CopyRight YANABU Akira
CopyRight YANABU Akira
− aru (for material being), iru (for human being)
存在 sonzai, which is the translating word from 'being 'in English, 'Sein' in German and 'etre' in French, is coined with Chinese characters of 存 and 在. We will look back the history of the translation of this word first.
In "Haruma wage (Explanation into Japanese modeling after F.Halma's way)" Wezen in Dutch was translated as 'shizen * (nature), shikarashimuru mono * (what makes exist), michi * (way), oshie *
(doctrine)', in which shizen, shikarashimuru mono may be similar to the meaning of today.
Sonzai was used in Chinese classics since early days, instances have not been so many however. In Eika jiten (English-Japanese dictionary), there was no such word. The translating word sonzai can be said to be like shakai, made in Japan. In Lobsheid's "Eika jiten" (1866-69), being was rendered as '在 (to be), 有在 (to exist), 自在之有 (free existing),自然之有 (natural existing), 無形無影之有 (immaterial existing)'. "Eiwa taiyaku shuuchin jisho (English-Japanese portable dictionary)" translated being as 'what is appearing, shaped body'.
The first appearance of sonzai in a dictionary was, as far as I know, in "Futsuwa jiten (French-Japanese dictionary)" by a man in Nagasaki named Koujudo in 1871, in which etre was put as 'sonzai, shaped body', and afterwards it seemed to have been often used in French ditionaries, "Futsuwa jirin (French-Japanese vocabulary)" mentioned above translated etre as follows:
joukyou (situation), sonzai, hini (mono no) (quality (material), mono (thing), seisonbutsu (living thing), hito (person), seikatsu (living), seimei (life), bussei (material nature), bussitsu (matter), seibutsu no seishitsu (the nature of living thing), yuu (existing), #
While sonzai is the term of philosophy, it had not appeared however even in dictionaries of philosophy, in 1881 "Tetsugaku jii $ (Terms of philosophy)" edited by Inoue Tetsujirou $ rendered being as 'jitsuzai $ (existence), gentai $ (real matter)', the same was in the edition in 1884, but in the edition in 1912, being was put as 'jitsuzai, sonzai shourui $ (living things), yuu $. In those days in almost every field
translating words were decided on the whole.
The main subject of ontology is not a stone's being nor mankind's beings, but a person's own being. In various Japanese dictionaries mentioned above, a character 在 (zai) was used frequently, but 存 (son) was not so many. Watsuji Tetsurou once explained that the coinage of 存在 made of 存 plus 在 is appropriate for the expression of a person's own being. *
Son 存 is used in ordinary Japanese, for instance, 'Zon zite orimasu # . (I know it well.)', and in Chinese classics 所存 (what is thought) was used meaning that a person had in her/his mind. This way of using the word has been living until today, such as saying zonshin # (to take care of oneself) or zonmei # (to live). That is, zon means to be together with the passage of time as the behavior of personal subject. And zai 在 means, as used as zaishuku # (to stay at a house), zaitaku # (to stay at home), zaigou # (to stay in one's country), zaisei # (to live), to be in space or in society, namely it expresses personal subject
being in personal relations. Watsuji Tetsurou insisted thereby the word sonzai was suitable for expressing human subject being in time and space.
Nevertheless there is still crucial difference between sonzai and being or Sein in Western words. The meaning of verb form of being 'be' is, both 'be' used as 'I am.' namely watashi ga aru.$ and 'be' used as 'I am a girl.' namely watashi wa otokonoko de aru.$ The former 'ga aru'
means to exist, which has been the theme of ontology, and the latter 'de aru' is copula, which connects subject and predicate, and has been the issue of logic. While to be has such two meanings, sonzai suru has the former meaning, and not the latter meaning.
Hence Watsuji said for the translating word of being or Sein, aru namely 有 in Chinese character was appropriate, because it was common to both ga aru and de aru. He also said that 有 had the meaning 'to have' such as 所有 (possession), and 有 in examples 有為 (promising), 有志 (interested), 有罪 (guilty) and 所有 meant to be and possession. Then he said that being of person means a person has a person her/him-self, and that Heidegger had argued in the same way on a Greek word 'ousia'. In some dictionaries mentioned above there were 有 as a translating word of being, and some philosophers in Japan use 有 even today, maybe because of Watsuji's suggestion.
So far I have introduced Watsuji's view on the translating word of being or Sein in detail, that is because he has, unusually for a Japanese scholar, a sense of language. In many of the Western books of sciences, about in the beginning of the first volume or the first chapter the history or the meaning of fundamental terms are argued. On the other hand in Japanese sciences technical terms usually, the more they are fundamental the more they are translating words, hence if Japanese scholars want to think of the terms, they ought to introduce the views of Western words since ancient Greek. While Watsuji Tetsurou, when studying sciences, has considered Japanese words corresponding with being and so on, the fundamental posture of which I would like to respect as the manner of thinking through Japanese language. Approving it however, I think to have to criticize his view. I will also consider Japanese words corresponding with being and so on as shown below, and will confront Watsuji's view with mine.
First, the problem of what he said is, that being or Sein etc. had two meanings which were being and copula, and these two were in Japanese ga aru and de aru, expressed together with a word aru. I venture to say that ga aru was made as a result of translation from Western words of 'to be' etc., that is, ga aru is a coined Japanese. We should say hence there is a crucial difference between to be etc. and aru.
It was the scholar of Dutch that coined de aru used even today as the translating word of copula in Western language. In "Oranda jii (Dutch dictionary)" (1855-58), there were a lot of examples to which
elaborated translations were attached, for instance:
Dat zijn eerlijke lieden. Sore wa tadashiki hitobito de aru.*
Into English, this Dutch sentence can be translated:
Those are honest people.
'Zijn' in Dutch is the third person plural of verb 'zijn' corresponding to 'be' in English, which was translated into Japanese, at first, aru. This aru was primarily Japanese ari which means sonzai suru (to be) today. While zijn in Dutch is predicate and so placed next to subject, in Japanese predicate is in principle placed at the end of a sentence. The original sentence was thereby naturally translated as 'Sore wa tadashiki hitobito ･ aru.' which was a little strange for a sense of Japanese language, hence de was added before aru as if it were a okurigana # .
Though de aru had used before, but only rarely. If it had usually used, it would not have been written as de aru (デアル). In this dictionary the translating words of zijn besides de aru were ni aru, de aru etc. in which de aru were fairly numerous. And in the examples of this dictionary, de aru and de aru were exceptionally many as Japanese writings of the day. This de aru style was soon taken over to English translation, and became used in writings other than translation till the present day.
Watsuji's opinion that aru in Japanese is appropriate for the translation of being etc. because both aru and being etc. have two meanings of being and copula, should be revised as de aru's meaning of copula had been created through translation.
The next problem of Watsuji's opinion is that sonzai is appropriate because son has the meaning of time and zai has the meaning of space. In my opinion however, so long as it was coined as a word with two Sino-Japanese characters, such an analysis is almost meaningless, the meaning of shakai (社会, society) or kaisha (会社, a company) can hardly derive from sha (社) and kai (会).
Sonzai is one word, for a lots of people particularly who receive this word, it is only a word pronounced 'sonzai'. Though people know through its context that it is a coined translating word and that its meaning seems almost unknown in their daily life, they scarcely think of its meaning from a word son or zai. Sonzai has some profound, high-grade meaning, or rather, effect such as 'cassette'. For example, the saying 'I think my sonzai.' instead of 'I think that I am.' may be received as a problem somewhat grave.
And in the third place, let's think of 有 (yuu) that Watsuji proposed as the translating word of being etc.
There are some serious differences between aru and yuu. First, while yuu as the technical term of philosophy is a noun, aru is a verb. And next, what can be used in two ways as ga aru and de aru, corresponding to existence and copula is not yuu, but aru.
Aru in Japanese is a verb which is particularly difficult to change for a noun. Verbs in Japanese can be generally changed for nouns by being conjugated to the form of connecting to declinable words, such as yomi (reading), nemuri (sleeping), sakebi * (crying). But ari is hardly used as a noun.
The reason that aru is difficult to change for a noun may be, because in many cases it is used as formal grammatical functions, while it has surely substantial meaning too. The formal functions are, for instances, from ni-ari and te-ari once auxiliary verbs nari tari were made and so forth. The reason that de aru which is like a auxiliary verb was made may be because of this formal function. And generally, the word of formal function is hardly necessary to use as a noun.
Aru has of course substantial meaning however, Ishi ga aru. (There is a stone.), kane ga aru, (to have money), yo ni aru (to live) etc. *
Among Japanese verbs in particular, aru is used widely and has abstract meaning. And because of having abstract meaning, it is used in formal grammatical use.
Hence in Japanese, abstract and fundamental verbs are especially difficult to change for nouns, I believe this is crucial. It seems improper that disregarding such a crucial character of Japanese, Watsuji put aru and yuu in the same category, and thought them together with a Chinese character 有 (yuu). When he researched Japanese words corresponding with being, he was apt to take chiefly Chinese characters and thought through them. Our traditional native Japanese, yamatokotoba was treated lightly. Though he found expressly aru, he changed it with 有 (yuu).
This is deep-rooted issue, an article on sonzai or an argument about yuu can be of science, but an article on aru cannot be of science. Because since ancient Greece not only philosophy but sciences have been constructed mainly with the noun form of words, which has been deeply related to the structure of Western languages. Western writings are sure to have subjects, and third person pronouns and relative pronouns, namely, noun-centered structure. Such functions are in Japanese,weak or defective. And Chinese sciences and thinking have been noun-centered too. We Japanese therefore, in the same manner as we imported once the culture of Chinese characters, since modern ages we could import fairly easily Western sciences and cultures. Hence, as I am arguing in this book, many important translating words have been made of Chinese characters.
For instance, when one asks 'what is yuu?' and thinks 'yuu is so-and-so', this yuu is naturally a noun, it can be thereby a translating word of being or Sein etc. On the other hand, as for aru, such questioning and thinking are essentially not suitable, because aru is a verb and cannot be a noun. As a result, if we reflect Japanese aru, we should adopt some different way of thinking instead of putting it at a position of subject.
The so called the classic proposition of ontology, the famous phrase in Descartes's "The Discourse of method" (1637) :
Je pense, donc je suis.
namely, in English:
I think therefore I am.
which was translated into Japanese:
Watashi wa kangaeru, dakara watashi wa aru.*
This Japanese is, in my opinion, somewhat strange. We should not say 'watashi wa aru', but say 'watashi wa iru', which is proper Japanese.
This strange Japanese 'watashi wa aru' is written in many philosophy textbooks in Japan, even in high school textbooks. Why such a queer Japanese is prevailing?
This phrase was once expressed in old literary style, 'Ware omou yueni ware ari.# ', which was proper Japanese. And ari in this phrase
may have influenced on aru. However, modern spoken style should not be confused with old literary style. In modern Japanese aru is used for things, and iru is used for human being, these two are clearly distinguished.
Maybe more important than this influence of old literary style is the effect of the technical term of philosophy sonzai. At first, Japanese philosophers may have translated 'je suis' as 'watashi wa sonzai suru', and then paraphrased it into ordinary Japanese as 'watashi wa aru'. Chinese characters 存 (son), 在 (zai) and 有 (yuu) are all read in kun yomi (in spoken native Japanese reading) as 'aru', and 存在 (sonzai) suru is written in Japanese dictionaries at first as 'aru' too. That is, it can be written in a diagram as:
suis → sonzai suru → aru
thus aru is translated through double grades, from Western language to Japanese translating language, and then to Japanese ordinary language. The direction of arrows is one way, and no reverse way of thinking.
This seemingly plain, ordinary expression 'aru' is, as a matter of fact, not used in accordance with the rule of the context of ordinary language. Even though Japanese philosophers say 'aru', they do not think with aru, but Western words of 'suis' etc. and the translating word sonzai are working on their head. The strange saying watashi wa aru has been consequently thoroughly overlooked.
In "The discourse of method", a few lines after the quotation above, Descartes rewrote 'je suis' into 'mon etre (my being)', and hence he thought 'Etre parfait (perfect Being, namely God)'. There, the noun form of suis, etre became the center of thinking. And this etre is, along with a noun, as the root form of suis, a verb. Accordingly, thinking with a noun form, one can sometimes change to a verb form, thus he can easily think running between the noun and the verb expressions.
Such circumstances nearly the same in English or in German. The root form of 'am' in 'I am' is a verb be, and its noun form is being, then one can understand at a glance they are the same origin, and the root form of 'bin' in 'Ich bin' is a verb sein, and its noun form is Sein.
On the other hand, Japanese translating word 'sonzai suru' is a verb, and 'sonzai' is a noun, they can be at a glance understood the same origin. And besides, the noun sonzai had been made at first, then its verb was made being attached suru, which is noun-centered construction more thoroughly than Western languages, and is consequently convenient for translation of Western technical terms. To tell the truth, in order to be convenient for translation, Japanese translating words have been constructed in the history.
Then, how about the traditional Japanese 'aru' and 'iru'? As I explained above, aru can hardly be changed to noun, neither can iru. Though the noun making form from verb of iru is i, which is not used. In short, Japanese aru and iru are not suitable for noun form. And these words supplement with sonzai suru which is quite suitable for noun form, these two sorts of words are supplementing and differentiating each other in the structure of Japanese.
Hence it ought to have been reasonable that we have translated Western philosophy with words made of two Chinese characters.
This Japanese used for translation has been surely convenient, approving it sufficiently, I believe, we should not overlook the reverse side of it. That is, Japanese expression suitable for translation in the field of sciences and cultures has, on the other side, left aside and put down the expression of ordinary language, yamato kotoba not suitable for translation. For instance, Japanese philosophy accordingly has left aside and put down the meaning of ordinary life, and it has never composed its sciences through the meaning living in ordinary life. It has just been contrary to the fundamental attitude of Descartes who about 360 years ago dared to write "The discourse of method" not in Latin but in French, moreover, contrary to the fundamental attitude of Western philosophy since Socrates.
