been called universal was the particular from the point of view of power… [and similarly] subjective/objective division was revealed to be false, because the objective standpoint was specifically the view from the male position [&hellip;]</p>

<p>“Neighbors are presumed to be hostile and may be witches. They spy on you and rob your garden, no matter how poor you may be. You should never discuss your affairs in front of them or let them know in case you acquire sudden wealth by some stroke of magic, for they will denounce you [&hellip;]</p>