Contributed research papers presented at state level workshop under programme of the Department of Philosophy, University of Calcutta in 2010.

Vastas son las interacciones, vínculos y tensiones entre la filosofía y la literatura, las cuales han estado determinadas en diferentes épocas y momentos históricos por la inclusión y la exclusión recíprocas. Dicha reflexión es planteada, entre otros, por la filósofa norteamericana Martha Nussbaum en El conocimiento del amor. Ensayos sobre filosofía y literatura(1992), por los filósofos franceses Gilles Deleuze y Felix Guattari en ¿Qué es la filosofía? (2003), y por Alain Badiou, en Justicia, filosofía y literatura (2007). Desde la perspectiva (...) de estos autores, examinaré algunos antecedentes y circunstancias que han incidido en la relación entre filosofía y literatura, partiendo de la exploración de los elementos que identifican y diferencian a cada una, mostrando que la tensión existente entre ellas va más allá de la expresión de los opuestos lógica e imaginación, conceptos y sensaciones, emociones y racionalidad; y que la separación y contradicción entre éstas, se puede superar con la comprensión de su forma y contenido, con la proximidad a las perspectivas de observación y juzgamiento y con la consideración del cultivo de las emociones como posibilidad de lectura crítica sobre el mundo. De esta manera, resaltaré el papel de la literatura en la construcción de pensamiento, el carácter ético de la imaginación literaria como proyección en el otro, y la pertinencia de un ambiente de respeto entre las distintas áreas del conocimiento. (shrink)

The paper argues that Zahavi’s defence of the self as an experiential dimension, i.e. “identified with the first-person givenness of experiential phenomena”, and of the notion of a pre-reflective minimal core self relies on an unwarranted assumption. It is assumed that awareness of the phenomenal mode of experiences of objects, i.e. what the object “feels” like for the experiencer, is comparable with, indeed entails, first-person givenness of experience. In consequence both the arguments concerning the foundational role of the pre-reflective minimal (...) core self and the explanation of the unity and identity of the self through time give rise to intractable problems. (shrink)

The paper aims to show that scepticism concerning the status of first-person reports of mental states and their use as evidence in scientific cognitive research is unfounded. Rather, principled arguments suggest that the conditions for the intersubjectivity of cognition and description of publicly observable things apply equally for our cognition and description of our mental or internal states. It is argued that on these conditions relies the possibility of developing well-defined scientific criteria for distinguishing between first-person and third-person cognition and (...) description. The paper concludes by outlining the consequences for cognitive research and for functional theories of mind. (shrink)

The paper aims to show, first, that O’Regan’s and Noë’s Sensorimotor Theory of Vision and Visual Experiences suffers from circularity, and that evidence from empirical research within perception psychology unequivocally invalidates their theory. Secondly, to show that the circularity in O’Regan’s and Noë’s theory of vision and in other general causal and functional theories of perception (i.e. Gibson’s and Marr’s theories of perception) is the inevitable consequence of mutually conflicting assumption of Cartesian dualism underlying these theories. The paper concludes by (...) outlining the consequences of this conflict of assumptions for psychological theories of perception. (shrink)

This study investigates the extent to which there is individuality in how structural variation is conditioned over time. Earlier research already classified the diachronically unstable gerund variation as involving a high fraction of mixed-usage speakers throughout the change, whereby the proportion of the conservative variant versus the progressive variant as observable in the linguistic output of individual language users superficially resembles the mean proportion as observable at the population level. However, this study sets out to show that there can still (...) be heterogeneity within such a centralized population in terms of how each individual conditions the observed variation. A random forest and conditional inference tree analysis of over 14,000 gerunds uttered by nineteen seventeenth-century authors is presented to show that, while the most important language-internal factors conditioning the gerund variation are adopted by (and shared between) all authors, we can still attest inter-individual variation (i) at lower levels of variable importance, and (ii) in the breadth of the range of contexts individual authors employ to condition the attested variation. (shrink)

本书主要分四个部分，分别为中国哲学社会科学“走出去”的战略意义、中国学者哲学社会科学研究的国际发表及其影响、中国哲学社会科学学术平台“走出去”现状与前景、中国哲学社会科学“走出去”的语言问题。.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Achieving Social and Cultural Educational Objectives through Art Historical Inquiry PracticesJacqueline Chanda (bio)Some overburdened art or generalist teachers may ask: "With all the things we have to know and do these days, why should we be interested in art history inquiry processes? What educational value is there in promoting the use of art history inquiry processes in teaching and learning?" The answer to the first question lies in (...) art history's relationship to the humanities and the visual arts. The humanities is the branch of learning concerned with human thought and relations. We turn to the humanities when we wish to understand the human condition, social and cultural values, and ourselves. But some might say that historical inquiry methods do the same thing. What distinguishes art historical inquiry from general historical inquiry is the focus on the visual arts. Visual arts are in the branch of learning that deal with the production and study of visual imagery and material objects. In the context of art history inquiry, visual imagery and material objects are the primary data used for the study of changes in ourselves; religious, social, and cultural values; and human conditions. Visual imagery is one of the universal ways that the human condition and social and cultural values of the past and present are expressed. It is one of the fundamental means by which humans communicate feelings, emotions, ideas, ideologies, etc.Art educators have acknowledged for a long time the importance of the study of images and visual elements in the lives of children and the field of art education. This is even more evident today as the discipline moves to embrace notions of "visual culture," which emphasize exploring and studying all the things that visibly shape our lives. The acknowledgment of art history as an inquiry process rather than simply the study of facts about past artworks developed in the discipline-based arts education (DBAE) [End Page 24] movement of the 1980s and 1990s.1 In spite of the recommendations that art history be explored as a discipline of inquiry, much of the art history investigations that take place in the classroom today focus on understanding the artist through his/her biography and understanding the work of art through analysis of style and formal description.2 While the artist biography brings to light the artist's intention and a formal description examines what one can see in the work and makes reference to aspects of style and formal elements, the two approaches do not provide enough information to generate meaning and speculate about what social and cultural elements may have caused the work of art to look the way it does or the effects it may have had at the time of its creation. Unfortunately, many educators are not aware of how to extend their investigations to uncover these levels of analysis.Erickson provides one definition of inquiry as describing, attributing (determining who created the work), reconstructing (determining what the object originally looked like), and interpreting the artwork.3 While these aspects are all a part of an art historical investigation, they do not go far enough into the practices utilized by art historians when exploring a work of art. Therefore, in the context of this article the phrase "art historical inquiry processes" refers to the use of authentic activities (asking questions, collecting and analyzing data, interpreting, speculating about cause or effect, and disseminating knowledge) and approaches that art historians use when studying works of art; this approach goes beyond what is clearly seen in visual imagery in order to reveal not only the denotative but also the connotative meanings that are relevant to the historical and cultural context of the artwork. These authentic activities incorporate approaches related to structural analysis (that is, contemporary analysis—iconography, iconology semiotics, feminism, etc.—that draws from literary reading skills to generate meaning) and explore, examine, and facilitate the drawing of conclusions about the significance and place of visual imagery and material objects in the societies from which they come.4 The purpose of this article is to discuss the value of studying visual images and material objects using authentic art history inquiry processes to uncover meanings, and by extension... (shrink)

In this article we investigate origins of several cases of failure of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems employing machine learning and deep learning. We focus on omission and commission errors in (a) the inputs to the AI system, (b) the processing logic, and (c) the outputs from the AI system. Our framework yields a set of 28 factors that can be used for reconstructing the path of AI failures and for determining corrective action. Our research helps identify emerging themes of inquiry (...) necessary for developing more robust AI-ML systems. We are hopeful that our work will help strengthen the use of machine-learning AI by enhancing the rates of true positive and true negative judgements from AI systems, and by lowering the probabilities of false positive and false negative judgements. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Prior studies have examined the impacts of sensemaking processes, such as forecasting, on ethical decision making but only a few have considered how aspects of the ethical issue itself, such as social consensus and magnitude of consequences, might interact with sensemaking processes to influence EDM. The present effort examines both forecasting and moral intensity, as well as their interactions, during the EDM process. Participants in this study were given an ethical scenario with either a high or low degree of (...) social consensus as well as a greater or smaller magnitude of consequences. They were then asked to forecast either many or few potential outcomes stemming from their actions before coming up with a final plan of action. Responses were rated for quality of forecasting, use of metacognitive reasoning strategies, perceived moral intensity, and ethicality. Results indicate that social consensus may not be beneficial for EDM if the magnitude of consequences is low or individuals are not engaged in extensive forecasting. Implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Background Despite decades of anti-racism and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) interventions in academic medicine, medical racism continues to harm patients and healthcare providers. We sought to deeply explore experiences and beliefs about medical racism among academic clinicians to understand the drivers of persistent medical racism and to inform intervention design. Methods We interviewed academically-affiliated clinicians with any racial identity from the Departments of Family Medicine, Cardiac Sciences, Emergency Medicine, and Medicine to understand their experiences and perceptions of medical racism. (...) We performed thematic content analysis of semi-structured interview data to understand the barriers and facilitators of ongoing medical racism. Based on participant narratives, we developed a logic framework that demonstrates the necessary steps in the process of addressing racism using if/then logic. This framework was then applied to all narratives and the barriers to addressing medical racism were aligned with each step in the logic framework. Proposed interventions, as suggested by participants or study team members and/or identified in the literature, were matched to these identified barriers to addressing racism. Results Participant narratives of their experiences of medical racism demonstrated multiple barriers to addressing racism, such as a perceived lack of empathy from white colleagues. Few potential facilitators to addressing racism were also identified, including shared language to understand racism. The logic framework suggested that addressing racism requires individuals to understand, recognize, name, and confront medical racism. Conclusions Organizations can use this logic framework to understand their local context and select targeted anti-racism or EDI interventions. Theory-informed approaches to medical racism may be more effective than interventions that do not address local barriers or facilitators for persistent medical racism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Discover the Unknown Chekhov in Your ESL ClassroomNinah Beliavsky (bio)I was born in Moscow, ate aladushki, and listened to my mother read Chekhov in Russian. Kashtanka, a tale about a young, ginger-colored pup who gets lost, made me cry. And when I read about the death of Ivan Dmitrich Kreepikov, in The Death of a Civil Servant, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. The poor (...) civil servant was sitting and watching an opera in a theater when all of a sudden he sneezed and spattered an old gentlemen, General Shpitzalov, in front of him. Now, as Chekhov writes, sneezing is not prohibited to any one or in any place; peasants sneeze, and even the chiefs of police sneeze. But, you see, the poor civil servant, being very much rank-conscious, could no longer live with himself after committing such a misconduct. He apologized profusely and went home, and without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa, and... died.And what about Van'ka Zhukov, an orphan boy of nine apprenticed to a shoemaker who is being beaten and overworked. He writes a letter to his grandfather on Christmas Eve, begging him for the dear Lord's sake to take him away from his misery. After scratching his head and thinking for a moment, he dips his pen in ink and addresses his envelope: "The Village. To Grand Dad." He then dashes out into the street and pushes his precious letter through the opening of the postbox...The second part of my childhood I spent in Jerusalem; there I ate falafel with humus, was obsessed with perfecting the pronunciation of the Hebrew guttural "r," and read Miriam Yalan Shtekelis's children's poetry, which was filled with magical objects that laughed and cried. By the time I was in high school I was living in Milwaukee, eating fries and ice cream sundaes and reading O. Henry.The literature that one comes in contact with during childhood and young [End Page 101] adulthood is often deeply engraved on a person's psyche. It is similar to an adult craving sweets because of the psychological association with her childhood and a safe and protected environment. We tend to think back to the "good old days" because we find comfort in our past. Today, as an adult, a wife, and a mother, I often find refuge in my childhood memories. And, like most people, much of what I encounter and read today I tend to associate with my past. If I come across a story that I heard in my childhood, as I search for something new and amusing to give to my college English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students, I try to incorporate it into my curriculum. A few years ago I came across the story The Necklace by Guy de Mappassant and immediately recalled reading it in my adolescence. This story brought back the warm memories of home that I felt would be understood and identified with by my foreign students. Today, this story is one of my students' favorites. By using stories from my own past, I feel that I can bring to my class discussions a unique perspective—my own recollections and feelings and an interpretation not only academic in nature but also personal. Often, my international students will recall hearing or reading some of the same stories (that I bring to class) in their childhood, in their native tongues, and thus these stories will not seem out of context anymore because there will be a sense of connection.I teach ESL to college students—reading and writing at the intermediate and advanced levels. Aside from following the standard curriculum of using grammar and writing textbooks, I bring to my ESL classes music, opera, art, young adult novels by American writers, and short stories by both international and American writers. For instance, my students enjoy reading O. Henry's "The Christmas Present," "The Last Leaf," and "The Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen." These stories are about real people—just like my students—they are about everyday events, they are humorous and tragic in nature, and they have an unexpected twist... (shrink)

In this review, the authors reflect on the making of an illustrated pocketbook for everybody who cares about universities – one that challenges the norms of academic publishing.It is ironic that wh...

ABSTRACT Research examining ethical decision-making has focused on how people engage in EDM, leading many researchers to focus on sensemaking models of EDM. Although the merits of a sensemaking approach with respect to EDM are evident in the literature, less is known about the specific cognitive processes by which sensemaking impacts EDM. This study examines the impact of three late-cycle cognitive processes – idea generation, evaluation, and revision – as well as the timing of these processes on EDM. Results indicate (...) that information gathering early on is critical to EDM; a finding which supports an active sensemaking model over an intuitive one. (shrink)

This paper sought to develop a literature review-based framework for fitting research projects into philosophies of research. The philosophical underpinning of the study to optimize the financial performance of pension funds through asset allocation and portfolio management decisions was used as a case in point. The paper argues that all knowledge generation processes should be deeply rooted in philosophy if they are to produce reliable solutions to research problems. The study established that the research approaches and the science of doing (...) research need to be informed by the philosophical positions of reality, knowledge, logic and ethical stance of the researcher. It is also noted that the philosophical positions of the researcher should be derived from the objective or subjective nature of the variables in the research problem. In relation to optimizing the financial performance of pension funds, the study concluded that pragmatism is the most appropriate guiding philosophy for determining the ontological, epistemological, axiological and methodological positions of the researcher. It is also concluded that the mixed method research paradigm, implemented through the explanatory sequential design is a better approach to comprehensively understand the subject matter since pension fund financial performance is a function of both subjective and objective factors. (shrink)

As an important influencing factor of construction workers' safety performance, safety stressor has received increasing attention. However, no consensus has been reached on the relationship between different types of safety stressors and the subdimensions of safety performance, and the mechanism by which safety stressors influence safety performance remains unclear. This study proposed a multiple mediation model with ego depletion and self-efficacy as mediators between safety stressors and workers' safety performance. Data were collected from 335 construction workers in China. Results demonstrated (...) that: the three types of safety stressors all had negative effects on workers' safety performance ; self-efficacy mediated all the relationships between the three safety stressors and safety performance; ego depletion only mediated part of the relationships between the three safety stressors and safety performance; and only part of the multiple-step mediating effects through ego depletion and self-efficacy were supported. This study made contributions by shedding light on the mechanism by which safety stressors influence workers' safety performance and providing more empirical evidence for the relationship between various safety stressors and the subdimensions of safety performance. Additionally, targeted strategies for improving workers' safety performance were proposed according to the findings. (shrink)

“Suu ulimwengu bahari tesi [This world is a tempestuous sea],” laments the poet Sayyid Abdallah bin Ali bin Nasir in his poem Al-Inkishafi, in which he seeks a stable point in the stormy ocean of historical upheavals. Al-Inkishafi has been translated as “The Soul’s Awakening”, as self-examination or revelation. Against the backdrop of a depiction of the economic decline of the Pate sultanate at the end of the seventeenth century, the poem dwells on the vanity of earthly life and worldly (...) pleasures and questions the presence of the self in the world and whether the self can withdraw itself from the world in search of a transcendent stable point. The poem arose in the context of an ongoing poetic discourse along the East African coast, where Sufism and religious asceticism found expression in poetry, and my paper reads it alongside other poems from this period as evidence of the constitution of introspection, interiority, and a new kind of self-consciousness. I will specifically examine the role of attention in this process. In addition to being a cognitive filter that removes confusion and error from thought and ensures the self—a relational construct arising from the interaction of reason, passions, and the world—constructs an adequate intellectual representation of the world, attention acquires ethical and pragmatic connotations in facilitating the self’s resistance to temptation as well as its focus on salvation. It is, effectively, only thanks to attention that the self is able to discriminate both cognitively and morally and, crucially, to maintain agency through exercising control over its desires and actions. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century Bengal was a period of change, conflict and accommodation both among the bhadralok – literally translated to mean the gentle folk, the middle classes – as well as between them and the British rulers. The world view of the bhadralok and its search for a new paradigm had its material basis in changes in existing land relations, the emergence of the market and of urban spaces as well as the spread of education and literacy. Often changes in familial patterns, (...) new roles for girls and women, their education and introduction to wider society, reflected developments in Britain. As the colonial encounter brought about a range of changes in a rapidly evolving social, economic and geographic scenario, it is important to try and understand inter-personal dynamics and at the level of individual consciousnesses. Women started reflecting and writing about their lives by the middle of the last century; the preferred form was the journal or diary. Several wrote many years later, often in widowhood. Monica Chanda was one such woman: the only daughter of Sarala and J.N. Gupta, a member of the Indian Civil Service, she was persuaded, at the age of 70, to write about her childhood, a period of her life she loved reminiscing about to her children and grandchildren. Life in the districts, her mother's role as civil service wife par excellence, early schooling and its later denial are evocatively sketched in this brief memoir. The present article will deal with constructions of a post-Victorian Indo-Anglian girlhood as perceived by Monica, using extensive quotations from the unpublished text. It will also try to trace the symbiotic relationship with the British Raj – viewed often with mixed feelings by the colonized. (shrink)

Recenzní studie vychází z kolektivní monografie editorů Charlese Bazermana, Adairy Bo- nini a Débory Figueiredo, Genre in a Changing World a věnuje se tématům souvisejícím s významem žánrů ve vědecké a akademické praxi. Identifikuje zejména dvě oblasti, na něž se ve zvýšené míře soustředí badatelské aktivity pra- cující s žánrem jako analytickým nástrojem: žánrovou pedagogiku na univerzitní úrovni a oborovou enkulturaci. Zatímco první oblast ohraničuje akademické texty vůči jiným textovým formám, druhá se zabývá jejich vnitřní rozrůzněností. Studie zdůrazňuje demonstro- (...) vaný přínos přístupů založených na žánrech pro výzkumy vědecké praxe, avšak dochází k závěru, že je zapotřebí důsledněji promýšlet jejich epistemologické implikace. (shrink)

Mahapurana (The largest gigantic Purarna) is a magnum opus of Jain literature. A great epic, consisting of 20, 000 slokas. It is written in Anushtup chandas meter. It consists of the whole universe of the Jain spiritual, geographical and epical world. -- Translator's words (volume 1, page xxv).

This article draws on the teachings of the Pali Canon and the contemporary lineages that are guided by its principles. In particular, reference is made to the author’s mentors in the Thai Forest Tradition. It explores the respective roles of goal-directed effort and contentment in the process of meditative training, and skilful and unskilful variations on these. Effort is needed, but can be excessive, unreflectively mindless, unaware of gradually developed results, or misdirected. Contentment can be misunderstood to imply that skilful (...) desire has no role in practice, and lead to passivity; though it is needed to dampen down an over-energized mind, or motivation rooted in aversion or ambition, and comes from insight-based non-attachment. Right effort avoids the craving to become or to get rid of, but is associated with a skilful chanda/desire that is an aspect of the iddhi-p?das, the Bases of Spiritual Power. Mindfulness aids the balance of energy and concentration in the Five Faculties, and the energizing and calming qualities in the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. In the end, from practising Dhamma in a way that is truly in accordance with Dhamma, progress naturally flows from seeing and becoming Dhamma. (shrink)

Whitehead acknowledged that 'the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of.Chinese thought.' Some scholars have attempted to explore this relationship and its implications. The Beijing Conference provided a good forum for interested and engaged scholars to address each other directly, in an atmosphere of mutual regard and respect. The ongoing scholarly work on process thinking in China is impressive. It is the editors' conviction that the publication of this book in English will promote international discussion of (...) the themes and issues herein set forth. This should contribute significantly to the broader discussion between West and East, so important in this age of cultural globalization. Contributors: John B Cobb, Jr, David R Griffin, Catherine Keller, Meijun Fan, Ronald Phipps, Joseph Grange, George Derfer, Wang Shik Jiang, Brook Ziporyn, Michel Weber, Wenyu Xie, HUAN Huogui, Zhihe Wang, HAN Zhen LI Shiyan, ZHANG Nini. (shrink)