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2012年5月 月次レポート（マヤ・ヴォドピヴェッツ オランダ）
Report on the second month of my research at Leiden Institute of Asian Studies (LIAS), May 2012
Maja Vodopivec
In May, beside attending in this school year last-two weeks classes (International Political Economy of China and Critical Approached to International Relations by Prof. Lindsey Black), and attending Siebold-kai in Leiden (the lecture this time was done by Ms. Emika Tokunaga from Osaka University, on the relation of national catastrophes and international human rights law), I have continued readings of Kato Shuichi, especially the parts I did not directly pay attention on during my Ph.D. dissertation: at Leiden University electronic library I could get an article by Kato Shuichi, written in English in 1967, published in Monumenta Nipponica (Vol.22). The title of the article is "Tominaga Nakamoto, 1715-46. A Tokugawa Iconoclast". As I already said, the topic was not directly connected to my Ph.D dissertation, but from before I had Kato's book "Sandai banashi" (Chikuma shobo) in which he through the life and writings of three intellectuals (one is Tominaga Nakamoto) analyzes many topics regarding Shintoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Another book I have from before and did not have time to analyze it, was "Tominaga Nakamoto ibun, kieta hangi" (Kamogawa Shuppan, 1998). Kato was deeply impressed with Tominaga Nakamoto's system of ideas that was constructed almost in absolute isolation from the Western ideas. His admiration was renewed at the end of the 90s, and I want to see if Kato's opinion has changed over the time, and if yes, in what points and how. According to Kato, Tominaga's system of ideas was based on three major conceptions: historical development (evolution of ideas), function of language relative to the time and speaker's possibilities, and thirdly - national characteristics or habits of nations. These three pillars of the thought of Tominaga remind on the pillars of Kato's thought. And not only Kato's - some parallels with the thought of contemporary Japanese philosophers are also possible (such as Sakao Naoki who has quite opposite views on certain issues than Kato's). This is something that I need to work more on regarding the thought of Kato Shuichi and that I was not working on during the Ph.D.