On the conception of God in the philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1941.

This volume brings together essays that discuss and contextualise Gandhi's ideas on pluralism, religious identity, non-violence, satyagraha, and modernity. It interrogates the epistemic foundations of Gandhian thinking and weltanschauung, identifies diverse strands within his arguments, and gives it new meaning in contemporary society. This book focuses on Gandhi's engagements with religious, political, and social conflicts; his reflections on faith and modernity; and his argumentative dialogues with Mohammad Ali Jinnah and B. R. Ambedkar. It provides critical insights into Gandhi's philosophy and (...) suggests ways of engaging with his ethical and moral ideas in contemporary intellectual and political discourse. Comparing and contrasting Gandhian thought and strategies with contemporary issues and conceptions of religious freedom, conflict resolution, and liberalism, the volume reformulates and reconstitutes his intellectual and political legacy. This book points to new and possible future directions of research on Gandhian concepts and will be useful for scholars in the fields of political science, Gandhian studies, sociology, and philosophy. (shrink)

The present paper investigates investor decision-making from a psychological standpoint and explores the role of consciousness and mindfulness on investors’ analytical ability and investment efficacy. A comprehensive survey instrument including sub-scales of different behavioural constructs is administered to 222 individual investors. We find evidence supporting the positive influence of cognitive capability on investment efficacy. The findings also suggest that mindfulness reliably mediates consciousness to cause an effect on cognitive capability. Higher cognitive capability will manifest in the form of detailed analysis (...) and interpretation of available information and improve stock selection, asset allocation, and market timing, thus increasing investment efficacy. A mindful investor can mitigate negative stimuli, emotional turmoil, dilemmas and distress in stock trading in a far more superior way to mediate consciousness for higher cognitive capability. The implications of the study indicate that consciousness and mindfulness-based interventions may facilitate making the investors stronger to manage difficult times and perform a careful rational assessment to eventually become successful investors. (shrink)

Gluten ataxia is a rare immune-mediated neurological disorder caused by the ingestion of gluten. The diagnosis is not straightforward as antibodies are present in only up to 38% of patients, but often at lower titers. The symptoms of ataxia may be mild at the onset but lead to permanent damage if remain untreated. It is characterized by damage to the cerebellum however, the pathophysiology of the disease is not clearly understood. The present study investigated the neurochemical profile of vermis and (...) right cerebellum and structural changes in various brain regions of patients with gluten ataxia and compared it with healthy controls. Volumetric 3-D T1 and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in the three planes of the whole brain and single-voxel 1H- magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the vermis and right cerebellum were acquired on 3 T human MR scanner. The metabolite concentrations were estimated using LC Model while brain volumes were estimated using the online tool volBrain pipeline and CERES and corrected for partial volumes. The levels of neuro-metabolites were found to be significantly lower in vermis, while N-acetyl aspartate + N-acetyl aspartate glutamate and glycerophosphocholine + phosphocholine was lower in cerebellum regions in the patients with gluten ataxia compared to healthy controls. A significant reduction in the white matter of ; reduction in the volumes of cerebellum lobe and thalamus while lateral ventricles were increased in the patients with gluten ataxia compared to healthy controls. The reduced neuronal metabolites along with structural changes in the brain suggested neuronal degeneration in the patients with gluten ataxia. Our preliminary findings may be useful in understanding the gluten-induced cerebral damage and indicated that MRI and MRS may serve as a non-invasive useful tool in the early diagnosis, thereby enabling better management of these patients. (shrink)

Festschrift volume in honour of Mohd. Sabir Hussain, b. 1935.

The archaeological record is very limited and its analysis has been contentious. Hence, molecular biologists have shifted their attention to molecular dating techniques. Recently on April 2013, the prestigious Cell Press Journal Current Biology published an article (Fu et al. 2013) entitled “A Revised Timescale for Human Evolution Based on Ancient Mitochondrial Genomes”. This paper has twenty authors and they are researchers from the world’s top institutes like Max Planck Institute, Harvard, etc. Respected authors of this paper have emphatically accepted (...) that the fossil record is inadequate and unreliable. These statements clearly substantiate that now biologists are agreeing that fossil records do not provide any significant evidence at all for conventional evolution theory. Despite the well-recorded fact of the continual grand propaganda of Darwinism based on fossil evidence for more than 150 years, in recent times biologists are surprisingly coming up with such statements, based on their confidence that evolution can be explained purely by the genealogical/genomic record provided by modern molecular biology. Still many respected journals (for example the article in Nature, Retallack, 2013) continue to publish articles on fossil evidence to support Darwinian evolution. These incoherently diverse claims prove that Darwinists are struggling with unscientific ideological approaches to explain biodiversity. Darwinian evolutionary theory is not only the basis of modern biology, but also acts as the guiding principle of science and intellectual reasoning for modern civilization. Hence, a scientific understanding of the breakdown of the Darwinian theory of objective evolution is very important for overcoming the traditional scientific temper of mechanistic intellectualism that characterizes this ideology. In my article “21st Century Biology Refutes Darwinian Abiology” (published in two parts in November and December 2012 issues of The Harmonizer: www.mahaprabhu.net/satsanga/harmonizer) it was noted that several recent findings challenge the credibility that random mutations and natural selection can provide a valid basis for justifying the naturalistic evolution of species. The present article summarizes the problems associated with the fossil record and dating techniques, and its implication on the neo-Darwinian mechanistic misconception of biological life as mere molecular chemistry or abiology. An alternative approach based on the Vedāntic view for explaining biodiversity in the light of 21st century biology is also discussed in the end of the article. (shrink)

This essay explores the aspects of the Aristotelian psuchē that accounts for its contemporary appeal. The poverty of the notion of the mind is discussed. The superiority of the psuchē over the mind is emphasized.

This book is the first complete survey and critical appraisal of the large body of research that has appeared during approximately the last decade concerning the analysis of knowing. Robert K. Shope pays special attention to the social aspects of knowing and proposes a new formulation of the fundamental structure of the Gettier problem. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University (...) Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Provider claims to conscientious objection have generated a great deal of heated debate in recent years. However, the conflicts that arise when providers make claims to the "conscience" are only a subset of the more fundamental challenges that arise in health care practice when patients and providers come into conflict. In this piece, the author provides an account of patient-provider conflict from within the moral tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas. He argues that the practice of health care providers should be (...) understood as a form of practical reasoning and that this practical reasoning must necessarily incorporate both "moral" and "professional" commitments. In order to understand how the practical reasoning of provider should account for the needs and commitments of the patient and vice versa, he explores the account of dependence provided by Alasdair MacIntyre in his book Dependent Rational Animals. MacIntyre argues that St. Thomas’ account of practical reasoning should be extended and adapted to account for the embodied vulnerability of all humans. In light of this insight, providers must view patients not only as the subjects of their moral reflection but also as fellow humans upon whom the provider depends for feedback on the effectiveness and relevance of her practical reasoning. The author argues that this account precludes responsive providers from adopting either moral or professional conclusions on the appropriateness of interventions outside the individual circumstances that arise in particular situations. The adoption of this orientation toward patients will neither eradicate provider-patient conflict nor compel providers to perform interventions to which they object. But this account does require that providers attend meaningfully to the suffering of patients and seek feedback on whether their intervention has effectively addressed that suffering. (shrink)

This research focused on one of the messages in the Lord’s Prayer, particularly Matthew 6:12 about prayer for forgiveness and forgiveness to others in order to suggest a concept revision for the sake of a rather normative modern Arabic audience. In the Smith-Van Dyck version, asking God for forgiveness serves as the basis for forgiving sinners by using the present and future form of the verb نغفر كما (as we will forgive). This translation is in contrast to 1881 Jesuit Arabic (...) Bible, which used the past tense غفرنا كما and أعفينا فقد (as we have forgiven) as written in the Greek Bible as ὀφειλήματα ‘debts’ by referring to the debt metaphor. This study examined the Arabic translation of Matthew 6:12 in the perspective of Nida and Taber’s semantic adjustments. In light of the research findings, it was clear that the semantic adjustment and grammatical adjustment in the translation did not run on the grammatical structure of the Arabic language. The translation into Arabic also did not comply with the original source of the text, but it was accentuated by the interpretation of ‘debts’ into ‘sins’. Contribution: In conclusion, this fact can be seen from the choice of the word ‘نغفر’ and the use of the future tense ( fi’l muḍār’i ) as opposed to the source text that uses the past tense ( fi’l māḍy ). (shrink)

The aging of attentional and emotional functions has been extensively studied but relatively independently. Therefore, the relationships between aging and the interactions of attentional and emotional processes remain elusive. This study aimed to determine how age affected the interactions between attentional and emotional processes during adulthood. One-hundred forty adults aged 18–79 performed the emotional variant of the Attention Network Test, which probed alerting, orienting, and executive control in the presence and absence of threatening faces. During this task, contexts with varying (...) levels of task preparatory processes were created to modulate the effect of threatening faces on attention, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to examine the neural underpinnings of the behavioural effects. The behavioural results showed that aging was associated with a significant decline in alerting efficiency, and there was a statistical trend for age-related deficits in executive control. Despite these age differences, age did not significantly moderate the interactions among attentional networks or between attention and emotion. Additionally, the fNIRS results showed that decreased frontal cortex functioning might underlie the age-related decline in executive control. Therefore, while aging has varying effects on different attentional networks, the interactions of attentional and emotional processes remain relatively unaffected by age. (shrink)

Bipolar affective disorder (BPAD) can be a devastating disorder for both sufferers and their relatives. In addition to the variety of distressing and severe affective symptoms, the consequences of illness onset may be equally debilitating, particularly as the illness may commonly present in early adulthood. As such, the developmental trajectory between late adolescence and early adulthood is commonly interrupted. Relationships with family, friends and partners may deteriorate, employment or studies may be interrupted, and criminal histories may be acquired. In turn, (...) such events worsen stress, reduce self-esteem, and may make the recovery process more difficult.... (shrink)

Considerable attention has been paid in recent years to Catullus 63. A number of salient features have been discussed: the psychological study of emotions; the use of animal imagery; the theme of marriage and love. There have also been some helpful studies on smaller, though important, aspects of the poem such as its use of ring composition or Catullus′ inventive treatment of the challenging Galliambic metre. But little work has been done on the literary background of poem 63 apart from (...) the question of whether or not Catullus was following an Alexandrian model. I shall suggest that the basic narrative of the poem, and the way in which Catullus has handled it, have literary antecedents which have influenced the poet. The final product, however, still remains a very original piece of work. (shrink)

Considerable attention has been paid in recent years to Catullus 63. A number of salient features have been discussed: the psychological study of emotions; the use of animal imagery; the theme of marriage and love. There have also been some helpful studies on smaller, though important, aspects of the poem such as its use of ring composition or Catullus′ inventive treatment of the challenging Galliambic metre. But little work has been done on the literary background of poem 63 apart from (...) the question of whether or not Catullus was following an Alexandrian model. I shall suggest that the basic narrative of the poem, and the way in which Catullus has handled it, have literary antecedents which have influenced the poet. The final product, however, still remains a very original piece of work. (shrink)

Most commentators apply the phrase ‘vitans onus…iugi’ not only to the heifer but to Attis himself. When they ask what iugum Attis is avoiding, the immediate context provides no obvious answer. They are therefore compelled to interpret the iugum either in the light of a much earlier passage or in the light of a much later one. Neither procedure is satisfactory. On the other hand, at least one editor has proposed that the phrase ‘vitans onus…iugi’ does not apply to Attis (...) himself but to the heifer alone. The comparison between Attis and the heifer then lies only in their frenzied speed; the yoke-avoiding action is external to the comparison and merely heightens the picture of the charging heifer. The obvious difficulty with this view is that the concept of a yoke, and more generally of avoiding servitude, plays an important role relevant to Attis later on in the poem. From line 50 onwards Attis sees himself as an erifuga anxious to escape from slavery to Cybele. And the account of Cybele's lion, sent to round him up, twice refers to the notion of freeing from a yoke . Both these traditional approaches concentrate on the literal meaning of the phrase vitans onus…iugi: they assume that the yoke itself is important and that it either does or does not make sense when applied to Attis. But if we focus instead upon the action which the whole phrase vitans onus…iugi suggests, then the description of the heifer has an apt application to Attis within its own immediate context. (shrink)

Most commentators apply the phrase ‘vitans onus…iugi’ not only to the heifer but to Attis himself. When they ask what iugum Attis is avoiding, the immediate context provides no obvious answer. They are therefore compelled to interpret the iugum either in the light of a much earlier passage or in the light of a much later one. Neither procedure is satisfactory. On the other hand, at least one editor has proposed that the phrase ‘vitans onus…iugi’ does not apply to Attis (...) himself but to the heifer alone. The comparison between Attis and the heifer then lies only in their frenzied speed; the yoke-avoiding action is external to the comparison and merely heightens the picture of the charging heifer. The obvious difficulty with this view is that the concept of a yoke, and more generally of avoiding servitude, plays an important role relevant to Attis later on in the poem. From line 50 onwards Attis sees himself as an erifuga anxious to escape from slavery to Cybele. And the account of Cybele's lion, sent to round him up, twice refers to the notion of freeing from a yoke. Both these traditional approaches concentrate on the literal meaning of the phrase vitans onus…iugi: they assume that the yoke itself is important and that it either does or does not make sense when applied to Attis. But if we focus instead upon the action which the whole phrase vitans onus…iugi suggests, then the description of the heifer has an apt application to Attis within its own immediate context. (shrink)

Researchers have postulated that deficits in cognitive control are associated with, and thus may underlie, the perseverative thinking that characterises generalised anxiety disorder. We examined associations between cognitive control and levels of spontaneous state rumination following a stressor in a sample of healthy control participants and participants with GAD. We assessed cognitive control by measuring working memory capacity, defined as the ability to maintain task-relevant information by ignoring task-irrelevant information. To this end, we used an affective version of the reading (...) span task with valenced distractors. Lower WMC in the presence of negative distractors was associated with greater state rumination in the GAD group, but not in the CTL group. These findings suggest that difficulty maintaining task-relevant information due to interference from negative distractors contributes to perseverative thinking in GAD. (shrink)