Our understanding of the decisions made under scenarios where both descriptive and experience-based information are available is very limited. Underweighting of small probabilities was observed in the gain domain when both description and experience were provided. The divergence observed from the prospect theory suggests a need for a separate or modified theory of decision making under risk. Recent studies suggest a possible role of probability weighting in the choice behaviour under risk. We investigated both gain and loss domains with and (...) without feedback for small and large probability conditions. We characterized the shape of the probability weighting function by a two-parameter functional form representing discriminability (concave-convex shape) and attractiveness (level of absolute weights relative to objective probability). We replicated four-fold pattern of risk attitude on non-WEIRD population. We find that feedback leads to underweighting of small probabilities and overweighting of large probabilities in the gain domain and overall underweighting of probabilities in the loss domain. We find that underweighting of small probabilities is driven by changes in discriminability and attractiveness components in the gain domain and changes in the attractiveness component in the loss domain. We have interpreted the results by proposing an updated belief-based account of decisions under uncertainty in which feedback, when available, influences the probability weighting mediating the choice behaviour. (shrink)

Corpus of critical study on the thought and works of Debi Prasad Chattopadhyaya predominantly on philosophy of sciences with cultural philosophy; contributed articles.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata by Brian BlackKrishna Mani Pathak (bio)In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata. By Brian Black. New York: Routledge, 2021. Pp. xii + 2158. Paperback £38.99, isbn 978-0-367-43600-1. Brian Black's In Dialogue with the Mahābhārata is a brilliant book that exhibits three distinct features which can certainly help an inquiring mind understand not only the structure and nature of the text of the Mahābhārata but also (...) the meanings contained in it, alongside aspects of Hindu historiography. It investigates the text through literary, philosophical, and social perspectives that Black argues emerge in the dialogues over strī-dharma, puruṣa-dharma, and the social identity and status of women (see for example, pp. 117, 124, 130, 140). The work's literary character can be seen in Black's analysis of the text and its epical narratives. In this book, the story of the Mahābhārata is presented by Black as a web of narratives wherein every verbal encounter and dialogue among all the participating interlocutors refers to a specific meaning and (deterministic) role played by these divine and terrestrial characters as interlocutors: "All the main human characters are incarnations and/or descendants of divine figures…and [experience] intense emotional reactions to their own situations and the actions of others" (p. 5). For instance, most male and female characters in the narratives of the Mahābhārata, including Vyāsa (the author), who is said to have "the power of omniscience," and Kṛṣṇa, who is God Himself, help the readers extrapolate how the entire series of trailing events in the Mahābhārata is destined to happen. This is what Black highlights when he writes that "as author of the narrative, [Vyāsa's] appearances within it often move the story along, as well as offer lenses through which to understand its cosmic implications" and that he "draws on his omniscience to provide an explanation of the marriage that transcends the knowledge of ordinary humans" (p. 61). Further, Black emphasizes destiny's (active) role when he writes that "the story of Draupadī's previous birth invites reading the Mahābhārata as a karmic narrative in which the actions and decisions of characters create the conditions for subsequent events in the central story" (p. 76). Perhaps for this reason, Black highlights his methodological approach to the text and its literary character in the beginning of the book to explain that the Mahābhārata is more like a complex narrative than any other Hindu legend or mythology and is difficult to understand without contextualizing its dialogues and [End Page 1] their historical connections. Besides, the temporal aspect of the conversations between the characters is another literary condition to connect various sub-narratives to the main story. Black uses the term "dialogue" in three different ways while examining the text of the Mahābhārata, and this is how he proposes the text should be explored by the inquisitive mind:I understand the term "dialogue" in three main ways: (1) as verbal encounter: the conversations, discussions, and debates between characters within the text; (2) as intra-textuality: the relationship between different dialogues in different sections of the text; and (3) as hermeneutics: my interpretive approach to the text. In most of the remainder of this Introduction, I will prepare the way for the subsequent chapters by discussing each of these three understandings of dialogue and how they are related to the book as a whole. (p. 4)Black observes that most scholars, both from the East and the West, have tried to understand the text of the Mahābhārata and its embedded stories from different perspectives, taking them merely as dialogues or a product of dialogical relations, and hardly anyone has explored the most fundamental aspect of dialogue in the Mahābhārata, i.e., "the verbal exchanges between characters" that he takes as the book's starting point (p. 1). Black's literary perspective has made the book an interesting and illuminating read, despite the fact that most of the characters of the Mahābhārata have either a divine origin... (shrink)

Similarity profiled association mining from time stamped transaction databases is an important topic of research relatively less addressed in the field of temporal data mining. Mining temporal patterns from these time series databases requires choosing and applying similarity measure for similarity computations and subsequently pruning temporal patterns. This research proposes a novel z-space based interest measure named as Krishna Sudarsana for time-stamped transaction databases by extending interest measure Srihass proposed in previous research. Krishna Sudarsana is designed by using (...) the product based fuzzy Gaussian membership function and performs similarity computations in z-space to determine the similarity degree between any two temporal patterns. The interest measure is designed by considering z-values between z = 0 and z = 3.09. Applying the Krishna Sudarsana requires moving the threshold value given by user to a different transformation space which is a defined as a function of standard deviation. In addition to proposing interest measure, new expressions for standard deviation and equivalent z-space threshold are derived for similarity computations. For experimental evaluation, we considered Naïve, Sequential and Spamine algorithms that applies Euclidean distance function and compared performance of these three approaches to Z-Spamine algorithm that uses Krishna Sudarsana by choosing various test cases. Experiment results proved the performance of the proposed approach is better to Sequential approach that uses snapshot database scan strategy and Spamine approach that uses lattice based database scan strategy. (shrink)

Philosophical interpretation of the cult of Krishna (Hindu deity) and spiritual life.

At the outset of this paper, a couple of clarifications are in order: first of all, I will be concerned with the origin of the concept of God, not with the origin of various anthropomorphic depictions or purported incarnations of God, such as Osiris, Christ, Zeus, Krishna, or Azura-Mazda. Secondly, by the adjective “phenomenological” I mean to differentiate this analysis from other approaches which have a legitimacy of their own—the anthropological approach which is concerned with the sociocultural emergence of (...) the notion of a divinity; the psychological approach which traces the God concept to responses to the environment or to inner needs, drives, or archetypes; the semantical approach which focuses on the problems of reference and denotation in god language; and so forth. That being said, however, I should also explain that I intend my approach to be “phenomenological” not in a kind of Husserlian sense, i.e., as concerned specifically with discovering certain a priori grounds for the notion of God in human subjectivity itself, but in a Kantian-Hegelian sense, which is somewhat wider. In this latter sense, “phenomenological” means “connected with the basic experience of subject-object distinction in consciousness, and with the exigencies, characteristics and/or dynamics of that distinction.”. (shrink)

The Making of a Modern Indian Artist-Craftsman: Devi Prasad. By Naman P. AhuJa, with contributions by Krishna Kumar, Kristine Michael, Bob Overy, and Sunand Prasad. New Delhi: Routledge, 2012. Pp. 320, 392 illustrations. Rs. 2495.

Small and medium-sized firms form 90% of the worldwide population of businesses. However, it has been argued that given their smaller scale of operations, resource access constraints and lower visibility, smaller firms are less likely to participate in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. This article examines the different economic motivations of firms with varying combinations of visibility, resource access and scale of operations. Arguments are presented to propose that in terms of visibility, resource access and operating scale, very small and (...) very large firms are equally motivated to participate in CSR. However, the motivational bases for CSR participation are likely to be different. Medium-sized firms are the least motivated. This suggests a U-shaped relationship between firm size and CSR participation. This study contributes towards resolution of the long-standing debate on the effects of firm size on CSR participation, and highlights the importance of considering configurations of firm characteristics in the study of CSR outcomes. In conclusion, cautions are raised against the broad categorization of firms, without adequate attention to the underlying dimensions of such categorizations. (shrink)

Reflection Principles are commonly thought to produce only strong axioms of infinity consistent with V = L. It would be desirable to have some notion of strong reflection to remedy this, and we have proposed Global Reflection Principles based on a somewhat Cantorian view of the universe. Such principles justify the kind of cardinals needed for, inter alia , Woodin’s Ω-Logic.

significance of its problems and ideals.2 Still, a philosophical doctrine has a timeless quality about it, a fundamental unalterableness of its quest coinciding with the unaltering core of human nature itself.3 The importance of the temporal flux for ...

Yashastilaka by Somadeva, composed in ce 959, is a Jaina religious romance written in Sanskrit prose and verse. It is notable as an encyclopaedic record of literary, socio-political, religious and philosophical data that throws light on the cultural history of the Deccan in early medieval India. This volume presents a critical study of the work, providing a comprehensive picture of the life and thought of the time of Somadeva. It begins with a discussion on Somadeva and his age and gives (...) a synopsis of Yashastilaka. it examines the Yashastilaka as a prose and a religious romance, a socio-political record and as an anthology of Sanskrit verse. The book discusses various philosophical doctrines in Indian thought. With many detailed references and footnotes, it reveals the Yashastilaka as a work that expounds the cardinal teachings of Jainism. It throws light on Jaina dogmatics, religious poetry, moral and religious stories, and myths and legends in the process of examining the work. The volume also has supplementary notes incorporating the results of studies on Somadeva's relations with the Vemulavada Calukyas and the locality in which he wrote his masterpiece. (shrink)

Ali comparative studies imply simultaneously an identity and a difference, a situation that is replete with intellectual difficulties which give rise to interminable disputes regarding whether we are talking about the same thing or different things. One may cut the gordian knot by deciding either way, but the situation would reappear again as it is bound up with the comparative perspective itself and not with any particular example of it. How long shall we go on “naming”, for the process is (...) unending and ultimately “everything is what it is. and not another thing”. Or, if we do not like “names” as they hardly give us any knowledge and if we opt for “description” which gives us “facts”, then they too are as unending as the “names”, for, as the Jains taught us long ago, they are a function of the dṛṣti that we have or the point of view that we adopt. (shrink)

Recognition that the Principle of Respect for Autonomy fails to work in family-centric societies such as Singapore has recently led to the promotion of relational autonomy as a suitable framework within which to place healthcare decision making. However, empirical data, relating to patient and family opinions and the practices of healthcare professionals in Confucian-inspired Singapore, demonstrate clear limitations on the ability of a relational autonomy framework to provide the anticipated compromise between prevailing family decision-making norms and adopted Western led atomistic (...) concepts of autonomy. Evidence suggests that despite a growing infusion of Western influence, there is still little to indicate any major shift to individual decision making, particularly in light of the way society and healthcare are structured. Similarly, the lack of employing a shared decision-making model and data that discredit the notion that the complex psychosocial and cultural factors that affect the decision making may be considered “content neutral” not only prevents the application of relational autonomy but questions the viability of the values behind the Principle of Respect for Autonomy. Taking into account local data and drawing upon a wider concept of personhood that extends beyond prevailing family-centric ideals along with the complex interests that are focused upon the preservation of the unique nature of personhood that arises from the Ring Theory of Personhood, we propose and “operationalize” the employing of an authoritative welfare-based approach, within the confines of best interest decision making, to better meet the current care needs within Singapore. (shrink)

Familial determination, replete with its frequent usurping of patient autonomy, propagation of collusion, and circumnavigation of direct patient involvement in their own care deliberations, continues to impact clinical practice in many Asian nations. Suggestions that underpinning this practice, in Confucian-inspired societies, is the adherence of the populace to the familial centric ideas of personhood espoused by Confucian ethics, provide a novel means of understanding and improving patient-centred care at the end of life. Clinical experience in Confucian-inspired Singapore, however, suggests that (...) personhood is conceived in broader terms. This diverging view inspired a study of local conceptions of personhood and scrutiny of the influence of the family upon it. From the data gathered, a culturally appropriate, clinically relevant and ethically sensitive concept of personhood was proposed: the Ring Theory of Personhood that better captures the nuances of local conceptions of personhood. The Ring Theory highlights the fact that, far from being solely dependent upon familial centric ideals, local conceptions of personhood are dynamic, context dependent, evolving ideas delineated by four dimensions. Using the Ring Theory, the nature of familial influences upon the four dimensions of personhood – the Innate, Individual, Relational and Societal – are examined to reveal that, contrary to perceived knowledge, conceptions of personhood within Confucian societies are not the prime reason for the continued presence of this decision-making model but remain present within local thinking and practices as a sociocultural residue and primarily because of inertia in updating ideas. (shrink)

Saivism is one of the pervasive expressions of Indian Religious Culture stretching to the dim past of pre-history and surviving as a living force in the thought and life of millions of Hindus especially in Southern India and Northern Ceylon. The present work is scholarly reconstruction of Saivism in its characteristic and classical from as Saiva Siddhanta, focusing mainly on the philosophical doctrine and presenting a conceptual analysis of its formative notions, problems and methods. Anteceding the rise of the great (...) systems of Vedanta including that of Sankara, Saiva Siddhanta in its fully systematised form as Mystical Theology in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries represents a constructive reaction to the theological, ethical and aesthetic aspects of Vedanta as a whole. A patient study of this much neglected phase of religo-philosophical development of India should prove useful for a more balanced understanding of Indian religiosity, providing a corrective to the view entertained not without justification that Indian religious thought does not affirms the values of freedom, love and personality. This methodical study, appended with very exhaustive glossary, bibliography and index and two-hundred pages of references and foot-notes is designed to meet the requirements of seriious students of Eastern religious thought. (shrink)

Comparative study of the philosophical concepts of the Bhagavadgītā and Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804.

Most writings on Indian philosophy assume that its central concern is with moska, that the Vedas along with the Upanishadic texts are at its root and that it consists of six orthodox systems knowns as Mimamasa, Vedanta, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, and Yoga, on the one hand and three unorthodox systems: Buddhism, Jainism and Carvaka, on the other. Besides these, they accept generally the theory of Karma and the theory of Purusartha as parts of what the Indian tradition thinks about human (...) action. The essays in this volume question these assumptions and show that there is little ground for accepting them. A new counter-perspective is presented for the articulation of the Indian philosophical tradition that breaks from the traditional frame in which it has usually been presented. (shrink)

Application of sedation at the end of life has been fraught with ethical and clinical concerns, primarily focused on its potential to hasten death. However, in the face of clinical data that assuage most of these concerns, a new threat to this treatment of last resort has arisen. Concern now pivots on its effects on the personhood of the patient, underpinned by the manner in which personhood has been conceptualised. For many authors, it is consciousness that is seen to be (...) the seat of personhood, thus its loss is seen to rob a patient of their moral and ethical worth, leaving them in a state that cannot ethically be differentiated from death. Here I proffer a clinically based alternative to this view, the Ring Theory of Personhood, which dispels these concerns about sedation at the end of life. The Ring Theory envisages personhood as a coadunation of three domains of concern: the innate, the individual and the relational elements of personhood. The innate element of personhood is held to be present among all humans by virtue of their links with the Divine and or their human characteristics. The individual elements of personhood pivot on the presence of consciousness-dependent features such as self-awareness, self-determination and personality traits. The relational component of personhood envisages an individual as being ‘socially embedded’ replete with social and familial ties. It is these three equally important inter-related domains that define personhood. (shrink)

Modernist literature of the early to mid-twentieth century on both sides of the Atlantic is replete with examples of a particular kind of relationship with objects, namely, the touching, collecting, and grasping of small, often highly personal, and ostensibly quotidian objects. From John’s glass collection in Woolf’s “Solid Objects,” Peter Walsh’s stroking of his pocket-knife in Mrs. Dalloway, Miriam’s frenzied absorption with flowers in Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, to Laura’s fiddling of her glass menagerie in Tennessee Williams’s eponymous play, fidgeting (...) in modernist literature and drama reveals a particular tendency of not just characters’ possession of things but also their possession by things. This phenomenon, I argue, allows characters to practice care as they withdraw from oppressive narratives of normalcy and (economic and biological) productivity, challenging their exclusionary and othering configurations. My paper looks at fidgeting in The Glass Menagerie as a part of this larger ideological and haptic orientation in modernist literature. The care invested by Laura in her intimate relationship with these “playthings” allows her to intercept not only male narrativizing forces and articulation of herself but also the rhetoric of productivity that circulates both within the play and in the larger economic backdrop of post-depression America. My paper attempts to foreground these objects of care in our readings of the play and modernist texts in general and, in so doing, highlight their importance as lenses of analysis that render visible alternate forms of agency and resistance. Lastly, it attempts to reframe fidgeting as an act of embodied refusal, evoking the radical potential of refusal within feminist and disability studies. (shrink)

Bhattacharya, K.C. Swaraj in ideas.--Seal, B. The neo-romantic movement in literature.--Tagore, R. The religion of an artist.--Sri Aurobindo. The ideal spirit of poetry.

The competent and detailed introduction to this book traces out the origin and rudiments of religions, their essential nature and the causes of their conflicts. It emphasises the truth that all religions are trying to say the same thing in different ways. Religions are meant to bring out the spiritual in man and to make him live a full and virtuous life. Despite the rapid progress in science and medicine, the mysteries of life and death remain as unknown as before. (...) Religions try, in their myriad ways, to explain these and to venture into the unknowable. They bring comfort to human beings in their suffering, and consolation in their bereavement. The author's belief is that if, while following their own religion, men respected the faiths of others too, much of the religious conflicts and bloodshed which debases mankind would be avoided. The fundamental concepts of Hindu religion and philosophy have exhaustively been narrated in a clear manner. This is followed by selected passages from the main scriptures and philosophical books of the Hindu religion-the Vedas, Puranas, Upanisheads, brahma-sutras, Bhagavadgita, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana of Tulsidasa. In each case there is a synopsis of the book giving its subject matter and a reading list consisting of the main texts and criticisms which will be invaluable to those who wish to know more about it. The passages have been selected to provide interesting reading, particularly connected with the problems and conditions of our own times. The book aims at providing a mine of information about Hinduism and is also an in-depth study of religion in general. It has been written in down-to-earth language and is of interest to all those who are wish to know about matters vital to life and living. (shrink)

Although an individual speaker's productions obey locus equations, whether listeners' perceptions are based on them needs further exploration. Comparing the results from the perceptual experiments to predicted identifications, one sees qualitative similarities and some discrepancies. However, the variability of locus equations and individual consonant-vowel (CV) tokens across speakers seems problematic if listeners are using locus equations for perception.