ガジュマロ の山 5 月 1 週
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○自由な題名
○個性、勉強の意味
○ローカリズムとグローバリズム、バブル
○The frequently debated question(感) 英文のみのページ(翻訳用)
The frequently debated question, 'Should the doctor tell?', tends to carry a false implication that the doctor knows all about the patient's approaching death and the patient knows nothing. The resultant discussion and controversy is therefore often not to the point or only touches slightly upon the real problem. Doctors are far from knowing everything. Even if they have no doubt that their patients' condition will be fatal, they can rarely predict the time of death with any accuracy unless it is close at hand. Furthermore, patients are not necessarily unaware of what is happening; many have a very clear idea that they are dying.
Rather than putting a choice between telling or not telling, it would be more useful to ask other questions. Should we encourage the patient, or hide the truth from a patient who begins to speak of matters that will lead to talk of dying? How freely should we speak about it? Should we lie if we suspect patients only want to be told that all will be well? If there is a sincere willingness to know whether the illness will be fatal or not, should the patients' suppositions be confirmed? If there are no direct questions, have we a duty to tell the truth? Is it right to deny knowledge of dying to those who ask, or wrong to tell those who show no wish to know? Should we allow the awareness of dying to grow gradually, or should patients who are mortally ill know this early on, so that they may come to terms with a greater acceptance of dying? If they are to be told more openly, how should such knowledge be given? How do people react to being told? These questions, all part of that over-simplified, 'Should the doctor tell?', can have no universally accepted answer. Individuals differ and moral beliefs or current opinions will influence judgement.
There are some good reasons for speaking freely about the possibility of dying to those with fatal conditions. An ill person who strongly suspects approaching death, but is denied the least opportunity to question or discuss this, can feel cruelly isolated if the people around the patient remain silent. The patient may be surrounded by people whose every apparent word or action is designed to deny or avoid the fact that death is approaching, and therefore the patient has an awareness of being deceived. How can one gain the ease of wholly sincere talk with others if all continue to pretend that the immediate departure from life, the loss to them for ever, is just not taking place?
The view that we have a duty to inform those about to die has some support on material and spiritual grounds. If a doctor hides from a patient the fact that death is near, the person may fail to order family affairs or may start business ventures which would not be thought of if it were known that death was likely. The doctor's legal responsibility to warn the dying person appears to be a matter of debate. Most doctors, however, will bear in mind how far people need to set their affairs in order, when considering what they should tell a dying patient. Giving advice that it might be a good idea to make preparations for one's death serves more than that single function. Delicately put, it is a hint that an ill person can discuss further with the doctor if there is a wish to know more, or it is advice that can be just accepted at its face value.
The spiritual need for a person to know that death is near may well be more important than material matters in the terminal phase. Frequently the dying person suddenly turns or returns to religious beliefs. The dying person may already have prayed for help in serious illness, perhaps with a rather unfamiliar voice. If it appears that recovery is unlikely, most people in the religious world hold strongly that the patient should know this, so that preparations can be made for eternal life.
At times there is an increasing need to be frank with a patient over the prediction concerning the outcome of the disease, because there are short periods of feverish hopes followed by long periods of despairing misery. The patient may waste effort and money on unjustified and quite hopeless treatments, only to have bitter disappointment as well-known cure-alls fail. If a patient is seriously ill and appears to be getting worse while the doctors appear content with ineffective remedies, it may be felt that opportunities for a cure are being lost. This may lead to a feeling of frustration or a desperate tour of other doctors. Of course, a second opinion from a respected source may be a great help to all concerned. This may bring assurance that no important possibility is being neglected. When a troubled patient who has been seeking fruitlessly for cure comes to a better understanding with the doctor on the nature of the disease and how much hope is justifiable, confidence may be regained and greater peace found.
In spite of these arguments which favour frankness with the dying, many doctors are unwilling to speak with them of death. They feel that most patients do not wish to raise the subject except to get reassurance, and that the truth is likely to be hurtful. This common medical attitude is uncomfortably combined with a considerable hesitation over deliberately avoiding the topic and deceiving patients who have put their trust in the doctor, even if the 'white lies' are intended to avoid distress. Some doctors who speak in a direct way, however, make plain their belief that it does patients no good to be told that they are dying. It is a viewpoint easy to attack on theoretical grounds; but when truth can give rise to considerable distress, when kindly half-truths do not materially alter the course to death and when dying people would like to hear that they will recover, it takes a very convinced person to disapprove of lies, or even the occasional untruth. Many honest people who care for the dying find themselves hiding the truth in a manner they always wished to avoid.
In practice relatively few doctors tell patients that there is no hope of recovery. In one study of medical opinion, for example, a group of over two hundred doctors, working in hospital and private practice, were asked if they favoured informing those patients found to have a cancer very likely to prove fatal. Patients so defined would include, of course, some whose signs of illness were examined early while they were in reasonable general health with death some way off. Such patients might have little reason at this stage to suspect their illness to be fatal and if a doctor did tell them, it would give them some unexpected bad news. Eighty-eight per cent of these doctors would not tell the patient, although some of them would make exceptions. The doctors felt that usually the patient's questions were wishes for reassurance. The other twelve per cent usually told the patients that they had cancer especially if the latter were intelligent and emotionally stable. Most of the doctors felt that they should inform a relative and were glad to share the burden of their knowledge. By the way, no less than sixty per cent of these same doctors said that they would like to be told if they themselves had an equally fatal form of cancer. This disagreement in opinions between giving and receiving such information was explained by the doctors on the basis of their own greater strength of mind or responsibilities. It might be so, but it is more likely to be the emotionally determined attitude found among non-professional and medical people alike. This was indicated by the fact that these physicians were not any more frank with other doctors whom they treated for cancer than any other patients with cancer.
The unwillingness to admit to a sick person that an illness may be fatal is not confined to doctors. One survey of people's wishes to be told if they had cancer indicated that they themselves would prefer to be told but were less in favour of recommending that others in a similar condition should be informed. In one particular study of terminal care in Britain the relatives and friends of those who died appeared to know more and expected to be told more than the dying person about the true condition. About half of these patients were aware of their condition. Although many of those asked in this study accepted the degree of either knowing or not knowing shown by the dying, there was stronger approval of the patient not knowing than of his being aware. From a recent inquiry into the way married people deal with their partners' fatal illnesses, it appears that hardly a quarter openly discuss each other's situations even though an unspoken understanding may be' there.

★固有名詞が(感)
【一番目の長文は暗唱用の長文で、二番目の長文は課題の長文です。】
 【1】文化の発展には民族というものが基礎とならねばならぬ。民族的統一を形成するものは風俗慣習等種々(しゅじゅ)なる生活様式を挙げることができるであろうが、言語というものがその最大な要素でなければならない。【2】故に優秀な民族は優秀な言語を有つ。ギリシャ語は哲学に適し、ラティン語は法律に適するといわれる。日本語は何に適するか。私はなおかかる問題について考えて見たことはないが、一例をいえば、俳句という如き(ごと )ものは、とても外国語には訳のできないものではないかと思う。【3】それは日本語によってのみ表現し得る美であり、大きくいえば日本人の人生観、世界観の特色を示しているともいえる。日本人の物の見方考え方の特色は、現実の中に無限を掴むにあるのである。【4】しかし我々は単に俳句の如きものの美を誇りとするに安んずることなく、我々の物の見方考え方を深めて、我々の心の底から雄大な文学や深遠な哲学を生み出すよう努力せなければならない。【5】我々は腹の底から物事を深く考え大きく組織して行くと共に、我々の国語をして自ら世界歴史において他に類のない人生観、世界観を表現する特色ある言語たらしめねばならない。本当に物事を考えて真に或物を掴めば、自ら他によって表現することのできない言表(げんぴょう)が出て来るものである。
 【6】日本語ほど、他の国語を取り入れてそのまま日本化する言語は少ないであろう。久しい間、我々は漢文をそのままに読み、多くの学者は漢文書き下しによって、否、漢文そのものによって自己の思想を発表して来た。【7】それは一面に純なる生きた日本語の発展を妨げたともいい得るであろう。しかし一面には我々の国語の自在性というものを考えることもできる。私は復古癖の人のように、徒ら(いたず )に言語の純粋性を主張して、強いて古き言語や語法によって今日の思想を言い表そうとするものに同意することはできない。【8】無論、古語というものは我々の言語の源であり、我が民族の成立と共に、我が国語の言語的精神もそこに形成せられたものとして、何処までも深く研究すべきはいうまでもない。しかし言語というものは生きたものということを忘れてはならない。∵【9】『源氏』などの中にも、如何に多くの漢字がそのまま発音を丸めて用いられていることよ。また蕪村が俳句の中に漢語を取り入れた如く、外国語の語法でも日本化することができるかも知れない。ただ、その消化如何(いかん)にあるのである。【0】

 「国語の自在性」(西田幾多郎)∵
 【1】固有名詞が、その固有の意味においてはっきりと姿をあらわすのは、かれ/彼女が、父と母だけでなく(父も母も、そのこどもにとっては一つしかないものだから、太陽や月が固有名詞であるかどうかという、文法学者の古典的な議論と同様に、純粋に普通名詞でもなければ固有名詞でもない)、【2】きょうだいや遊び仲間をもち、あるいは保育園や学校のようなところに通って社会生活をはじめたときである。かれ/彼女は、自分だけでなく、他者も、それぞれが名をもつことを知る。逆説的なようだが、固有名詞があるというそのことが、言葉が本来的に社会的なものであるということの証拠になるのである。
 【3】現代社会では、人やものが固有名詞で呼ばれるものであり、また呼ばれなければならないということは、経験を通じて徐々に学ばれるのではなく、たとえばこどもに入学した学校の名をおぼえさせることによって一挙に教えこまれるのである。【4】この過程を通じて、こどもは、自分は一つの制度の中にくり入れられ、ある組織に所属するのだという意識を植えつけられるから、固有名詞はこどもを社会化するための基本的な道具となり、人間は死ぬまで固有名詞の支配下に置かれるのである。【5】言語(ここに言う言語とは、人間はことばを話す動物であるというばあいの一般的な言語と、人間は何々語という、特定の言語しか話すものではないという意味での言語との二重の意味においてである)が人間に与えられた宿命であるとするならば、固有名詞は、宿命としての言語の本質的部分を体現していることになる。
 【6】まことに固有名詞こそは、人類が決して一つではなく、さまざまな名前――固有名詞をもって分かれ、それぞれが自分あるいは自分たちに対立するものであるということを思い知らせ、相互のちがいをいやが上にもきわ立たせ、それを固定させる道具である。【7】名前、固有名詞こそは、ことばの中でも抜きん出た地位を占めていて、これこそことばの中のことば、名詞の中の名詞だと言ってもいいくらいである。人間は生きている間のほとんどの時間を、名前とともに生き、苦しみ、争ってきたと言えるのである。【8】そのために、どれだけ多くの人が、名前から逃れたいと思っただろうか。――自分自身とその家族の名前から、国家や民族の名前、出身地の名前等々から。
 ところが、ことばの科学――たとえば言語学は、名前については∵本気で科学しなかった。はじめから、それは科学できないものとしてとり除いてしまったのである。
 【9】とり除いた理由の一つは、方法論がそうするよう求めたからである。そのことと深いつながりがあるのだが、名前――固有名詞の問題を、ひたすら普通名詞、一般名詞といかにちがうかを考えるにとどまり、社会のコンテキストに置いて考えることをしなかったためである。【0】ことばや記号は認識論上の問題に限定され、はじめから、社会から切りはなされていたのである。
 また代々の文法家や論理学者たちは、固有名詞の本来の機能は、それが何かあるものを一つしかないものとして孤立させて指し示すところにあると言いつづけてきた。純粋の固有性というものをそのようなものとして考えてきたからである。
(中略)
 このように考えてみると、まさに、名前に、アイデンティティというものの二重性がある――自分は自分であって、それ以外のものではあり得ないと主張される自分は、他方ではどこかに所属している(どこにも所属しないことが、すでに所属である。人はこの独得の所属のしかたにもまた名をつけるであろうから)あるいは所属せざるを得ないというこの原理は、名づけ、すなわち、ことばの原理そのものから発しているように思われる。
 人間の名前がその所属を示すように(もう一度強調しておけば、その名前は、ある特定の言語に属すからだ。このことは忘れないでおこう)、山も河も海も、名づけられると同時に、その領有への主張が背後にすべり込む。こうして固有名詞は、たちまち緊張した政治の磁場を作り出すのである。

(田中克彦「名前と人間」による)