2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Research of the view of women in the modern Christian thoughts
| Project/Area Number |
15510229
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Gender
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| Research Institution | Osaka Christian College |
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Principal Investigator |
IKEDA Mime Osaka Christian College, Theological Department, assistant professor, 神学科, 助教授 (60290243)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2005
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| Keywords | Christianity / woman / Kierkegaard / Edith Stein / otherness / femininity |
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| Research Abstract |
To conclude this research for three years, I should write the view of women in Kierkegaard was so conservative and arbitrary that we should recognize it is not only his private life problem, but a problem of his whole thought, especially Christian thought. He does not admit woman in not a equal partner or equal another. We should recognize the claim of the significance of single individual cannot be adapted to women. And he did not accept the women could be like men, who has a spirit and subjectivity before God.
He concentrated only the relationship to God. We can say this relation does not exclude the relationship to others, also to women. But Kierkegaard gave up his relation to Regine, because it should be excluded. It was not only the mistake of his love, but the misunderstandings of religiousness. His understandings of otherness prevented him from equal communication to others.
He could not conquer the prejudices for women, nevertheless his thoughts implied the possibility of the new relation, love for neighbors from love of God. That was his limitation.
On the contrary, Edith Stein found the characteristic femininity was the compassion, "empathy". Stein started her research from phenomenology, after that she studied scholastic philosophy and mysticism, during all these research, she recognized that a person is an opened existence for God and other people. And she pointed out that the human relation to God made another relation to other person at the same time. I found that ‘gender' is not only the sociological concept or the social determinism, but also the essential concept for both man and woman existence from her ‘Essays on Woman
So I should conclude the concept of femininity or woman can develop the new possibility for the relation not only between person and God, but also man and woman, person and person.
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