自我と脳

一高次脳機能障害者の手記を手がかりにー

抄録

This paper aims to clarify the meaning of the Self and its brain in the notes of a higher brain dysfunctional person, Kikuko Yamada. Yamada writes that "my brain does not forget me", "my brain does not casily forget who I am". Moreover, Yamada names the frontal lobe(Zentoyou) "Miss Frontal (Zenkochan)". Why does Yamada says that "I am brain, and brain is myself"? Does Yamada take concreteness(self) for abstraction (brain) by confusion ? Yamada's sentence is so strange that we can not understand its meaning. But Yamada writes the relation between self and brain in Japanese culture. In this culture, all beings are living. So that, mind is living in not only animal, plant, but also matters such as stone, tool, water, and so on. Therefore, they are able to be called by the name of a proper noun of person. In Yamada's sentence, brain as a matter is changed into brain living in actual life, that is Self. Yamada says "there is a function looking down at my appearance and action from a high place, or a function of taking an objective view of them in human brain". And then, Yamada says "a higher brain dysfunctional person knows who and what he or she is. To know who and what I am is the Self's ability". Self is a function that is able to leave from her situation and see it. Yamada's Self is both I and a third party, or the public personality who is born from "social experience".