平賀源内と「世界」を巡る

概要

論文の詳細を見る
In the Edo Period, the term sekai (world) meant the universe, in whichreal life and discontinuous unreal life, e.g. licensed quarters, theatres,extraordinary the universe, or ideal virtual spaces were held as konoyo (landof the living). Added to this, when the real life was projected to sekai, it wasrecognised as the word through which people could understand a certainimage objectively. In this meaning, sekai in the Edo Period is moremultilayered and pluralistic concept than the usage of our age. Then howHiraga Gennai (1728-1780), who was called “extraordinary person”, did findinner meaning in the word sekai and paint a vision of it? For Gennai, whowatched foreign countries describing vividly the City of Edo in many books,sekai was a field where people could reach not only substantial land ornational territory but also virtual place of the myth or the lore. Therefore thenature sekai was consisted of meditation of search for the universe andhumanity or speculative attitude. With such a perspective, sekai is essentiallythe one and many and the endless, and then people can start from there andfinally come at the infinite under the complex situation.
2011-03-22