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鸚鵡のイズム

by Torahiko Terada

A blind scholar’s book makes the author question parroted knowledge.

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Original language: JapaneseLevel: Intermediate2,482 characters · ≈ 10 minSource: 青空文库

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Sample: three-line reading

Each word has its meaning in this sentence underneath, and each sentence has a full translation. Read the original and glance down only when you need to.

この頃these daysピエルヴィエイというnamed Pierre Villey盲目の学者のof a blind scholar書いたwrote盲人の世界というのthe one called The World of the Blindをobject marker読んでみたtried reading
These days I tried reading The World of the Blind, written by a blind scholar named Pierre Villey.
私はI / as for me自分のmy own専門としているhave as one's specialty科学上のscientific知識knowledge従ってthereforeそれから帰納されたinduced from it方則law(s)というもののof the thing called成立や意義などformation and significance, etc.についてabout色々考えたthought about in various ways結果as a result人間のhuman五感のof the five sensesそれぞれのeach役目roleについてabout少し深くa little more deeply調べてみたくなったcame to want to try investigating
Thinking in various ways about the scientific knowledge that is my specialty—and therefore about how the 'laws' it gives rise to are made and what they mean—I came to want to look a little more deeply into the role of each of the five human senses.
そのためにはfor that purpose五感のうちの一つをone of the five senses欠いたlacking人間の知識の内容がthe content of human knowledgeどのようなものかという事をwhat kind of thing it is調べるのもinvestigating ... also最も適当な手掛りの一つだis one of the most suitable cluesと思われたwas thought
For that purpose, I thought that looking into what the content of human knowledge is like in a person who lacks one of the five senses was also one of the most suitable starting points.
それを調べた上でafter investigating thatもしif出来るならばif possible世界中の人間がall the people in the worldことごとくentirely / all盲あるいは聾であったとしたらif they were blind or deafこれらの人間の建設した科学はthe science built by these people吾々の科学とwith our scienceどうちがうかhow it would differという問題をthe question of考えてみたいと思っているI would like to try to consider
After looking into that, if possible, I want to try thinking about the question of how the science built by these people would differ from our science if all the people in the world were blind or deaf.

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About the book

The author, thinking about how scientific knowledge is formed and how the five senses work, reads a book by a blind scholar and comes across a passage discussing Helen Keller's descriptions of visual beauty. The text reads like a plain, reflective essay, working through doubts about secondhand, parrot-like knowledge.

Cultural notes (selection)

Background a translation can’t carry: social roles, history and allusions. While reading, tap “Note” at the end of a sentence to see them all.

シッタシズム Style

A word coined by Terada Torahiko in this essay, formed from「知った(しった)」plus the English suffix -ism. It refers to the attitude of believing one already understands something based only on hearsay or book knowledge—roughly 'the ism of pretending to know.'

神田へ行って Customs

Kanda refers to the Kanda area of Tokyo. Since the Meiji era, its used-bookstore district, centred on Jinbōchō, has been lined with bookshops and has been the first choice for students and scholars buying books.

About the author

Torahiko Terada (November 28, 1878 – December 31, 1935) was a Japanese physicist and author born in Tokyo, who served as a professor at Tokyo Imperial University and conducted research at RIKEN and the Earthquake Research Institute. He studied literature under Natsume Sōseki, wrote under the pseudonym Fuyuhiko Yoshimura, and is best known for his numerous essays on topics ranging from science to manga.

How the glosses are made

Word glosses and sentence translations are generated in context by AI models (DeepSeek and Zhipu GLM), and every word is checked to have a gloss. AI can make mistakes; you can report problems from the book page.

FAQ

Is this the original text?

Yes. The library holds the opening section of the public-domain original, taken from 青空文库.

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What level is it?

This one is marked “Intermediate”. Every word is glossed, so you can keep reading even with a small vocabulary.

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