Abstract
The first purpose of this chapter is to characterize the market, one of the central concepts in economic theory, more generally as the universality of the forces working from below. In economics, the concept of the market is used as an “inevitable” tool as a framework for thinking about this field, so we could increase the “permissible” possibility of “using” the theory by presenting a more general way of understanding its essence. The chapter’s second purpose is to apply such forces from below as reality in economics to the specific problem of memento mori (not to turn away from death) in medicine. Through these ideas, we would like to capture the constitution for the “place” of reality in RFSS (Chap. 5) that always generates new questions from the reality of death, and thus life, to the reality of knowledge.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The particular emphasis here on the term universality is due to the emphasis on the relational aspect of the concept of the market, and the further goal of giving it meaning as a categorical analogy, a certain “width of (schematic) stance.” Mathematically speaking, this means the content described through universal map** properties, representable functors, or, more simply, axiomatic characterizations (not elemental reductionist ones). There are two broad ways of describing the world: One is to build inductively from the obvious (from below, externally), and the other is to look at the whole from the head (from above, internally). For example, trying to grasp the whole with the concept of set is an example of the latter. While it is “inevitable” that we eventually use some such superordinate (set-like) concept as the basis for logic, more generally, there can be a more relaxed way of doing this. Things such as category theory, universal map** properties, expressible functions, or axiomatic characterizations, referred to above, are one way of “enclosing” (capturing) the whole, so to speak, at a pre-logical level (turning it into something like an \( \in \) symbol).
- 3.
This is where the framework here differs fundamentally from Hayek’s usage of the term and perspective, which forms the issue of freedom into anything goes (as long as it is market-like). We are trying to treat the problem of control by (for example) governments that “use” the theory as a problem of subjects who cannot control the whole as they wish, or as a problem of “misplaced concreteness” of the “third layer” (Chap. 5) in the RFSS sense. Therefore, the content of this chapter is a concrete example of the development of the academic method and movement of RFSS described in Chap. 5 of this book.
- 4.
To be precise, in Urai (2010, ch. 9), Tarski’s undefinability is restated as the undefinability of the definition of rationality or social values (like prices) for individuals in standard social economic mathematical models. This problem is equivalent to Haruo Murata’s “system incompleteness” (Murata 2016) or, in RFSS terms (Chap. 5), “inexhaustibility of reality.”
- 5.
One might think that the stance of always acknowledging that there are things we do not see is an idea that collapses all inductive reasoning, since all data is somehow world (context)-dependent. But this stance does not deny that inductive reasoning is something that deepens a particular theory in one direction. It merely asserts that it does not provide some special, absolute criterion, some “unit of action” that is common to all theories. It only argues that a scientific position based on inductive reasoning should be given its own weight in such careful positioning (and it should be reasserted that this is rather the scientific position).
- 6.
In the expression used in the previous section, such issues may be the efficient causes (in the physical pole) but not the final causes (in the mental pole). Furthermore, to use the expression for memento mori in the next section, the dividing line that gives up the life-saving endeavor is a final cause in the mental pole if it is caused by a “power from above,” and in such a case, the medical resources will not be enough to satisfy even a single individual. If the essence of the market is “forces from below,” and if it is a “comprehensive posture” that can always incorporate new efficient causes of self-transgressive cleavages through the thrownness of its members, then medicine should gracefully leave the above-mentioned line-drawing problem to the forces from below. The meaning of memento mori is that we should not fear death to no end, but rather, by looking at death properly without looking away from it, each individual will regain his or her individuality and society as a whole will be restored to its richness. Science, medicine, and the individual must not only look at what they want to see but must also not look away from what they cannot see, for this is what it means to be truly alive.
- 7.
See Mas-Colell (1992) for the existence of a market equilibrium with satiation, and Murakami and Urai (2017, 2019) for core convergence and an axiomatic characterization of monetary equilibrium. One can also dynamize such a state of affairs using an overlap** generations model (Urai et al. 2022). In that case, the essence remains the same, although a somewhat more cautious discussion of money issuance is necessary with respect to being directed toward an uncertain future. A more rigorous von Neumann-type model (Urai et al. 2019) that includes even bank credit creation could describe a similar structure. Based on such a monetary general equilibrium model, it is clear that the accumulation of budget deficits through the issuance of government bonds should be discussed in terms of the balance with private-sector credit, including financial derivatives, and not in terms of the balance of national finances.
- 8.
This corresponds to the position of academic knowledge in the RFSS as something that can only be established in exchange for participation in society and not turning away from the limitation of academic knowledge per se.
- 9.
Watsuji (1965, Vol. 1, p. 233).
- 10.
MHLW (2019).
- 11.
However, Japan is currently the world’s most expensive country in terms of funeral expenses. According to SunLife (2020), the average actual cost of a funeral and its share of the average income are both higher in Japan than in any other country in the world, and Japan is regarded as “the most expensive country in the world in which to die.” This can be attributed to two factors: the fact that the Japanese attach great importance to the funeral process and the unparalleled level of commercialization of the funerary sector.
- 12.
For example, there is criticism of paternalism that states, “In the past, the true disease name was not known, and the patient was not even given the opportunity to engage in ‘joint decision making.”’ However, if we think of paternalism as a case in which the “patient” component in joint decision-making is extremely small, paternalism can also be continuously captured within the framework of joint decision-making.
- 13.
The first vital population statistics in Japan in 1899, the Vital Statistics of Population of the Empire of Japan (CSB 1899), were written in French as well as in Japanese.
- 14.
According to MHLW (2022a), “The term ‘senility’ as the cause of death is used only in cases of so-called natural death in which there are no other causes of death that should be stated in the elderly.”
- 15.
CSB (1899).
- 16.
CSB (1932).
- 17.
Bertillon (1912).
- 18.
Israel (1978).
- 19.
MHW (1990).
- 20.
- 21.
WHO (2021).
- 22.
Alharbi et al. (2021).
- 23.
MHLW (1995).
- 24.
Among men, deaths attributed to lung cancer continued to rise until 1997 (MHLW, 2018).
- 25.
The total number of deaths in hospitals, clinics, and midwifery centers is summed in the category “medical facilities.”
- 26.
The phenomenon of hospital death replacing home death was seen in almost all developed countries in the latter half of the twentieth century, and it is conceivable that the problem of the “shielding of death” that it causes was also the same. Report of the Lancet Commission on the value of death (Sallnow et al. 2022), “Dying people are whisked away to hospitals or hospices, and whereas two generations ago, most children would have seen a dead body, people may now be in their 40s or 50s without ever having seen a dead person.”
- 27.
Komatsu (1996).
- 28.
Ota (2013).
- 29.
Byoinde Shinutoiukoto (Death in the Hospital) Yamazaki (1990) was published in 1990 and made into a movie in 1993.
- 30.
Illich (1975).
- 31.
See Illich (1975, p. 850).
- 32.
Sallnow et al. (2022). “Death also reminds us of our fragility and sameness: We all die. Caring for the dying is a gift, as some philosophers and many carers, both lay and professional, have recognized. Much of the value of death is no longer recognized in the modern world, but rediscovering this value can help care at the end of life and enhance living.”
- 33.
If we were to rephrase this from the RFSS perspective, we would call it an “inexhaustible” reality of death.
- 34.
The term “market” here is a synonym for non-designed and does not refer to a “designed market” with a purpose. As such, it should be called a triage as well as a force from above. What is important is not the design of individual mechanisms but “control” over the totality of various practices and mechanisms that exist historically and institutionally. In economic issues, the use of a theory by the government, such as whether MMT is a risky experiment, likewise involves its design. If we look at it as a second welfare problem, one conclusion (from the standpoint of faith in market forces) is that the policy (use of theory) should be left for evaluation through the value of money under the natural “control” (forces from below) of the established market.
- 35.
When the market, as forces from below, can be involved in the solution of a problem but is unable to do so, and when what surfaces is the phenomenon of senility on the death certificate as rosui, which cannot even be properly defined, then we can say that this is an adverse selection (in the general sense) by the field of medicine toward the arrival of a market.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Japan Society for Process Studies, the Methodology Section of the Japanese Society for Mathematical Economics (JSME), and the participants of the Osaka University Monthly Methodology Workshop for providing us with the opportunity to present earlier drafts of this paper. This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP20K13461 and JP20H03912.
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Morii, D., Murakami, H., Urai, K. (2023). Memento Mori in Medicine and the Universality of Forces from Below: On the Reality of Markets. In: Urai, K., Katsuragi, M., Takeuchi, Y. (eds) Realism for Social Sciences. Translational Systems Sciences, vol 36. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4153-7_9
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