On the philosophy of education and views of Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950; articles.

Research papers on various aspects of Hindu philosophy and Sanskrit grammar.

Two minor verse works on Hindu philosophy and Yoga; written in the form of narration between Krishna and Uddhava.

Lectures on Sankhya philosophy and contribution of Kaṇāda and Pāṇini; lecture series organized by Centre for Vedanta Studies, University of Kerala with the financial assistance from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India during the Sanskrit year 2000.

This volume reflects the ‘philosophy of science in practice’ approach and takes a fresh look at traditional philosophical problems in the context of natural, social, and health research. Inspired by the work of Nancy Cartwright that shows how the practices and apparatuses of science help us to understand science and to build theories in the philosophy of science, this volume critically examines the philosophical concepts of evidence, laws, causation, and models and their roles in the process of scientific (...) reasoning. Each chapter is an important one in the philosophy of science, while the volume as a whole deals with these philosophical concepts in a unified way in the context of actual scientific practice. This volume thus aims to contribute to this new direction in the philosophy of science.​. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to offer a new view of the key relation between the content and the conscious character of visual experience. The author aims to support the following claims. First, the author rejects the qualia realist claim that conscious character is an intrinsic, nonrepresentational property of visual experience, for example, a pattern of activation of neurons. However, the author also rejects the rival widespread representationalist claim that the conscious character of visual experience is identical to, or (...) supervenes on, any specific property represented by visual experience. The positive proposal is the following. Conscious character is identical to those patterns of activation of neurons that are referentially or representationally alive. Conscious redness, for example, is a pattern of activations of neurons that is normally created only when brains of physical duplicates come in visual contact with some distal property. This pattern of activation is recruited by natural selection to represent that property. This is called meaning representationalism. (shrink)

This volume reflects the ‘philosophy of science in practice’ approach and takes a fresh look at traditional philosophical problems in the context of natural, social, and health research. Inspired by the work of Nancy Cartwright that shows how the practices and apparatuses of science help us to understand science and to build theories in the philosophy of science, this volume critically examines the philosophical concepts of evidence, laws, causation, and models and their roles in the process of scientific (...) reasoning. Each chapter is an important one in the philosophy of science, while the volume as a whole deals with these philosophical concepts in a unified way in the context of actual scientific practice. This volume thus aims to contribute to this new direction in the philosophy of science.​. (shrink)

Philosophers of science regard the Lotka–Volterra model as an exemplar of model transfer across disciplines. This article traces three cases of the Lotka–Volterra model transfer to economics during the 1960–70s. Each model represents a different kind of methodological attitude towards model transfer. After detailing the historical case studies where the Lotka–Volterra model was transferred to economics and how the economists actually adopted it into their model constructions, the following philosophical discussions on interpretation and (...) justification suggest that formal template or structure alone does not produce successful transdomain model transfer; rather it is subject to the model builders’ intentions and interpretation. In addition to interdisciplinary transfer, intradisciplinarity is also crucial to how models are constructed in order to be resituated in their economic context. (shrink)

Contributed articles on the representation of death in different religion, with reference to Indic and European philosophy; includes articles on the representation of death in literature.

Research papers on knowledge and theory in Jaina philosophy.

This critical notice argues for the existence of a new trend in bioethics, a complex and dynamic field of philosophical enquiry that goes beyond applied ethics and professional deontological codes. This trend supplements their traditionally “minimalist” ethics—and its concern with harm, rights or justice—with “inflationary” positions open to an integration of medicine with the humanities. By comparing and contrasting the views of two quite different philosophers, Diego Gracia and Alfred Tauber, and placing them within the theoretical background delineated by George (...) Khushf, I argue that the main contribution of this “inflationary bioethics” is an understanding of health and disease as intrinsically normative concepts, which in turn brings about a blurring of the distinction between facts and values. By refusing to construe the distinction as a dichotomy, a post-positivist philosophy of medicine must become more epistemological in order to help us clarify concepts in which the evaluative and the factual are impossible to separate. As a result, the “language of principles” in standard bioethics is being substituted by a more encompassing “language of values”; health and disease are increasingly understood as biopsychosocial phenomena; and the field is open to a process of moralization that challenges traditional models of patient autonomy and physician responsibility. (shrink)

While the current generative paradigm in linguistics leans heavily toward computation, investigations on conscious representations are much welcome. The SOC model examines the acquisition of complex representations in individuals. We note that heterogeneity of representation in populations is a central issue that must be addressed as well. In addition to the self-organizing processes proposed for the individual, interactions among individuals must be incorporated in any comprehensive account of language.

On verbal epistemology of the neo-Nyaya school in Indic philosophy; includes Sanskrit text, Apūrvavāda from Nyāyasiddhāntadīpa of Śaśadhara.

In order to develop an account of scientific rationality, two problems need to be addressed: (i) how to make sense of episodes of theory change in science where the lack of a cumulative development is found, and (ii) how to accommodate cases of scientific change where lack of consistency is involved. In this paper, we sketch a model of scientific rationality that accommodates both problems. We first provide a framework within which it is possible to make sense of scientific (...) revolutions, but which still preserves some (partial) relations between old and new theories. The existence of these relations help to explain why the break between different theories is never too radical as to make it impossible for one to interpret the process in perfectly rational terms. We then defend the view that if scientific theories are taken to be quasi-true, and if the underlying logic is paraconsistent, it's perfectly rational for scientists and mathematicians to entertain inconsistent theories without triviality. As a result, as opposed to what is demanded by traditional approaches to rationality, it's not irrational to entertain inconsistent theories. Finally, we conclude the paper by arguing that the view advanced here provides a new way of thinking about the foundations of science. In particular, it extends in important respects both coherentist and foundationalist approaches to knowledge, without the troubles that plague traditional views of scientific rationality. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a modified version of what Devitt calls the Representational Thesis. According to RT, syntactic rules or principles are psychologically real, in the sense that they are represented in the mind/brain of every linguistically competent speaker/hearer. I present a range of behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for the claim that the human sentence processing mechanism constructs mental representations of the syntactic properties of linguistic stimuli. I then survey a range of psychologically plausible computational models of (...) comprehension and show that they are all committed to RT. I go on to sketch a framework for thinking about the nature of the representations involved in sentence processing. My claim is that these are best characterized not as propositional attitudes but, rather, as subpersonal states whose representational properties are determined by their functional role. Finally, I distinguish between explicit and implicit representations and argue that the latter can be drawn on as data by the algorithms that constitute our sentence processing routines. I conclude that skepticism concerning the psychological reality of grammars cannot be sustained. (shrink)

This comprehensive analysis dives deep into the intricate interplay between artificial intelligence (AI) and human agency, examining the remarkable capabilities and inherent limitations of large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3 and ChatGPT. The paper traces the complex trajectory of AI's evolution, highlighting its operation based on statistical pattern recognition, devoid of self-consciousness or innate comprehension. As AI permeates multiple spheres of human life, it raises substantial ethical, legal, and societal concerns that demand immediate attention and deliberation. The metaphorical (...) illustration of humans as “shepherds” of AI, coupled with a thought-provoking examination of “agency without intelligence,” engenders deep reflections on the future of human-AI interplay and the associated philosophical, ethical, and practical ramifications. The paper further elucidates critical challenges associated with AI, such as ethical dilemmas, “agency without intelligence,” the role of human oversight, and the environmental impact of AI technologies. In the pursuit of solutions, the paper maps prospective directions, emphasizing the need for robust AI policies, improved AI literacy, sustainable AI practices, and a continued dialogue on the multifaceted issues surrounding AI. Through a holistic exploration of AI, this paper underlines the necessity for a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach to chart an ethical, beneficial, and sustainable AI future, enabling society to harness the potential of AI responsibly while mitigating the associated risks. (shrink)

Molecular models are typical topics of chemical research depending on the technical standards of observation, computation, and representation. Mathematically, molecular structures have been represented by means of graph theory, topology, differential equations, and numerical procedures. With the increasing capabilities of computer networks, computational models and computer-assisted visualization become an essential part of chemical research. Object-oriented programming languages create a virtual reality of chemical structures opening new avenues of exploration and collaboration in chemistry. From an epistemic point of view, virtual (...) reality is a new computer-assisted tool of human imagination and recognition. (shrink)

Por ocasião do centenário de nascimento de Paul Ricoeur, a Universidade de Coimbra juntou num mesmo volume um conjunto de estudos académicos em tributo a este pensador. Reuniram-se deste modo comunicações de professores, de novos investigadores e de estudantes de doutoramento em redor de temas que marcaram a receção da obra e do filósofo francês em Coimbra. Cada capítulo do presente livro demonstra a fecundidade de um pensamento que, enraizado na “tradição reflexiva”, assumindo a mensagem das “filosofias da existência”, articulando (...) Fenomenologia e Hermenêutica, adquire, hoje, crescente impacto e relevância. Esta é uma filosofia que promove o diálogo entre disciplinas, autores e culturas e supera divisões teóricas em ordem a enfrentar as exigências da praxis. O desafio da praxis fez assim emergir um pensamento exigente e, simultaneamente, capaz de dialogar com diversas áreas do saber como: a psicoterapia, a história, as neurociências, a bioética, as ciências sociais e os estudos literários. At the occasion of the Paul Ricoeur’s centenary this volume joined in tribute several scholars, young researchers, and Ph.D students around the main themes that marked the reception of the philosopher’s work in Portugal and, especially in the University of Coimbra. Each chapter demonstrates the vigour Ricoeur’s thought as it is rooted in the "reflexive tradition", as it assumed the "existentialist" horizon, as it articulated Phenomenology and Hermeneutics. This philosophical project as, today, an enormous range of influence. This is a project that promotes dialogue between disciplines, authors, and cultures, overcoming theoretical divisions in face the demands of praxis. From this rich and plural inspiration comes the ability to meet with other fields of thought, namely psychotherapy, history, neuroscience, bioethics, social sciences, and literary studies. (shrink)

This book deals with a major problem in the study of language: the problem of reference. The ease with which we refer to things in conversation is deceptive. Upon closer scrutiny, it turns out that we hardly ever tell each other explicitly what object we mean, although we expect our interlocutor to discern it. Amichai Kronfeld provides an answer to two questions associated with this: how do we successfully refer, and how can a computer be programmed to achieve this? (...) Beginning with the major theories of reference, Dr Kronfeld provides a consistent philosophical view which is a synthesis of Frege's and Russell's semantic insights with Grice's and Searle's pragmatic theories. This leads to a set of guiding principles, which are then applied to a computational model of referring. The discussion is made accessible to readers from a number of backgrounds: in particular, students and researchers in the areas of computational linguistics, artificial intelligence and the philosophy of language will want to read this book. (shrink)

Religious way of life and code of conduct according to the Hinduism and as advocated by Swami Pujyapāda, Hindu religious leader.

In his thesis 'Para uma Teoria Geral dos Homomorfismos' (1944) the Portuguese mathematician José Sebastião e Silva constructed an abstract or generalized Galois theory, that is intimately linked to F. Klein’s Erlangen Program and that foreshadows some notions and results of today’s model theory; an analogous theory was independently worked out by M. Krasner in 1938. In this paper, we present a version of the theory making use of tools which were not at Silva’s disposal. At the same time, (...) we tried to keep in mind, so much as possible, the gist of his standpoint. (shrink)

Appellate Court Modifications Extraction consists of, given an Appellate Court decision, identifying the proposed modifications by the upper Court of the lower Court judge’s decision. In this work, we propose a system to extract Appellate Court Modifications for Portuguese. Information extraction for legal texts has been previously addressed using different techniques and for several languages. Our proposal differs from previous work in two ways: our corpus is composed of Brazilian Appellate Court decisions, in which we look for a set of (...) modifications provided by the Court; and to automatically extract the modifications, we use a traditional Machine Learning approach and a Deep Learning approach, both as alternative solutions and as a combined solution. We tackle the Appellate Court Modifications Extraction task, experimenting with a wide variety of methods. In order to train and evaluate the system, we have built the KauaneJunior corpus, using public data disclosed by the Appellate State Court of Rio de Janeiro jurisprudence database. Our best method, which is a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory network combined with Conditional Random Fields, obtained an \ score of 94.79%. (shrink)

Sleep quality, personality, and cognitive load potentially increase second language writing anxiety and subsequently affect SLW achievement. This study investigates the predictions of sleep quality, personality, and cognitive load toward SLW anxiety and achievement in a computer-based test. Participants included 172 voluntary undergraduates majoring in English as foreign language. SLW anxiety in a computer-based test, sleep disturbance, personality and cognitive load was assessed with the SLW Anxiety Inventory, Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, Type-D Personality, and cognitive load questionnaires. A (...) structural equation modeling approach was applied to examine the interdependence among the observed variables. An adequate-fit SLW anxiety model was built. The structural model showed that sleep disturbance, social inhibition personality, and computer-induced cognitive load were significant predictors of SLW anxiety in a computer-based test. Subsequently, SLW anxiety in a computer-based test and computer-induced cognitive load were significant negative predictors of computer-based SLW achievement. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article aims to defend the dialogical nature of the landscape. Working in between the borders of the Bakhtinian philosophy of language and cultural studies on landscape, we defend that landscape study should not be studied without considering the cultural forms of communication in the different domains of social organization– the speech genres; that landscape is a semiotic encounter with a concrete otherness; that the interpreter who emerges when an area enters a relationship of representation is necessarily (...) characterized as a chronotope; that every landscape is a chronotopic representation; that cultural geography recognizes that the semiotic aspects of the landscape are as material as its morphology. We start from the hypothesis that landscape is a chronotopic representation that is always made possible by means of some speech genre, because it is always a communicative process, and an encounter with another in a situation of socially organized interrelation – it is concrete dialogue. To find the deeper meaning of a landscape, one must recognize and understand its material, historical, geographical, and dialogic nature. RESUMO O artigo objetiva defender a índole dialógica da paisagem. Trabalhando na fronteira entre a filosofia bakhtiniana da linguagem e os estudos culturais da paisagem, defendemos que a paisagem não seja estudada sem considerar as formas culturais de comunicação nos diferentes domínios da organização social – os gêneros discursivos; que toda paisagem é encontro semiótico com uma alteridade concreta; que o intérprete que emerge quando uma área entra em relação de representação é necessariamente caracterizado por um cronotopo; que toda paisagem é representação cronotópica; que a geografia cultural reconheça que os aspectos semióticos da paisagem são tão materiais quanto sua morfologia. Partimos da hipótese de que a paisagem é uma representação cronotópica que sempre se realiza através de algum gênero discursivo, pois sempre é um processo comunicativo e de encontro com o outro em uma situação de inter-relação socialmente organizada – é diálogo concreto. Para adentrar à profundeza de seus sentidos, precisa-se reconhecer e compreender sua índole material, histórica, geográfica e dialógica. (shrink)

Contributed seminar papers on philosophy of sentence according to Mimamsa philosophy and Bhartrhari' Sanskrit grammar. Special issues of Journal of Foundational reserach.

Research papers on the fundamentals of Indic philosophy and culture.

This article tests human inference rationality when dealing with default rules. To study human rationality, psychologists currently use classical models of logic or probability theory as normative models for evaluating human ability to reason rationally. Our position is that this approach is convincing, but only manages to capture a specific case of inferential ability with little regard to conditions of everyday reasoning. We propose that the most general case to be considered is inference with imperfect knowledge - in the present (...) case restricted to uncertain knowledge - and that a natural framework for testing the rationality of plausible reasoning is System P. This system provides rational postulates for nonmonotonic inference. The semantic of the nonmonotonic inference is given by a possibilistic constraint introduced by Dubois and Prade (1991). This constraint states that a rule p ( q is a plausible rule if "the degree to which p ( q is possible" is greater than "the degree to which p ( (q is possible". Given the choice of this constraint, we study two supplementary postulates of rationality. Eighty-eight subjects participated in an experiment whose results confirm - provided that reflexivity and left logical equivalence would be tested in a further experiment - the rationality of human nonmonotonic inference according to the rational postulates of System P. (shrink)

Contributed articles on Nimbarka Sect and the contribution of Swami Dhanañjayadāsa, Hindu philosopher and scholar belonging to the sect; papers presented at the seminar, held in Uttara Cabbiśa Paragaṇā, India in 2001 and organized by Sukhchar Kathiababa Ashram; centenary commemorative volume in honor of Swami Dhanañjayadāsa.

This article argues that the credibility of both theoretical and empirical models in economics is best understood through their connection with the empirical aspects of the real world. The discussion herein demonstrates that the similarity between the model and the real world is not enough to justify a theoretical model’s explanatory power. The best way to secure the model’s credibility is to prove the existence of representation theorems.

An introduction to the model-theoretic approach in the philosophy of science is given and it is argued that this program is further enhanced by the introduction of partial structures. It is then shown that this leads to a natural and intuitive account of both "iconic" and mathematical models and of the role of the former in science itself.

Facial expression recognition plays a significant part in artificial intelligence and computer vision. However, most of facial expression recognition methods have not obtained satisfactory results based on low-level features. The existed methods used in facial expression recognition encountered the major issues of linear inseparability, large computational burden, and data redundancy. To obtain satisfactory results, we propose an innovative deep learning model using the kernel entropy component analysis network and directed acyclic graph support vector machine. We use the KECANet (...) in the feature extraction stage. In the stage of output, binary hashing and blockwise histograms are adopted. We sent the final output features to the DAGSVM classifier for expression recognition. We test the performance of our proposed method on three databases of CK+, JAFFE, and CMU Multi-PIE. According to the experiment results, the proposed method can learn high-level features and provide more recognition information in the stage of training, obtaining a higher recognition rate. (shrink)

This book provides a methodological perspective on understanding the essential roles of econometric models in the theory and practice. Offering a comprehensive and comparative exposition of the accounts of models in both econometrics and philosophy of science, this work shows how econometrics and philosophy of science are interconnected while exploring the methodological insight of econometric modelling that can be added to modern philosophical thought. The notion of structure is thoroughly discussed throughout the book. The studies of the consumption (...) function of Trygve Haavelmo, Richard Stone, Milton Friedman, David Hendry and Robert Lucas are taken as the case studies to investigate their methodological implications of model and structure. In addition to the semantic view of the scientific theories, various philosophical accounts concerning scientific models are used to shed light on the methodological nature of these consumption studies in economics. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of methodology of economics and econometrics as well as anyone interested in the philosophy of science in an economic context. (shrink)

Technology has substantially transformed the way legal services operate in many different countries. With a large and complex collection of digitized legal documents, the judiciary system worldwide presents a promising scenario for the development of intelligent tools. In this work, we tackle the challenging task of organizing and summarizing the constantly growing collection of legal documents, uncovering hidden topics, or themes that later can support tasks such as legal case retrieval and legal judgment prediction. Our approach to this problem relies (...) on topic discovery techniques combined with a variety of preprocessing techniques and learning-based vector representations of words, such as Doc2Vec and BERT-like models. The proposed method was validated using four different datasets composed of short and long legal documents in Brazilian Portuguese, from legal decisions to chapters in legal books. Analysis conducted by a team of legal specialists revealed the effectiveness of the proposed approach to uncover unique and relevant topics from large collections of legal documents, serving many purposes, such as giving support to legal case retrieval tools and also providing the team of legal specialists with a tool that can accelerate their work of labeling/tagging legal documents. (shrink)

The demand for integrating and sharing heterogeneous data online has attracted the interest of cultural institutions in making information access and retrieval more effective via Semantic Web technologies. The present study proposes a digital repository for 3D scans of modernist sculptures in public spaces in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with a view to ensuring access, use, reuse and preservation of this information. This is a qualitative exploratory experimental study based on the scientific literature and specific empirical material. (...) It presents the analysis results of vocabularies for physical artifact documents and their digital counterparts on the Semantic Web and a discussion on how these align with the nature of the metadata determined here, as well as a metadata modeling prototype implemented on the Tainacan platform and aimed at cataloging digital 3D replicas. We claim that the proposed model for documenting cultural heritage assets on Tainacan is easy to implement, in that it uses accessible technology with a wide internet user base, highly expressive in its descriptions of 3D and multimedia content and based on well-established metadata and ontology standards recommended by regulatory bodies and communities such as the World Wide Web Consortium and International Organization for Standardization. Keywords: networked heritage documents, digital repositories, 3D digitization, semantic annotation. (shrink)

Medieval work on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika schools in Hindu philosophy.

Treatise on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika philosophy with Arthadīpikā commentary.

On the implementation aspect of the Islamization of knowledge programme, there were also suggestions that my paper should provide readers with Al-Faruqi's ...

Da Costa and French explore the consequences of adopting a 'pragmatic' notion of truth in the philosophy of science. Their framework sheds new light on issues to do with belief, theory acceptance, and the realism-antirealism debate, as well as the nature of scientific models and their heuristic development.

This essay attempts to think anew the relationship of pain with finitude and language. If man is that finite, mortal being whose being is essentially linguistic and being-in-communication, where language is not seen as mere attribute, property, or instrumental means of appropriation, then language cannot be understood in its cognitive disposal as categorical grasp of the “entities presently given,” but must be understood in a more originary manner as opening of the coming into presence, as the event (...) of this coming itself. If a certain dominant ontology, in its innermost ground, understands pain as the very grounding work of logos, then it is necessary to open up the closure of this logos of metaphysics to another, more originary experience of pain in relation to mortality that dispropriates us beforehand, and thereby grants us language itself as gift and promise which welcomes the incalculable event of the “not yet.” This essay reads Heidegger, Schelling and Benjamin to think of the promise of this redemptive, messianic language in relation to an originary finitude, outside the metaphysics of subjectivity, insofar as this metaphysics subsumes language to its cognitive disposal, to its categorical grasp of entities’ “given present.”. (shrink)

The philosophy of mathematics has long been concerned with deter- mining the means that are appropriate for justifying claims of mathemat- ical knowledge, and the metaphysical considerations that render them so. But, as of late, many philosophers have called attention to the fact that a much broader range of normative judgments arise in ordinary math- ematical practice; for example, questions can be interesting, theorems important, proofs explanatory, concepts powerful, and so on. The as- sociated values are often loosely classied (...) as aspects of \mathematical understanding." Meanwhile, in a branch of computer science known as \formal ver- ication," the practice of interactive theorem proving has given rise to software tools and systems designed to support the development of com- plex formal axiomatic proofs. Such eorts require one to develop models of mathematical language and inference that are more robust than the the simple foundational models of the last century. This essay explores some of the insights that emerge from this work, and some of the ways that these insights can inform, and be informed by, philosophical theories of mathematical understanding. (shrink)

Of Pain Content Type Journal Article Pages - Authors Saitya Brata Das, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India Journal Comparative and Continental Philosophy Online ISSN 1757-0646 Print ISSN 1757-0638 Journal Volume Volume 3 Journal Issue Volume 3, Number 1 / 2011.

commemoration volume of Professor Sanjivan Prasada, 1940-2012, Indian philosopher; contributed research papers on comparative religion and philosophy of religion.

This paper investigates the question of how we manage to single out the natural number structure as the intended interpretation of our arithmetical language. Horsten submits that the reference of our arithmetical vocabulary is determined by our knowledge of some principles of arithmetic on the one hand, and by our computational abilities on the other. We argue against such a view and we submit an alternative answer. We single out the structure of natural numbers through our intuition of (...) the absolute notion of finiteness. (shrink)

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals (...) and cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. -/- This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change. (shrink)