Tanenari Chiba

Born: September 21st, 1884 in Ishikoshi town, Tome county, Miyagi prefecture
Died: March 18th, 1972

Education

Doctor of Literature (1922) Kyoto Imperial University—His academic dissertation was “Shinrigaku no taisho (Psychological Object)”
B.A (1909)Department of Philosophy, College of Letters, Kyoto Imoperial University (Major Psychology)—His academic dissertation was “Shinko no shinrigakuteki kenkyu (Psychological Research of Religion)”

Assistant at Kyoto Imperial University
Instructor at Rinzaishu University
1913 Instructor at College of Literature, Kyoto Imperial University
1913 Instructor at Otani University
1917 Associate professor at Kyoto Imperial University
1920 Entered University of Leipnizing at Germany
1923 Professor at Department of Law and Letters, Tohoku Imperial University (he was the first professor of psychology at Toholu Imperial University)
1940 Retired from Tohoku Imperial University and became professor at Kenkoku University, Manshu country in China
1945-1949 Came back to Japan and worked as the principal of Sendai civic the fourth junior high school and as the director at Miyagi prefectural institute for educational research
1949 Professor at Department of Education, Nigata University
1953-1963 Professor at Nihon University
1970 Professor at graduate school, Komazawa University

Tanenari Chiba created an original theory: Proper consciousness. His view was that proper human mental condition was unconsciousness, and consciousness arises when a particular inhibitor stimulates the condition of unconsciousness. From the idea, he regarded that proper consciousness is the condition between the period of consciousness and that of unconsciousness. Proper consciousness was divided into two kinds: relative proper consciousness and absolute proper consciousness. The former was consciousness related to individual mind, while the latter was the consciousness, which covers minds of people beyond individual.
Tanenari Chiba founded the psychological laboratory at Tohoku Imperial University.
He also engaged in purchasing the twenty thousands of Wundt’s books during his studying in Germany, and published the Journal “Tohoku Psychologica Folica”at 1933.

Hiroshi Oizumi (2003). Nihonshinrigakusha-jiten. Tokyo: Kabushiki Kaisha Kress Shuppan.
Nihon no shinrigaku kanko iinkai. (1982).Nihon no shinrigaku. Tokyo: Nihon bunka kagaku sha.
Tatsuya Sato, Hazime Mizoguchi, (1997). Tsushi Nihon-no-shinrigaku. Kyoto: Kitaoji Shobo.