Speech is intelligible even when the temporal envelope of speech is distorted. The current study investigates how native and non-native speakers perceptually restore temporally distorted speech. Participants were native English speakers (NS), and native Japanese speakers who spoke English as a second language (NNS). In Experiment 1, participants listened to “locally time-reversed speech” where every x-ms of speech signal was reversed on the temporal axis. Here, the local time reversal shifted the constituents of the speech signal forward or backward from (...) the original position, and the amplitude envelope of speech was altered as a function of reversed segment length. In Experiment 2, participants listened to “modulation-filtered speech” where the modulation frequency components of speech were low-pass filtered at a particular cut-off frequency. Here, the temporal envelope of speech was altered as a function of cut-off frequency. The results suggest that speech becomes gradually unintelligible as the length of reversed segments increases (Experiment 1), and as a lower cut-off frequency is imposed (Experiment 2). Both experiments exhibit the equivalent level of speech intelligibility across six levels of degradation for native and non-native speakers respectively, which poses a question whether the regular occurrence of local time reversal can be discussed in the modulation frequency domain, by simply converting the length of reversed segments (ms) into frequency (Hz). (shrink)

明治時代の“知と行動の巨人”の思想に迫る!東洋大学創立者、妖怪博士、近代仏教復興の立役者...と獅子奮迅の活躍を見せた井上円了。その業績を支えた独自の世界観・人生観を原典に基づきながら解明。.

仏教復興への情熱と行動の足跡を丹念にたどり、この偉大な先達が哲学的に究明した仏教思想の全貌をあきらかにする。画期的円了論。.

インド、中国そして日本。古代から近代へと、東洋思想の核心を求めて。この世界は、実体的存在などなく、あらゆるものが互いに関係し合って存在している。ではそこで自己とはいかなる存在で、どのようにあるべきなの か。唯識の事的世界観から華厳の事事無礙法界へ、さらに空海の人人無礙の曼荼羅、そして西田の「個物の哲学」へ。東洋の大地にそびえたつ哲学の連峰を縦横に踏破し、その叡智の真髄を未来に向けて照らし出す壮大な書 。.

Only rarely do foreign visitors find their way to the Temple Garden of Philosophy, located away from the busy shopping streets and off the beaten tourist track in the Japanese capital. In this book, the World Sages, to whose memory the shrine in the centre of the Garden is dedicated, are presented as existential thinkers in four essays by Japanese and German scholars. In a detailed introduction, the author and translator of the volume sketches an intellectual framework that places the (...) Four Sages within the parameters of global humanism. Perusing the recent contributions by Jan Assmann and Jürgen Habermas, the epilogue offers a discussion of the controversial thesis of a Eurasian Axial Age around 600 BCE. With contributions by Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Volker Gerhardt, Prof. em. Dr. Makio Takemura and Prof. em. Dr. Kōhei Yoshida. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies 2005 Annual MeetingPaul SwansonThe 2005 meetings of the Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies focused on the theme "Personal and Impersonal Aspects of the Absolute" and were divided into two venues, with a preliminary panel at the nineteenth World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) in Tokyo, March 24–30, and the regular annual meeting held in Kyoto on July 19–21. (...) At both meetings, the same four papers by JSBCS members were presented, in English at the World Congress and in Japanese at the regular meeting of the Society.The topic summary for the IAHR panel read as follows:In general, the Christian God is said to be transcendental and personal, but the Buddhist dharma is said to be immanent and impersonal. God, Christ, and Holy Spirit in the New Testament, however, have an immanent transcendent side, and it is impersonal on the immanence side. There is also a transcendent immanence side of the Buddhist Tathagata, and it is personal on the transcendent side. On the one hand, the three major personalistic monotheisms that originated in the Middle East traditionally understood the teachings of other religions as incomplete. On the other hand, in Buddhism other religions are looked down on as "other ways," unable to bring about final liberation (ADK IX). It is said that in the case of the personalistic religions, there is risk of spiritual attachment because God reveals His absolute divine will to believers through prophets; in the case of Buddhism, practitioners are urged to seek their own enlightenment and even, in some early sutras, to use critical reasoning. However, even in Buddhism the thoughts of the founders of the sects have authority. It is important to re-examine the meaning of God and dharma from the perspective of the human personality structure.Chaired by Watanabe Manabu, the IAHR panel consisted of the following four paper presentations:1. Hanaoka Eiko, "Absolute Infinite Openness in Christianity and Buddhism." The origin of a personal God in Christianity and impersonal "emptiness" or "absolute nothingness" in Buddhism are both personal and also impersonal [End Page 183] as an "absolute infinite openness." The self-awareness of absolute infinite openness is the self-awareness of the experience of the most personal dimension, and always simultaneously of the most impersonal dimension. It is that impersonal dimension that this paper investigates.2. Takemura Makio, "On the Significance of Buddha in Buddhism." Buddhism has a view of the Absolute that is comparatively unique. The Absolute is not found in the absolute in contrast to the relative. It is always found in the identity of the absolute and the relative, that is, the identity of any conditioned dharma (samskrita) and the ultimate unconditioned nature (asamskrita) as emptiness (sunyata), or the activity of jnana and the tathata or dharmata. In other words, the individuality or personality of Buddha and the universality or impersonality of tathata are never separated. The ultimate nature does not exist only by itself, and a buddha is one of many buddhas, even if people believe the Buddha as absolute. In Buddhism, buddhas as personal are filled with great compassion and work hard to guide people to become Buddha. They never judge people's guilt. Why is this so? This paper attempts to analyze the reasons in terms of questions such as whether or not the personality of the Absolute is rooted on emptiness, whether the Absolute is one or not, and so forth.3. Tanaka Yutaka, "God as the Locus of the World and the Ground of Human Freedom." This paper critically discusses Nishitani Keiji's arguments of "The Personal and the Impersonal in Religion" in his Religion and Nothingness. Comparing the Christian tradition of speculative mysticism or "panentheism" with the Zen Buddhist philosophy of "Nothingness," the paper seeks to show that God as the locus of the cosmos is the transcendental ground of human freedom and subjectivity.4. Yagi Seiichi, "Impersonal God in the New Testament." In the Pauline epistles and Johannine literature, the key words of a theology that indicates the oneness of divine-human activity can be identified: God working in us, as an expression of mutual... (shrink)