FY2003
This study will comparatively research the significance of the framework of time for society and the individual in various societies throughout the world. With the research, we will search for the possibility of new kinds of time frameworks that will allow us to realize societies in which people have a thrill for life and ability to live together in order to fully display the possibility for individuals as individuals among different ethnic groups, sexes, ages, occupations and classes with diverse cultures and value systems. Specifically, we will explicate various issue combinations existing between time, people and society: (1) time of society and groups; (2) time of families and people; (3) time frameworks for life and courses of lives; and (4) the concept of time and recognition of time. We feel that such a time approach could be effective in gaining insights for understanding various problems in contemporary society accompanying the conspicuous development of science/technology and industry, and the tremendous changes to the forms of communications, such as information/telecom and transportation. This research also attempts to construct models for multidimensional cooperative societies and explore their possibilities.