Kant's system of Transcendental Idealism may be regarded, in the contemporary philosophical perspective, as concerned with the problem whether any linguistic or conceptual system can be regarded as adequately explained in terms of the facts which the system organises. ‘ Transcendental ’ may be understood as what is ‘ non-reducible ’. Kant seems to hold that a linguistic scheme cannot be reduced to the facts which fall within the scheme, and thus it is transcendental to those facts. Formulated in such (...) terms, the Kantian doctrine does not, apparently , propound anything which is new; that facts are tailored to a linguistic scheme is pretty much a well-known doctrine these days. But then, as we shall see, it does say something new; and when we extract that novel element in it, we shall discover also the positive import in the Kantian term, ‘ Transcendental ’. (shrink)

This study develops and tests an integrated model that explains how Schwartz’s higher order personal values of Openness to Change, Conservation, Self-Transcendence and Self-Enhancement influence the ethical behavior of accountants. The study further explores the influence of ethics training, gender and religiosity on ethical behavior. A survey instrument was administered to 252 accounting students and the findings reveal that some of the higher order personal values are significant in explaining the ethical behavior of accounting students. The findings also reveal that (...) gender and ethical training influence ethical behavior, and that effect of the personal value Self-Transcendence differs depending on participant gender and also religiosity. The implications of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

Cancer is fast becoming an alarming cause of human death. However, it has been reported that if the disease is detected at an early stage, diagnosed, treated appropriately, the patient has better chances of survival long life. Machine learning technique with feature-selection contributes greatly to the detecting of cancer, because an efficient feature-selection method can remove redundant features. In this paper, a Fuzzy Preference-Based Rough Set (FPRS) blended with Support Vector Machine (SVM) has been applied in order to predict cancer (...) biomarkers for biological and gene expression datasets. Biomarkers are determined by deploying three models of FPRS, namely, Fuzzy Upward Consistency (FUC), Fuzzy Downward Consistency (FLC), and Fuzzy Global Consistency (FGC). The efficiency of the three models with SVM on five datasets is exhibited, and the biomarkers that have been identified from FUC models have been reported. (shrink)

Economic value additions to knowledge and demand provide practical, embedded and extensible meaning to philosophizing cognitive systems. Evaluation of a cognitive system is an empirical matter. Thinking of science in terms of distributed cognition (interactionism) enlarges the domain of cognition. Anything that actually contributes to the specific quality of output of a cognitive system is part of the system in time and/or space. Cognitive science studies behaviour and knowledge structures of experts and categorized structures based on underlying structures. Knowledge representation (...) through understanding of ‘epistemic cultures’ is an evolutionary stage. But cognition goes beyond knowledge representation. Notwithstanding the importance of epistemology of phenomena, the practicability cum philosophical aspects of machine learning needs to be seen in dynamic behaviour in socio-economic-technical value additions if human machine interaction processes that are context specific are incorporated into strong artificial intelligent systems. Cognitive Science is also studied from both computational and biological angles. Evolution of interactive forms of reasoning through understanding of meta-language of computations or biological learning processes is possible. But the limitation of historical cultures predefines the role of interactive processes in user-networks beyond technology networks. Despite this limitation, inclusive development notions of a heterogeneous national society such as India or Europe can be tested and incorporated. (shrink)

We develop and use an integrated individual-level model to explain the driving forces behind digital piracy practice in two nations. The proposed model combines the Norm Activation model and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology models. This study also explores the effect of culture on intention to practice DP in two nations: US and India. A survey instrument was used to collect data from 231 US and 331 Indian participants. Use of the integrated model proves to be a (...) powerful and a viable approach to understanding DP across cultures. In each nation, all 10 path coefficients on the research model are statistically significant thereby establishing the fact that personal norm, together with other factors, influences INT to engage in DP, which in turn, may influence the actual practice. The results reveal a support for cross-cultural generalizability and applicability of the proposed model. Culture clearly plays a strong moderating role in two out of the three paths tested. The implications of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

This special half-issue is inspired by a passage by Indian writer, educator, and utopian experimenter Rabindranath Tagore in his The Religion of Man, which Tagore first delivered in 1930 as the Hibbert Lectures at the University of Oxford:Man, in his mission to create himself, tries to develop in his mind an image of his truth according to an idea which he believes to be universal, and is sure that any expression given to it will persist through all time... This ideal (...) life dwells in the prospective memory of the future.The set of four articles in this issue is particularly focused on transcultural utopian imagination with nodal point in South Asia, with the transnational space of Bengal (spanning the... (shrink)

The authors found correspondence of several significant traits of Jewish mysticism with traits of Buddhism and other systems of Indian religion and philosophy in the literature. Among the corresponding traits is the fundamental idea of emptiness or nothingness, shuunyataa in Sanskrit, ayin in Hebrew. Also corresponding are attempts to harmonise the idea and experience of emptiness with fullness, and with the experience of the secular world with its many things and concepts. They list eight significant traits of Jewish mysticism, which (...) are found to correspond with traits of Indian religion-philosophies. This is of course a study in comparative religion, but some important relations between these Indian and Jewish belief systems with modern science are also discussed. (shrink)

In the literature we have found correspondence of several significant traits of Jewish mysticism with traits of Buddhism and other systems of Indian religion-philosophy. Among the corresponding traits is the fundamental idea of emptiness or nothingness, shuunyataa in Sanskrit, ayin in Hebrew. Also corresponding are attempts to harmonize the idea and experience of emptiness with fullness, and with the experience of the secular world with its many things and concepts. We list eight significant traits of Jewish mysticism, which we find (...) correspond with traits of Indian religion-philosophies. We also discuss some important relations of these Indian and Jewish belief systems with modern science. We contend, that natural science is built on spontaneous sensory experiences; on this basis concepts and theories are constructed. Likewise we think, that spiritual experiences occur spontaneously and contribute to the basis of religious, mystic and some philosophical belief systems. We thus think, there are important parallels between scientific and spiritual cognition. Key words: Comparative religion; Emptiness/fullness; nothingness; God; compassion; reincarnation; cognition, scientific spiritual; spiritual experiences; Buddhism. (shrink)

Despite the growing interest in understanding the effects of income inequality on economic growth, the influence of entrepreneurship-related institutional constraints on the inequality–growth association remains less understood. Drawing on an institutional constraints perspective in the context of startup entry regulation and credit constraints, we propose that under increasing income inequality, ease of startup or access to credit from the financial sector is positively associated with per capita economic growth. In a sample of 92 countries, robust to alternate specifications, we find (...) support for our hypotheses. Our findings contribute to the debates about the income inequality–growth nexus and imply potential policy interventions in the form of lower startup regulations and domestic credit provision from the financial sector to enhance economic growth under increasing economic inequality. (shrink)

Absent mistake or misrepresentation, most scholars assume that parties who agree to contract do so voluntarily. Scholars tend further to regard that choice as an important exercise in moral agency. Hanoch Dagan and Michael Heller are right to question the quality of our choices. Where the fundamental contours of the transaction are legally determined, parties have little opportunity to exercise autonomous choice over the terms on which they deal with others. To the extent that our choices in contract do not (...) reflect our individual moral constitutions — our values, virtues, vices, the set of reasons we reject and the set of reasons we endorse — we are not justified in regulating contracts reluctantly. Contracts are entitled to the privilege of liberal regulatory deference only to the extent that they are the work product of individual autonomy. The assumption that contract is voluntary does enormous work in most normative theories of contract. This Article takes still more seriously the obstacles to autonomous choice that contracting parties face. The most important constraints are not in contract law itself but in the material and moral imperatives that dictate parties’ contracting preferences. Many contracts are driven by circumstantial considerations or actual background obligations. While these contracts are not wholly lacking in the element of voluntariness, we should distinguish them from those choices — and those contracts — which more fully realize our potential to self-consciously author our relations with others. Autonomous choice in contract requires more than Dagan and Heller imply, and it is likely beyond the power of contract law standing alone to deliver it. (shrink)

Quantification, Negation, and Focus: Challenges at the Conceptual-Intentional Semantic Interface Tista Bagchi National Institute of Science, Technology, and Development Studies (NISTADS) and the University of Delhi Since the proposal of Logical Form (LF) was put forward by Robert May in his 1977 MIT doctoral dissertation and was subsequently adopted into the overall architecture of language as conceived under Government-Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981), there has been a steady research effort to determine the nature of LF in language in light of (...) structurally diverse languages around the world, which has ultimately contributed to the reinterpretation of LF as a Conceptual-Intentional (C-I) interface level between the computational syntactic component of the faculty of language and one or more interpretive faculties of the human mind. While this has opened up further possibilities of research in phenomena such as quantifier scope and scope interactions between negation, quantification, and focus, it has also given rise to a few real challenges to linguistic theory as well. Some of these are: (i) the split between lexical meaning – a matter supposedly belonging to the phase-wise selection of lexical arrays – and issues of semantic interpretation that arise purely from binding and scope phenomena (Mukherji 2010); (ii) partially relatedly, the level at which theta role assignment can be argued to take place, an issue that is taken up by me in Bagchi (2007); and (iii) how supposedly “pure” scopal phenomena relating to quantifiers, negation, and emphasizing expressions such as only and even (comparable to, e.g., Urdu/Hindi hii and bhii, Bangla –i and –o) also have dimensions of both focus and discourse reference. While recognizing all of these challenges, this talk aims to highlight particularly challenge (iii), both in terms of scholarship in the past and for the rich prospects for research on languages of south Asia with the semantics of quantification, negation, and focus in view. The scholarship of the past that I seek to relate this issue to is where, parallel to (and largely independently of) the research on LF that had been happening, Barwise and Cooper were developing their influential view of noun phrases as generalized quantifiers, culminating in their key 1981 article “Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language” while, independently, McCawley, in his 1981 book Everything that Linguists have Always Wanted to Know about Logic, established through argumentation that all noun phrases semantically behave like generalized quantified expressions (further elaborated by him in the second – 1994 – revised edition of his book). I seek to demonstrate, based on limited data analysis from selected languages of south Asia, that our current understanding of quantification, negation, and focus under the Minimalist view owes something significant to the two major, but now largely marginalized, works of scholarship, and that for the way forward it is essential to adopt a more formal-semantic approach as adopted by them and also by later works such as Denis Bouchard’s (1995) The Semantics of Syntax, Mats Rooth’s work on focus (e.g., Rooth 1996, “Focus” in Shalom Lappin’s Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory), Heim and Kratzer’s Semantics in Generative Grammar (1998), and Yoad Winter’s (2002) Linguistic Inquiry article on semantic number, to cite just a few instances. (shrink)

The premise of contract law is that the redistribution of entitlements that results from contract is justified by the process of agreement. But theories of contract differ importantly on how and when voluntary exchange justifies a resorting of entitlements. Pure theories regard the principles of contract as essentially derivative from some aspect of the principle of autonomy; contracting parties’ intent to assume legal obligation is in principle necessary and sufficient for its enforcement. Perfect theories do not view contract as self-justifying (...) but regard the process of agreement as reliable evidence that contracts are welfare-improving. This article demonstrates the limitations of pure and perfect views. It favours instead imperfect theories of contract, which would have judges self-consciously pursue the normative ends of contract law as they apply context-sensitive rules. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity by Suparno BanerjeeBarnita BagchiSuparno Banerjee. Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2020. xiii + 256 pp. E-book, ISBN 9781786836670.Suparno Banerjee’s monograph examines science fiction (henceforth SF) from India, a country that has a rich and fascinating tradition of SF. This is a book that will be of interest and value to scholars and students in (...) higher education of utopia, dystopia, and speculative fiction, and to readers across disciplines interested in SF as a mode. It is quite clear today that Darko Suvin’s canonical definition of SF as cognitive estrangement, an interplay between the familiar and the strange, and its emphasis on the novum that is created in SF, has been enriched with further attention to context, including postcolonial contexts. Whose familiarity in cognition are we speaking about, and what happens when contexts are not necessarily hegemonic Anglo-American or Western ones? Indeed, even in Western contexts, science is not a given, but an element that always has political, historical, and ideological overtones. The novum, too, as with the term utopia, is moored in the contexts of the text.Banerjee’s book is one among several excellent monographs on Indian SF that have been published in the 2020s: Sami Ahmad Khan’s Star Warriors of the Modern Raj: Materiality, Mythology and Technology of Indian Science Fiction (2021) and Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee’s Final Frontiers: Science Fiction and Techno-Science in Non-Aligned India (2020) come to mind. Khan adopts a refreshing fan’s guide to Indian SF register in his monograph, discussing mythology, materiality, ideology, and technology, and he coins the abbreviation TransMIT to capture his approach. Mukherjee’s book examines how Indian SF syncs with or questions the technological and scientific paradigms of India under Nehru and the Non-Aligned Movement; arguing that Indian SF needs to be seen as semiperipheral, the book also applies concepts from energy humanities [End Page 586] to Indian SF in an arresting way. Suparno Banerjee’s monograph is a solidly grounded work in its clearly explained choice of corpus, and a methodology that elicits particularly generative insights in a number of areas, including the epistemological status of science in Indian SF, the importance of SF written in bhasha or non-English Indian languages, the interplay between past and future in Indian SF, analysis of how Indian SF imaginatively represents the Other, and attention to Indian women writers of SF.Banerjee offers a lucid and useful chronology of Indian SF in four historical periods: 1835–1905, 1905–47, 1947–95, and 1995–2019. The period from 1835 to 1905 offers the first specimens of Indian SF, primarily in the form of future histories that question colonialism, in the utopian mode, and adventure tales and stories with scientific and technological elements. The establishment of a British education system, starting in the 1820s, gave an impetus to the birth of Indian SF. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s “Sultana’s Dream” was published in 1905, a year that heralds the second period lasting until Indian independence. In this period, SF starts appearing not just in the English, Bengali, and Hindi languages, as in the first period, but also in a number of other Indian languages, such as Assamese, Marathi, and Tamil. Children’s and youth magazines develop from the 1920s, spaces where science writing and SF both appear. Nationalist, anticolonial stances emerge, challenging western hegemony, in the 1940s. In the early post-Independence period, the nationalistic elements become even stronger, and SF interacts quite strongly with older forms of fantastic writing such as myths, fairytales, and ghost stories. This third period, Banerjee argues, is the golden age of bhasha SF. From the 1990s English-language SF again becomes very prominent in India and its diaspora, though SF in bhashas continues to flourish.Banerjee examines fiction not just from post-Independence India, but also from colonial British India, and diasporic Indian writing. SF written primarily in Bengali, English, Hindi, and Marathi is examined and, when possible, the book also brings into its ambit of analysis SF written in the languages Assamese, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. Reflexivity about the corpus of... (shrink)

Perceptual and recursion-based faculties have long been recognized to be vital constituents of human (and, in general, animal) cognition. However, certain faculties such as the visual and the linguistic faculty have come to receive far more academic and experimental attention, in recent decades, than other recognized categories of faculties. This paper seeks to highlight the imbalance in these studies and bring into sharper focus the need for further in-depth philosophical treatments of faculties such as especially hearing, touch, and proprioception, besides (...) other faculties such as the olfactory and gustatory ones. It also seeks to bring to bear the debate on the role of qualia in perception and overall in cognition in its thesis of the significance of these other modular faculties for genuine insights into cognition as a (now) technologically expanded domain. (shrink)

Presents a collection of essays on fiscal policies, economic policies, and tax reforms in the context of financial reforms as a separate discipline of economics. Edited by Ameresh Bagchi, these essays are authored by reputed academicians in this field, such as James Buchanan, Joseph Stiglitz, Raja Chelliah, and Richard Musgrave.

His second best-seller, Go Kiss the World, was the story of his life, a motivation to young people that anyone can achieve. But as Subroto Bagchi says: 'Go Kiss the World did not provide a tool kit.

The Sentence in Language and Cognition is about the significant role of the sentence in linguistic cognition and in the practical domains of human existence. Dr. Tista Bagchi has written a comprehensive assessment of the structure and cognitive function of the sentence and the clause in the context of real-world discourse and activities.The notions of sentencehood and clausehood with special reference to the semantic histories of the terms sentence and clause, including their ethical, legal, and administrative uses, are assessed. (...) This is followed by a concise historical survey of the treatment of the sentence in a few of the ancient linguistic traditions, notably the Greek, Roman(-Alexandrian), Arab, and Sanskrit scholastic traditions. A wide variety of sentence types, from a cross-section of languages spoken in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, are presented by way of factual evidence for sentences and clauses as linguistic units. Formally defined notions of the sentence and the clause as syntactic constituents in major theoretical frameworks are examined and assessed for their essential properties and points of convergence. The Sentence in Language and Cognition is an essential book for advanced students and researchers of linguistics. (shrink)

Since time immemorial, organization and visualization has emerged as the pre-eminent natural combination through which abstract concepts in a domain can be understood, imbibed and communicated. In the present era of big data and information explosion, domains are becoming increasingly intricate and facetized, often leaving traditional approaches of know­ledge organization functionally inefficient in dynamically depicting intellectual landscapes. The paper attempts to present, ab initio, a step-by-step conceptual domain development methodology using know­ledge graphs, rooted in the rudiments of interdisciplinary know­ledge organization (...) and know­ledge cartography. It briefly highlights the implementation of the proposed methodology on business domain data, and considers its research ramifications, originality and limitations from multiple perspectives. The paper concludes by summarizing observations on the entire work and particularizing future lines of research. (shrink)

This paper seeks to address the relationship between two key areas of contention figuring in the communicative realities in which language is used and the morality of action: the role of silence and the role of power and the lack thereof. It is proposed that action per se becomes problematic under practical manifestations of silence such as inarticulacy (which is aggravated by major asymmetries in the global politics of language) and ignorance, and that even when action is possible, deciding on (...) what would constitute morally right action under such circumstances remains a question. Furthermore, another key hindrance to action for greater justice and equality is constituted by lack of empowerment. This paper presents the view that a beginning towards answering such questions can be made on the basis of the recognition of the universality of human creativity, in the domains of both language and constructive action, and the fundamental universality of human morality with culture- and communityspecific modes of putting that morality into practice. (shrink)

This paper seeks to address the relationship between two key areas of contention figuring in the communicative realities in which language is used and the morality of action: the role of silence and the role of power and the lack thereof. It is proposed that action per se becomes problematic under practical manifestations of silence such as inarticulacy (which is aggravated by major asymmetries in the global politics of language) and ignorance, and that even when action is possible, deciding on (...) what would constitute morally right action under such circumstances remains a question. Furthermore, another key hindrance to action for greater justice and equality is constituted by lack of empowerment. This paper presents the view that a beginning towards answering such questions can be made on the basis of the recognition of the universality of human creativity, in the domains of both language and constructive action, and the fundamental universality of human morality with culture- and communityspecific modes of putting that morality into practice. (shrink)

This book is a unique re-conceptualization of Marxism that brings together works by leading Marxist scholars across disciplines ' historical, philosophical, economic, political, social, literary and aesthetic ' in one comprehensive corpus for the first time. It argues that the works and philosophy of Marx and Engels continue to be relevant today.

There is something missing in existing discussions of domination. While republican theory, antisubordination theory, and critical legal theory each have contributed significantly to our understanding of domination, their focus on structural relationships and group subordination can leave out of focus the individual wrongs that make up domination, each of which is an unjustified exercise of power by one person over another. Private law (supported by private law theory) plays an important role in filling out our pictures of domination and the (...) role of the state in limiting it. Private law allows us to recognize domination in wrongs by one person against another, and it has the potential to articulate the state-enforced boundaries on domination as well as a framework for thinking through inevitable compromises between the aspiration to nondomination and other basic interests of a liberal state. We can understand employment law as continuous with private law, that is, attempting to vindicate a nondomination principle in the context of employment by regulating specific acts of employers. Alternatively, we might understand employment relationships to define group membership, commonly recognized along class lines. In that case, employment law is not about individual nondomination but about mitigating class subordination. It might do this in service of the antisubordination principle, or in order to ensure that employees are capable and ready to exercise the responsibilities of democratic citizenship. While these various purposes largely coincide, there are points of normative divergence which sometimes require that we prioritize one or other function of employment law over the others. (shrink)

The paper assesses India's need for being competitive in the global marketplace in order to secure its rightful position in the comity of developed nations. Competitiveness is meant to be the basis of sustainability of one's position in the global marketplace. The role of the government in a developing country like India in this process is stressed. Eight key areas of emphasis for achieving competitiveness have been elaborated—including that of the 'Vedic values system'. The paper concludes by asserting the need (...) for politicians to be far-sighted, rising above petty party politics. (shrink)

The encounter of the cognitive apparatus with the phenomenal world had led to the emergence of independent thought processes either based on scientific method of enguiry or on meditative experiences. In the course of time these have developed into a systematized body of knowledge. They purport to provide peace and happiness, but when seduced by power a distorted value structure has been legitimized. The plethora of evidences suggest the 'self' has been incapacitated for long. The scientific experiences have been given (...) supreme status. The paper stresses the need to attain a beginner's mind so that looking within and looking without no longer remain intangible goals of education. The naodalities have been discussed to escape the bonds of conceptual limitations. Finally, it is suggested that this constructive role of optimizing the oppor tunities for formation of intellect, which moves beyond conventional intellectualism, will evolve into a com passionate world-serving intellect, and pave the way for peace and harmony in this turbulent world. (shrink)

The book under review examines how a number of key literary and cultural texts, spanning the nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, from Britain and India, imagined the world after decolonization. The book, by an academic working in English and South Asian literary studies, uses literary and cultural geographical approaches, grounded in cultural and historical materialism. It also makes a fresh contribution to utopian studies, especially in the methods we use in this field. The book focuses on what the first (...) chapter evocatively terms, in its title, spatial desire in the age of empire. Taking inspiration from the work of scholars such as Edward Said and Raymond Williams who analyzed cultural... (shrink)