The Logic of Duality and Trust in Giddens’ Social Theory and Watsuji’s Ethics

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  • ギデンズ社会理論と和辻倫理学における二重性の論理と信頼
  • ギデンズ シャカイ リロン ト ワツジ リンリガク ニ オケル ニジュウセイ ノ ロンリ ト シンライ

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Abstract

The British Sociologist Anthony Giddens has offered structuration theory as a means to overcome the problem of the dualism of the individual and society in social theory. This theory is based on the duality of structure manifest in the recursiveness of social life as constituted in social practices. Structure is both medium and outcome of the reproduction of practices. An attempt to understand the dualism in terms of this duality is found in Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro’s concept of betweenness in his formulation of ethics.<br> Watsuji focused on the Japanese word ningen. The term ningen means the public and at the same time, the individual human beings living within it. Therefore it refers not merely to an individual ‘human being’ nor merely to ‘society’. This idea was derived from Hegel’s dialectic and thus Watsuji interpreted human existence as a dialectical unity of these two characteristics. In this way, Watsuji regarded the duality of human existence as the practical connections between person and person, in other words, betweenness.<br> Moreover, the logics of duality in Giddens and Watsuji have common ground in that they both make reference to trust in others. In Giddens’ theory of trust, the purpose of social practices is to bracket anxieties generated by the questions that could be raised about the frameworks of existence. For Giddens, the functions of these bracketings are understood as trust. In this sense, Giddens handles the theory of trust psychologically. Watsuji postulated trust or loyalty as a movement that continues to negate the possibility of betrayal on every occasion following the logic of duality.

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