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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan
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Masamichi UENO (Sophia University)
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Atsushi SUZUKI (Kyushu University)
Noriyuki HASHIMOTO(Yamanashi Prefectural University)
Tomoko HIGURASHI(Nihon University)
Koki HIRAISHI (Kanazawa University)
Yasushi MARUYAMA(Hiroshima University)
Reiko MUROI (Iwate University)
Kazunao MORITA(Osaka Shoin Women’sUniversity)
Sunji LEE (Hosei University)

Assistant Editor
Hiroshi SUZUKI(Sophia University)

Title: E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Societyof Japan, Vol. 8
Published: 1 October 2023
© 2023 Philosophy of Education Society of Japan
ISSN 2435-5364
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Contents
Research Promotion Award Article (2022)

Education, Science, and Government
in Marc-Antoine Jullien’s Educational Thought
Atsushi YOSHINO

1

Symposium
Orality, Image, Memory and Bildung: Toward the Possibility of Educational Study
Based on Kulturwissenschaft

The Image and Human Formation:
With a view to the creation and appreciation of visual art
Kayoko KOMATSU
Understanding and Teaching Music Through Orality:
A Case Study in the Revival and Transmission of the Eastern European Jewish
Folk Music
Mariko MISHIRO
Culture as Human, Culture as Network:
On the Theory of Bildung based on Memory Studies
Jun YAMANALife and Culture as Support for Education
Hiromoto MAKABE
Orality, Image, Memory and Bildung:
Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on Kulturwissenschaft
Yoshimitsu MATSUURA
Fukutaro WATANABE

17

26

37

49

56

Thematic Research
Corporeality and Education: Reconsidering the Basis of “Experience” and“Connection”

Generation of Common Emotions Based on Common Senses Throughthe Activities in Which Each Exposes One’s Body One Another:
Assumptions and Foundations Required to Continue the Conversation
Chiharu FUJIIThe applicability of the ‘ethnometric method’ as a support tool for teachers’
self-evaluation:
Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to ‘personalizationand empathizing’ in moral education
Nobuo FUJIKAWA
Technological Transformation of Corporeal Existence:
Philosophical Reflection on the Theory of Corporeality of the Kyoto School
Ayaki MONZEN
Corporeality and Education:
Reconsidering the basis of 'experience' and 'connection'
Satoshi TANAKA
Takuo NISHIMURA

58

65

93

103

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

Education, Science, and Government
in Marc-Antoine Jullien’s Educational Thought
Atsushi YOSHINO
Oita University
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to situate Marc-Antoine Jullien’s educational thought in the historicalcontext of 19th century French thought on education, science, and government, and further clarify its
characteristics. Jullien is well known as the “Father of Comparative Education,” but few studies havefocused on his own educational ideas. Jullien’s educational thought was deeply influenced by
Ideologues’ ideas about the science of man, who were very influential in early 19th century France.
They believed that one of the purposes of the science of man was to rationalize the government of thestate. Furthermore, members of the Society for Elementary Instruction, many of whom were thinkers
influenced by Ideologues, such as Joseph-Marie de Gérando and Maine de Biran, attempted to carryout the Ideologues’ task of rationalizing political government by making education a science. The
science of education conceived by Jullien, one of its main members, inherited the Society’s politicaltendencies and shared the same purpose. Jullien’s educational thought is characterized by the close
association between his science of education and government techniques. Education and governmentare both technologies aimed at human happiness. In the art of time management, central to Jullien’s
educational ideas, governmental techniques in the administrative, military, and commercial spheres
were transformed into educational methods. In Jullien’s science of education, education andgovernment became interchangeable because they were both rooted in the same technologicalknowledge basis.
Key words: Marc-Antoine Jullien, science of education, government

Correspondence:
Atsushi YOSHINO, Oita University. Email: ayoshino@oita-u.ac.jp

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Introduction
The purpose of this study is to provide a means of placing Marc-Antoine Jullien’s(1775–1848) educational thought in the context of the history of ideas of his time and toreevaluate its significance. In the field of history of education, Jullien is regarded as the“Father of Comparative Education” who brought empirical scientific methods to thestudy of comparative education. However, such an evaluation is limited if we consider
the entirety of his educational thought, which is not limited to comparative education
theory.
To renew such an evaluation, this study attempts to grasp the overall picture of his
educational thought and characterize it in relation to the intellectual context in France atthe dawn of the modern educational system. This context is theories and practices of“Ideologues,” a group of thinkers who were very influential in France at that time. In theintellectual currents they formed, the three subjects of “education,” “science,” and“government” were intertwined with each other and formed an important subject for
academic examination. Jullien’s educational thought can be understood as inheriting anddeepening the awareness of such issues in a unique way.
In this study, the intellectual linkages between education, science, and government
at the time are first clarified through an examination of the discourses of Ideologues.
Second, we show that the “science of education,” which is at the core of Jullien’s
educational thought, has aspects that inherit Ideologues’ awareness of the issues. Third,
through an examination of the concepts of “man,” “happiness,” and “time,” which arecentral to Jullien’s educational thought, the characteristics of his science of education,
which links education, science, and government on the same knowledge plane, areclarified.

1. Examination of Previous Studies
Studies on Jullien in the field of the history of educational thought have accumulated,
to a certain extent, within the framework of studies on the history of comparativeeducation since the mid-20th century. However, it is only in relatively recent years that
his main works, General Essay on Physical, Moral and Intellectual Education [EE] (firstpublished in 1808. Hereafter called General Essay on Education) and Essay on Method
Designed to Regulate the Use of Time, the First Way of Being Happy [EEM] (firstpublished in the same year. Hereafter called Essay on the Use of Time), have received
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attention. Those who were among the first to appreciate Jullien’s educational ideas andcontributed to their restoration were the sociologist Hess and the educational researcher
Illiade, who was involved in the reprinting of Essay on the Use of Time1. They attempted
to find in Jullien’s writings the germ of today’s educational and academic themes(“ethnosociology,” “informal education,” etc.). However, such an evaluation cannot behistorically contextualized, and its validity is open to questioning.
Two prior studies that are closely related to this study’s interest in reading Jullien’s
educational thought in relation to the intellectual context of education, science, andgovernment at the time are as follows. The first is Delieuvin’s study which exhaustively
traced Jullien’s writings in the field of education through a comprehensive survey 2 .
Delieuvin’s study contains many important implications for this study, including Jullien’s
relationship with the Society for Elementary Instruction, which is discussed below. In
particular, it is worth noting that Delieuvin points out that Jullien conceived of his scienceof education in line with the “techniques of government.” However, when discussing thescience of education, Delieuvin seems to have underestimated Essay on the Use of Timeand General Essay on Education in comparison to Jullien’s comparative education
theory and his Essence of Pestalozzi’s educational method (Esprit de la méthoded’éducation de Pestalozzi, 1812). Consequently, the relationship between the science of
education and government is yet to be thematized in relation to the entirety of Jullien’s
educational thought. As is discussed below, Essay on the Use of Time is a work that cannot
be ignored if we consider “time” as an essential element in Jullien’s science of education.
Second, it is important to note Lejeune’s study that clarified the political
implications inherent in Jullien’s educational thought 3 . He focuses on the extremeemphasis on “efficiency” in Jullien’s educational thought and the techniques of “control”
as a means of increasing efficiency. According to Lejeune, these techniques of control,developed based on the model of techniques of government in the military and industrial
spheres, are “a terrifying system of total supervision” comparable to Bentham’s
Panopticon. He finds in Jullien’s educational thought a historical model for what Michel
Foucault called “discipline,” namely, the modern techniques of power that are found in
the administrative, military, industrial, and educational spheres. According to him,
R. Hess, La pratique du journal. L’enquête au quotidien, Paris, Anthropos, 1998. M. A. Jullien, Essai sur
l’emploi du temps, édité et présenté par K. Illade, Paris, Economia/Anthoropos, 2006.
2
M. C. Delieuvin, Marc-Antoine Jullien, de Paris, 1775-1848, Paris, Harmattan, 2003. See pp. 274-279 forJullien’s science of education, and Ch. 5 for the Society for Elementary Instruction. For a discussion on the overlap
between the Society and Jullien’s concerns, see pp. 223 and following.
3
P. Lejeune, “Marc-Antoine Jullien: Controlling Time,” in A. Baggerman, R. M. Dekker, and M. J. Mascuch(eds.), Controlling Time and Shaping the Self, Leiden, Brill, 2011, pp. 95-120.
1

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Jullien’s educational thought, which was overlooked by Foucault, can be evaluated as a
powerful complement to Foucault’s argument. Lejeune’s study is thought-provoking, but
his argument seems to be drawn exclusively from a direct collation of Jullien’s General
Essay on the Use of Time and Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, without muchconsideration for the historical context in which Jullien’s educational thought is situated.
For example, Foucault refers to the “mutual method” introduced in France during the firsthalf of the 19th century as a model for discipline techniques, but Lejeune pays little
attention to the fact that Jullien was deeply involved in introducing this method to France.
This study seeks to characterize Jullien’s educational thought by referring to theintellectual context of education, science, and government in which his thinking was
situated. From a historical perspective, this attempt clarifies the political implications ofJullien’s educational thought, which Lejeune analyzed by relying on Foucault.
Simultaneously, this study complements Delieuvin’s work in that it attempts tothematically clarify the internal linkage between the science of education and government
in the context of Jullien’s educational thought, which is not limited to comparativeeducation theory.

2. The Relationship between Education, Science, and Government in
Ideologues’ Sphere of Thoughts
This section examines the intellectual context of Jullien’s ideas. Jullien was strongly
influenced by Ideologues, who were highly influential in the French intellectual world of
his time. They regarded the three subjects of education, science, and government as thecentral objects of their thinking. Jullien inherited this trend of thought. In the following
section, we examine how these three subjects relate to each other in the context of thehistory of ideas of the time.
2.1. Science and Government
Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century, following the example of Newton’s
revolution in the natural sciences, sought to establish the exact sciences of man andsociety. Such knowledge, collectively called the “science of man,” was a unified
intellectual enterprise that spanned fields such as the science of government, medicine
and public health, political economy, the theory of progress, analysis of the human mind,

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and social statistics4.
The ideals of this science were taken over by Ideologues, heirs of the Enlightenment,at the turn of the century, following the French Revolution. The leading thinker, Antoine
Nicolas Condorcet (1743–1794), formulated the idea of the science of man as a science“whose object is the man itself, whose direct aim is the happiness of man” with the samelevel of exactness as the natural sciences through the observation of facts and use of
precise language5. He further gave this science the character of “science of government”
to rationalize the political conduct of a state.
Inheriting Condorcet’s ideas, Ideologues who gathered at the end of the
Revolutionary period in the second department of the French Academy, the “Moral andPolitical Sciences,” linked the idea of the science of man for the rationalization of
government to the task of reorganizing the state of France and its social order after the
Revolution. Tanaka characterizes the “science of society” promoted by Ideologues asfollows. First, this science limits its object of study to observable phenomena and derives
laws from the relationships among these phenomena. Second, as Condorcet applied his
probability theory to the science of man, the laws are expressed by “a system ofknowledge that can be manipulated by the intellectual elite of the time.” Third, thescientific cognitions of society make government a “technology” 6 . The Ideologues’science of man was situated within an intellectual horizon called “social art,” atechnological level of knowledge that mediated between theories of various sciences andpractices of government aimed at human happiness and the improvement of society.
For Ideologues, the basis of rationality was the “observation of facts” and “analysis,”a method of deconstructing and reconstructing phenomena. Their emphasis on
observation and analysis was inherited from 18th century French thinker Étienne Bonnot
de Condillac (1714–1780), whose philosophy of sensationalism had the greatest
influence on Ideologues. According to Sakagami, Ideologues extensively appliedobservation and analysis to the scientific cognition and rational government of man andsociety. Their efforts were devoted to the development of observation techniques indiverse areas, such as anthropological surveys, population studies, poverty surveys for
public assistance, public health, and the medical and physiological sciences. The
techniques of observation were embodied, among other things, in the creation of
See S. Oki, “Sūgaku to Syakai Kaikaku no Yūtopia” (Mathematics and the Utopia of Social Reform), in O.
Kanamori (ed.), Kagaku Shisōshi (History of Scientific Thought), Keisō Shobō, 2020, pp. 130-135.
5Discours prononcés dans l’académie française, le jeudi XXI février M.DCC.LXXXII, à la réception de M. le
Condorcet, Paris, Demonville, 1782, p. 6.
6
T. Takuji, Hinkon to Kyōwakoku (Poverty and Republic), Junbun Syoin, 2006, pp. 62-65.
4

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observation and questionnaire tables for the methodical collection and analysis of facts7.
Statistical Questions for Travelers (1813) prepared by Constantin François Chassebœuf
Volney (1757–1820) is a representative example. This questionnaire is a compilation ofquestions related to the natural, political, and economic conditions necessary to ascertaina state’s situation. One of the motivations for this was the conviction that “all truth,
especially in Government, is only the result of a long experience, that is, of many facts
well seen and judiciously compared [… and] what we call principles of Government are
only summary facts, only summaries of particular facts.”8 Here, we find the belief ofIdeologues that the observation of facts underpins the rationality of government.
2.2. Education and Government
It is important to note that the above intellectual trends in the science of man andgovernment also had a significant impact on the field of education at the time.
Noteworthy in this regard is the Society for Elementary Instruction (Société pourl’instruction élémentaire), founded in 1815 by a group of French liberal philanthropists.
The Society attracted many intellectuals influenced by Ideologues. Its members included
the philosopher Joseph-Marie Degérando (1772–1842), chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal(1756–1832) who had directed a census as minister of the interior, philosopher Maine de
Biran (1766–1824), and Jullien. With the support of the government, the primary missionof the Society was to promote popular and primary education in France by introducing
the “mutual method” (also called the Monitorial System), which originated in England.
The Society’s activities stemmed from a philanthropic concern for the poor who had
yet to benefit from education. However, this attitude toward the people was ambivalentand intertwined with the political situation of the time. A speech by the Society’s founder,
Degérando, at the time of its inauguration clearly shows the Society’s view of popular
education. He said, “Far from us, undoubtedly, the absurd idea to want to convert thechildren of the craftsman, of the ploughman, into as many scholars, people of letters,
philosophers; to want to give them a kind and a degree of knowledge which, by making
their condition unbearable to them, would only inspire them the need to leave it!” [JE1:
23-24]. For the Society, the dissemination of knowledge is justified in terms of theadvancement of civilization or the promotion of industry. However, the Society aimed toT. Sakagami, “Kansatsu no Gijutsu, Tōchi no Gihō” (Techniques of Observation and Government), in T.
Sakagami (ed.), Tōchi Gihō no Kindai (Modernity in Government Techniques), Dōbunkan, 1997, pp. 21-50.
8[Volney, C. F. C.], Questions de statistique à l’usage des voyageurs, Paris, Courcier, 1813, p. 4.
7

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fix the social status of the people and maintain social order, that is, to prevent revolution,by having the lower classes acquire knowledge and morals appropriate to their economic
status. Here, we observe a glimpse into the political objective based on the bourgeois
position of this Society, which is to achieve a class-based distribution of human resources
within the state through education.
The mutual method was an appropriate pedagogy for this purpose. This method
enables the rapid and reliable transmission of knowledge and the infusion of obedient anddiligent morals through a system of graded classes according to ability, and a detailed
system of commands and rules to which students are subjected. Furthermore, it provides
the economic advantage of allowing the supervision of a large number of students by asingle teacher by employing the best students as assistant teachers9. In Discipline andPunish, Foucault considers the mutual method introduced by the Society as an
educational model of discipline techniques through an order that permeates the details of
the body, space, and time. Behind the introduction of this method in France lay thepolitical intention of the Society regarding popular education.
It is noteworthy that education, seen as an act of government to distribute humanresources within the state, was considered to have to be rationalized by scientificknowledge. Referring to the Society’s statutes [JE1: 33-40], it was aware of the task of
conducting empirical scientific research on education, including the collection andcomparative analysis of educational methods in other countries, the verification of
educational methods in experimental schools, and the improvement of educational
methods based on experiments. A speech by Degérando published in the Society’s
Journal of Education clearly shows his intention to create a science of education. He
argues that the methods of “observation” and “mathematical analysis,” which havebrought about a breakthrough in the modern natural sciences, should be applied to studiesof education. What is required today is to “establish between sciences and teaching
methods this alliance [...] which must make the second benefit from the conquests
obtained by the first” and to “gather, in order to compare, descriptions of various methods
used or proposed; to submit them to the control of experiment, to the tests of aphilanthropic analysis.” [JE14: 264-265] His attempt to create the science of educationby the methods of natural sciences is an extension of Ideologues’ idea of the science ofman. In another text, Degérando argued that “the Science of Man is also a natural science,a science of observation.” The science of man should be established as a “natural science”
For more information on the mutual method, see K. Eiji, Furansu Syotō Kyōikushi (History of French
Elementary Instruction), Mie Daigaku Syuppankai, 2014, Ch. 4, Sect. 2.
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A. YOSHINO

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that relies on the observation of facts10. This attempt to create a science of education is a
reproduction of Ideologues’ idea of the science of man, which aims to rationalize thegovernment, in the phase of the problem of the relationship between education andscience.

3. Political Implications of Jullien’s Science of Education
It was Jullien who gave the clearest form to the Society for Elementary Instruction’splan to create a science of education. In this section, Jullien’s vision of the “science of
education” is placed in the context of scientific and governmental knowledge of the time.
Jullien, who participated in the Society from its inception and served on its expert
committee for studies of educational methods, wrote Sketch and Preliminary Views of aWork on Comparative Education [EV] (hereafter called Comparative Education),originally published in the Journal of Education from 1816 to 1817. His comparativeeducation is an attempt to transform education into an empirical and positive science or“science of education” by means of gathering, observing, and comparing facts.
Education, like all other sciences and arts, is composed of facts and observations. It
was therefore necessary to form, for this science, as was done for other branches ofour knowledge, collections of facts and observations, arranged in analytical tables,
which would allow them to be brought together and compared, in order to deducefrom them certain principles, determined rules, so that education could become analmost positive science. [EV: 13]
Jullien attempted to create an itemized list of observations and questions to observe theeducational situation in Switzerland, which he saw as a microcosm of Europe. Here wefind the embodiment of the Society’s idea of the science of education, as well as theinheritance of Ideologues’ interest in the “techniques of observation,” as represented by
Volnay’s questionnaire.
The purpose of comparative education was political. With the upheavals and wars
that swept Europe since the Revolutionary period in mind, Jullien sees the purpose ofcomparative education as “to provide prompt and safe means of regenerating andJ. M. Degérando, Considérations sur les diverses méthodes à suivre dans l’observation des peuples sauvages,
daté du 28 fructidor an VIII, Société des observateurs de l’homme, 1800, p. 2.
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improving public and private education, in all conditions of society, and thus ofstrengthening religious, moral, and social bonds, which have been loosened and almost
dissolved in most states.” A comparison of the educational situation of states contributes
to “the reform and improvement of education as the basis of the social edifice” [EV: 710] through the creation of comparative tables to diagnose the degree of progress of eachstate’s educational system, its strengths and weaknesses, and its transplantable elements
across national borders. These political purposes of comparative education show that the“positive science” of education is inseparably linked to the rationalization of government.
In texts other than Comparative Education, Jullien refers to his theory of education
as a science of education. It is difficult to determine whether Jullien provided a clear
explanation for this concept. However, the science of education is a concept thatcharacterizes the entirety of Jullien’s educational thought, not just his comparativeeducation theory. In the following, the basic ideas of his science of education are extracted
from his texts and situated within the intellectual context of education, science, andgovernment at the time.
Jullien characterizes his own ideas of education as “the science of formation of man”
through “development of faculties,” or “the art of making men good, virtuous,
enlightened, [... that is] education, which is the science of happiness and virtue.” [EEM:
13-16] It is clear that the science of education, with its focus on man and human happiness,is situated in the genealogy of Ideologues’ science of man as a science that has man as its
object and human happiness as its direct aim. Indeed, Jullien himself also calls his scienceof education “the first and fundamental science, so intimately linked with all the others,
and especially with the science of man.” [EEM: 17]
Thus, the science of education will inevitably be strongly associated withgovernmental problems. The premise of Jullien’s theory of education, which is directedprimarily toward the education of children of the state’s upper classes, is based on theidea of “the art of forming men, or education, the art of making men happy, or politics”[EE: 22]; that is, a perspective that overlaps the two realms of education and government.
This perspective is embodied in the affirmation of educational courses according to twosocial statuses: “lower classes” and “upper classes.” The lower classes need to be
educated toward “moral habits and labor.” However, the upper classes, who areresponsible for orienting and civilizing society as a whole, must be given a different kindof education than the laboring classes, namely, an education directed toward the wholeman. For Jullien, the distribution of human resources through a hierarchical educational
series is nothing less than the most important basis for the good governance of a state[EE: 22-23]. This view of education is based on the same political conception as the
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A. YOSHINOSociety for Elementary Instruction’s view of popular education.
Jullien’s science of education can thus be understood as an attempt to place
education within the technological realm of knowledge between the Ideologues’ scienceof man and government. Sharing political concerns with the Society for Elementary
Instruction, his science of education was conceived as useful for rationalizing
government.

4. Technological Characteristics of Jullien’s Science of Education: Man,
Happiness, and TimeIn this section, the science of education developed in Jullien’s two main works,
General Essay on the Education and Essay on the Use of Time, is examined to grasp his
logic of the combination of the science of education and government techniques. In doing
so, the characteristics of technological educational knowledge that characterize Jullien’s
science of education as a whole is identified. The three basic elements of the science of
education formulated by Jullien can be used as a guide. “Education, the science ofcultivation and development of our faculties, can be considered from three points of view:
1. its subject, the Man; 2. its goal, the Happiness; 3. its instrument, the Time.” [EV: 21]
In the following, after analyzing the technological characteristics that characterize his
science of education from his discourses on “man” and “happiness,” the basis of his
science of education from the perspective of the third element, “time,” which mediates
between the science of education and techniques of government, is clarified.
4.1. Man and Happiness: Theory and Practice in the Science of Education
First, man as the object of education is examined. For Jullien, man is considered on
two levels: the individual and the species being. As the individual, the totality of man iscomposed of three elements: “the heart” or “soul,” which governs moral faculties, the“mind,” which governs intellectual faculties, and the “body.” The individual, however, isnecessarily bound to “mankind” as the species being by the principle of “sociability”
inherent in human nature [cf. EE: 459]. “The man is a naturally social being. The society
is almost as necessary to him as breathing” [EEM: 40]. Therefore, sociability is
considered the fourth element that constitutes man.
To grasp Jullien’s understanding of man more precisely, we must examine thesecond element of education—happiness—as the purpose of education. Happiness,
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which is also the purpose of man, is considered in relation to two levels of man: theindividual and mankind. Happiness on the individual level is brought about by the“perfect harmony” of the three excellences of “physical force and health, the elevation of
the soul, or morality, and the cultivation of the mind, or instruction,” as result of thedevelopment of the three faculties of the heart, mind, and body [EE: 44-45]. Physicalforce and health, which provide vitality to human activity, instruction, which wisely
directs this activity, and morality, which provides good value to the whole, are mutually
supportive and work together to form a happy man. The happiness of man, through thenatural sociability of man, is also oriented toward the happiness of mankind as a whole.
“No man can create his private happiness except as contribution to the happiness ofothers.” [EE: 44] Individual happiness cannot be achieved in a solitary life or throughegoistic activities since the principle of sociability in human nature necessarily brings
together “preservation of the individual” and “preservation of the public,” or “privateinterests” and “interests of mankind as a whole.” [EEM: 40] A happy man is useful tohuman society. Thus, along with the fulfillment of individual happiness, education also
aims at “the improvement of human conditions” and “the extension of all kinds ofpleasure to more and more people,” which is “the goal of the species as a whole.” [EEM:413]
Jullien’s reflections on man and happiness are not new. What is remarkable about
Jullien’s educational thought is its form, an eclectic synthesis of past thinkers’ ideas. His
texts are built upon countless references to the writings of the great thinkers of the
Enlightenment, including Bacon, Locke, Rousseau, and Condillac, as well as to theworks of Ideologues, his contemporaries.
He declared in the preface to General Essay on Education that many great writers
have already made useful reflections on education [EE: 15-16]. “It would bepresumptuous to want to present absolutely new ideas today on such a hackneyed subject.”
However, even great thinkers can make errors. They have been so intent on exploring thetheoretical “speculation” of education that they have neglected to apply it to “practice.”
Jullien’s task is to bridge this gap.
The author [Jullien] must endeavor to reproduce in a simple and methodical order,
so as to give them [truths] a greater degree of evidence, to make them more easily
practicable, truths presented until now in isolation or confusedly, with too little scope,sequence and clarity, whose connection and importance do not seem to have been
sufficiently grasped, and whose practice has been constantly neglected. [EE: 16-17]

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Rejecting abstract theoretical systems, his science of education is concerned with atechnological level of knowledge that bridges “theory” and “practice.” In his view, thiswas also a demand for useful science. Emphasizing that scientific progress requires thecooperation of two kinds of people, namely, “theorists” and “practitioners,” he diagnoses
the era in which he lives as follows: “A happy and clever combination of these two kindsof men, or rather their combined efforts, can alone advance sciences, and, with the helpof sciences, morals. Our time is no longer satisfied with systems, theories, abstractions; itwants applications and results.” [EEM: 192] Thus, rather than exploring educational
principles theoretically, Jullien’s science of education aims to reorient educational
knowledge to a technological level that mediates theory and practice.
4.2. Time as Instrument: The Art of Time Management and Its Source ofMethodological Inspiration
The third element of Jullien’s science of education—time as the “instrument ofeducation”—is what makes explicit its technological character. The formation of a happy
man can only be accomplished under technology that effectively uses the finite amountof time given to him. The aim of Essay on the Use of Time was to grasp time as an
indispensable instrument for education and systematically develop techniques for its use.
In this section, how man and happiness are related to the element of time is clarified
through an examination of Essay on the Use of Time. In doing so, we will be able to grasp
Jullien’s logic, linking the science of education and government.
This work develops, so to speak, as a method of self-education in the form of the artof time management, that is, a “method that would make the most of the time.” [EEM:
46] The purpose of time management is to extract useful lessons from past uses of time
to develop one’s faculties by collecting, observing, organizing, and analyzing facts ofdaily life that are usually forgotten as transitory. Through this method, also called “trueeducation” [EEM: 44], which should continue throughout life, “the whole of life”
becomes an educational tool [EEM: 32].
This method is based on three principles [EM: 46-53]. First, before any action, one
should ask oneself, “What is it beneficial for?” Second, every morning or evening, one
should inspect oneself to see how well one has used the day. Finally, one should record
the results of one’s inspection in “journals,” rather than simply keeping them in one’s
consciousness. Through the recording and reflection of daily life, the art of time
management can orient the entirety of one’s life, spanning the past, present, and future,
toward “useful actions.” [EEM: 53-55]
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A large part of Essay on the Use of Time is devoted to the development of a system
of journals for recording and analyzing the facts of passing days. Basic journals can bedivided into three types [EEM: 197-198]. First, the Analytical Memorandum records
events and reflections useful for education [EEM: 226]. Second, the “General Agenda”[EEM: 228-233], which contains six sub-divisions (errands, income and expenditure,
personal relations, correspondence, bibliography, and memorandum), each of which isfilled out daily. Third is the “Biometer,” which records what 24 hours are used for byentering the amount of time into pre-classified categories of activities.
These journals are conceived as devices that allow for the methodical observation
and analysis of the facts of life, which is a type of observation technique. By relying on
observation techniques, Ideologues conceived of the science of man that would
rationalize government and make people happy. Correspondingly, Jullien’s art of time
management can be characterized as a useful “science” that makes humans happy
through the rationalization of life via techniques of self-observation. “The good use oftime is a real science, which needs to be acquired through research, like other humanknowledge.” [EEM: 47]
It is noteworthy that the objects and purposes of education, namely, man andhappiness, are incorporated into journals through a variety of techniques for observation
and analysis. Two techniques developed by Jullien are important.
First, the four elements that constitute human existence (the body, heart, mind, andsociability) are applied as principles in the construction of journals. In the Analytical
Memorandum, for example, the observed facts are entered into three accounts, namely,classified in terms of body, heart, and mind [EEM: 59-60]. In the Biometer, the amountof time in a day is allocated to four categories of activities corresponding to the body,heart, mind, and sociability [EEM: 286-287].
Second, quantification techniques allow arithmetic operations to be performed onliving conditions. For example, a table called the “Life Curve” [EEM: 451-455], whichis recommended for supplementary use, evaluates daily happiness in terms of a numericalvalue called “degree of happiness” on a scale of 20, and ascertains changes of happinessover a month in the form of a line graph. The Biometer, however, translates the harmonyof the four elements necessary for human happiness into the form of an arithmeticalequilibrium of allocation of the amount of time to each category. “Using our tablets[Biometer] serves to keep in equilibrium and harmony the different parts of which life iscomposed, none of which should be neglected.” [EEM: 291]
The goal of the above techniques is to form “the abbreviated table of one’s physical,
moral and intellectual situation.” The table enables one “to judge whether one is
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backward or stationary in one or the other of these three branches, and to restore theprogression to one’s advantage.” [EEM: 6] Thus, in the art of time management, theformation of a happy man, which is the aim of the science of education, is transformed
into a technically operable object through observation and analysis techniques. Time as
an instrument is the fundamental perspective from which the entire science of educationis constructed as technological knowledge.
Within the technological realm of educational knowledge, in which Jullien’s art oftime management is situated, the linkage between education, science, and governmentthat this study has traced plays an essential role. Jullien’s logic, which intersects thesethree realms, can be revealed by tracing back to the methodological inspiration for thismethod. In the concluding section of Essay on the Use of Time, he describes the three“methods” that inspired the art of time management [EEM: 337-340].
The first is the “religious and philosophical method.” This method, which is tied to
the Christian confession and philosophical maxim “Know thyself,” makes it possible to“make one go down in the most secret folds of one’s conscience and teach one to question,
examine and know oneself.” This method demonstrates that the art of time management
reflects one’s inner self.
The second is the “military method.” This is the method for command and control
that “make move several thousands of individuals as a single body animated by a single
soul,” that is, a system that quickly delivers orders from the general to the lowest ranks
of army and ensures that surveillance and discipline pervade. Journals, such as this system,
are also surveillance and disciplinary devices. “None of our actions and even none of ourthoughts escape examination.” [EEM: 339]
The third method is the “commercial method.” This method “contributes to theadvancement of societies, by promoting circulation of wealth, which will provide
incentives and rewards for work everywhere,” specifically with accounting books in
mind. The art of time management, which aims to allocate finite time appropriately andmaximize educational results obtained from it, is established by considering time as akind of “fund.” Time as a fund should not be consumed only for present needs. Time
must be managed as “capital,” that is, as resources for generating future benefits [EEM:
60-61].
Of the three methods applied to the art of time management, the military andcommercial methods are deeply connected to the problematic government system as amethod of managing and operating human populations and resources11. The art of time11

As symbolized by political economy, which had been a part of the science of man since the mid-18th century,

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management combines the techniques of education and government at themethodological level, creating common ground that allows for technological transference
between the two realms. The “science” as conceived by Jullien was the name given to
the common ground. The following text illustrates this view:
All the sciences have mutual connections and can make advantageous exchanges
between themselves. The science of administration especially must be helped by all
the others. Administration, in general, and the military art, in particular, which must
exert their action and influence directly on groups of men, considered bothindividually and en masse, are much less foreign than one might be tempted tobelieve, to the science of education, which acts both on isolated individuals and on acertain number of children gathered together, called to form a family and a small
society. The art of educating children, art of leading and governing people, art ofcommanding an army, and art of administering a country, have between themselves
an intimate analogy, and must be directed and applied, according to common
principles.12

Conclusion
This study places Jullien’s educational thought in the intellectual context of early
19th century France and clarifies its characteristics. The science of education conceived
by Jullien, who inherited the Ideologues’ concern to rationalize government through thescience of man, opens up a technological dimension of educational knowledge thatmediates between science and government.
The early 19th century marked the beginning of the era of institutionalization andspecialization in the modern sciences. Jullien was one of the first to elevate knowledgeof education to a science. His science of education, while oriented toward an exacting
empirical science that anticipated the 19th century, also included practical techniques thatwould lead to happiness. Due to this ambivalence, his science of education was based on
ideas that originated in areas normally considered foreign to education, such aspolitical and economic phenomena were not always clearly distinguished scientifically at that time (see T. Tanaka,Sijō Hinkon Tōchi (Markets, Poverty, and Government), Keizaigakushi Kenkyū (Journal of the History of
Economics), Vol. 51, No. 1, 2020, p. 21).
12
M.-A. Jullien, Esprit de la méthode d’éducation de Pestalozzi, t.1, Milan, Imprimerie Royale, 1812, pp. XIII-XIV.

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government, military affairs, commerce, and religion. This ambiguity, whichcharacterizes Jullien’s science of education, may be overlooked if we focus only on his
comparative education theory, which advocates “positive science.”
Jullien’s educational thought, as described above, provides a significant clue to thehistorical examination of the nature of modern educational knowledge as a “science.” To
trace the genesis of modern educational knowledge as a science, the question of how toevaluate the ambiguity that Jullien’s science of education typically exhibits must be
resolved.

References
EE: Jullien, M.A., Essai général d’éducation physique, morale, et intellectuelle, 2e ed.,Paris, Dondey-Dupré, 1835.
EEM: Jullien, M.A., Essai sur l’emploi du temps, ou méthode qui a pour objet de bien
régler sa vie, premier moyen d’être heureux, 4e ed., Paris, Dondey-Dupré, 1829.
EV: Jullien, M. A., Esquisse et vues préliminaires d’un ouvrage sur l’éducationcomparée, Paris, L. Colas, 1817.
JE: Journal d’Éducation, publié par la Société formée à Paris pour l’amélioration del’enseignement élémentaire, 19 toms., Paris, L. Colas, 1815-28.

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

The Image and Human Formation:
With a view to the creation and appreciation of visual art
Kayoko KOMATSU
Nagaoka Institute of Design
Abstract
In education, images function as representations of educational content, such as illustrations in
textbooks or wall pictures, where “what” is represented is more important than “how” it is represented.
On the other hand, in the history of art, especially in formalism, the form of “how” something isrepresented is regarded as more important than “what” is represented. In contrast to these two
viewpoints, here, I aimed to examine the meaning of understanding an image as it is.
For this purpose, I refer to the theory of the aesthetic regime proposed by Jacques Rancière, which
contested the representational regime of art. Unlike in the representational regime, which emphasizes
the reproduction and communication of the author’s intentions, under the aesthetic regime an
expression emerges through each of the descriptive acts of objects and bodies. In this sense, the workof art is not a reproduction of the artist’s intentions. Even to the artist, those intentions can be revealed
only after the completion of the work. In this paper, I approach an image as a symptom instead of arepresentation.
From this perspective, I also refer to Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas, which represents a way of
thinking by means of images. Didi-Huberman said, “Expression according to Warburg is not thereflection of an intention; it is, rather, the return in the image of something that has been repressed.”
The image as a symptom escapes fixed meaning. Therefore, it has never been suited to data mining
and is inevitably misunderstood. This uncertainty activates the viewers’ inner images. To understandan image in itself means to activate the viewers’ inner images in line with their respective experiencesby using the clue of symptoms.
To understand an image as an image means neither to see a representation nor to read its visualquality. Instead, it means to appreciate the image in terms of symptoms that even the author can grasp
only a posteriori. Because of insufficiency of the image as a symptom, we think not only about “what”
the image represents and “how” it represents it, but also a lot about the image as a description.
Appreciating the image activates our internal images, through which we can connect our self-

Correspondence:
Kayoko KOMATSU, Nagaoka Institute of Design. Email: kkomatsu@nagaoka-id.ac.jp

K. KOMATSU

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formation with cultural formation, thus potentially enabling realization of the simultaneous productionof self and culture.
Key words: Jacque Rancière, aesthetic regime, symptom, Mnemosyne Atlas, arts-based research

Introduction
What function do images play in education? There are images that represent
educational content, such as illustrations in textbooks or wall pictures. The aim of using
these images is to deepen our understanding of verbal explanations, where “what” isrepresented is more important than “how” it is represented. The visual quality of theimage itself seems to be irrelevant; instead, the image can be viewed as a transparent sign
pointing to other things.
The visual quality of an image, such as its composition and color, has been part of thebasic training content of education for artists, and it is still studied in professional training
institutions today. Although some of these types of training are also pursued in school art
classes, the emphasis in school art is on the externalization of internal images on the basisof “ideas and concepts,” rather than “academic” training. Insufficient attention seems tobe paid to the fact that ideas and concepts are supported by culture. The issue of how tolink appreciation of culture with production based on the creation of images should be amajor one in art education today.
According to Michael Parmentier, human formation that is realized simultaneouslywith transformation of the external world requires both “cultural materials as intellectualand physical objects for self-formation” and “active subjects contributing to culturalformation.” Subjects participate in the formation of culture through their own activities
while accepting the culture (Parmentier, 2012, pp. 233–234). How can we realize this“simultaneous production of self and culture” (ibid., p. 234)? This paper aims to examine
the meaning of self-cultivation through images, i.e., Bildung (human formation) throughBilder (images), with a view to the production and appreciation of art.

1. Representation in education and art“We have long accepted that the world of pedagogy is a huge montage of images
and representations that are not ‘things themselves’, but only ‘point to’ things and facts”
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19(Mollenhauer, 2008, pp. 52–53). With reference to Comenius’ Orbis Sensualium Pictus(The Sensible World in Pictures), Mollenhauer refers to the “fundamental problem ofmodern pedagogy” as follows: “The educational world of the child must be constructedin such a way as to definitely reflect the reality in phenomena instead of just theirsuperficial appearance. This becomes possible only when the educational world of thechild correctly represents the cosmic order of things as well as it activates both sensibility
and understanding” (ibid., p. 67). Mollenhauer states that the purpose of Orbis
Sensualium Pictus was the creation of a “pedagogical mirror room.”
Furthermore, Mollenhauer states that the issue of representation is “not only apedagogical issue, but also an issue of the entire cultural habitus”; he points out that thestructure of Velázquez’s Las Meninas (The Maidens) is a mirror image that “encodes thecontent of educational theory” at that time (ibid, pp. 61–68).
Two things can be drawn from Mollenhauer’s statement. One is that education andthe plastic arts are both founded on representations that denote reality; i.e., they are
artificially reconstituted at a distance from reality. The other is that the plastic arts “playwith the border between virtuality and reality,” whereas education requires “correct
representation” (ibid., pp. 67). Thus, in the educational world, even representations
require good norms. So what kind of representation can be right?
On the other hand, in the history of art, the view of art as representation has beenquestioned since the advent of modernism. Clement Greenberg, who popularized theconcept of medium specificity, states that the most fundamental thing defining modernist
painting is “the ineluctable flatness of the support” (Greenberg, 1989, p. 196). He saysthat “Modernist painting asks that a literary theme be translated into strictly optical, twodimensional terms before becoming the subject of pictorial art” (ibid., p. 199). In otherwords, the form of “how” something is represented is regarded as more important than“what” is represented.
Nelson Goodman states that “Denotation is the core of representation and isindependent of resemblance” (Goodman, 1976, p. 5). Pictorial denotation “represents
something” with a certain translation. According to Goodman, in terms of denoting an
object, the picture performs the same symbolic action as the words that describe it.
Insofar as the image is taken as pointing to something, it acts as a symbol thatmediates some object or content. However, understanding an image as it is, is different
from receiving the denoted content. What does it mean to understand an image as it is?
The next section will consider this point on the basis of the theory of Jacques Rancière,
who discusses the difference between the representative regime and the aesthetic regime.

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2. Understanding an image as an image: Rancière’s theory of the“aesthetic regime”
Jacques Rancière distinguishes three regimes of art, namely the ethical regime, therepresentational regime, and the aesthetic regime. In the ethical regime, “art is not
identified as such.” It focuses on the usage and effects of images (Rancière, 2000, p. 27).
In contrast, the representational regime makes art autonomous as art. The “art” that weare familiar with was established under this regime. It is characterized by “therepresentational primacy of action over character or of narrative over description” (ibid.,
pp. 30–31). In the literature, the plot of the story takes precedence over the description of
the characters’ personalities and appearance. This regime has a normative character thatdefines the hierarchy of artistic themes and genres.
Against these two regimes, Rancière counterposes the aesthetic regime of art. Froma pedagogical perspective, it is important that Rancière refers repeatedly to Schiller’s
theory of aesthetic education as the “first—and in a sense insurmountable—manifesto”(ibid., p. 33) of the aesthetic regime of art. As is well known, Schiller states that beauty“is the common object of both [sense and form] impulses, that is to say of the play
impulse” (my brackets added; Schiller, 1954, Letter 15). The aesthetic regime of art isdriven exclusively by neither the sense impulse nor the form impulse, but by the play
impulse, which combines the former two impulses but is distinguishable from them.
Rancière adds that, “The aesthetic state is a pure suspension, and a moment in which form
is felt as itself. And it is the occasion of the formation of a specific humanity” (Rancière,
2000, p. 33).
To narrate a story through mimesis means to formalize a fluid reality into a narrative
world. The aesthetic regime subverts this process. However, that does not mean that thisprocess is subject to the sense impulse (Schiller, 2003, Letter 15). Just as Schiller regards
the object of the play impulse as the aesthetic properties of “vital forms,” so the aesthetic
plays freely with the fiction between material and form, so that we are “aestheticallyanticipating the future” (Rancière, 2000, p. 44).
Rancière cites the “Mallarméan idea of the poem of the spectator-poet, written‘without scribal apparatus’ by the steps of the illiterate dancer,” as an example of art
constituting aesthetic thought (ibid. p. 32). This is a different expression from thehylomorphism that imposes the artist’s formalizing will on the material; according to
Mallarmé, ballet is “une écriture de gestes (a writing of gestures)” and “une écriturecorporelle (a bodily writing)” (Rancière, 2003, pp. 108–109). The dancer’s steps
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themselves are descriptions. They do not represent some action or story, but rather an
expression that emerges each time through the descriptive acts of objects and bodies. In
this sense, the work is not a reproduction of the artist’s intentions.
This view of expression as description overlaps with that of Kulturwissenschaft(cultural studies)1, which rediscovers “the power of the image to generate value,” incontrast to the text-centered humanities (Nawata, 2022, p. vi). For example, Bredekamp’s
Bildakt (Image Act) considers “the image itself as an agent of action and examines
various aspects of the ‘action’ performed by the image” (Tanaka, 2022, p. 7). In otherwords, rather than images being read as symbols that denote something, the focus is on
the fact that the images themselves create meanings.
Unlike the representational regime, which emphasizes the reproduction andcommunication of the author’s intentions, under the aesthetic regime democratic equality
between different artistic genres, as well as between author and recipient, becomes
possible because “description instead of instruction” is regarded as important (Rancière,
2000, p. 17). In the aesthetic regime, descriptions are not meant to convey anything but
are merely traces inscribed on the page (or, as we saw earlier, on the dancer’s body). Whatis read into these traces is up to each recipient.

3. The image as a symptom: an attempt at arts-based research
Rancière points out that the “aesthetic revolution” that enables the equality of genres
and themes comes under the same logic as the “new historiography,” which finds thesymptoms of a time, a society, or a civilization in the minute details of ordinary life (ibid.,
pp. 50–51). Rancière, considering literature itself to be “a kind of symptomatology ofsociety,” considers that literary works that describe characters’ lives and dwellings as they
are exemplify the aesthetic regime (ibid., p. 51)
Aby Warburg, who is said to be “an important pioneering thinker in
Kulturwissenschaft” (Erll, 2022, p. 41), read images as symptoms. According to DidiHuberman, Warburg, regarding the image as “a result of movements that areprovisionally sedimented or crystallized in it” (Didi-Huberman, 2017, p. 19), pointed out
The title of the English version of Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft, written by Aleida Assmann, is
Introduction to Cultural Studies. However, Assmann said that “The genealogy of German Kulturwissenschaften isquite different from that of British and American ‘cultural studies’” (Assmann, 2019: 19).
1

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K. KOMATSU

that “what creates meaning in a culture is often its symptomatic, unthought, or
anachronistic aspects” (ibid., p. 28). Didi-Huberman tries to understand Warburg’s
scheme of deriving Pathosformel (emotive formulas) from Nachleben (survivals) inimages as follows. “The Pathosformel should not be translated in terms of semantics, oreven semiotics of bodily gestures, but in terms of psychological symptomatology” (ibid.,
p. 180). Didi-Huberman said, “Expression according to Warburg is not the reflection of
an intention; it is, rather, the return in the image of something that has been repressed”(ibid.).
Furthermore, “What the survivals remember is not the signified, which changes at
every moment and in every context, and in every relationship of forces it enters into, butrather the signifying line or feature [trait] itself” (original brackets, ibid., p. 110). In otherwords, “It is not the Gestalt (forms) that matters, but the Gestaltung (shaping process)”(ibid., p. 110). Focusing on the Gestaltung, the expressive person who leaves traces
comes into view.
Warburg tried to understand the “repressed” by means of the Mnemosyne Atlas as away of thinking by means of images (ibid., p. 296). In the Mnemosyne Atlas, “temporaryconfigurations of fragments of various images allow much more imaginative space thanmontage relationships because of their fragility in the process”2 (Tanaka, 2022, pp. 62–
63). The arrangement of images, and moreover the “movement of thought” (ibid., p. 120),
represented as the lines drawn by Warburg among images, is important.
The concept of the image as a symptom thus escapes fixed meaning. Therefore, it
has never been suited to data mining and is inevitably misunderstood. This uncertainty
activates the viewers’ inner images. To understand an image in itself means to activate
the viewers’ internal images in line with their respective experiences by using the clue of
symptom.
Inspired by Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas, we have been promoting Arts-Based
Research (ABR), which considers inquiry during creative practice as research (Komatsu,
2008). Shaun McNiff describes ABR as “a process of inquiry whereby the researcher,alone or with others, engages the making of art as a primary mode of inquiry” (McNiff,
2018, p. 24).
Artists create their works with inspiration from the works of other artists, historicalsituations, social issues, philosophical theories, literature, and many other things. Artists’inquiries are folded into their works but are not made explicit as such. Although artists
In this meaning, Tanaka regards the Mnemosyne Atlas as a parataxis that lacks syntax rules and common groundamong elements, rather than as a montage that needs conscious configuration.
2

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have some kind of image before the work is created, only through reflection after its
completion and its criticism by others do they realize what they wanted to express. In
other words, artists become aware of what has been created only by making their works
of art as symptoms. There is then no difference between the viewer trying to understandthe work by using the symptom as a clue, and the artist thinking through the making of
the symptom.
To understand an image as an image means neither to see a representation nor toread its visual quality. Instead, it means to appreciate the image in terms of symptoms thateven the author can grasp only a posteriori. Because of the insufficiency of the image asa symptom, we think not only about “what” the image represents and “how” it represents
it, but also a lot about the image as a description. Appreciating the image activates ourinner images, through which we can appreciate the image deeply. The aesthetic regime“shattering the mimetic barrier that distinguished the ways of doing art from other waysof doing and separated its rules from the order of social occupation” (Rancière, 2000, p.
33) always allows freedom of understanding. Activation of the images in accordance withthe experience and memory of viewers enables the viewers’ own transformation throughthe images.

Conclusion
Nowadays, especially in the business world, “Art Thinking” is suddenly flourishing,and creativity is required for innovation. Can Art Thinking deliver human formation?
What is the difference between ABR and Art Thinking?
The point of divergence lies in the relationship of art with culture. The argument for
using art for innovation does not question the quality of the art; it may not even have to
be art. It would not lead to either the transmission or the renewal of culture. We shouldask, “What culture is desirable for human formation?” Does the question turn us back to
the Kulturpädagogik (cultural pedagogy) of the early 20th century, which assumed theinheritance of culture as objectified mind?
Rancière, discussing aesthetic regimes, points to the identification of art with various
forms of life. This does not mean the incorporation of art into life. Rancière says that“politics and art, like knowledge, construct ‘fiction’” (ibid., p. 62). He does not separate
art from life as “art for art’s sake”; nor does he integrate art into life. The identification ofart with life means, as Schiller put it, “suspending” the two and bringing art and politics,
life and labor to a state of “fiction and free play” (Ibid., p. 39).
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So, the value of culture relies on activation of the internal image through individual
play with fiction. Culture enfolds various images and things, which generate newmeaning by relating to other images and things. The multilayered traces of images
connect self-formation with cultural formation in a way that differs from just following
the existing canonized culture.

References
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Didi-Huberman, G. (2017), The Surviving Image: Phantoms of Time and Time of
Phantoms, Aby Warburg’s History of Art, Translated by Harvey L. Mendelsohn, The
Pennsylvania State University Press.
Erll, A. (2022) Syugoteki Kioku to Souki Bunka: Memory Studies Nyumon (Kollektives
Gedächtnis und Erinnerungskulturen: eine Einführung (Japanese translation), Suiseisha.
Goodman, N. (1976) Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, Hackett
Publishing.
Greenberg, C. (1989) Modernist Painting, in Kostelanetz, R. ed., Esthetics Contemporary,
Revised edition, Prometheus Books.
Komatsu, K. (2018) Bijutsu Kyouiku no Kanousei: Sakuhin Seisaku to Geijutsuteki
Shousatsu (The Possibilities of Art Education: Creative Practice and Arts-Based
Research), (In Japanese) Keiso Shobo
McNiff, S. (2018) Philosophical and Practical Foundations of Artistic Inquiry: Creating
Paradigms, Methods, and Presentations Based in Art, In Leavy, P. ed., Handbook of ArtsBased Research, Guilford Press.
Mollenhauer, K. (2008) Vergessene Zusammenhänge: Über Kultur und Erziehung,Juventa Verlag.
Nawata, Y. (2022) Mono to Media no Jinbungaku: Gendai Doitsu no Bunkagaku(Objects and Media Humanities), (In Japanese), Iwanami-Shoten.
Parmentier, M. (2012) Museum Education: Kansei to Chisei wo Hiraku Souki Kuukan(Museumpadagogik: Das Museum als Bildungsort), (In Japanese), Keio University Press.
Rancière, J. (2000) Le partage du sensible: esthétique et politique, La fabrique edition.
Rancière, J. (2003) Le destin des images, La fabrique edition.
Schiller, F. (1954) On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Translated with an Introduction
by Reginald Snell, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
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The Image and Human Formation: With a view to the creation and appreciation of visual art

25

Tanaka, J. (2022) Imeji no Shirushi: Kiki no Shirushi (The Memories/ Shadows of
Images: The Signature of Crises), (In Japanese) University of Tokyo Press.

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

Understanding and Teaching Music Through Orality:
A Case Study in the Revival and Transmission of the Eastern
European Jewish Folk Music
Mariko MISHIROTokyo University of the Arts
Abstract
This study demonstrates the possibilities of understanding and teaching music through oral learning.
In considering the linkage among culture, human development, and education, scholars haveendeavored to emphasize the importance of oral experiences and to recognize the change in mentality
in the transition from the oral to the literate world. These endeavors have been contrary to thetransmission of knowledge and self-formation through writing and books, which have been dominant,especially since the 19th century. In the understanding and learning of music, oral learning is importantin addition to musical notation and literacy. For example, oral learning, which is characterized byrepetitive listening/imitation activities, and community learning have played important roles in theprocess of the revival and transmission of klezmer music or Eastern European Jewish folk music. In
terms of learning in music classes in elementary and junior high schools in Japan, not only literacy but
also oral learning is considered important for achieving the human development of the child, which is
the goal of Courses of Study.
Key words: Music Education, Orality, Literacy, Eastern European Jewish Folk Music, Characterbuilding.

1. Importance of the oral world in culture and education
In reconsidering the linkage among culture, human development, and education,scholars have endeavored to emphasize the reconfirmation of oral experiences andchanges in the mentality of people in the transition from orality to literacy. This notion isCorrespondence:
Mariko MISHIRO, Tokyo University of the Arts. Email: mishiro.mariko@ms.geidai.ac.jp

Understanding and Teaching Music Through Orality:
A Case Study in the Revival and Transmission of the Eastern European Jewish Folk Music27

in contrast to the transmission of knowledge and self-formation through writing andbooks, which have been prevalent since the 19th century.
Ong (1991) points out that a fundamental difference exists between oral culture andliterate culture in terms of thought and linguistic expression. In an oral culture, the author
cites that human thought is related to speech, and people do not abstractly order,
categorize, explain, or analyze facts, and statements, because they do not read or write.
Therefore, people learn by listening to others, repeating what they hear, memorizing
proverbs, combining and recombining them, or adopting clichéd ways of saying things.
In contrast, in a literate culture, words, and thoughts are more analyzed as words are
written. Without gestures, facial expressions, vocal inflections, or real listeners, written
speech requires a writer to carefully anticipate the expected meaning for any reader andsituation and to enable clear words to work without the aid of any lived context. Therefore,
the art of writing creates a sense of pursuing precision and analytical rigor that areinternalized in the cognition of people. In addition, writing separates the subject from theobject, which, thereby further segments the activity of reflection of the writer. In otherwords, by writing, the mind of the author becomes open not only to the external, objective
world that is distinct from the self but also to the internal self that is in opposition to suchan objective world (Ong 1991:218-219). The skill of writing creates a reflective sense of
self. As previously discussed, the transition from an oral to a literate culture has produced
a great change in the culture and in the consciousness and minds of people.
Illich (1991) posed a question about whether or not the mind acquired by humans
through this transition is reinforced and disseminated by enhanced literacy learning using
new techniques of phycology, management engineering, or electronics in the educationalsettings of today. Once people acquire initial literacy skills, they will no longer concretely
perceive things as they primarily did. Instead, they begin to draw inferences not only on
the basis of their practical experiences but also of assumptions formulated in the language(Illich 1991:112). However, only a contingent link exists between enhanced literacy
learning and the newly acquired mental framework of an individual of perception,
representation, reasoning, creativity, and sense of self. Therefore, the author points outthat the current enhanced literacy learning may diminish the literate mind (Illich
1991:112-113).
Sanders (1998) shared the concept of Illich (1991) and stated that if enhanced
literacy learning leads to the pursuit of only accuracy and clarity in reading and writingin schooling, then children with less experience of the oral world will only be able to read
and write under a standard of correctness imposed by an external force. The author thenargues that acquiring literacy related to the rich experience of the oral world is necessary
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M. MISHIRO

to regain the self-reflective, critically thinking self formed by true literacy (Sanders
1998:13). According to Sanders, in an oral world centered on speaking/listening, children
gain experience in using language to communicate with others and freely use their
imagination. When children enter the literate world, they become capable of considering
abstract rules in relation to concrete events and environments and of taking a critical lookat and orienting themselves.
The common point between Illich and Sanders is that strengthening the propertiesof thought and linguistic expression acquired through true literacy skills is important forthe self-formation of children. Toward this end, considering the change in the humanmind between the pre-literate oral world and the literate world is necessary.

2. Orality and literacy of music
In the case of music, literacy pertains to the ability to read and write sounds andmusic translated into visual symbols such as sheet music. Specifically, it is the ability toread and sing notes on a staff notation at the correct height and length. A musical notation
cannot convey the entire sound of music, but it can contain musical information, even inparts, without time, or space limitations. Furthermore, it can be a means of recalling musicat a later time. Notation enables music to remain intact for centuries and can be replayed
at any time. In addition, similar to writing, being written on a score enables the elaborationand creation of a sophisticated structure. However, even in the case of music based on
notation, such as western classical music, not all stylistic characteristics of music can beconveyed. Moreover, conventions that were assumed in performances in older times,
such as basso continuo and ornaments, are frequently not reflected in the score.
Alternatively, orality pertains to the oral transmission of music, in which a learnerlearns a tune or musical style by being taught by a master in a phrase-by-phrase manner.
This method of transmission is used for many folk songs and folk music worldwide. In
this manner, music reproduction frequently follows a strong rhythmic pattern or uses aclichéd melodic pattern. Musicians are also expected to use traditional sound materials tocreate performances that respond to the situation and the reaction of the audience. ManyJapanese music genres, such as nagauta, gidayu-bushi, and kabuki-bayashi, are genresthat emphasize the orality tradition to master the complex musicality required to produce
stylistically appropriate tones, voices, and ensemble performances (Tokumaru 2016: 240).
It is effective in developing a sense of style and flexible musicality, including variations,because it does not rely on musical notation. Even western classical music requires oral
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instruction by a teacher in lessons. In addition, kuchi-shoga (aural cues that use pitchedor rhythmic syllables), which is used in the study on gagaku, shamisen, and various vocal,
and instrumental music of the world, is a form that lies between oral and written forms.
For example, in the learning of Burmese classical songs, a teacher sings part of a melody,and the learner immediately imitates it. The repetition of this action proceeds in which a
songbook with lyrics plays an important role. Although this method is oral, it contains an
aspect in which the written form reconstructs the memory (Inoue 2007).

3. Oral tradition and literacy in the revival and transmission of klezmermusic
To illustrate the effectiveness of orality in music learning, the study focuses on thecase of klezmer music, which is an Eastern European Jewish folk music. Originallypassed down orally for several centuries, young Jewish musicians in the United States
revived this music after the tradition was in danger of dying out in the mid-20th century.
At the time of the revival, the traditional method of oral transmission was already lost,
but literate revivalists extracted the structure and style of the music from the available
materials and provided instruction that emphasized orality. This scenario is an exampleof the manner of the revival of music, which has developed exclusively as an oral culture,in the modern age through oral and written learning methods.
Klezmer music, which was nurtured by Eastern European Jewish communities
since the 16th century, is instrumental ensemble music played by musicians calledklezmorim (singular: klezmer). These musicians performed at weddings and holidays in
Jewish communities to facilitate ceremonies, evoke emotions appropriate to the occasion,and accompany dances. The tunes and performance styles were passed down fromklezmer families by directly learning by ear from the demonstrations of a master. Whenmany Eastern European Jews immigrated to North America since the end of the 19th
century, the center of this music moved to the United States (especially New York), where
it flourished for a time. However, klezmer music declined during the 1940s due to various
factors, including the assimilation of second-generation Jewish immigrants to theAmerican way of life, the collapse of the Eastern European Jewish communities due tothe Holocaust, and the emphasis on the Israeli/Hebrew culture and the shunning of the
Yiddish culture that accompanied the establishment of the State of Israel. However, in the
mid-1970s, young American Jewish musicians of classical, jazz, and folk music begancollecting, researching, and performing klezmer music in search of their roots. In contrast
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to other musical revivals of the same period, klezmer music had no homeland to returnto, such that these musicians reconstructed their music by finding and listening to oldrecords and learning directly from a few performers of previous eras. They repeatedly
listened to SP records from circa 1920s and carefully noting as many details of theperformances as possible and strictly imitating them to learn the tunes and styles. They
also formed master–student relationships with the surviving performers and invited themas lecturers at Jewish music festivals.
Since the revival, Jewish music festivals have become central venues for klezmer
music education. Various Jewish music festivals are held dependent on their purpose andorganizers. They are annually or biannually held for a few days to a few weeks mainly inNorth America, Europe, and Israel. Among them was KlezKamp in New York, which
was the forerunner of all Jewish music festivals since 1985. Henry Sapoznik, one of therevivalists, founded the KlezKamp to promote the Jewish culture, which was held every
December until 2014. Other music festivals were initiated in other areas with similar
events based on the success of the KlezKamp. This study demonstrated the characteristics
of Jewish music festivals, which were mainly based on the participant observations of theresearcher at two festivals, namely, Yiddish Summer Weimar, and Yiddish New York.
The first characteristic of klezmer music education at Jewish music festivals is theestablishment of learning in the community. The first music festival, KlezKamp, createdthe space and time for the transmission of klezmer music after the cessation of theexistence of the oral world of the Jewish community. At the time of its founding,programs were held exclusively for klezmer music; however, as various Jewish people
from different generations came together in search of a place to stay and as a result of
their demands, a diverse program was established. This program included not only
klezmer music but also vocal music, dance, language, literature, folklore, and cooking,among others. Thus, spontaneously, a place was created in which people could
experience not only klezmer music but also various forms of the Yiddish culture. For afew weeks or months every year, many people, including repeat visitors, share a common
culture through their bodies, which creates a cultural community and a temporary modern
re-creation of a lost Jewish community. For a few participants, the festival became an
important part of their lives with their children growing up with the festival and Jewish
coming-of-age ceremonies and weddings that occur during the festival.
In this context, participants are taught music by ear and mouth in principle. In
addition, an environment is created through coordination with other programs in which
participants can perform music in response to the movements of dancers as they unfold
before their eyes. These performances occur in the atmosphere and emotion of traditional
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Jewish rituals and in response to the reactions of the audience. In other words, they canlearn music within the oral world.
The second characteristic of klezmer education at these festivals is that learning
occurs through the body, that is, listening to the performance of an instructor, imitating itwith voice or instrument, and memorizing it through repetition. Through this learning
method, learners accumulate, and memorize the unique phrases and rhythmic patterns of
this music. As such, when they perform, they can draw on these notions in their style andexpression. Learning by ear enables them to acquire subtle styles of phrasing, intonation,
accent, rhythm, tone color, and ornamentation that cannot be expressed by musicalnotation. In addition, doing so promotes an understanding of the structure of the clichéd
melodic patterns that compose the melody and how they are spelled together. Lastly, theperformance is not fixed; thus, the performance of each player varies, which creates free,and varied performances because no musical notation is used.
As previously discussed, education at Jewish music festivals is orally conducted
through communal and physical learning, but it is also supported by literacy. The reason
is that instruction at Jewish music festivals is a result of the revivalists listening to thedetails of numerous old recordings and deriving the regularities involved in thecompositions and performance styles in klezmer music. Originally, klezmer music nearlylacked a theory for performance or composition and concepts or terminology for styleand structure. Thus, the revivalists addressed extracting these regularities through theanalysis of the remaining sound recordings and then created an effective method forlearning such knowledge and concepts along with the oral tradition. For example, they
identified the modal system that forms the basis for melodies and chords, typical melodic
patterns, and characteristic chord progressions. In addition, they realized that playing
melodies in heterophony is important, in which each player in an ensemble presents
different details instead of playing in unison and to vary it when a melody is repetitive.
These theories and aesthetics were not verbalized or systematized in the oral tradition of
the past. Instead, they were shared in the experience of playing. Once the tradition broke
down, however, they were passed on through musical notation and words in the present.
Thus, klezmer music education at Jewish music festivals succeeded inreconstructing and transmitting a large part of the characteristics of the oral culture
through orality and literacy. In this manner, it was revived as music for the modern age
instead of preserved and protected as the music of the past. In principle, music is not
written in musical notation. Instead, it is listened to, imitated, and memorized, which,thereby, promote an in-depth understanding of the unique verses, nuances, and otheraspects of the music. In addition, forming a cultural community render possible the
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M. MISHIRO

learning of music in an oral world, which enables performances to be adapted to
traditional social functions and the current situation.

4. Importance of orality in school music education
The example of klezmer music illustrates the importance of orality in the revival andtransmission of a vanishing traditional culture, which can be partially applicable to musiceducation in schools. According to the Courses of Study for elementary and junior highschool students (announced in 2017), the goals of music education include not only theacquisition of musical knowledge and skills, but also, beyond that, an understanding of
the relationship among musical mood, structure, and background, and the diversity ofmusic. It also includes the ability to express oneself through music according to the image
that one intends to express. In addition, one may infer that music learning is positioned
as a subject deeply related to the self-formation of children by fostering the developmentof cognitive and perceptive abilities related to music, such as expression, evaluation anddetermination, and the cultivation of sensitivity and emotionality relative to music. What,then, is the necessity of learning through orality for self-formation in music learning?
First, orality in music education practice is considered effective in enabling children
to listen to music without being bound by musical notation and to form and express theirself-image. The fixed nature of musical notation can lead children to constantly ascertain
the expressions of others and their own and their thoughts as right or wrong, which canhinder their natural feelings and thoughts toward and free expression in music. In addition,
children can directly recognize and perceive the sounds of music in terms of intensity,
tempo, timbre, and vocal nuance, among others, which cannot be written in notations.
Furthermore, children can independently perceive musical moods and structure, because
the perception of sounds as sounds (without words or symbols) is independent of themusical literacy of children. In addition, children can obtain an experiential understandingof concepts, such as rhythm, and scales, as well as the elements and forms that composea piece of music, by repetitive listening using the ears, imitating using the voice or
instruments, and experiencing using the body.
Second, oral learning enables communication through not only language but also
the body and voice and enables collaborative music-making along with connections toplaces, situations, and people. By exchanging and sharing voices, sounds, and physicalactions between teachers and students or among students, one can learn the sensitivities
and thoughts of others through their reactions and situations and changes in places andSymposium: Orality, Image, Memory and Bildung: Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on
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Understanding and Teaching Music Through Orality:
A Case Study in the Revival and Transmission of the Eastern European Jewish Folk Music33

devise one’s personal thoughts and expressions.
Third, the oral means of learning is effective for understanding the diversity of music.
In junior high school, one of the goals of music learning is to respect the inherent valueof different types of music and to enable students to understand their diversity. In addition,“using musical views and ideas,” as cited in the goal of the music course common toelementary and junior high schools, does not refer to a single viewpoint. Instead, it
expects students to acquire multiple views according to various types of music worldwide.
Therefore, recognizing the characteristics, and styles of various music not only asknowledge but also as experiences is necessary for children, such that they can directly
receive the unique narrative and expression of each music and understand them while
they expand their sensitivity.
For this reason, scholars are currently pursuing the research and implementation ofteaching methods that utilize the traditional teaching methods of each music, including
oral tradition, instead of the staff notation, which is associated with the characteristics ofwestern music. Since the beginning of the Heisei era, Japanese traditional music was nolonger taught using the stave notation but was required to adopt teaching methods, suchas traditional Japanese singing techniques and voice color through singing folk songs(Kojima 2018: 15-16). In this manner, the perspective of fostering an attitude ofawareness and respect for the positive qualities of the country and its local traditionalmusic culture is adopted. In addition, kuchi-shoga (oral singing for learning) can capture
the entirety of the tones, melodies, rhythms, and techniques of certain Japanese
instruments. Thus, scholars endeavor to use it to learn the characteristics of traditionalmusic expression, methods of transmission, and the relationship between Japanese
language and music (Tokumaru 2019: 2-3).
In the United States, where multicultural music education is advanced, Campbell(2004) proposed the “World Music Teaching Method” as a realistic strategy for
integrating various forms of music worldwide into the classroom in situations where
teachers are unable to perform and possess limited instruments and audiovisual resources.
This method consists of five activities as follows:(1) listening with attention to the various elements of music to guide children toward
the characteristics of the music in question;(2) listening physically by clapping and singing to actively engage them in the music;(3) reproducing music using voices and instruments based on memories they gained
from listening;(4) deepening their knowledge of the background of the music to help themunderstand music as a human activity; andE-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

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M. MISHIRO(5) creating songs according to the singing and structural characteristics of the music
they have learned to encourage them to reaffirm their awareness of thecharacteristics of music and to listen to it in a more conscious manner (Kanemitsu2016).
Clearly, this teaching method focuses on listening and imitating, which forms thebasis of oral learning, and on connecting it with creating music. Campbell mentions that
listening is typically the primary or sole method for learners to learn music in various
cultures. The reason is not only to become familiar with musical elements but also tounderstand pitch and rhythm, among others. It can be also a central process in music
learning in schools. In addition, the author mentions that listening must give way tocreating, and although learners may initially make mistakes when singing or playing
music they only partially understand, such mistakes can be corrected orally or by listening
to the correct sound (Campbell 2018:107). To learn about diverse music in the worldalong with its cultural backgrounds, school teachers need to adopt oral learning, which
was traditionally used in many musical cultures, and help children view music from theperspective of cultural relativism.
Today, compact disks, and online music distribution services provide access tovarious music any time and any place. However, a concern emerges that if music issimply accepted as a given, then it may not lead to personal development or the exerciseof creativity. In the case of klezmer music, the revivalists created a space for people tolearn about musical culture based on the oral traditions. In addition, they learned to listen
to/imitate the performances of their masters with the increase in interaction between them.
As a result, the innate qualities of klezmer music were transmitted without being lost.
One may infer that klezmer music was not simply revived as music of the past but was
re-created as music that is alive today. To render music education a truly effective place
for human development in terms of communication, connection with others, and theformation of self-image, then assigning a place for oral education along with literacy
education is desirable.

References
Assmann, Alaida. (2019) Souki no Bunka: Bōkyaku kara Taiwa he (Culture of
Remembrance: from Forgetting to Dialogue), translated by Haruki Yasukawa,
Suiseisha.
Campbell, Patricia Shehan. (2004) Teaching Music Globally: Experience Music,
Expressing Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
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35

Campbell, Patricia Shehan. (2018) Music, Education, and Diversity: Bridging Cultures
and Communities, New York and London: Teachers College Press.
Illich, Ivan (1999), Ikiru Shisō: Han Kyōiku/Gijyutu/Inochi. (Living Thought: AntiEducation/Technology/Life) (new edition), translated by Naofumi Sakurai, Fujiwara
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Inoue, Sayuri (2007) “Biruma Koten Kayō no Senritsu wo Motomete: Shoshō to Koushō
kara Sousaku he. (Seeking the Melody of Burmese Classical Songs: From Written and
Oral Transmission to Creation)”, Booklet “Let's Study Asia” (6), Fu Kyōsha.
Kanemitsu, Mariko. (2016), “P. Campbell no Sekai Ongaku Kyōjyuhō: Sono Riten to
Kadai (P. Campbell's World Music Teaching Method: Its Benefits and Challenges),”
Bulletin of the Faculty of Education and Human Sciences, Yokohama National
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Kojima, Ritsuko. (ed.) (2018) Seikatsu to Bunka wo Tunagu “Kyōdo no Ongaku” noKyōzai Kaihatsu to Jissen (Development of Teaching Materials and Practice for “Local
Music” Linking Life and Culture), Reimei Shobō.
Minegishi, Hashime (ed.) (2002) Nihon no Dentō Bunka wo Ikashita Ongaku no Shidou(Teaching Music with Traditional Japanese Culture), Akatsuki Kyōiku Tosho.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2018) Courses of Studyfor Elementary Schools (Notification of 2017), Tōyōkan Shuppansha.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2018) Courses of Studyfor Junior High Schools (Notification of 2017), Higashiyama Shobō.
Mishiro, Mariko (2018) “Gendai niokeru Klezmer Ongaku no Denshō to Denpa: Yudaya
Ongakusai no Katsudōnaiyō no Bunseki wo tōshite (The Present Transmission of
Klezmer Music : An Analysis of Two Jewish Music Festivals),” Bulletin of the Facultyof Music, Tokyo University of the Arts, Vol. 44, pp. 123-138.
Mishiro, Mariko (2019) “Yudaya Ongakusai no Workshop niokeru Klezmer Ongaku no
Shidouhou (Teaching Method of Klezmer Music in Jewish Music Festival Workshops),”
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Ong, Walter J. (1991), Koe no Bunka to Moji no Bunka (Orality and Literacy: The
Technologizing of the Word), translated by Sakurai, Naofumi, Hayashi Masahiro andKasuya Keisuke, Fujiwara Shoten.
Sanders, Barry (1998) Hon ga Sinutokoro Bōryoku ga Umareru: Denshi Media Jidai
niokeru Ningensei no Houkai (A Is for Ox: The Collapse of Literacy and the Rise ofViolence in an Electronic Age), translated by Taku Sugimoto, Shinyosha.
Sapoznik, Henry. Interview by author, April 6, 2018, Tokyo.
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American Klezmer, edited by Mark Slobin, Berkeley and LA: University of California
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Shimazaki, Atsuko and Kato, Tomiko (2013) Jyugyō no tame no Nihon no Ongaku,
Sekai no Ongaku: Sekai no Ongaku Hen" (Japanese and World Music for Classroom:
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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

Culture as Human, Culture as Network:
On the Theory of Bildung based on Memory Studies
Jun YAMANAThe University of Tokyo
Abstract
Today, the development of digital technology is bringing about major cultural changes in society. Thishas brought us back to the question: What is “culture”? It has also affected the discussion of Memory
Studies. Traditionally, “culture” in this field has tended to mean a state in which human memory
capacity is augmented by the use of writing tools, from wax tablets to computers. In contrast, thecultural situation is now imagined as a network and archive of information supported by digitaltechnology; the human is connected to the network as one of its nodes. Here, I discuss the shifting
metaphors of memory on the basis of Aleida and Jan Assmann’s theory of “cultural memory” andAndrew Hoskins’s theory of “memory ecology.” My findings suggest that these contemporary
discussions of memory theory have prompted a reconsideration of the theory of Bildung that has
examined the relationship between human beings and culture. I also offer future perspectives inrelation to the issue of education.
Key words: memory studies, metaphor, collective memory, cultural memory, Bildung.

Introduction: “Culture” as viewed through the metaphors of memory
Memory is not like a personal possession. The meaning of the past is influenced by
the environment and the persons around us. In this sense, one aspect of memory can beseen as the product of an interaction between individuals and their environment.
Therefore, there is no such thing as a complete individual memory. Famously, Maurice
Halbwachs explains this phenomenon by using the notion of “collective memory.” The
field of interdisciplinary-oriented research that considers memory and recollection in a
broad sense, taking into account the interaction between individuals and their
Correspondence:
Jun YAMANA, The University of Tokyo. Email: jyamana6s@p.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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J. YAMANA

environment, is now commonly referred to as “Memory Studies” (Erll 2017: 8). This
paper is based on Memory Studies and seeks to discuss education by examining themetaphors used to talk about “culture” in relation to the topic of “memory” and how they
have changed.
First, I will examine how “culture” is discussed in the theory of collective memory.
Here, especially the theory of “cultural memory (Kulturelles Gedächtnis)” proposed byAleida Assmann and Jan Assmann is regarded as a framework for the consideration
below, because it prefers “culture” as the most crucial concept for discussing collective
memory. As will be mentioned in detail later, Aleida and Jan Assmann refer to the term
“memory” as almost synonymous with “culture” in the cultural memory theory. It istherefore necessary to clarify what memory is in this context (Section 1). I then consider
metaphors for memory.1 Many theorists have dealt with these metaphors (Weinrich 1976,
Roediger III 1980, Draaisma 1999, Assmann, A. 1999, Sutton 2005, Hoskins 2011, Erll2017). Harald Weinrich emphasizes that it is impossible to think of an object such as
memory without resorting to metaphors (Weinrich 1976: 294). Moreover, metaphors canbe expected to serve as (hypothetical) models of thinking (ibid.) and “generate newtheoretical ideas” (Draaisma 1999: 29) of memory. The theory of collective memory
regards metaphors for memory as a sensitizing record of each era, reflecting its historicaland social context. Here, I note that it is important that Aleida and Jan Assmann discusscollective memories while viewing “culture” as an extension of humans (section 2). I
then mention that the durability of the abovementioned metaphors is being questioned in
the digital technological age (Section 3). Put simply, there is a struggle between “culture
as an extension of humans” and “culture as a network” in today’s society. Here, I refer tothe argument of Andrew Hoskins, who leads the discussion on such metaphorical shifts.
Next, I explore what the memory metaphors described above mean for the topic of“Bildung” (Section 4). The change in memory metaphors indicates a change in the mutual
generating of self and culture, i.e., a change of Bildung in the German philosophical sense.
I end with some comments on memory metaphors and Bildung in the future in light of
the above considerations (Section 5).

1

The basic framework of the issue of memory metaphors is presented in detail by Yamana (2022). My paper aims
further to connect it to the issues of a digital and technological society.
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1. What is “culture” in Memory Studies? An example of cultural memory theory
Aleida Assmann (1947–) and Jan Assmann (1938–) are two of the most important
representatives of the contemporary theory of collective memory (see Erll 2017: 24–31).
They place “cultural memory” as a key concept in their theoretical construction. Cultural
memory is built up over the long term in texts and images, ideas, and practices as cultural
heritage (Assmann, A. 2017: 181).2 On the basis of such objectivities, various specialists(e.g., clerics, conjurors, archivists) mediate interpretations of the past. Thereby, eachsociety stabilizes its own self-image and, in particular, conveys collectively sharedknowledge . . . about the past (Assmann, J. 1988: 15). The Assmanns’ concept of cultural
memory is broad and can include all anthropogenic objects, institutions, facilities, andbehaviors. Moreover, cultural memory implies not only the activated parts that give us
meaning, value, a sense of belonging, and identity in the present. Objects that lie in the
background but have the potential to be activated at any time (e.g., literary works thatnow sit at the back of library shelves and are no longer read) are also counted as cultural
memory. Aleida and Jan Assmann distinguish between the activated part, which they callthe functional memory (Funktionsgedächtnis), and the inactive part, called the storage
memory (Speichergedächtnis), whereby the boundary between storage memory andfunctional memory constantly changes (Assmann, J. 2001: 23). Their concept of culture
has an almost unrestricted breadth and depth, as shown by the explanation that cultural
memory in the broadest sense is the memory of human beings (Jan Assmann 2001). Suchan expanded theory of memory already includes a theory of Bildung, which will be
discussed later.
According to Aleida and Jan Assmann, collective memory is generated partly by
everyday discourses and community experiences. They distinguish it from cultural
memory by calling it communicative memory (Kommunikatives Gedächtnis) (Assmann,
J. 1992: 56; see also Assmann, A. 2017). Communicative memory can be preserved forthree generations (about 80 to 100 years), at most. Halbwachs assumed that the temporal
limit of collective memory could exist in this approximate time span. In reality, however,collective memory is a much longer-term phenomenon. Cultural memory is introduced
by Aleida and Jan Assmann as a concept to explain the mechanism by which this
temporal boundary of communicative memory is crossed.
As recognized by Aleida and Jan Assmann, cultural memory theory is positioned
within the German term Kulturwissenschaften, which is similar to Cultural Studies in the2

All text in the original German has been paraphrased into English by the author.

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English-speaking world. 3 “Culture” is the most important concept in
Kulturwissenschaften in general, as the genre’s German name includes this word. Aleida
Assmann, for example, emphasizes the difference between Kulturwissenschaften andtraditional Geisteswissenschaften, which is very close to the concept of Humanities inEnglish. She writes that the transformation of traditional Geisteswissenschaften into
Kulturwissenschaften is reflected in the achievement that the key concept of “Geist” [=spirit] has been replaced by new leading concepts, such as “symbol,” “media,” and“culture” (Assmann, A. 2017: 24, bold letters are the original author’s). According to her,the paradigm of Geisteswissenschaften relied on certain axial counter-concepts, such as
spirit and material, subject and object, history and nature, explanation and understanding(ibid.). However, the strategic implications of the concept of “culture” at the core ofKulturwissenschaften lie in undercutting the abovementioned leading concepts of the
19th century, which were decisive until the 1970s (ibid.: 25). Aleida Assmann continues
on to say that whereas the concept of Geist was aimed at identifying, isolating, andaffirming an emphatic human factor in the cultural process, Kulturwissenschaften shifts
its attention to structures, processes, and practices in an environment that is thought of as
technomorphic from the outset (ibid.).

2. Culture as an extension of humans
There is no rebuttal to Aleida Assmann’s emphasis of the differences between
Kulturwissenschaften and Geisteswissenschaften. At the same time, however, it should
be pointed out that these two terms have some kind of continuity between them, as far as
the concept of “culture” is concerned. Whereas Kulturwissenschaften regards “culture”
as one of its keywords, the same concept is also considered to be a main term inGeisteswissenschaften. There are some similar features between the two. In particular,
Kulturphilosophie (Cultural Philosophy) and Kulturpädagogik (Cultural Pedagogy) in
the field of Geisteswissenschaften positioned “culture” as an externalization of the Geistof humans. In other words, Geisteswissenschaften and Kulturwissenschaften seem toview “culture” as an extension of humans.
From our point of view, it is first important to turn our attention to
According to Aleida Assmann, Kulturwissenschaften in Germany emerged at the beginning of the 20th century
with Georg Simmel, Abi Warburg, and Walter Benjamin. After an interruption during the Nazi era and subsequent
stagnation, it was developed again in the 1970s and 1980s and ensured its status in the academic fields in the 1990s(Assmann, A. 2017: 24).
3

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Kulturwissenschaften and, in particular, to the theory of cultural memory. Aleida and Jan
Assmann’s concept of “culture” is obviously captured through metaphor-based thinking
about individual memory. This is most evident in their account of functional and storage
memory. According to Aleida Assmann, storage memory is partly unaware and partly
unconscious memory [in the sense of Freud] (Assmann, A. 1999: 136), which can supply
meaning to functional memory, depending on the situation. Also, conversely, functional
memory can be transformed into storage memory.
It is Sigmund Freud’s concept of human consciousness that underlies such a twolayered account of cultural memory. As is well known, in his essay Notiz über den‘Wunderblock’ (A Note upon the “Mystic Pad”) (1925/1948), Freud describes thefunctioning of the human mind as similar to that of a magic tablet. This is a writing boardof dark resin or wax on which sits a translucent sheet of waxed paper covered by atransparent protective sheet of celluloid. On the board, one can write some letters with astylus and then erase them by lifting up the waxed paper. According to Freud, the humansystem of perception and consciousness receives new stimuli from outside, like thetranslucent waxed paper of the magic tablet. However, the letters that disappear do not
return to nothingness but leave slight traces on the wax plate. Similarly, Freud believed
that, behind the system of perception and consciousness, the mind has another system inwhich permanent tracks of records (Freud 1948: 3) are preserved. In his theory, the objectof human memory is captured by the metaphor of the magic tablet. This in turn meansthat the magic tablet as a cultural product is imagined as the extension of human memory.
This Freudian view of the human inside world and culture inspired Aleida Assmann’s
theory of functional and storage memory.
Jan Assmann also states that the concept of storage memory opens up possibilities
in the direction of the cultural form of unconsciousness, and that culture . . . is similar topersonal memory [at this point] (Assmann, J. 2001: 23). In extending Freud’s theory ofpsychological repression to the theory of cultural memory, he discusses the formation of“crypts” in culture (Assmann, J. 2001: 24)—that is, the formation of background-likememory spaces similar to the stone chambers beneath churches. According to Jan
Assmann, what is hidden in these cultural crypts does not return to nothingness, but ispreserved as counter-memory.
This way of thinking, which extends the inner memory of humans to the memoryof culture, is not strange for Geisteswissenschaften and for German idealism, as it is theirfoundation, in which the “inner Geist” is thought to be externally expressed as the “outer
Geist” and to form culture. It seems, rather, that Kulturwissenschaften, despite theaforementioned attempts to distinguish itself from Geisteswissenschaften, carries the
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tradition of the latter within it. At least with respect to cultural memory theory, it can be
hypothetically stated that the interior (“spirit” and “memory”) and the exterior (“culture”)
of humans are understood as continuous through the metaphor of the extension ofhumans, in both Geisteswissenschaften and Kulturwissenschaften.

3. Memory and culture as a network in the age of media technology
The assumption of culture as the extension of humans in cultural memory theory
clearly began to falter at about the turn the 21st century. Jan Assmann states that, with therevolutionary development of electronics and the Internet as new storage media andcommunicative media, profound changes in the architecture of cultural memory began
to happen (Assmann, J. 2001: 25). These changes have brought new phenomena in which
the boundaries between communicative and cultural memory, between functional andstorage memory, and between archive and crypt (Assmann, J. 2001: 25) are shifted andblurred.
Aleida Assmann also explains in her main work, Erinnerungsräume (Memory
Spaces) that the metaphorical way of remembering reaches a limit with the network(Assmann, A. 1999: 178). As already shown by Freud’s example, understanding culture
as an extension of humans is coupled with explaining humans as instruments that areparts of culture. Human memory has been portrayed through the metaphor of writing
tools, from the wax tablet in ancient times to the modern computer. However, the lastparadigm shift of our guiding metaphors leads to the network, which is a desensualized,
hollowed-out metaphor (Assmann, A. 1999: 178).
Aleida and Jan Assmann have not actively mentioned the future of memory
metaphors since the beginning of the 21st century. At the intersection of media theory andcollective memory theory, hybrid research in both fields has been launched anddeveloped as media technology has evolved (see Erll 2017, particularly Chapter 5,“Media and Memory”). It is Andrew Hoskins who seems to extend the Assmanns’
concern with memory metaphors in this context. He focuses on the condition in which
the influences of media as “the holistic mix of techniques, technologies and practices
through which social and cultural life is mediated” (Hoskins 2011: 20) permeate all of
our life situations.4 We are living under conditions of information networks and artificial
Hoskins describes reality after the “connective turn” by quoting the sentence by Roger Silverstone that “just as
water is a prerequisite for fish, so is media for humans” (Hoskins 2011: 20). This does not mean that the real worldis already completely modeled after such a worldview. In school education, it has been common to measure4

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storage media. Here, “the glut of media is also a glut of memory” (ibid.: 19). Hoskins
calls the changing the situation a “connective turn” that has brought “the radical
networking and diffusion of memory ushered in with the advent of digital technologies”(ibid.: 23) at the beginning of the 21st century.
What will the metaphor of culture as the extension of humans become beyond the“connective turn”? According to Hoskins, this radical change “undermines the biological,
social and cultural divisions and distinctions of memory” (ibid.: 21). In fact, thedistinction between human memory and artificial memory becomes blurred, because “weconnect to our web memory” and “our web memory connects to us” (ibid.: 24). Hoskins’s
consideration style is characterized as a kind of posthumanistic way of thinking, which
breaks with the tradition of capturing culture through human metaphors. His emphasis is
not on reducing culture to the level of humans and limited writing tools, but on grasping
the dynamics of the interrelationships between humans and the various digital and nondigital elements that make up culture in the present.
Hoskins’s interpretation of the new culture is inspired by the concept of “media
ecology” in media theory.5 In his understanding, media ecology is “the idea that media
technologies can be understood and studied like organic life-forms, as existing in acomplex set of interrelationships within a specific balanced environment.” (ibid.). Hereis an observational stance that “steps back for a view of the whole, to make claims about
the sum of the parts.” Hoskins applies such an observational gaze to the topic of memory
as well. He continues: “So, rather than hiving ‘memory’ off into distinct and separate
zones or even ‘containers’—the body, the brain, the social, the cultural etcetera—an
ecological approach is interested in how these together work or don’t work in producing
memory.”Hoskins, along with Stephen D. Brown (Brown and Hoskins 2010), calls theconsideration of memory from such a perspective a new “memory ecology” andemphasizes the relevance of this thinking style today. He emphasizes that media life isalso memory life. Today, “[m]emory is lived through a media ecology whereinabundance, pervasiveness and accessibility of communication networks, nodes, anddigital media content, scale pasts anew. An ecological modeling is therefore needed tocompetencies by testing in “unnatural” situations where the connection to the digital network is prohibited—at least
until the present.
5
Hoskins names George Orwell, Neil Postman, Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and Neil Postman as key figuresin “media ecology” (Hoskins 2011: 24). In their time, however, culture was still perceived under the image of“extensions of man,” as McLuhan formulated it in the title of his major work (1964). From Hoskins’s perspective,
it seems that today’s reality can no longer be captured by this way of thinking, which worked until the eve of thedigital revolution (Hoskins 2011: 23).
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illuminate a holistic, dynamic and connected set of memory’s potential itineraries.” (ibid.:29).

4. Transformation of the theory of Bildung in relation to the metaphorof memory
Instead of the consideration of culture as the extension of humans, Hoskins proposes
a way of thinking that regards culture as a network of elements and a storehouse of
information, with the human as an element or node of that network. In the eras of new
media (big cities, new means of transportation, cinema, television, and the Internet),
people have had a mixture of expectation and anxiety (see Rosa 2005). When discussing
the “connective turn,” Hoskins seems to be aware of the complicated situation of thosetimes. He states: “The shifts in media memory cultures reflect a tension between those
who accept a vision of memory as always already transformed—medialized—and those
who resist and condemn the metaphorical and medial expansion of the memory.” (ibid.:29).6
It is not the purpose of this essay to comprehensively consider the situation of new
media and to diagnose memory culture. From the viewpoint of educational philosophy,
however, we cannot overlook the fact that the shift in memory metaphors is related to thetheory of mutual formation between self and culture, which is called the theory of Bildung(see Dörpinghaus et al. 2013). Here, I return to the discussion by Aleida and Jan Assmann
to confirm the relevance of cultural memory theory to the theory of Bildung and toconnect it to the question of memory metaphor.
The most important point in the context of this discussion is that memory theory intoday’s Kulturwissenschaften maintains the idea of Bildung by connecting withtraditional Geisteswissenschaften by using the concept of culture as a clamp. This is
typically confirmed in Aleida Assmann’s own mention of the concept of Bildung. For her,
Bildung is nothing more than participation in cultural memory. It has a bindingness(Verbindlichkeit) that connects people both diachronically and synchronically, allowing
them to participate in a common identity (Assmann, A. 2002: 25). In another text, Aleida

As an example of the negative influences of the expansion of memory through media, Hoskins mentions concerns
about the fragmentation of attention and the loss of memory ability through “outsourcing” to the Internet (Hoskins
2011: 26–27). As a positive example of digital technology, he presents the extensive “monumentalization” ofmemory through reconstruction of the past in “hyper-narratives” (e.g., the “timeline” of the circumstances of thebombing incident in London 2005 in a multimodal archive) (ibid.: 28).
6

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Assmann mentions that knowledge based on cultural memory can be constantly repeatedlearned, memorized and subjectively appropriated, and embodied (Assmann, A. 2017:
187). She notes that an important part of cultural knowledge that is materialized in sucha way and that concerns the way of identity is called Bildung. It is supported by theinstitution of canonization (ibid.: 188).7 By inheriting a “canonized” culture, people arelinked to memories separated in time and space and are given a cognitive framework ofself and group identity and communality. Education is positioned as a catalyst for thisprocess.
The way of thinking about culture as the extension of humans is also the basis forthe scenario of Bildung. This can mean an upheaval in the hitherto familiar image of
Bildung. Media technologies, with their dramatically increased storage, retrieval, andtransmission capacities, enable the availability of even the most seemingly remote
information at any time (Assmann, J. 2001: 26), so that center and periphery are no longer
determined by socially and culturally predefined criteria and filters, but by the curiosity,interest, and taste of the respective “user” (Assmann, J. 2001: 26). With the realization ofsuch networks, which are also high-performance archives characterized by immediacy
and penetration,8 the image of Bildung will have to change. The process of Bildung
underpinned by transmission of the cultural canon will have to be significantly disrupted
as individuals become increasingly able to form functional memories freely from the
myriad of storage memories in the network of cultural memories. The space oftransmission will be wider. The number of representations and the speed of theirgeneration will increase. All of this can affect the culture of remembering and canstrengthen a group’s identity. At the same time, such changes in cultural memory canpromote the definition of boundaries of the group to the outside world. Conversely,
however, these changes can create experiences that shake and transcend boundaries. We
are living in the midst of such a difficult perspective in terms of the theme of Bildung.

Aleida Assmann explains the term “canonization” in the following way: The institution of canonization, theformerly religious enhancement form of selection, extends to artistic artifacts as well. Works that acquire the statusof a classic through canonization are books, pictures, films or pieces of music, which differ from the abundance ofwhat is preserved in libraries and archives by the claim to be read, seen, heard, recognized, appropriated, or learned
by heart repeatedly—in short, re-embodied (Assmann, A. 2017: 188).
8
The following statement by Hoskins may suggest the unity of the Internet and digital archives today. “Theseemingly obsessive immediacy of instant or real-time connection/publication/dissemination on the Internet(including the sending of texts, emails, or other messaging services) creates a digital archive that is unimaginableboth in its scope and in its accessibility and searchability.” (Hoskins 2011: 26).
7

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5. Some comments on the struggle of memory metaphors and Bildung
in the future
What should be done based on such observations about the contemporary? There
are two main options that immediately come to mind. One is to capture culture througha network metaphor, and the other is to stay in the human metaphor. Depending on which
we choose, the picture of Bildung will be very different. However, a two-party answer
does not seem appropriate for this issue.
It is inevitable and important to continue the search for appropriate metaphors formemory. Hoskins, as mentioned earlier, clearly recommends a network metaphor. Evenin this position, he introduces arguments that point to the dangers of contemporary mediaderived metaphors for memory. According to such arguments, the characteristics ofmodern media (permanence, precision, and immortality) can create the illusion that theyalso apply to finite human memory. Hoskins then affirms today’s digitally enhanced
human capacity and argues that media-derived metaphors are necessary to comprehend
this situation (ibid.: 22).
The human metaphor of memory has not yet been fully replaced by the network
metaphor. The two exist in the same place without fully getting along. The network
metaphor does not limit the subject to humans, but rather suggests the possibility of
breaking free from the human subject and going beyond anthropocentric theories ofmemory and culture. When Hoskins indicates his position by using the concept of the“ecology of memory,” he is clearly trying to give a positive nuance to the term “ecology.”
At the same time, however, there is a (currently unavoidable) gulf between the network
metaphor and the finite human being, who cannot always be on standby. In short, thisgulf is the individual’s fear of being reduced to a node in the vast information world of
the network. Metaphors are strongly involved in shaping reality, as they introduce newtheoretical ideas and establish coherence in hypothetical processes (Draaisma 1999: 29).
Such a reality would, of course, include the field of education. We need an effective
metaphor to mediate between the principle of not privileging humans and the principleof not neglecting humans.

Acknowledgments
This paper is based on the manuscript of my presentation for the symposium “Oral
Tradition, Images, Memory and Bildung: An Attempt at Pedagogy of
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Kulturwissenschaften” at the 65th Annual Conference of the Philosophy of Education
Society of Japan held at Keio University on October 22, 2022. It is part of the results ofresearch funded by JSPS (Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science) KAKENHI
Grant-in-Aid Numbers JP19K02498 and JP21K18530.

References
Assmann, Aleida (1999) Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen
Gedächtnisses, München: Verlag C. H. Beck.
———— (2002) Drei Formen von Gedächtnis. In: P. Rautmann/ N. Schalz (Hrsg.):
Zukunft und Erinnerung. Perspektiven von Kunst und Musik an der
Jahrtausendwende. Bremen: Hauschild, S. 14–26.
———— (2017) Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaften: Grundbegriffe, Themen,
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Assmann, Jan (1988) Kollektives Gedächtnis und kulturelle Identität, Jan Assmann &Tonio Hölscher (Hrsg.), Kultur und Gedächtnis, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, S. 9–19.
———— (1992) Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität
in früheren Hochkulturen, München: Verlag C. H. Beck.
———— (2001) Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, Kolliquien des Max Weber-Kollegs XV–XXIII V, S. 9–27. (Archiv- und Publikationsserver der Universität Erfurt,
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Gedächtnisses, Konstanz: UVK, S. 7–11.
Brown, Steven D. & Hoskins, Andrew (2010) Terrorism in the new memory ecology:
mediating and remembering the 2005 London bombings, Behavioral Sciences ofTerrorism and Political Aggression, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 87–107.
Dörpinghaus, Andreas, Poenitsch, Andreas, & Wigger, Lothar (2013), Einführung in die
Theorie der Bildung. Darmstadt: wbg.
Draasima, Dowe (1999) Metaphernmashine: Eine Geschichte des Gedächtnisses,übersetzt von Verena Kiefer, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (1995).
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Erll, Astrid (2017) Kollektives Gedächtnis und Erinnerungskulturen. Eine Einführung (3.,aktualisierte und erweiterte Aufl.), Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag.
Freud, Sigmund (1948) Notiz über den “Wunderblock”, Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 14,
London: Imago Publishing, S. 3–7 (1925).
———— (1950) Konstruktionen in der Analyse, Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 16, S. 43–56(1937).
Hoskins, Andrew (2011) Media, memory, metaphor: Remembering and the connective
turn, Parallax, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 19–31.
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Life and Culture as Support for Education
Hiromoto MAKABE
Keio University
Hasegawa Nyozekan (1875-1969), born in Fukagawa, Tokyo in 1875, was aprogressive journalist and thinker who maintained an anti-authority and anti-fascist
stance throughout the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods. He developed a unique"philosophy of common sense" based on the ethos of the craftsmen's world of downtown
Edo, while also learning from British empiricism and American pragmatism (Hasegawa,1987). In a series of lectures given on NHK after World War II, he discussed culture,philosophy, democracy, ethics, entertainment, religion, and education in the crisp
downtown Edo dialect of rakugo. Even today, when the media environment has changed
drastically, he seems to have included some thoughts on "culture and education," thetheme of this research discussion, that are worth listening to.
According to Nyozekan, there are two types of education. One is "verbal education,"
which is provided by educators through educational institutions, and the other is"education of life", which is provided in daily life between people and between people
and things. For the former to function, he says, the latter must be strongly alive.
This educational theory is easy to understand at first, but as one reads further, it
begins to take on a more complex aspect. In other words, even in school education, whichmainly focuses on "language education," "life education" through mutualcommunication by means of the teacher's facial expressions, actions, movements, andvocal sounds is also at work, and "language education" also exists in "life education. For
example, the latter is said to be "education through language or action in literature, drama,
storytelling, rakugo, and other forms of education" (Ibid., p. 245). He places particularemphasis on drama.
As I mentioned earlier, seeing with the eyes and hearing with the ears all thephenomena and forms of human life that come into contact with the sense of sight andhearing, this is the education of life. It is not life itself, but the art of living, which is alsoa kind of life education. These are not literature of written language, but literature of
Correspondence:
Hiromoto MAKABE, Keio University. Email: hmakabe@keio.jp

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H. MAKABE

spoken language. (Ibid., p. 245)
For Nyozekan, the basis of school education is the "education of life" in the worldof action, but art, which looks back on that world and expresses it in a fictional way, also
plays an important role. It seems that Nyozekan considers the two together as "culture"and considers them to support education. So, what does he mean by "culture"? Let us
take a closer look. In his lecture, Nyozekan, first and foremost, bitterly criticizes thecultural philosophy influenced by German philosophy (probably the neo-Kantian school)that dominated prewar Japan, especially during the Taisho Democracy period. They saythat the culture they refer to means the idea of pure and absolute beauty that is far awayfrom our daily lives, and high art as the embodiment of such beauty, and that this is aperversion of the true meaning of the word. They counterpoint this with the British wayof seeing culture.
Culture, however, is the form of our human life. Form is to the mind as it is to objects.
[...omitted...].
In other words, according to empirical thinking, it comes from the relationshipbetween man and man, and from the relationship between man and nature, and it is not a"idea" that comes first and foremost, but a form of human behavior.
Actions, in other words, are the things we do daily, such as eating, exercising,playing games, and various occupational tasks. While you do these things, you will
naturally develop a form of behavior. That is culture. (Ibid., pp. 47-48)
The interaction between people and between people and nature and the environment
creates "feel-good forms," sharpening the senses and developing culture. Thus, whilebased on the everyday world, the culture of form develops in a complex and specific way
along all aspects of professional life, and the culture of objects and the culture of mind of
carpenters, peasants, scientists, philosophers, and religious people, respectively, develop.
And all of them were born and developed to enhance everyday life, not for the sake ofbeauty per se, or for the sake of a priori ideas.
As he himself noted, his understanding of culture, based on British empiricism,recalls the aesthetic empiricism of pragmatism. However, we must not forget that
Nyozekan's family was the master carpenter who led the construction of Edo Castle.
Although not preserved in written form and therefore out of our sight, Edo thoughtprobably included not only the Confucian and Buddhist ideas of the samurai and
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educated people, but also a kind of rational and ethical life philosophy, or ethos, that was
nurtured in the lives of merchants and craftsmen and supported their education andlivelihood. I believe that this ethos was still alive in Nyozakan, who was born in the early
Meiji period, and as a result, he was attracted to and studied British empiricism andAmerican pragmatism, which were similar, and developed a language to discuss modern
society. For Nyoseki, culture is the totality of the forms of things and minds with a kindof ethics, which are created through the interaction between human beings in their daily
lives, and between human beings and nature and the environment, and which have beenrefined and developed into art, thought, and religion.
By the way, the idea of insisting on the close relationship between life and culture
has something in common with Muneyoshi Yanagi (1889-1961), who led the folk-art
movement, “Mingei movement”, in the Taisho era (1912-1926), although it was still
before World War II. As is well known, Yanagi was a contributor to "Shirakaba," areligious philosopher, a William Blake scholar, and an introducer of modern European
art such as Rodin's. He was also deeply interested in local cultures and made efforts tointroduce and preserve them, sometimes in opposition to the state power. He was a person
who devoted himself to the introduction and preservation of local cultures including
Korean Peninsula, Okinawa, Ainu, and Tohoku. Moreover, he paid attention not to theworks of famous artists, but to vessels, kimonos, and tools made by nameless craftsmen.
In the Buddhist aesthetics based on the Pure Land philosophy that Yanagi developed afterWorld War II, he saw in these works a beauty that transcended the dualism of beauty andugliness, the "beauty of the indivisible," and criticized such a thought which says that the
beauty is the result of skillful workmanship and the ugliness fails to attain that level ofperfection. We see beauty in the work of the "Myokonin" (uneducated pious believers of
the Jodo Shinshu sect), which is born out of a desire to make something beautiful, andwhich, while aiming for practical use, is the result of the potential of the object itself("jinenhoni"). Fearing the collapse of this world, he developed the Mingei (folk art)
movement. At first glance, this may appear to be a restoration of the past, but in fact, it
was a cultural editorial effort to create a new culture.
About one hundred years after Nyozekan criticized the cultural philosophy of theneo-Kantian philosophy, Kulturwissenschaften (cultural science), a cross-disciplinary
cultural study that transcends the boundaries of the humanities and sciences, is flourishingin Germany, and the traditional German concept of culture that Nyozekan had criticizedis being substantially modified. This is characterized by the shocking title of Friedrich
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Kittler's collection of essays, "Die Austreibung des Geistes aus denGeisteswissenschaften" (1980), which was one of the leading exponents of culturalscience. Banish the spirit and study culture. What does it mean? His main work, "Writing
Systems (Aufschreibesysteme) 1800-1900" (originally published in 1985, translated into
Japanese in 2021), is a media-historical cultural study that exposes how our perceptionof the world changes when the tools of writing change. Kittler's position criticizes theview that culture is an externalization of spirit, a basic assumption from Hegel toGeisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik and perhaps the Frankfurt School, and argues thatthe objects and media, although being considered mere tools of the spirit, are the main
subject of the discussion of people and culture. That is, the cultural technology, which is
the way of handling objects and media (letters, paper, printing technology, typewriters,
phonographs, canvases, boards, films, etc.), must be studied as main theme, Theemphasis has shifted from subjects and spirit to objects and media. This is a way oflooking at culture based on the same concept as the "Actor Network Theory (ANT)" of
Latour, who studies scientific anthropology in France.
There, the psyche or the spirit as an entity and the human being as a reflective andconscious person of life, in other words, as a subject, is also not assumed. This idea is said
to be already recognized in Cassirer's "philosophy of symbolic forms," which is also
considered one of the origins of the cultural studies. Cassirer himself began his work as a
neo-Kantian in Marburg, but in his interactions at the University of Hamburg withanother source of cultural science, Aby Warburg, who pursued cross-disciplinary
iconography as a matter of cultural memory while evading the scrutiny of the "border
guards", Cassirer underwent a departure from transcendental philosophy, in which thespirit plays a leading role, to symbol philosophy, in which the symbolic form seems to be
the subject. According to Cassirer, culture is nothing more than a network of various
symbolic forms in tension with each other, behind which one cannot find a unified spirit
or thought (see Makabe 2022).
In this way, culture is no longer the totality of classical works and texts created by
the spirit, but the totality of cultural technologies carried out in daily life and produced asa result, and human beings are merely the performers of these practical acts. For example,
Hans Belting's image anthropology (Bildanthropologie) and Horst Bredekamp's"Imageology (Bildwissenschaft)" are not interpretations of the spiritual meaning ofpaintings and sculptures that are considered masterpieces, but rather the previously
neglected illustrations, notated the "Imageology (Bildwissenschaft)" focuses on therelationship between the image (Bild) and its material support (media), as well as its
practical use. It is a pragmatics, not a semantics, of the icon. The focus is on how images
Symposium: Orality, Image, Memory and Bildung: Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on
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are used in everyday life and in ritual practice, what meaning emerges from thisperformative process, and what kind of world emerges.
Thus, contemporary German cultural science seems to be changing the traditional
concept of culture. Culture is no longer spoken of in the singular, but in the plural. The
logic behind the practical acts (Praktiken) of using objects, media, and cultural
technologies is explored, and changes in perception of the world through media, identity
transformation of ethnicity groups, and cultural memory are considered.
But how does this redefinition of the concept of culture by the cultural studies affectpedagogy? This may already be seen in the historical anthropological research of
Christoph Wulff and his colleagues, who consider culture as rituals and performative acts
based on the concept of mimesis. In Japan, I think we can feel some of this influence inthe studies of Shoko Suzuki and Yasuo Imai, as well as in the presentations by the
speakers.
There are two questions I would like to ask you all in common here.
(i) Is a "cultural scientific pedagogy" possible? Can we really talk about culture
and education without the "spirit"? Pedagogy has so far taken subject formation,
autonomy or freedom, culture, humanity, and nation-building as its main concepts when
discussing the relationship between education and culture. However, cultural scienceobserves cultural issues from the opposite direction as described above, from thestandpoint of the post-human, and perhaps describes education in this direction as well.
We can already see this in the study of "fusion of humanities, arts, and sciences". However,I believe that this trend and "pedagogy" will eventually separate. We cannot think of"pedagogy" without the main axis concept as described above. Or are we witnessing the"end of pedagogy"?
(ii) Although I have said that the cultural concept of cultural science is coming closer
to the cultural concept of Nyozekan and Yanagi, it is also true that there is a significant
difference that cannot be overlooked. The culture of food, clothing, and house that makeup our lives have already become entangled in the culture industry, the massive
information industry, and the global economy, and the ethos that has been cultivated in
tradition and has ethical implications has already been lost. Nyozekan and Yanagi hopedthat the practical acts and behaviors of daily life and physical and performative culture
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would play a role in supporting education through letters and books, but this may be adifficult assumption to make in the present age.
At the same time, however, I also believe this. No matter how much we havechanged, we must live with our children, who will be responsible for the future, by
sharing food, clothing, and house with them. Even if the family and lifestyle no longer
have the form envisioned by Nyozekan and Yanagi, we must still live a life in which we
can feel joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure with them. If this is the case, then we need toconsider a new form of life and culture that will support education. And this is first andforemost a problem for us as adults ourselves.
So, I ask you all. Is it possible to conceive of a new life and culture that supports
education today? If so, what will be important in doing so? Ms. Mishiro's klezmer music
revival movement sounds like a promising example. Ms. Komatsu's ABR experiment as"activation of internal images" seems to me to provide an opportunity to create a new
culture by rethinking our lives in a reflective way. In addition, Mr. Yamana's position of
seeking a new metaphor of memory between the human metaphor of memory and the
network metaphor of memory, I sense a "pedagogical" attitude that is different from thetrends in cultural science. I would be happy to hear from you about this part of yourresearch, which is out of the scope of cultural science trends.

References
Assmann, Aleida, Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft. Grundbegriffe, Themen,
Fragestellung, Berlin, 2017.
Belting, Hans, Image jinruigaku (Heibonsha, translated by Yuko Nakama, 2014) =Belting, Hans, Bild-Anthropologie, München, 2001.
Bredekamp, Horst, Monado no mado (Sangyo Tosho, translated by Kenji Hara, 2010)= Bredekamp, Horst, Die Fenster der Monade, Berlin, 2008.
Erll, Astrid, Shugotekikioku to sokibunka (= Memory in Culture: An Introduction to
Memory Studies) (Suiseisha, translated by Jun Yamana, 2022).
Hasegawa, Nyozekan, Watashi no josikitetugaku (= My Philosophy of Common
Sense) (Kodansha, 1987).
Kittler, Friedrich, Kakitorisisutemu (=The Writing System) 1800-1900 (Inscript,
2021).
Makabe, Hiromoto, Hamburg no Genius Loki wo sokisuru (=Remembering Genius
Loki in Hamburg: A Bildung Topography on the Aby Warburg's Library of
Cultural Sciences",) in Kioku to soki no kyoikugaku (=Pedagogy of Memory andSymposium: Orality, Image, Memory and Bildung: Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on
Kulturwissenschaft

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55

Remembering), edited by Jun Yamana (Keiso Shobo, 2022).
Nawata, Yuji (ed.), Mono to baitai no Jinbungaku (=The Humanities of Objects andMedia: Cultural Studies in Contemporary Germany) (Iwanami Shoten, 2022).
Yanagi, Muneyoshi (supervised by the Japan Folk Art Museum), Yanagi Muneyoshi
Collection 3 Kokoro (Chikuma Shobo, 2011)

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

Orality, Image, Memory and Bildung:
Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on
Kulturwissenschaft
Yoshimitsu MATSUURA
Keio University
Fukutaro WATANABE
Keio University
Purpose of the Symposium
In “Culture as an Educational Problem”, the thematic research discussion of the 51stPESJ conference held at Keio University in 2008, it was pointed out that modern
Japanese education has become like “a cast-off shell” which has lost the support ofculture. This situation appears to be accelerating under the data-driven society. While
sharing this awareness of the problem, we will approach the classic issue of “culture andeducation” from a new angle in this symposium.
At this point, various studies of “cultural science (Kulturwissenschaft) ”, whichhave flourished in the German speaking world since the 1990s, could be consulted.
According to Aleida Assmann, a prominent memory researcher (Assmann, Aleida 2017:
Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft. Grundbegriffe, Themen, Fragestellungen, Berlin:
Erich Schmidt Verlag.), it is targeted on, like Anglo American cultural studies, not only
high culture but also everyday activities. It is characterized by its cross disciplinary nature,relying on findings from semiotics, speech act theory, iconology, literary studies, life
story studies, anthropology, archaeology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and otherdisciplines. Its specific developments are too diverse, but they share a loose commonality
in the recognition that they see culture as the totality of practical acts based on various
symbols (Assmann 2017, S. 24ff.). Whereas the traditional humanities (or, in German
terms, Geisteswissenschaft) see culture as an externalization of the human “spirit (Geist)”,Correspondence:
Yoshimitsu MATSUURA, Keio University. Email: ymatsuur@keio.jp
Fukutaro WATANABE, Keio University. Email: watanabe@flet.keio.ac.jp

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Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on Kulturwissenschaft

57

find its essence in academics and arts as high culture, and see it as opposed to material
things, nature, and technology, this cultural science sees culture not singularly but
pluralistically. Furthermore, it examines issues of identity (self) formation and culturaltransformation within the framework of the triadic relationship between symbolic act,
media and technology, and the body. Symbolic act supports representations, media andtechnology serve as their material support, and the body functions as the organ of symbol
production and reception. Among these, we will focus on the themes of “orality, image,and memory”, which have been neglected since the modern era in comparison to“literacy, books and history”. These themes intersect with contemporary issues such as
publicness, gender, and pathos, and will become important in discussing humandevelopment and education in the future.
But can such cultural science become “cultural scientific education” as it is? We
will think about this together with the presenters and participants.

Points of the Discussion
1. Discussion on the possibility of applying the results of Kulturwissenschaft to
educational study.
2. Discussion on conceiving a new vision of life and culture that supports education in
our time.
3. Discussion on the validity of the opposing axes of “orality, image, and memory” and“literacy, books, and history”.

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E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

Generation of Common Emotions Based on Common Senses
Through the Activities in Which Each Exposes One’s Body One
Another: Assumptions and Foundations Required to Continue
the Conversation
Chiharu FUJII
Waseda University
Abstract
The "I" is a collection of diverse "selves." "Ego identity" is individually stable in the harmonious unityof the diverse "self". This stability is based on trust in the commonality with the "self" of others andthe acceptance of the "self" of others that is different from mine. It is formed through the sharing of
emotions based on common senses through activities to share time and space by exposing each bodywith others.
Key words: Online, Exposure, Emotion, Others, Personality

University faculty meetings have already been held online, as the pandemic
continues for a long time. It seems to me that our faculty assemblies have been reduced
their functions for discussion. If there is any doubt about the proposal of the executive orpresident, in the case of face-to-face meeting, you could whisper very briefly the faculty
member sitting next to, such as "This would be a problem, isn't it?" and if this fellow
agree with it, you could raise your hand and express your doubts. In online faculty
meetings, it seems that there are fewer doubts and objections than face-to-face meetings.
I am afraid of the deterioration of its function as a place where diverse voices areexchanged.
On the other hand, some professors have pointed out the effect of online classes on
Correspondence:
Chiharu Fujii, Waseda University. Email: chiharu-f@ca.em-net.ne.jp

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Exposes One’s Body One Another: Assumptions and Foundations Required to Continue theConversation

learning. Certainly, it may be more effective than collective or face-to-face lectures, interms of understanding of information within certain definitive limit. However, should
the significance of university lectures and seminars be restricted to understanding thecontent of the lectures?
For example, let's say a student finds another student in the classroom who is very
attractive. And suppose, the other day, they happen to be at the same table at the lunch
cafeteria and are aware of each other's existence. Moreover, suppose, a few days later,
they got together at yet another gathering. While such encounters are repeated, they
gradually become aware of each other's existence, and at one point a conversation begins.
At last, they become friends. Then they will discover commonalities in interests andhobbies, such as fashion or music, and share a common sense and common emotions
based on them. On such the accumulation of accidental contact, a connection as "us" isborn.
It may be difficult for students to develop such connections through online lectures.
It begins with an accidental encounter that somehow expose one another, to become
friends and expand connections. On the online exercise, it may not be guaranteed todevelop the relationship with the person who made the anxious remark. without having
a place to meet face-to-face afterwards, they could not make a connection as a friend.
Online encounters are less effective in broadening students' connections unless they are
made up for by subsequent face-to-face interactions. The significance of online isextremely limited to provide students to the development of subsequent relationships.
It is necessary for us to recognize that online makes the virtual the illusion of reality.
There is a danger through online encounters, that, although we know only a part of theother person, we fall into mistaken belief that we understand the personality of the person
as a whole. In the same way, we can participate in online encounter as only one aspect ofus. In other words, everyone can participate in online without exposing one’s own entire
personality. The participants can approach anonymous from the safe zone where
guarantees them of withdrawing at any time.
On the other hand, it is guarantees through the collective and face-to-face encounters,
in which participants share time and space with exposing each other's bodies, that we find
one another pluralistic and multifaceted attributes of each person without restriction, even
if the theme is limited to specific one. Attributes of others which attract me can beperceived as a presence. They are caught by the antennae of my own interest, rather thanbeing discovered intentionally. "Coincidental encounters" are guided by such a system.
It is an opportunity for the development of new human relationships to have interests in

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C. Fujiiother persons that arises from the sharing of activities with exposing each body. In thisway, human relationships expand, and the relationship between oneself and the world
develops in a pluralistic and multifaceted manner.
Therefore, although online lectures are effective in transmitting the content oflectures, they have a weak function of expanding the world further for students. It is rather
taking such opportunities away. Similarly, while online meeting is effective intransmitting and sharing information and we can use time efficiently, it reduces thefunction of making a check on the agenda. Even faculty members who are dozing off orworking inside in the faculty meeting are sensitive to a voice from a colleague thatquestions or asks for statement. In online meetings, this kind of movement is less likely
to occur. Nor can they sense how the remarks resonate with other participants. Murmurs
and facial expressions cannot be mutually matched. It is not possible for online
participants to create an "atmosphere of place" that calls for discussion.
Online passing and flaming up frequently occur. In addition, on the Internet, it issaid that opinions on controversial themes tend to be radicalized and divide into two sides
in a confrontational manner.
I would like to start a discussion on this problem with Dewey’s saying that action
manifests and forms the self (Ethics, 1932, in Later Works, Vol. 7, p.296). For Dewey, theself, like the mind, is not an entity innately possessed by the person. As G. H. Mead says,
it is a function that has been formed after birth through interaction with others around us.
And the mode of interaction is based on a culture shared by the members of thecommunity. The "self" is basically formed through acting in accordance with the behaviorof the members of the community in which one is born.
However, if the "self" is formed only in this process, then all members of thecommunity will act in the same way in every situation, and the members of the samecommunity will show only a common "self." In such a case, the individuality of the "self"
is not so conscious, and the individuality (personality) is rarely appeared. We must
assume that the individual is composed of multiple "selves." Each person shows his
own individuality as an each own unique set of selves. The sets are diverse, so
individuality appears different. Also, as we grow, the roles of each within the community
become differentiated. Each of us also joins other diverse groups as a member. In thecontext of actions in the group, one must manifest the "self" appropriate for the role
expected in the group. And "individuality" is shown in the way of function that unifies
multiple "selves". "I" is the function unifying the plurality of "selves" that make up a
person. "Identity" is established when “I” functions to unify such “selves” in a stable andThematic Research: Corporeality and Education: Reconsidering the Basis of “Experience” and “Connection”

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harmonious.
Further, in this regard, I would like to use Dewey's essay on Ethics as a clue.
According to Dewey, moral theory emerges “when men are confronted withsituations in which different desires promise opposed goods, and in which incompatible
courses of action seem to be morally justified" (ibid., in LW7, p.164). As is often the case,between family life and business life, it is a case when "moral standards which apply in
one do not hold in the other" (ibid., p.164). That is, it is the situation in which “he is torn
between two duties" (ibid., p.165). Based on this argument, for Dewey, the moral
problem stems from the conflict between multiple "selves" over the determination of
behavior.
In my essay "’Continuing Conversation’, and Being an Interpreter Beyond‘Incommensurability’” in Studies in The Philosophy of Education (No. 124, 2021), I
discussed the plurality of the "self" in a person and the necessity of the harmonious andsable function of unifying “selves”. And I also proposed the necessity of securing
interpreters in our community, who are members within "our" group and on the other
hand partially possess the "self" in common with other communities which cannot bereciprocated. Such members have ability to open up his community to treating "them" as"you." Even "we" are made up of the commonality of members, “I” of each member”
made up of diverse "selves." Every community is based on the commonality of a
specific "self" among the various "selves" of each member. In this regard, even though“they” are antagonistically opposed to “us” on a particular subject, the antagonistic "self"
is only one of the diverse "selves" of the antagonists, and much of the other "selves” ofthem are potentially common to both. The others who disagree over a particular theme
are not "them" who cannot be reciprocal at all, but "you" with whom we share manykinds of "self" potentially.
However, when speech exchanges in the Internet space, the "self" of each participant
is limited in its expression to the "self" related to the specified theme. In the Internet space,along with anonymity, the expression of mutual "self" is limited to opposing ones,
making it difficult to feel the "self" of the other that is potentially shared with me. In
addition, it becomes difficult for each to read mutually what kind of diverse "self"
constitutes the other person as "you". As a result, conflicts incline to be intensified andthe distribution of opinions is divided into two poles.
How can participants "continue the conversation" around a controversial topic
without being limited to each “self” opposed to each other?

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There is an interesting and prospective project.
It is “the public conversation project” developed as a method for family therapy in
psychiatry. It has been introduced in Kenneth J. Gergen and Melia Gergen, Social
Construction: Entering the Dialogue (Taos institute Publications, 2004). The projectfocuses on conflicting issues between people, such as abortion. In the project, theparticipants will proceed with the following conversation.
① The participants keep their positions hidden on the theme, and care not to reveal
each position while taking. They introduced each other with having dinner together
in a relaxed atmosphere.
② In the subsequent discussion on the theme, they talk about their arguments basedon their own personal experiences and emotions about them.
In this way, as in ①, physical activities are performed together so that mutual
situations are shared and sensations of pleasure can be obtained in the same way throughthe each own sense organs. In other words, a common experience is constructed. In theactivity, participants express their pleasure, such as "Delicious!" and other participants
respond with words that affirm it, such as "So do I!". In this way, the commonality ofexperiences, sensations, and emotions is confirmed. Based on the common sense sharedby each other, the common emotions shared by each other are confirmed. The sharedemotions about the shared experience give a stable base of mutual trust. Then, forexample, they talk about their own experiences with each other, such as family, hobbies,
and hometown, and deepen mutual understanding and acceptance of each other. In thisway, it is achieved mutually that “self” of mine is disclosed and "self" of yours is accepted.
Thus, mutual connection as "we" are brought into. The participants are possible to be
conscious mutually that they are interconnected together pluralistically and multifaceted.
By conducting activities in which common emotions are generated among
participants based on common senses. And with confirming common emotions among
participants, a sense of trust is fostered, which inspire courage in telling my own
experiences and in accepting such stories of others. In addition, those senses take adefinite form of the ability to use what the other person says as a clue, the thoughtfulness
necessary to imagine the other person's experience and the emotions, and the inclusive
attitude towards the other person. In this way, the foundation is prepared for collaborative
exploration towards the construction of an optimal solution on confrontational problems,
which that both sides can "agree on" or, at least, treat the other as "you". And it ispossible to keep "continuing the conversation".
The efficiency of Online lecture is limited to transmit a certain specific information
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to students. It is required for Online lectures, when fruitful discussion is expected, to havepreviously accumulated face-to-face communication between students or to be arranged
subsequently development of face-to-face communication. In the expression of opinions
on the Internet, only a specific and limited "self" of sender is emphasized, though thesender has various "selves". For this reason, the receiver accepts only a specific andlimited “self" as the sender, while the receiver is made aware of a specific and limited“self” as the receiver around the issue. Therefore, even if a receiver agrees with sender,
the receiver is strongly aware of the "self" as the consenting party. On the contrary, whena receiver disagrees, the statements of the opponent are strongly aware of the denial or
attack on the "self" of the receiver. The specific and limited "self" of each side are
separated in parallel from the other diverse "selves". And only that "self" of each is
mistaken as all the "I" of the each. As a result, the two sides become polarized and theconfrontation escalates.
By exposing body together in shared activities in temporal and spatial, it is possible
to share sensory given. Even when one encounters others who have "self" different fromone’s on a specific theme, it is possible for participants to avoid escalation to conflict,division, and exclusion. The way to start and continue a "conversation" is opened to on
the mutual recognition, that even though the "self" of the other’s related to the theme isdifferent from mine is merely one "self" among the various "selves" of the person, and sois the "self" of mine related to the theme. We must rely on the confidence that we have
many other "selves" in common, and that we can connect each other as "we".
What countermeasure can education prepare? What do educators have to do?
The first is to make children immerse themselves in activity which stimulate theirfive senses and give them pleasant excitation from the five organs. It is an activity that
promotes children to confirm common emotions based on their common senses. By
sharing these activities, and by reflecting on their realizations of their emotions that ismutually confirmed and shared, children can feel certain that they are interconnected"selves," or "we." In other words, one of the central functions of teachers in classwork is
to set up such experiences for children and create common emotions into children
through the activity. And the teacher helps children verbalize those sensations and enjoy
understanding them each other. The experience of confirming common emotions withothers is the first step in the attempt on understanding others who live in a "self" that isdifferent from the "self" of mine. This is the foundation for “to continue continuation”.
Second, as discussed in my essay (2021), elders (teachers) are required to accept

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their role of "interpreter" of a child to the other children, close beside the child in an
empathetic attitude to the minority "self" of the child. In my earlier essay, I explained suchthe role, with using Gergen's metaphor for the therapist's attitude of "engage in a subtle
and complex dance of coaction" (K. J.Gergen, Relational Being, 2009, Oxford Univ., p.
282). That is, the therapist tries to enter the world of the story that the client lives andaccept the words, vocabulary, and metaphors that the client uses. By having thetherapist dance with the client to the melody of "self" of the client, then it is possible forthe client to be invited to try dancing to other melodies, i.e., "into the alternative world".
Similarly, by having the teacher dance with the child to the melody of the "self" of thechild, the child will be able to accept the "self" as a minority in a positive light and live a
harmonious connection with the other "selves" of the child. In this way, the diverse "self"is harmoniously unified as “I”. In consequence, a stable and unique "ego identity" isestablished. In addition, in such a pluralistic and multifaceted connection within “selves”
of mine, we can make relation with diverse others, which consists in a pluralistic andmultifaceted "we".
The "I" is a collection of diverse "selves”, and the "ego identity" is individuallystable in its harmonious unity. In addition, this stability of harmonious unity is based on
the feeling that “I” am tied together with others who have the "self" in common withmine. In addition, it is possible on the stability of harmonious unity of "ego identity" tounderstand and accept of the "self" of others different from mine. In conclusion, it isnecessary to provide an opportunity to expose each other's bodies through gathering andface-to-face, and to confirm the shared "self" mutually through common activities among
participants, in which common sensory perceptions occur and exchange. Thus, common
emotion is generated and shared among them. The unique stability of the "ego identity",in which multiple "selves" are harmoniously unified, maintains the sense of reliance on
the ties with others who are each composed of diverse "self". This is a social foundation
for mutual understanding and acceptance.

Thematic Research: Corporeality and Education: Reconsidering the Basis of “Experience” and “Connection”

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

The applicability of the ‘ethnometric method’ as a support tool forteachers’ self-evaluation:
Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to‘personalization and empathizing’ in moral education1
Nobuo FUJIKAWA
Osaka University
Abstract
The ethnometric method is a method of generating evidence to support educational practitioners’
subjective – or rather, intersubjective – impressions regarding the success or failure of their teachingpractice by quantifying their evaluation of students’ physical expressions. A main consideration whendeveloping this method was utilizing Evidence-Based Education (EBE) as a starting point without
succumbing to technocratic tendencies, and while respecting practitioner’s agency.
The ethnometric method uses interviews to ask the practitioner what changes in physicalexpression he or she tends to focus on when evaluating the degree to which teaching goals wereachieved. The practitioner is also asked to set up a video camera close to his or her own outlook on
the classroom to film the teaching practice. The researcher then converts the filmed video into still
images at intervals of a few seconds and counts the physical expressions that the practitioner focuseson as indicators for evaluation. The chronological change of the numerical data acquired through thismethod allows practitioners to substantiate or amend their subjective – intersubjective – impressions
regarding the success or failure of their teaching practice.
This paper presents an ethnometric analysis of a series of Moral Education lessons in one fourth-1This paper is part of the research results of Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Basic Research (C) (General),Issue No. 21K02170, “Dotoku Jugyo Bunseki e no Tekiyo o tsujita ‘Ethnometry-ho’ no Yuyosei to Datosei noKensho” [Verification of the usefulness and validity of the ‘ethnometric method’ through application to moral classanalysis] (FY2021 - FY2023; Principal investigator: Nobuo Fujikawa). This research has also been approved (21007
and 22006) by the Research Ethics Committee of Osaka University, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Education.
Correspondence:
Nobuo FUJIKAWA, Osaka University. Email: fujikawa@hus.osaka-u.ac.jp

N. FUJIKAWA

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grade primary school class on the topic ‘personalization and empathizing’. Comparing the results of
the analysis with practitioners’ impressions regarding the success or failure of achieving‘personalization and empathizing’, the study finds that the ethnometric analysis largely supports
practitioners’ self-evaluation of their own classes.
Of course, this approach still faces several challenges. One criticism concerns the danger of thismethod’s procedures leading to increased control and regulation of the body. Another criticism
concerns limitations as to the range of circulation and validity of the evidence produced because theevidence is limited to social settings where practical knowledge or ‘habitus’ can be sharedintersubjectively. However, such limited validity can also be an advantage because it has the potentialof avoiding the danger of increased control of practice.
Key words: moral education, physical expression, personalization and empathizing, self-evaluation,evidence-based education

Introduction
The ‘ethnometric method’ is a method of generating evidence to support educational (andwelfare) practitioners’ self-evaluation of practices and outcomes2. This method, currently underdevelopment by the author, uses video (analysed as a series of still images) to quantify andvisualize changes in participants’(e.g., students) physical expressions (e.g., facial expressions andgestures) and in this way allows educational practitioners to substantiate or amend their subjective– or rather, intersubjective – impressions regarding the success or failure of their teaching practice.
A main consideration when developing this method was utilizing Evidence-Based Practice(EBP; of which Evidence-Based Education [EBE] is a part) as a starting point without
succumbing to technocratic tendencies, and while respecting practitioners’ agency andintersubjectivity. The importance of a balance between ‘research evidence’, ’clinical expertise’and ‘patient values’ has been illustrated in Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), which provided amajor impetus for the development of EBP (Figure 13). Applying this to EBE would stress theimportance of a balance between ‘research evidence’, ‘teachers’ expertise’ and ‘students’ values’.
However, with Exam-orientation (in Japanese also termed Hensachi, that is, deviation-orientation)

2

The author has previously used this method for the evaluation of welfare practice, in this paper the same method

is applied to the evaluation of educational practice.
3

Prepared based on Sackett, D. L. et al. 2000, p. 1.

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Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to ‘personalization and empathizing’ in moral
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permeating not only education but
daily life, one might surmise that thelatter two – ‘teachers’ expertise’ and‘students’ values’ – which havealready been worn thin by theorientation towards scientific evidence,
will eventually lose their balancing
function altogether. If this is the case,some measures are needed to more
actively support the development ofthese latter two factors.
Teachers’ judgment of theoutcomes of their own teaching
Figure 1: Components of EBM
practices is based not only on the resultsof paper tests, but also on ‘teachers’ practical knowledge’ (that is, cognitive and behaviouralschemes or ‘habitus’working at a semi-conscious level) [Gebauer, G. 2017]. This is an importantcomponent of teachers’ expertise. ‘Teachers’ practical knowledge’ is formed within dailyinteractions with fellow teachers and students over a long period of time. Thus, it is relatively stable,
but continually and gradually changes, as it is also influenced by the expression of ‘students’values’. Is it possible, then, for a person who is not a teacher to share in such ‘practical knowledge’and to participate in examining its validity? If public trust in teachers were high enough, such
would likely not be necessary. However, when considering the growing preference for evidencebased approaches, teachers’self-evaluations may be disregarded as mere ‘subjective impressions’,
thus making an additional external perspective necessary. Interviews and questionnaires ofteachers and students provide such perspective, however, as these research methods are highly
dependent on language, they do not always fully able to encompass the impressions and intuitions
that are an inherent part of ‘teachers’ practical knowledge’. For example, evaluation methods thatare overly dependent on language will never be highly reliable, particularly when it comes toteachers’self-evaluation of subjects such as the Arts and Physical Education, but also in relation toself-evaluation of teaching in the lower primary grades in general4.

4

The large number of previous studies on physical expression in pre-school education, particularly in the areas ofchildcare and physical education, where it is considered difficult to evaluate lessons relying on language media, may
be related to this. For reference, a CiNii search using the keywords ‘Shintai Hyogen (physical expression)’ and‘Kyoiku (education)’ identified 550 papers, 33 books and 7 doctoral dissertations; for ‘Shintai Hyogen’ and ‘Hoiku

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N. FUJIKAWA

Taking this into consideration, the ‘ethnometric method’focuses on physical expression suchas gestures and facial expressions. Bodily movements acquire meaning and function as physicalexpression through long-term participation in daily interactions within a particular social setting. It
seems safe to assume that teachers, in evaluating their own teaching, base these evaluations not
only on information derived from the linguistic activities of students, but also on information
derived from their body language and expressions. The ethnometric method introduced heremeasures the frequency of the appearance/observation 5 of such physical expression andvisualizes its transition in numerical and graphical form.
In the ethnometric method, the practitioner first sets up a (fixed) video camera close to his or
her own outlook on the classroom and films the teaching practice (lessons, workshops, etc.). Next,
in a short interview taking place after several lessons, the practitioner is asked to present
participants’ (in this case, students’) physical expression (indicators) that he or she tends to focus
on when evaluating the degree to which teaching goals were achieved. This would sum up
practitioners’ role in the implementation of the ethnometric method. Indeed, practitioners’
relatively lighter burden at the data collection stage is also an important characteristic of thisresearch method.
The researcher then converts the filmed video into still images at intervals of a few seconds.
Focusing on a few minutes before and after interactions indicated in the practitioner’s presentation,
the researcher counts the frequency of appearance/observation of indicators of participants’physical expression. The figures derived from this analysis, and changes exhibited over time,
provide practitioners with a means to visualize the intersubjective impressions they haveconcerning the outcome of particular teaching experiences, as well as lengthier series of practices.
This is the main procedure entailed by the ethnometric method.

(childcare)’, 406 papers, 18 books and 3 doctoral dissertations; for ‘Shintai Hyogen’ and ‘Taiiku (physical education)’,284 papers and 10 books; for ‘Shintai Hyogen’ and ‘Ongaku Kyoiku (music education)’, 74 papers and 6 books;‘Taiiku’ and ‘Yoji Kyoiku (early childhood education)’ yielded 64 papers and 15 books; for ‘Shintai Hyogen’ and‘Bijutsu Kyoiku (art education)’, 4 papers (search date: 5 October 2022).
5
It is important to note that the while this method allows a researcher, by partially sharing the perspective of theclassroom practitioner, access to students’ physical expression, only the physical indicators that are recognizable
through the medium of the still image can be recorded. Thus, the output derived from these measurements by nomeans fully reflects students’ realities (in fact, such cannot be grasped by anyone, not even by a highly developedAI). Rather, this method records only some of the ‘intersubjective’ meanings accessible within the interactive
environment of the classroom. To indicate these limitations, this paper utilizes the term ‘frequency of
appearance/observation’.
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The applicability of the ‘ethnometric method’ as a support tool for teachers’ self-evaluation:
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Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to ‘personalization and empathizing’ in moral
education

Of course, this approach still faces several challenges. Firstly, a fundamental criticism
concerns the danger of this method’s procedures leading to increased control and regulation of the
body. In this sense, the ethnometric approach is also not free from what Campbell termed‘corruption pressure’6 in regards to evidence7. Secondly, there is also the issue of costs in terms ofthe time, people and money required to implement this method in educational settings. Due to therequired resources, the method can likely only be used in settings such as a funded field-research
project, therefore at present, a rubric evaluation8 remains a more feasible research method. The
solution is to be expected from the future development and dissemination of AI9. There is,however, a danger that such expectations will invite further ‘corruption pressure’.
Nevertheless, according to the ethnometric method, the indicators to be measured(participants’ physical expressions) are set based on practitioners’ intersubjective impressions.
Therefore, the range of circulation and validity of the evidence produced is limited to a social
setting where practical knowledge or ‘habitus’ can be shared intersubjectively (in the case of
education, the scale of in-school training for instance). If this is the case, then the perceived
disadvantages in terms of a limited scope and the intersubjectivity of the evidence may in fact
become an advantage in terms of avoiding ‘corruption pressure’ and the danger of increased
control of practice. The word ‘ethno’ in ethnometric implies exactly such intentions, or rather
aspirations.
The author has previously implemented the ethnometric method to evaluate a theatre
workshop at an elderly care facility and a contemporary dance workshop for young children at a
community centre [Fujikawa, N. 2020]. This paper reports on the first time the method has beenused to evaluate teaching in schools. The following section will present (1) an overview of theresearch subjects and the concrete measurements and analysis procedures conducted, followed by6

According to D. T. Campbell, “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, themore subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes
it is intended to monitor” [Campbell, D. T. 1975, p. 35].
7

Similar to this paper, Lind’s paper also takes the position that EBE is useful, with some limitations, for self-

evaluation by practitioners. In particular, it considers ‘corruption pressure’ in cases in which ‘research evidence’ isutilized in relation to educational administration [Lind, G. 2011].
8

While it is possible for a rubric evaluation to emphasize and score the intersubjective impressions of outside

observers, practitioners, and also participants, the ethnometric method is unique in that it specializes in physicalexpression and allows to count the frequency of its appearance/observation more precisely based on still images.
9

As research in the field of educational technology suggests, AI is likely to take on the task of data analysis in the

future [Shibata, Y. 2021].

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N. FUJIKAWA(2 and 3) partial results, and (4) a discussion of the efficacy of the ethnometric method. Lastly, (5)the author will deploy a Science Fiction of Education (SFE) to imagine the future of ‘measurement’and discuss the meanings encompassed by the term ‘ethno’.

1. Aims, subjects and procedures(1) Research goals (Research questions)This research aims to answer the following three questions.
(i) Did the frequency of appearance/observation of students’ physical expressions (indicators)
increase significantly after a teacher puts forth questions designed to encourage‘personalization and empathizing’ (in Japanese: ‘Jibungotoka’) 10 in Moral Education
lessons?
(ii) Has veteran teachers’teaching practice functioned as a model for younger teachers?
(iii) Can the results produced by applying the ethnometric method’s analysis support teachers’
self-evaluation?
(2) Research subjects
The subject of this research was a series of Moral Education lessons held from 22 April to
15 July 2021 in one fourth-grade class at a public primary school in Shimane Prefecture, Japan(45 minutes per lesson)11. In this series of lessons, teacher A, a younger female teacher, wasresponsible for the first to fourth and seventh to eighth lessons, while teacher B, a veteran maleteacher, was responsible for the fifth and sixth lessons (In lessons taught by teacher A, teacher B
was observing; and vice versa, in lessons taught by teacher B, teacher A was observing). The
fourth session was excluded from the research due to a malfunction of the filming equipment.
Therefore, the data for measurement and analysis was comprised of a total of eight lessons. This
paper presents interim results from this study, based on the data from the 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th
lessons, which have been analysed at this stage. The specific subject of measurement was

10

In the context of moral lessons, ‘Jibungotoka’ refers to the ability to empathize with characters in stories that serveas teaching materials, understanding the events that happened to them as happening to oneself, and thinking about
and making judgements about those events through one’s own experiences and with a sense of ownership. In thispaper, the terms ‘personalization and empathising’ will be used as a translation of ‘Jibungotoka’.
Although their interests and methods differ from those of this paper, for a summary of the results of these series of

11lessons refer to Otsuka, T. & Shiotsu, H. 2022.
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Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to ‘personalization and empathizing’ in moral
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students’ physical expression during the five minutes before and after the teacher put forth a
discussion question12 designed to encourage ‘personalization and empathizing’ in each lesson.
Table 1 presents the following details: date and starting time of each lesson, teacher responsible,
textbook teaching unit, and question to encourage ‘personalization and empathizing’ for eachlesson. In these lessons, ‘personalization and empathizing’ is defined by veteran teacher B as
‘imagining the living environment surrounding oneself and reconstructing one’s values in orderto reflect on one’s way of life and behaviour, while studying the contents of each learning unit’[Otsuka, T. & Shiotsu, H. 2022, p. 28].

12

The questions meant to encourage further ‘personalization and empathizing’ in these lessons are positioned as

supplementary questions posed after the central question of each teaching unit [Otsuka, T. & Shiotsu, H. 2022, p.
28].

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Table 1: Each lesson’s responsible teacher, teaching unit, and ‘personalization andempathizing’ questions
Lessons

Date

Responsible

Teaching unit from

‘Personalization and(startingteacher“Dotoku 4: Kimi ga

empathizing’ questions (time)ichiban hikaru toki”

time)(Moral 4: When you
shine the brightest)(Mitsumura Book
Co., Ltd.)
1April 22.

A

“Saturday School”(10:55-)
2

May 6.

(11:25)A

May 10.

A(10:51-)5

June 3.

“What isWhat is ‘consideration’? (11:26)‘consideration’?”(10:55-)
3

Why is it important to be polite?

B“Picture postcards andWhat does it mean to “cherish

stamps”

your friends”? (11:22)“Alarm Clock”

How should I continue to do‘what I can by myself’? What

(10:57-)feelings are important? (11:25)
6

June 10.

B“A Sign of Life”(10:55-)

When you were born, how did
the people around you (yourfamily members) feel? (11:31)

7

June 17.

A(10:57-)
8

July 1.

A(10:56-)“The Lonely Student

Why is it important to treat

Y-chan”

everyone the same? (11:23)“If we had just left it

Do you ever feel like this? ...Do

like this”

you ever feel like ‘I’ do,thinking “Oh, what a hassle!”?
(11:31)

9

July 15.
(10:57-)A“We’ll be waiting for

Have you ever been encouragedyou”

by your close friends and felt
“I'm feeling better now!” or“I'm going to do my best!”?
(11:22)

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The applicability of the ‘ethnometric method’ as a support tool for teachers’ self-evaluation:
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Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to ‘personalization and empathizing’ in moral
education(3) Procedures
The procedures for data collection, measurement and analysis were as follows:(i) The teacher set up two video cameras close to her/his own position (at the front of theclassroom, on either side of the teacher’s desk; each camera’s perspective was different but they
partially overlapped) and started filming at the start of the lesson.
(ii) The researcher (Fujikawa) conducted a short interview by email after the lesson series had been
completed [August 6, 2021]. The two teachers discussed indicators of students’ physicalexpression that they both focused on when evaluating the achievement of ‘personalization andempathizing’13. As a result, they defined seven indicators as listed below (see Table 4 appended
at the end of this paper for indicators’selection rationale).
Table 2: Indicators of physical expressions for measurement and analysis
Concrete expressions
Indicator 1

Nodding (to teacher’s statements)

Indicator 2

Leaning forward (excluding cases involving raising hands)

Indicator 3

Widening eyes (lively gaze)

Indicator 4

Upward gaze (a short pause in response to a question and staring into space)

Indicator 5

Fixed gaze (gaze stops moving in response to the question posed by the teacher)

Indicator 6
Indicator 7

Conversation starts ‘right after’ encouraging discussion with neighbouring
students in the course of the lesson
Various neck movements such as nodding, shaking one’s head from side to sideand tilting the head sideways appear in succession(iii) The researcher converted each of the five-minute video clips before and after the question that13

In this study, the two teachers who were responsible for the classes happened to discuss and decide together whichindicators will be measured and analysed. However, as an after-the-fact reflection, I believe that this point is very
important and should therefore have been incorporated into the research design from the outset. The importance ofdiscussion would become clear if one considers what would happen if a teacher were to cite ‘children sleeping
soundly’ as an indicator for a great lesson. That is, we should not assume that all teachers believe that human nature
is fundamentally good. Thus, it may be desirable to involve one or more people (ones who are invested in students’care and success) alongside the practitioner in setting the indicators. This point is also related to the discussion on“deliberation” at the end of this paper.

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prompted ‘personalization and empathizing’ into still images at six-second intervals(approximately 50 images of each 5 minutes before and after the question was asked). The still
images were used to count the frequency of appearance/observation of the students’ physicalexpressions (indicators). In order to account for measurement errors, the images taken by one
camera were counted by a total of four persons acting as measurers (a pair of university students,
their resulting count was termed ‘normal accuracy’ data, and another pair who were people
considered to be particularly sensitive to physical expression such as theatre actors, their output
was termed ‘high accuracy’data)14. In order to get as close as possible to the teachers’subjective
impression of the lesson, two counts were conducted. In the ‘unweighted’ count, theappearance/observation of an indicator in any of the students was counted as 1 point. In the‘weighted’ count, indicators of specific students’ physical expression counted as 2 points15.
These were students that were of particular concern to the teachers. The reasons for being ‘ofconcern’ were: “They fill in the ‘reflection sheets’ in short sentences, and do not usually say or
respond much” (2 students); “They have some difficulties with writing, and therefore filling inthe ‘reflection sheets’ is also challenging, however based on their responses in class we often
see moral growth” (2 students); “The student’s desire to learn is irregular and he/she rarely
attempts to participate in classes they are not interested in” (1 student) [discussed and answeredby both teachers in response to questions by email on 24 January]. To enable the measurers to
identify these specific students, the teachers’ attached arrows to some of the still images
captured by the two cameras at each lesson.
(iv) The researcher carried out the following analytical work based on the data obtained in (iii)
above.
(a) The ‘amount of physical expression per person’ was calculated by dividing the points
indicating the appearance of each physical expression (indicator) by the number ofphotographic subjects in each still image (approximately 50 photographs of each 5
minutes before and after the ‘personalization and empathizing’ question in each lesson
were eligible for the count).
(b) Based on the data in (a), a line chart was created with the ‘amount of expression perperson’ on the vertical axis and the ‘still image serial number (= time)’ on the horizontal

14

Presumably the ‘high accuracy’ data is closer to the impressions and perception of skilled teachers.

15

The ‘weighted’ count was distinguished from the ‘unweighted’ count in order to see if a significant difference isnoticeable in graph form or as a numerical value. The value of the ‘weighted’ count was provisionally set as 2 forconvenience, not for any specific reason.
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The applicability of the ‘ethnometric method’ as a support tool for teachers’ self-evaluation:
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Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to ‘personalization and empathizing’ in moral
educationaxis.
(c) Based on the data in (a), a box-and-whisker diagram showing the highest value, 25%
above the median, the median, 25% below the median and the minimum value wasprepared.
(d) Based on the data in (a), a Brunner-Munzel test was conducted for the five minutes before
and after the ‘personalization and empathizing’ question, with the null hypothesis of ‘nodifference between the two groups before and after’.
This concludes the basic steps of the ethnometric method. The results produced by the above
procedures provide an answer to research question (i). Comparing the figures and graphs obtained
from the lessons given by the younger teacher A before and after those given by theveteran teacher B will provide an answer to research question (ii). In addition, researchquestion (iii) further aimed to explore whether the results of the analysis by the ethnometricmethod can support teachers’own impressions of lesson outcomes. To provide an answer the twoteachers were also asked to give a self-evaluation on a 10-point scale in regards to the following
question: “In each lesson, how well do you think the subject of ‘personalization and empathizing’went? [conducted January 24, 2022] Table 3 details the results.
Table 3: Teachers’ 10-point self-evaluation of each lesson
Teachers’ self-evaluation

Lesson no.

Teacher responsible

1

A

2

2

A

2

3

A

2

5

B

8

6

B

6

7

A

3

8

A

3

9

A

2

(10-point scale)

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2. Measurement results
Figure 3: 3rd lesson, camera 1,
normal accuracy, unweighted, 5min. after the Q (photos 26-50
omitted due to writing activities)

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4

Amount of expression per person

Amount of expression per person

Figure 2: 3rd lesson, camera 1,
normal accuracy, unweighted, 5min. before the Q

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4First, based on the data obtained in the third lesson, let us show the change in physicalexpression during the 5 minutes before and after posing the question to encourage ‘personalizationand empathizing’. Figures 2 and 3 detail the changes in the seven indicators in the case of ‘camera
1, normal accuracy, unweighted’.
These figures show that the value of indicator 5 (‘fixed gaze’) is particularly high comparedto other indicators. This shows that the frequency of appearance/observation of this indicator ishigh. Furthermore, the amount of physical expression for indicator 5 slightly decreases from fiveminutes before to five minutes after the question.
As Figures 4 and 5 show, when focusing on students that teachers were concerned with(camera 1, normal accuracy, weighted), the top of the line (vertical axis value) is slightly higher,
but the shape of the line itself does not change significantly.

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Figure 4: 3rd lesson, camera 1,
normal accuracy, weighted, 5 min.
before the Q

Figure 5: 3rd lesson, camera 1,
normal accuracy, weighted, 5 min.
after the Q (photos 26-50 omitted
due to writing activities)

1

1

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7

Amount of expression per person

Amount of expression per person

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Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to ‘personalization and empathizing’ in moral
education

0.8
0.6
0.4

0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 4ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4

Figures 6 and 7 reveal that the data obtained from camera 2 (camera 2, normal accuracy,
unweighted) present a similar trend as the data from ‘camera 1, normal accuracy, unweighted’(Figures 2 and 3), even though the photographic subjects are different.
Table 7: 3rd lesson, camera 2,
normal accuracy, unweighted, 5min. after the Q (photos 26-50
omitted due to writing activities)

1
0.8

0.6
0.4
0.2

0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4

Amount of expression per person

Amount of expression per person

Table 6: 3rd lesson, camera 2,
normal accuracy, unweighted, 5min. before the Q

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4Furthermore, Figures 8 and 9 demonstrate the data of “camera 1, high accuracy,
unweighted”, where indicators were counted by a person considered to be sensitive to physicalexpression. Compared to the data of “camera 1, normal accuracy, unweighted” (Figures 2 and 3),

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the frequency of indicator 5, as well as all other indicators, is slightly higher, and the difference inthe height (vertical axis value) of the lines is also more apparent. This would suggest that more
precise measurements (more sharply defined) were conducted. However, there was no differencein the trends (underlined) described above.
Figure 9: 3rd lesson, camera 1,

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7hight accuracy, weighted, 5 min.
after the Q (photos 26-50 omitted
due to writing activities)
Amount of expression per person

Amount of expression per person

Figure 8: 3rd lesson, camera 1, highaccuracy, weighted, 5 min. before
the Q

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 4ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4Furthermore, let us look at the changes in the amount of physical expressions for the fifth,
sixth and seventh lessons, based on the data from ‘camera 1, normal accuracy, unweighted’.
The line graphs for the fifth lesson taught by veteran teacher B (Figures 10 and 11) show thatcompared to the third and seventh lessons (Figures 2, 3, 14, and 15), the values of indicators 2amount of expression per person

1

0.8
0.6
0.4

0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4amount of expression per person

Figure 11: 5th lesson, camera 1,
normal accuracy, unweighted, 5.
min. after the Q

Figure 10: 5th lesson, camera1,
normal accuracy, unweighted, 5min. before the Q

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4

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Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to ‘personalization and empathizing’ in moral
education(‘leaning forward’), 5 (‘fixed gaze’) and 6 (‘conversation starts’) are particularly high, both before
and after the question. In addition, it can be seen that the values of indicators 2 and 6 clearly
increased after posing the question to encourage the students’ ‘personalizing and empathizing’,
while the value of indicator 5 cannot be said to increase or decrease either way.
On the other hand, the line charts of the sixth lesson (Figures 12 and 13), which was again
taught by teacher B, reveal that regardless of the timing before or after the question, the values ofindicators 2 and 5 are higher than in the other lessons. Oddly enough, however, the values of bothindicators decrease after posing the question. This point will be explained later.
Figure 13: 6th lesson, Camera 1,
normal accuracy, unweighted, 5min. after the Q (photos 32-50
omitted due to writing activities)

1
0.8

0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4

Amount of expression per person

Amount of expression per person

Figure 12: 6th lesson, camera 1,
normal accuracy, unweighted, 5min. before the Q

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49

Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4

The graphs for the seventh lesson, which was taught by teacher A (Figures 14 and 15), show
an overall decrease in the values of indicators compared to teacher B’s lessons. Indicator 5
however does demonstrate an increase, especially after the question, when compared to the third
lesson, which was taught by teacher A as well (Figures 2 and 3).
Changing the presentation method, let us now present a box-and-whisker diagram (Figure16). This figure fucuses on the changes in values of indicator 5, which showed relatively highvalues in all the lessons, before and after the question (‘camera 1, normal accuracy, unweighted’).
The figure shows the numerical value of each indicator (amount of physical expression perperson) on the vertical axis, and the differences between lessons, before and after the question, on
the horizontal axis. The numerical rank order column was then divided into four parts; the top
whisker represents the top 25%; the top of the box represents the 25% above the median; thehorizontal line in the middle of the box represents the median; the bottom of the box represents the
25% below the median; and the bottom whisker represents the 25% below that.

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80

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4

Figure 15: 7th lesson, camera 1,
normal accuracy, unweighted , 5min. after the Q (photos 28-50
omitted due to writing activities)
Amount of expression per person

Amount of expression per person

Figure 14: 7th lesson, camera 1,
normal accuracy, unweighted, 5 min.
before the Q

1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
Still image no. (time)ind. 1ind. 5ind. 2ind. 6ind. 3ind. 7ind. 4This figure allows us to
identify the finer points that could
not be ascertained based on the line
charts. First, a comparison of thethird and seventh lessons shows a
1.2
slight increase in the overall value
1of indicator 5 in the seventh lesson,0.8
both before and after the question.
0.6
Moreover, whereas in the third
0.4
lesson the values decrease after the
0.2question, they increase in the0seventh lesson. In the fifth lesson by
3rd, 3rd, 5th, 5th, 6th, 6th, 7th, 7th,teacher B, the upper limit of 25%
before after before after before after before after
above the median value increases,
Lessons, before and after the Q
whereas the median value
decreases. Nevertheless, the valuesof indicator 5 in the fifth lesson were higher overall (both before and after the question) than thosecounted during the third and seventh lessons, which were taught by teacher A. In the sixth lesson,taught by teacher B, indicator 5 values were also higher overall (both before and after the question)
than in the third and seventh lessons taught by teacher A, however there was a significant decreasein the highest and median values after the question.
Amount of expression per person

Figure 16: Data distribution of median and
25% above and below the median forindicator 5 for the 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th
lessons, before and after the Q (camera 1,
normal accuracy, unweighted)

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3. Analysis results
Although this is only a small part of the data, the above figures allow an intuitive
understanding of the approximate changes (especially in indicator 5) over the four lessons16. In thefollowing, we will present the results of the Brunner-Munzel test. As previously described, the null
hypothesis assumed there is no difference between the values measured during the 5 minutes
before the question, and those measured after it. The test includes the measurement results of all
indicators during the third, fifth, sixth and seventh lessons. The test results will be briefly discussed
below based on the tables at the end of this document (Tables 5 and 6), which summarise therelevant data. In the tables, significant results from the tests are indicated by yellow and orange
highlights. Based on the change in mean rank between 5 minutes before and 5 minutes after thequestion, results highlighted in orange indicate that frequency of physical expression indicators
increased significantly after posing the question. Conversely, results highlighted in yellow indicate
a significant decrease. In these tables, [**] marks instances of p < .010 and [*] marks instances ofp < .050.
Let us first look at the results of the analysis in the case of ‘normal accuracy’ data (Table 5).
In the third lesson taught by teacher A, indicator 4 of camera 2 shows significant increases (p= .035* and p = .014*) before and after the question in both unweighted and weighted cases.
However, other indicators in both camera 1 and 2 show no significant change, and some evenshow a significant decrease.
In the fifth lesson taught by teacher B, the results of the unweighted and weighted analyses
are consistent for each camera, with significant increases in indicators 2 and 6 for camera 1 andonly indicator 6 for camera 2 (both p < .010**).
In the sixth lesson by teacher B, the unweighted and weighted results are also almost identicalfor each camera. There is no significant overall increase in either camera, but rather a significant
decrease in indicators 2, 3 and 5 for camera 1, and indicators 2 and 5 for camera 2 (both p < .010**).
In the seventh lesson taught by teacher A, data from camera 1 shows a significant increase inindicator 5 for both weighted and unweighted counting (both p < .01**). The data from camera 2
shows a significant increase in indicator 7 for the unweighted counting (p < .010**) and indicators
3 (p < .010**), 5 (p = .046*) and 7 (p = .041) for the weighted counting. It is worth noting that
only in the weighted count of the data from camera 2 indicators 3 and 5 also showed significant
increases.

16

For teachers to use this data as a reference point for improving their teaching, it is probably not necessary to go as

far as the statistical testing process, charting alone would likely suffice.

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Let us now look at the results of the analysis for the ‘high accuracy’ data (Table 6).
In the third lesson, indicator 4 shows a significant increase (p < .010**) in both weighted andunweighted counting for camera 2, while indicators 3 and 5 show significant decreases (p = .039*
and p < .010** respectively) for camera 1.
In the fifth lesson, indicator 6 shows a significant increase, consistent across both cameras(both p < .010**).
There is no significant increase in the sixth lesson. Rather, indicators 2, 3, 4 and 5 show
significant decreases for camera 1 and indicators 2 and 5 for camera 2 (both p < .010**).
In the seventh lesson, the values for both cameras do not differ in relation to on whether they
were weighted or not. For camera 1, indicator 4 shows a significant increase (p < .010**), while
indicator 3 shows a significant decrease (p = .025*). On the other hand, for camera 2, indicator 5
shows a significant increase (p < .010**) and indicator 4 a significant decrease (p = .043*).

4. Discussion
Before considering the three research questions presented at the beginning of this paper, it isfirst necessary to examine why the frequency of appearance/observation of some indicators
significantly decreased in the sixth lesson conducted by teacher B in the five minutes after posing
the question to encourage ‘personalization and empathizing’, although the teacher’s selfevaluation was quite high (6 out of 10, see Table 3).
When the researcher asked teacher B about this question later [September 7, 2022], he said
that in this lesson (teaching material ‘A Sign of Life’), before posing the question to encourage‘personalization and empathizing’, another prompt was given by the teacher. This activity requiredthat “students who remember the birth of their younger brother or sister tell the class about their
feelings at that time”. Teacher B explained that, “This prompt probably enabled students to easily
create a realistic image of the scene in their minds. Indeed, many students responded, ‘I remember
that!’or ‘I don’t have a younger brother or sister, so I don't know how I would feel. I’d like to hear
how those who have a brother or sister feel!’ Probably that’s why many physical expressions
appeared (before the question to encourage ‘personalization and empathizing’)”.
Even when considering this irregular case, it can be said that the results of the ethnometricanalysis can support teachers’ self-evaluation of their own lessons (Table 3) by using data
regarding the appearance/observation of students’physical expression.
Let us now consider the research questions posed at the beginning of this paper.
First, research question (i) “Did the frequency of appearance/observation of students’physical expressions (indicators) increase significantly after a teacher puts forth questions
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designed to encourage ‘personalization and empathizing’in Moral Education lessons?”
This question can be answered as follows. Analysis results demonstrated that the third lesson
taught by teacher A was not necessarily successful in encouraging ‘personalization andempathizing’; the fifth lesson taught by teacher B was quite successful in promoting‘personalization and empathizing’; during the sixth lesson taught by teacher B, ‘personalizationand empathizing’was in fact encouraged by another prompt before posing the question, therefore
it cannot be accurately evaluated; in the case of the seventh lesson taught by teacher A, although it
did not reach the level of the fifth lesson by teacher B, it can be said that ‘personalization andempathizing’ was promoted more than in the third lesson, which was also taught by teacher A; inaddition, when comparing the unweighted and weighted data for the normal accuracy and camera
2, the weighted data shows a significant increase in indicators 3 and 5 after the question was put
forth. This would suggest that the seventh lesson taught by teacher A may have contributed to theincrease in students’ physical expression without exception, that is, including the students thatteachers were particularly concerned with.
Next, let us consider research question (ii): “Has veteran teachers’ teaching practicefunctioned as a model for younger teachers?” Comparing the data collected during the third andseventh lessons taught by the younger teacher A, and the fifth and sixth lessons by the veteranteacher B, it is possible that the lessons taught by teacher B served as a model for the lessons byteacher A, which in turn reinforced teacher A’s efforts to encourage ‘personalization andempathizing’. The sixth lesson by teacher B may have also been a model for teacher A’s lessons,
including the supplementary prompt mentioned in teacher B’s account of the class (that was posed
before the question to encourage ‘personalization and empathizing’). As the data showed, before
the question several indicators were relatively high compared to the third lesson taught by teacher
A.
Finally, research question (iii): “Can the results produced by applying the ethnometricmethod’s analysis support teachers’ self-evaluation?” Considering the results’ correspondencewith Table 3 (Teachers’ 10-point self-evaluation of each lesson) this question can be answered in
the affirmative17.

17

In this paper, the Brunner-Munzel test was conducted, but there is still room for improvement in the testing process,as there are disadvantages to transforming the data (number of physical expressions per person) into ranks andadding tests. To more accurately quantify data trends, it is probably preferable to apply Bayesian statistics. Bayesianstatistics could, for example, divide the students into two groups, one group less likely to respond to the teacher’s
encouragement to ‘personalization and empathizing’ from the other group more likely to respond to it, and reveal
how each group responded.

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5. Where does a measurement-orientation lead and why do we want more
precise measurements in the first place?
From the start, the design of the ethnometric method entails several constraints. First, it is thepractitioners themselves who define the physical expressions (indicators) to be measured. Thismeans that the indicators used in this study cannot be used for the measurement and analysis ofother classes. The physical expressions defined as indicators by teachers can be understood assymbols that had accumulated their meaning through everyday interactions between students andteachers, and between colleagues. Naturally different indicators must be set for different teachersand classes. Second, the ethnometric method does not seek to measure the reality of physicalmovements and internal states of participants. The present research measured the movements thatteachers, as a result of long-term everyday interactions with their fellow teachers and students,
came to perceive as physical expressions signifying mental processes of ‘personalization andempathizing’ in their students. Moreover, from the sum of physical movements that teachers
defined as meaningful physical expressions, the resulting numerical values indicate only thosephysical movements that were observable by the measurers. In short, the figures indicate changes
in the students’ physical expression that would probably have been perceived by any personpresent in the classroom18. Indeed, these two constraints embody the meaning of the word ‘ethno’.
What, then, would the future hold if these two constraints were removed? At the end of thispaper, I would like to develop a Science Fiction of Education (SFE) around this question.
First of all, what happens if indicators are set by someone other than those involved in thelesson (teachers and students)? This means that the authority for class evaluation shifts from theteachers themselves, as the class practitioners, to someone outside the classroom. As a result, inorder to elevate the evaluation outcomes of their own lessons, teachers would aim for as many
students as possible to simultaneously display physical movements that are purported to be
expressions of a targeted mental state (e.g., ‘activeness’, ‘spontaneity’ or ‘personalization andempathizing’). Likely achieved by practitioners performing signalling behaviours that would
prompt the desired reaction from students. The result would be a strange classroom landscape,akin to that of a mass game.
Secondly, let us go beyond measuring physical expressions as intersubjectively

18

Just by someone being there, certain physical movements will already begin to take on symbolic meaning as

physical expressions.
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expressed/interpreted symbols (which are in essence the impressions that the participants in theinteraction have of each other’s physical movements). What happens if we seek a more objective
and precise measurement of the reality of students’ specific physical movements and theircorresponding mental states? First of all, the number of cameras will be increased so that thephysical movements of individual students can be observed from a closer position, and then AI
may take on the measurement so that measurer biases can be avoided. As we ultimately want tounderstand students’ mental state, we may eventually stop being concerned with physicalmovements that are shaped by cultural biases and individual performance ability, and try to
directly capture various physiological changes using sensors embedded in wearable devices.
Furthermore, if physiological information is recorded and stored over a long period of time, it will
be possible to trace changes in students’mental states and to predict changes to some extent. Moreprecise measures to capture students’ state of mind may lead to ways such as the implantation ofa chip under the skin. Although students and parents will be able to refuse to do so, they are likely
to concede on the grounds that without the chip implantation they would not be able to receive
effective teaching. They would be led to make up ‘their own mind’ (?) and accept this new
method19. If more people are implanted with these chips, and if they also incorporate GPSfunctionality, it will be possible to trace students’ learning histories quite precisely. If such devices
could capture when, for how long, and with whom a student was in contact with, and if suchinformation were available in the form of big data (because the information stored in such devices
is not forgotten, it will be instantly recalled at any time and can easily be compared with othersimilar cases), it would be possible to understand the precise origin of students’ state of mind andto predict future changes with a much higher probability. When such an era arrives, such questions
as “Who am I?” or “What should I choose at this crossroads?” will be answered far more reliably
by Siri or Google than by ‘Me’ – but then ‘I’, as a being, will already be regarded as a collectionof coincidences. However, by then, there may be no one to even question the meaning of ‘My’
existence or the meaning of ‘My’ life anymore.
But why then do we want such precise measurements? Perhaps it is because we want tomake as accurate a prediction as possible about the future, which is essentially unknowable. And
what is the purpose of such predictions? In a word, it is to avoid death. ‘Death’ here is symbolicand refers to crisis situations such as unemployment, failure in examinations, ‘drop-out’, truancy
or withdrawal from school. Situations in which the social relationships and flow of life up to that19

In terms of health services, it is easy to imagine a situation in which obtaining favourable health and life insurance

would depend on undergoing a chip implantation operation. The concept of ‘one’s own mind’ in this case will nolonger be distinguishable from others, as is the case with brainwashing.

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point are severed. In the medical world – if quality of life is not questioned – the death of the patient
may be avoided in both a literal and symbolic sense. In education, however, the situation is quite
different. The discontinuity of such a life is ambivalent, and, despite the risk of failure, it can also
be an opportunity for transcendence, leaps, adventures, and challenges through a posteriori
assignment of meaning [Lenzen, D. 1993]. In other words, in the case of education, avoiding‘death’ through precise measurement also means extinguishing these opportunities.
When considering the above science fictions, the two constrains in the ethnometric method
do not mean that the method is incomplete, or that it remains on the way towards the scientificationof educational research. As G. Biesta states, education is “moral practice” more than a“technological activity” and, therefore, if the question for teachers is not just “what works” but also
“what is appropriate for these children in this situation” [Biesta, G. J. 2020, pp. 57-58], then at least
the above two constraints may be inevitable for educational practice and theory.
Furthermore, Biesta points to the problem of the “separation of means and ends ofprofessional conduct” in evidence-based education. According to Biesta, means and ends are“internally or constitutively” linked in education [Ibid, p. 54 and 57] and therefore, in the searchfor “good education”, a “deliberative democracy” [Ibid, p. 143] around the appropriate means andends of education is needed. I would like to conclude this paper by relating this point by Biesta tothis research and suggesting the possibility of deliberative democracy. I would like to refer again
to indicator 1 ‘nodding’and indicator 7 ‘various neck movements such as nodding, shaking one’s
head from side to side, and tilting the head sideways appear in succession’. Indeed, in this research,
the frequency of appearance/observation of these two indicators was never high. It israther important however, that by settling on both indicators despite their similarity (bothessentially referring to neck and head movements), the two class practitioners left someroom for further discussion. In fact, these two indicators suggest contradictions or fluctuations inteachers’ ideas about what is ‘personalization and empathizing’. That is, whereas indicator 1 canbe associated with the acceptance of existing modes of perception and values, indicator 7 can also
be related to their questioning or rejection. With this in mind, it may be possible to internally andconstructively link the step of indicator-setting to the deliberations around the lessons’ goal –specifically, the meaning of the state of ‘personalization and empathizing’ as a teaching goal. In
any case, even if it is not possible to stop the bus of evidence-based approaches with our bare hands,
it is possible to get on the bus and operate the brakes and steering wheel.

Reference
Biester, G. J. (2020). Yoi Kyouiku towa Nani ka, Rinri, Seiji, Minshushugi (Good Education in an
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educationAge of Measurement, Ethics, Politics, Democracy), translated by H. Fujii & H. Tamaki.
Hakutakusha.
Campbell, D. T. (1975). Assessing the impact of planned social change. In G. M. Lyons (Ed.).
Social Research and Public Policies: The Dartmouth/OECD Conference. Hanover, New
Hampshire: Dartmouth College, The Public Affairs Center, pp. 3-45.
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activities). In Japan Contemporary Dance Network (JDDN), NPO (Ed.): Heisei 30 Nendo,
Monbukagakusho Seishonen no Taikenkatsudo no Suishin ‘Jikokoteikan Kojyo Project’:Sozoteki na Dance o mochiita Jido-Seishonen no Jikokoteikan Kojyo Project (FY 2008,
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Promotion of Experiential
Activities for Youth ‘Self-affirmation Improvement Project’: Project to improve children
and youth’s sense of self-affirmation, using creative dance)”, pp. 22-29.
Gebauer, G. (2017). Goffman no Engekiteki Koui no Riron kara Bourdieu no Habitus Gainen e(From Goffman’s Theory of Theatrical Action to Bourdieu’s Concept of Habitus,translated by N. Fujikawa. In N. Fujikawa (Ed.). Jinsei no Choritsushitachi: Doteki
Dramaturgy no Tenkai (The Tuners of Life: The Development of Dynamic Dramaturgy).
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Lenzen, D. (1993). Krankheit als Erfindung: Eingriffe in die Kultur. FISCHER Taschenbuch.
Lind, G. (2011). Verbesserung des Unterrichts durch Selbstevaluation: Ein Plädoyer fürunverzerrte Evidenz. In J. Bellmann & Th. Müller (Hrsg.). Wissen, was wirkt: Kritik
evidenzbasierter Pädagogik. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 173-195.
Otsuka, T. & Shiotsu, H. (2022). ‘Tokubetsu no Kyoka Dotoku’ niokeru Gakushushido Katei ni
kansuru Kenkyu: Shogakko niokeru Jugyojissen no Kensho o tsujite (A Study on the
Learning Guidance Process in ‘Special Subject Moral Education’: Through Verification ofTeaching Practice in Elementary School). In Shimane University Graduate School of
Teaching (Ed.). Research on School Education Practice, Vol. 5, pp. 23-42.
Sackett, D. L. et al. (2000). Evidence-Based Medicine, Second Edition. Churchill Livingstone(Japanese translation published as Sackett, D. L. et al. (2003). Evidence-Based Medicine,
Elsevier Science).
Shibata, Y. (2021). Hyojyobunseki no Katsuyo niyoru Jugyo Bunseki no Kokoromi: Kyoshi no
Hatsuwanaiyo niyoru Kodomo no Kanjyo no Henka ni chakumokushite (A Trial of
Lesson Analysis Using Facial Expression Analysis: Focusing on the changes in children’s
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Table 4: Indicators’ selection rationale
IndicatConcreteor no.

physicalReason for selecting the indicator

expression
1

Nodding (to After watching the video, it was noticed that the number of scenes
teacher’sof students’ ‘nodding’ was less than the class practitioners had

statements)

expected. Overall, there were not many frequent nodding scenes
when listening to statements made by the teacher or friends. Whenlooking at the actual situations in which students nodded, it was
found that nodding was seen in situations of intense agreementwith what others said (“yes, yes!”)’ or ‘when students could
imagine a concrete situation (“yes!”)’.

2

Leaning

After watching the video, it was also noticed that children do not

forwardlean forward to listen to what is being said unless there is(excluding

something wrong. At the stage before they lean forward, students

cases

think about the question in their own way, either they have own

involvingideas or they have tried to think about it in their own way, but theyraising

are not able to determine what to think (they feel confused). In suchhands)

situations, they may become very curious about what others say orwant to compare it with their own ideas, which may make themlean forward.

3

Widening

When students’ eyes widen or there is an obvious change in theireyes (lively

facial expression, we believe that some kind of internal value

gaze)

fluctuation has occurred. Such a change is likely to occur when
listening to a friend’s statement. After listening to a statement,
empathic feelings like “Yes, that’s true!” and “I have had similar
experiences and feelings!”, as well as feelings of surprise at
obvious differences between their own ideas and those of the otherperson like “I didn't know there was such a way of thinking!” and“Really?” may appear around their eyes and in their facial
expression.

4

UpwardWe think that when students look up after hearing the teacher’s

gaze (aquestion it is a sign that they are seriously considering the question

shortin their own way. It is difficult for children to immediately

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pause indetermine how and what to think about questions that do not have

response toa correct answer, that is, questions that require they think about

a question

their own experiences. We think that the way their eyes are looking

and staring

upwards shows that they are remembering what they themselves

into space)have experienced in the past and thinking more concretely about
the question “What if it were me?”5

Fixed gaze

“When someone speaks, look at them carefully and listen(gaze stops

thoughtfully” is something that is taught in various situations atmoving inschool, but in practice it is difficult to ensure this way of listening

response to

every time. It is practically unavoidable that students may be

the question writing notes, looking away or misbehaving due to a break in
posed byconcentration. In these situations, there are sometimes moments

teacher)when students’ eyes are drawn towards the teacher in response to
the teacher’s question, and they stare firmly at the person who is
speaking, without their eyes darting about. We believe that this isa sign that the students are trying to stop and think about thequestion in their own way.

6

Conversatio

Dialogue may be held in pairs or groups with a neighbouring or

n starts

nearby friend. If the students do not know what to discuss in‘right after’

response to the prompt “Talk to someone nearby”, if they do not

encouraginfind a personal connection to the question, the pair/groupg discussion conversation will not be active. Sometimes they gather near eachwithother for the time being, but they are silent. Sometimes, however,neighbourin

as soon as the teacher encourages dialogue in pairs/groups, theg students

students immediately turn their bodies towards their friends andin thestart talking to each other. This may be an expression of students’course ofdesire to solve the problem as they already have some ideas of their

the lesson

own in response to the teacher’s prompting, or because it is adifficult subject to think about as related to themselves and theywant to talk it through with their friends.

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7

VariousSometimes you would see students in class shaking their heads

neckquickly and in small increments. The act of ‘shaking one’s head’ ismovements

thought to be an expression of a negative opinion or an opposite

such as(different) opinion in response to what the teacher has said or what

nodding,a friend has said. However, even if a student had such thoughts, if

shakingthey do not relate personally to the teacher’s question, there will

one’s head

be no noticeable change in students’ neck movements. This kind of

from side to change can be seen when students are thinking about an issue inside and

their own way, taking the matter seriously and have their own ideas

tilting thefirmly in mind. When various movements are observed, such as

headtilting the head to the side as well as shaking the head, we believe

sidewaysthat the students are in a state of intense conflict about values. The

appear instate of conflict and hesitation (moyamoya) after thinking throughsuccession

the teacher’s question based on their own understandings such as‘understanding of value’, ‘understanding of human beings’ and‘understanding of others’ may be expressed as such movements.

Symposium: Orality, Image, Memory and Bildung: Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on
Kulturwissenschaft

The applicability of the ‘ethnometric method’ as a support tool for teachers’ self-evaluation:
91
Focusing on children’s physical expressions related to ‘personalization and empathizing’ in moral
education

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Symposium: Orality, Image, Memory and Bildung: Toward the Possibility of Educational Study Based on
Kulturwissenschaft

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

Technological Transformation of Corporeal Existence:
Philosophical Reflection on the Theory of Corporeality of the
Kyoto School
Ayaki MONZEN
Kanazawa Seiryo University
Abstract
This study explores how the progress of “Gijutsu (art/technology)” impacts human transformation.
Currently, technological literacy largely defines social relationships and life-long experiences.
Therefore, school educational intents emphasize flexible updates of new technologies. This study
reconsiders human ontological transformation through the systematic use of new tools andmachineries in society based on the theory of corporeality of the Kyoto School.
Key words: Gijutsu (art/technology), tool, machinery, institution, Motomori KIMURAIntroduction
Recently, the digital transformation (DX) of education has gained considerable
attention. Under the Global and Innovation Gateway for All (GIGA) School concept,
children learn by using digital learning devices such as tablets and forming friendships
through various communicational applications. As literacy in information andcommunication technologies has become crucial to social relationships and life-longexperiences, school educational intents encourage flexible updates of technologicalinnovation.
However, is it reasonable for pedagogical discussions to incline toward effective
teaching methods for technical changes? Thus, this study reconsiders human ontologicaltransformation through the systematic use of “Gijutsu (art/technology)” in society. A
technical “rut” has been established through educational curriculums to provide specificCorrespondence:
Ayaki MONZEN, Kanazawa Seiryo University. Email: monzen@seiryo-u.ac.jp

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physicality suitable for socially required progress. Then, this study aims to use theperspectives of the Kyoto School to gain new viewpoints on today’s education. The
purpose is to convert the uniformity of technical “ruts” to the diversity of technological“channels” to build creative connections in society. By focusing on descriptions by
Motomori Kimura (1895-1946) and referring to Kiyoshi Miki (1897-1945), this study
considers human corporeal potentiality.

1. Theory of corporeality according to the Kyoto School
Keiichi Noe evaluates the thoughts of Kitaro Nishida (1870-1945) as thefoundation of philosophical discussions on human corporeality in Japan. According toNoe, Nishida shared the “global contemporariness” of thoughts with thephenomenologists of the time, while simultaneously identifying their tendencies andlimitations to the “rut of Cartesian subjectivism,” which was discussed based on theindividual experience and consciousness of the subjective inner self (Noe, 1994, p. 84).
This rut, which Nishida pointed out in his contemporaries, provides a
psychologistic and subjectivistic framework of human development and becomes theground for techno-rationalistic models of education. From this perspective, educational
arguments tend to be an effective methodology for the desired transformation fortechnical individuals.
In addition, under the intellectual influence of its members, the Kyoto School
developed several arguments on human corporeality as a dynamic complexity between
physical nature and human will (Yokoyama, 2005). Their discussions developed new
viewpoints to critically examine human-centered, technical rationalism.
There are two main streams of this challenging discussion as follows: one was
Nishida’s philosophy and the other was Hajime Tanabe’s (1885-1962) philosophy.
Nishida’s theory on corporeality was formed and deepened partly through his focus onart making, which vividly described the moment of “Koui-teki chokkan [actingintuition: 行為的直観].” Tanabe’s theory initiated the discussions on corporeality in
the Kyoto School, which investigates the corresponding dual structure of humancorporeality, namely the “inner,” “ego-belonging” aspect and “outer,” “transcendental”
aspect.
Kimura formed his thoughts on corporeality under a hybrid influence of both thesephilosophies. Along with Nishida and Tanabe, Kimura developed his concept of “Gijutsu”
and expanded it into a unique mode of presence as “Gijutsu-teki shintai [technologicalcorporeality: 技術的身体]” and its root of “Rekishi-teki shizen [historical nature: 歴史
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的自然].”

2. Theory of technological corporality to cultivate the relationshipbetween science and technology: Discussions by Motomori Kimura
In the famous article “Hyogen Ai [Expressive Love: 表現愛]” Part I, Kimura
discusses human beings as corporeal existence closely related to the context of culturalformations as follows.
Culture is not human’s conquest against nature but must be, in its deepest
essence, human’s formation of their actuality within the historical nature. In otherwords, culture is awareness as human beings through the cultivation of thehistorical nature. “Cultura,” in its profound and true sense, is nothing other thanthe cultivation of the historical nature ――that is to say, “Agricultura.” (Kimura,
1997, p. 31)
In this discourse, he states that the human body is an active pioneering point of
the creative will of the historical nature, partly cutting into physical materials. The
concrete formation of human embodiment through physical work depends on the mind.
Just as a sharp point of a chisel bites into a rock and gouges it out, people put theirwhole corporeal existences into difficult works. The unique characteristic of humancorporeality emerges through the correspondence of physical and mental actions (Ibid.,
p. 34).
Kimura focuses on this narrative structure of human creative will for new
cultures driven by embodiment works through cultivating the historical nature. The
human body is considered to be a cord of continuing changes occurring between
physical environments and the human will of socialites. In this sense, his idea that“awareness as human beings is embodied through cultivations of the historical nature”
does not simply indicate the function of the “Seishin [spirit: 精神]” that is always
human value-oriented.
In this context, the word “awareness” means the actual minds that come up withintuitive reflections accompanied by doing or acting in pre-linguistic ways. This
reflection hits through physical tricks or pathological affections while applying
technologies to some intention. This concrete insight is paraphrased by Kimura as“corporeal inspiration by hand works (including other bodily acts)” or “physical tact
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works in corporeality.”
Such considerations suggest that humans as corporeal existence do not input
readymade techniques but are gradually becoming unique and renewing their freshness
by inquiring into environments.
Furthermore, Kimura’s theory of corporeality is characterized by original
discussions on “Rishin-teki shintai [remote extension of the corporeality: 離身的身体].” He considered the cultural progress of science and technology from theperspective of global connection and communication. He regarded the theory of global
corporeality as a key to reconstructing national education. In addition, he suggested his
theory of world citizenship as a member of the Kyoto School through the concept of“Sekaishi-teki bunka-teki fuhen [world university in historical and cultural contexts: 世界史的文化的普遍].” This concept of university as the bottom of daily life wasrelevant to the renewal of “Gijutsu,” which enables the edge of rational inquiry. Thesearguments provide us with new viewpoints about human corporeality. As an “active tipof formative awareness” of the historical nature, human corporeality extends into
physical surroundings to capture cultural innovations, making exchanges and contacts
with different cultures (Kimura, 1946, p. 264, 282-283).
Kimura’s descriptions of remote extension of the corporeality include threeroutes of cultural interaction: the main concept “Michi [channels: 道]” can be
explained in detail as “Koutsuu-unyu [transportation: 交通運輸],” “Tsuushin[communication: 通信],” and “Denpa-houdou [propagated report: 伝播報道].” Theseroutes refer to the extended corporeality conveyed as mediums of technology. In using
and enjoying the fruits of modern natural science, these routes unexpectedly anduncertainly transform human corporeality.
The following passage on “transportation” is remarkable as a indicates oftechnical use of science and technology. Scientific achievements and their applications
in daily life always give birth to new technologies.
It should be noted that the transportation system is not merely a conveyor for
convenient movements. Transportation has more meaning than a merely
technical way of passing and moving. Theoretically, the transportation systemitself is nothing more than a chisel-like machinery as a pioneer of newtechnological channels. (Ibid., p. 281)
In this study, the focus is on Kimura’s consideration of the viewpoint about theantagonistic dialogue between two aspects of human corporeality, one is an immanent
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self and the other is the transcendental matter. In other words, the former is the bodily
self under control while the latter is the living actuality beyond arbitrariness.
Kimura inherited the dual structure of corporeality from Tanabe’s thoughts. The
technological corporeality, while making a dialogue between its inner and outer aspects,
is recreated thoroughly in daily practices. Thus, the technological corporeality is always
open and embarking on new cultural possibilities.
However, Nishida’s thoughts of “acting intuition” also definitively influenced
Kimura’s theory of corporeal remote extension. Nishida offered Kimura a uniqueparadoxical perspective. The point is that the corporeal self is dynamically activated,through using science and technology, realizing its characteristics or roles by
permeations and immersions into the world. Nevertheless, this argument of humancorporeality in symphony with its environment should not be identified with the spirit ofself-loss or self-sacrifice.
The historical world forms and creates itself through human corporeality, andthen human bodies are the rationalizing agency of several irrational events.
Humans have their bodies as tools, and at the same time, they are always
corporeal existences. To be immersed in the living world does not mean thathuman bodies disappear or become merely homogenized generically. Rather, thepermeation or immersion into the world means that human bodies become
deeply realized, self-satisfied, and openly aware of themselves by listening
thoroughly to the bottom or edges of the body. (Nishida 2003, p. 47)
Kimura succeeded Nishida’s understanding of the dual structure of humancorporeality. According to Kimura, the aspect of “having a body as a tool” is interpreted
as instrumental corporeality, and the aspect of “being a corporeal existence” isexplained as technological corporeality (Kimura, 1997, p. 35). As a corporeal existence,
humans work on the world through their bodily instrumentality to encounter different
environments and, by grasping materials in response, gradually receive the outlines andlimitations as individuals. Thus, human beings continue to be recreated with social
relationships embedded in the situation of the time and place.
Following Tanabe and Nishida’s philosophies, Kimura captures the tact ofcorporeal inspirations through hand works, expanding into tangible or intangible
cultures established by science and technology.
Furthermore, Kimura discusses the historical and social corporeality related tothe use of “tools” and “machinery.” According to him, the tools around us are
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A. MONZEN“dialectical entities that are both self-negated bodies and self-negated substances.” Hementioned that tools are “the most reliable and experienced alter self of humanexpressive subjectivities,” which “always invokes a purpose or a plan for the humanformative will concretely.” Tools are featured by “removability,” “substitutability,” and“publicness (subjective validity)” (ibid., pp. 37-39).
This argument alters the understanding of the use of tools. Human beings use atool as a means to an end; however, in line with Kimura’s way of thinking, using a tool
is revealed to be an interactive situation in which the tool calls upon the formability ofbodies as “objectively projected will of outside.” The tool stimulates and forms the“expressive will,” conveying limitations or pressures from the environment. Kimura
compared such a tool to a “corresponding partner of outside.”
In contrast to such a collaborative nature of tools, machineries are viewed as“negative bodies” or “objective bodies.” Machinery is a “bodily zero-point” that hasneither power nor workability; however, it “actively regains its powerful motions
through the double negation (the negation of the direct negation of point of effort) andpositively recovers its subjectivity.” Kimura indicates that machineries accompany
specific corporeality called “trans-corporeality” (ibid., pp. 40, 46). It is an “overall planembodied as a complex unity of partial plans,” also an “architecture of plans,” under
objective rationality. Machinery does not respond to human bodies, absorbing humancorporeality, and working without reliable correspondences or relationships.
Kimura took the function of tools as his point of argument and focused on the“Kotsu [a knack, a hang: 骨、骨法]” and “Kokyu [a tact: 呼吸]” originally acquired
before noticing practical corporeality. In addition, he focused on the human will tosearch for natural materials using corporeal inspirations (ibid., pp. 41-42). Under sucharguments, he had a sense of crisis of the time in surrendering to the “great voice” ofmachinery, which brought profound qualitative changes in the human sense of art andmorality.
Today people are living in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) networks that are
involved with each other like complexes of invisible vast machinery. Faced with suchtechnological transformations as corporeal existence, Kimura’s arguments on machinery
can explore the issue of human transcendence. This aspect should be examined morepositively and radically linked with social structure. Then, the next section refers to thetheory of social corporeality by Kiyoshi Miki, who considered the technologicalformations of institutions.

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3. Theory of social corporality to explain institutional connections
between science and technology: Discussions by Kiyoshi MikiIn the article “Kousouryoku no Ronri [The Logic of Imagination: 構想力の論理]” Chapter I “Myth,” Miki explains “Logic of imagination” as the “imagination tied tonature, a nature in a subjective sense, in other words, to human pathos.” Moreover, hedefines this subjective nature working as pathos or passions, “Shakai-teki shintai [social
corporeality: 社会的身体] (Miki 1967b, p. 95).”
The social corporeality is supported mainly by collective liaisons of laborious
interests, which enable us to form a variety of intuitions cooperatively. Although a social
institution for technological development is taken as “Katachi [form: 形]” of labororiented negotiations, Miki attentively captures human occupations behind it. Social
corporeal negotiations encourage to utilization of nature including pathos. His theory ofcorporeality explores this deepest aspect of human productivity from the perspective of
the corporeal passion of nature.
According to him, a social institution that defines human productive acts is a“form,” which is defined by three points, as follows: (1) a mimetic character as“convention and fiction”; (2) a habitual and traditional character as “custom”; and (3) alegal, compulsory, and authoritative character as “mores” or “nomos.”Based on the above, not only (3), which directly governs social life, but also (1)and (2) include sociality. (1) means “convenio (to come together, assemble),” whichaccompanies a social property of logos as “unity,” “agreement,” and “promise” among
unspecified multiple people. In addition, (2) has a collective, natural, and inevitableproperty of pathos, distinguished from individual customs (ibid., pp. 102-103).
In Chapter 3 “Technology,” he describes the linkage between science andtechnology related to the institutional aspect of technology as follows.
Technology is created when humans remote and detach themselves from nature,
and at the same time, through technology, they are bound to and return to nature.
(ibid., p. 255)
This is quite ambivalent as a form of negotiation between nature and humans.
Technology becomes more self-evident through those dual actions and their repetitions.
By extension, it accompanies “the tendency to imitate oneself endlessly,” and then takes
on a normative meaning as an institutional form.
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former is an experimental and critical activity to accumulate objective knowledge for
freedom and to control over nature, whereas the latter is an activity to question the resultsof science among nature in practice and institutionalize them as customs. However, like
Kimura, he also relies on Nishida’s argument of “acting-intuition” and “seeing by doing,”
stating that science and technology emerge in an improvised way, and pointed out themulti-layered overlapping between science and technology.
Miki developed his theory of social corporeality at the point of “Gijutsu” toconstrain and to be constrained by the forms of institutions. There are some suppressedor unknown gaps in the boundaries between new forms of institutions. In his article“Tetsugaku Nyumon [An Introduction to Philosophy: 哲 学 入 門 ]” (1940), this
discussion is redrawn under the phrase that “human technology succeeds the technology
of nature.” The phrase indicates social motivation for technology “Gijutsu” driven by anindefinite, demonic impulse. This demonic character of “Gijutsu” is reflected in thesentence that “at the root of the world lies infinite darkness, infinite impulse.” Miki states
and tries to indicate that social corporeality is linked deeply to technology as an
institutional formation (Miki 1967b, pp. 163-166). He illustrates that, in the first place,institutional formation is not a solid contractual form of mutual benefits, but an open
activation by a latent and potential force of unknown and unlimited formations.
Regarding the passionate form of unknowns, the concept of demonic formative
force discussed by Nishida offers a clue to Miki, that is, an affected impulse of
selflessness before the conscious distinguishment of objects. The force is over subjective
controls. In this sense, social corporeality in Miki’s institutional theory does not focus on
objective and collaborative corporeality that shares general standards and common sense.
Rather, his theory grasps the powerful impulsiveness highlighted by proactive and intent
aspects through the diversity of living.
By referring to Miki, this report suggests that the social corporeality of
institutional formations can bring an open, rather than self-centered or self-assertive,
creativity. This creativity is apprehended as a tact to survive current restrictions or
problems, passing their pathos to the changes that follow. Sometimes, this creativity may
seem irrational. However, the impact is necessary for tolerant social concepts to avoid theuniform expansion of valid techniques for all.

Conclusion
This report critically examined the tendency of education today, which
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rationally drives children or newcomers to acquire the necessary techniques or skills forsocial life. The verification of the word “Gijutsu (art/technology)” has reaffirmed someprinciples of corresponding and emerging “channels” for the technologicaltransformation usually covered by psychologistic and subjectivistic “ruts” for rational
technical acquisitions.
Kimura’s theory of technological corporeality discusses a remote extension thatpenetrates into an environment like a “chisel-like” tool, launching new channels of“transportation,” “communication,” and “propagated report.” From this perspective, thetechnological transformation of human corporeality is not regarded as the formation ofsubjective individuals suitable for uniform techniques. Human corporeality isreconsidered as a medium that receives constraints or difficulties woven into its will,
purposes, and motivations and then converts such unexpectedness into new keys toopen the next channels of technology.
Miki examined the social corporeality related to social networks, which
immediately replaces limitations or constraints with its driving force of institutional
formation. His logic of form/formation focuses on the practical corporeality, whichgains its social concreteness through conflicts arising from cultural differences and theirmutual negations. Under his argument, human corporeality is reconsidered as a medium
of open creativity for impulsiveness provided by the diversity of living.
The corporeal theories of the Kyoto School propose, first, a conceptual shift ofthe meaning of “Gijutsu” learning, from the previous value-accumulated view oftechniques to the notable value-inquiring view of technologies. In the former, one isencouraged to simply acquire predetermined skills and desirable techniques, in the latter
one is encouraged to gain trial tact derived from carefully examining motivations andprocesses of learning acquisitions.
Second, the Kyoto School’s arguments show the need to generate an interactive
institutional design of social promotion to provide new technologies. Institutional
design always prepares a premised outlook. Therefore, it should be formed withattentive and reflective thinking on unexpected difficulties or contradictions around the
expected effects of new changes.
As above, education can overcome technical rationalism by attaching areasonable value to possible or arising failures, conflicts, and imperfections of technicaland technological changes. The key would be to convert such specific nuisances toactive resources of coming technological transformations in accordance with thehistorical nature and social corporeality.

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References
Kimura, M. (1997) Hyogen Ai [Expressive Love]. Tokyo: Kobushi Shobo.
―. (1946) Kokka ni okeru Bunka to Kyoiku [Culture and Education in the Nation
State]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Miki, K. (1940/1967a) Tetsugaku Nyumon [An Introduction to Philosophy] in Miki
Kiyoshi Zenshu [The Collected Works of Kiyoshi Miki] (Vol. 7). Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten.
―. (1937-1943/1967b) Kousouryoku no Ronri [The Logic of Imagination] in Miki
Kiyoshi Zenshu [The Collected Works of Kiyoshi Miki] (Vol. 8). Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten.
Nishida, K. (1936/2003) Ronri to Seimei [Logic and Life]. In Nishida Kitaro Zenshu[The Collected Works of Kitaro Nishida] (Vol. 8). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
Noe, K. (1994) Rekishi no naka no Shintai: Nishida Tetsugaku to Genshou-gaku[Human Corporeality in the History: Nishida's Philosophy andPhenomenology], In Ueda, S. (ed.), Nishida Tetsugaku [Nishida
Philosophy: A Festschrift of the 50th Anniversary of the Death], Tokyo:
Sobunsha.
Yokoyama, T. (2005), Nihon-teki Shintai no Keisei [The Formation of the Japanese
Theory of the Corporeality: Focusing on the “The Kyoto School”] in The
University of Tokyo 21st Century COE Program (ed.), UTCP Kenkyuu
Ronshu [UTCP Research Review] (No. 2). Tokyo: International Center of
Exchange for Philosophy for Symbiosis (The University of Tokyo 21stCentury COE Program).

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International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 8, 2023

Corporeality and Education: Reconsidering the basis of'experience' and 'connection'
Satoshi TANAKAThe University of Tokyo
Takuo NISHIMURA
Ritsumeikan University
The Symposium set by the Board of Directors of the 2022 Annual Meeting of theSociety for Philosophy of Education was Corporeality and Education: Reconsidering thebasis of 'experience' and 'connection'. In this Symposium Chiharu Fujii reported on "TheConcept of Communication on Dewey," Nobuo Fujikawa reported on "Ethnometry
Method,'' and Ayaki Monzen reported on "Technological Transformation of Corporeal
Existence''.
The Concept of Corporeality was often discussed in the 1970s and 1980s (forexample, Hiroshi Ichikawa's Miwake(Physical recognition) theory, Masakazu
Yamazaki's rhythm theory, Bernhart Waldenfels' self-body theory, etc.), which does notappear to be much discussed today. The purpose of this year's Symposium theme is toreconfirm the reality of our corporeality from the perspective of educational philosophy,
based on the social reality of the rapid progress of Information Technology/Digital
Transformation(IT/DX) in addition to the Corona Disaster that has continued since theyears before last.
Corporeality is an ambiguous concept, but at the very least it is distinguished fromthe concept of the body. If we trace the history of European philosophical thought, wefind that the Japanese word "sintai'' can be traced back to the Latin word "corpus" and the
Greek word "soma". "Soma" is distinguished from "sarx," which is translated as English"flesh". The Latin translation of this "sarx" is "caro". Soma is the gathering of sarx, andin this sense soma means unity and community. This distinction between thecorporeal/physical of soma/corpus and of sarx/caro is inherited by the distinction between"Körper/Leib" and "Fleisch" in German, and the distinction between "corps" and "chair"
Correspondence:
Satoshi TANAKA, The University of Tokyo. Email: sgtanaka@p.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Takuo NISHIMURA, Ritsumeikan University. Email: takuo@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp

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in French. And also for example, the meaning of the unity of soma/corpus was inheritedby Henri Bergson's concept of "system sensori-moteurs'' and by Maurice MerleauPonty's concept of "circuit sensori-moteur''.
However, it is also possible to establish an ontological concept of corporeality thatis distinct from the traditional concept of the body as mentioned above. First of all, it is
the real bodily sensation (sensus corporis : perception of the five senses) as an experienceof perception (in addition, anima and esse, which means vitality and activity, also can beconsidered as corporeality). The perception(affectus)of the other person through thisbodily sensation functions as the context of words and conversations (if this acceptanceis poor, the words will become stereotyped and redundant in order to avoid omissions
and misunderstandings). What is produced in the mind by this perception isaffection(affectio). It involves the judgment of right or wrong, and induces(cultura)theimage of transcendence that are not sencible(as sensibilis) but intellectual (asintellegibilis).
When we think in this way, corporeality is an experience of creation that realises aconnection between my feeling "I am here" and "You are there," in other words, theexpanse of "aida"(between) that evokes the feeling that I am with others. In other words,
one's corporeality is not a thing located in physical space, such as a body or an object, but
a place to perceive others, to sympathize with others, and to direct intellecual reality ofothers. What is really sensed, for example, the "gestures'' and "facial expressions'' of theother, along with interpretation and inference, creates some kind of recognition of theother (for example, "You are bored'') and responds to the other (for example, "I change
the topic''). However, what is really sensed may also produce sympathy, an emotion thattranscends the distinction between me and others, without interpretation or reasoning, andmay also produce a natural my response to the other person (for example, "caring'' inprimacy). It is not only to human beings, but also to animals and material nature). Whatis really sensed is also the basis for constructing intellectual reality. To be sure, theconstruction of this intellectual reality requires the perception of the real. In other words,
when what is perceived with attention is real, intellectual reality is carefully sought behind
it. For example, when there is a real face in front of one's eyes, that reality is the
personality(uniqueness, spirituality) that people carefully look for behind that face. But
when what is accepted is virtual reality, intellectual reality becomes less sought after. It is
felt as "frustration". For example, when using a webinar, I can see you and hear you, butthey are mostly artificial and unreal. Therefore, there is a sense of absence that you cannot
feel that you are "there". This absence hinders the formation of your conscious reality.
The trigger that creates the desire for intellectual reality is the perception of the real.
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This attenuation of the perception of real things also reduces the perceived things to justan piece of information as a temporary proposition. The fact that corporeality is the mainelement that creates the expanse of sensitivity-imagination that transcends informationsuggests that corporeality is the basis of human formation/becoming, which should bereconfirmed in this information-based age.
In the first part of the symposium, three members of the society gave presentations.
Fujii's report examined the flaws in online communication, which have become
quite evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. In his last paper published in "Studies in
the Philosophy of Education" No.124, he opined that, based on J. Dewey's concept of theplurality of the "self" and its integrity, it is possible for us to "continue the conversation"with "incommensurable others" if we have a "translator" who shares a common part ofthe "self" with the others in our community. In this report, he again referred to Dewey's
concept of "empathy" to expound that antagonisms often become more serious in theinternet space because it is difficult to express the plurality of the "self" there. Whileconfirming that Dewey's "empathy" is never the emotional unification but the cognitive"deliberation" of the other, Fujii stated that it is the empathy based on common experience,
sense, and feeling confirmed in "activities exposing bodies each other" that makes thebases of the "continuity of conversation" with others.
Fujikawa’s report was on his project that aimed to measure children's physicalmovements in school to support and modify teachers' practical knowledge with empiricalevidence. He tried to visualize and present practitioners' impressions of children's
physical movements, which may be negated as merely subjective, into reliableknowledge that can be shared and discussed inter-subjectively among teachers to resist
the "corruption pressure of evidence" and control by technocrats. Fujikawa insisted that
his method of Ethnometry observes two restrictions: indexes of measurement must be set
up by the teacher himself/herself, and what is measured must be only the impressions ofchildren's movements, not their bodies or inner states. In a situation where the restrictions
are removed (he imagined science fictionally), children will move uniformly according
to the provided norms and their inner states will be measured by microchips embeddedin their skin. He opined that education should resist such a compulsive pursuit of precise
measurement motivated by the fear of an uncertain future, which is symbolized by"death."Monzen's report was on the theories of corporeality by two philosophers of the
Kyoto School, Motomori Kimura and Kiyoshi Miki, and focused on their concept of"Gijutsu" (art/technology). Kimura's term "Gijutsu" shows us the double character of
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human corporeality; we "have" bodies as "tools," but we "are" bodies, corporeal
existences. A "tool" is the "remote extension" of the body. It works as an extension of thebody; at the same time, it calls to the person who makes something with it. In contrast
with the collaborative character of the "tool," the "machinery" built up as an "objective
body" beyond the "tool" reorganizes human corporeality with its overwhelming power.
Kimura regarded it as the root cause of the crisis of the modern age. Miki understood"Gijutsu" as separation from and confrontation with nature as well as a return to nature,
based on the concept of "historical nature," which he succeeded from Kitaro Nishida.
Miki also paid attention to the "demonic" character of "Gijutsu," in which Monzen tried
to find a possibility to overcome the crisis of the modern age.
After the three presentations, we had a question-and-answer session between thethree presenters and the participants of the symposium. Topics under discussion include
the following themes: How can we realize the negative moments of corporeality, whichcannot be controlled by the mind, and bring about discordance? When discussing
corporeality, do the presenters presuppose the physical, temporal-spatial co-existence?
Should the "empathy" in the sense of Dewey be supported and supplied by educational
guidance? Does the concept of "machinery" in the sense of the Kyoto School include themoment of transcendency?
We are now confronting a situation in which our corporeal existence is beingtransformed irresistibly by a trend referred to as "digital transformation," which is realized
by the Global and Innovation Gateway for All School. It is one of the important tasks forthe philosophy of education to explicate how we can understand the situation, in order
not to be passively affected by the trend. We hope that the symposium helped offer
abundant clues for the task.

Thematic Research: Corporeality and Education: Reconsidering the Basis of “Experience” and “Connection”