This captivating new book, a milestone in Buddhist and comparative studies, is a compilation of seventeen essays celebrating the work and thought of Nolan Pliny Jacobson. A profoundly motivated interdisciplinary thinker, Jacobson sought to discover, clarify, and synthesize points of similarity among leading thinkers of different Oriental and Western cultures. For almost half a century, he articulated his vision of an emerging world civilization, one in which all people can feel and express their creative, constructive powers for the benefit of (...) others as well as for themselves. Jacobson believed that philosophy and the works of philosophers should be understood as a vital force enriching all civilizational experience. His own philosophic perspective was rooted in the conviction that novelty is the source of all experience and the center of a creativity that lives beyond words, arguments, and rational paradigms. Throughout his career, Jacobson explored Buddhist texts and personalities, spending much time in the Orient, particularly Myanmar and Japan. He also closely studied the works of numerous Western philosophers, including Whitehead, Dewey, Peirce, James, Hartshorne, and Wieman. Jacobson believed that American philosophy and Buddhism concurred in many ways, with the potential to form a powerful basis for the development of a world civilization. The essays in this volume are organized around Jacobson’s activities, publications, and interests. Authored by an impressive selection of scholars, the essays are grouped into four sections—"Historical Context," "Central Issues," "Practical Implications," and "The Japan Emphasis." Hajime Nakamura, Charles Hartshorne, Kenneth K. Inada, Seizo Oho, and numerous others discuss freedom, creativity, and Buddhism’s self-corrective nature, setting forth their reasons for sharing Jacobson’s ideas and visions. (shrink)

The purpose of this brief essay is twofold: (1) to clarify what it is to study anything scientifically and show that consciousness cannot, in principle, be studied scientifically, and (2) to examine the aim and methods of cosmology and show that cosmology cannot, in principle, be a science. The essay can be read by ignoring any and all references to Advaita Vedānta (non-dualistic Vedānta). My reason for referring to Advaita Vedānta is simply the fact that these two truths were long (...) ago discovered and taught by Advaita Vedānta, which is at once Jñāna-Yoga (The Way of Knowledge) and mysticism, unsurpassed and unsurpassable. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine how organizations’ impression management evolves in response to rising stakeholder pressures regarding organizations’ corporate responsibility initiatives. We conducted a comparative case study analysis over a period of 13 years for two organizations—Exxon and BP—that took extreme initial stances on climate change. We found that as stakeholder pressures rose, their IM tactics unfolded in four phases: advocating the initial stance, sensegiving to clarify the initial stance, image repairing, and adjusting the stance. Taken together, our analysis of (...) IM over these four phases provides three key insights about the evolution of IM in the face of rising pressures. First, when faced with stakeholder pressures, it seems that organizations do not immediately resort to conforming but tend to give in gradually when pressures increase and start to come from relatively powerful stakeholders. Second, evolution of IM seems to be characterized by path dependence, i.e., even as organizations’ positions evolve, they continue to show their conviction in their initial positions and try to convey that their subsequent positions flow logically from the previous ones. Finally, IM involves navigation between symbolism and substance, and companies tend to strive toward harmonizing their symbolic and substantive actions as stakeholder pressure increases. (shrink)

Dr. Puligandla Deals With The Essentials Of Indian Philosophy, Emphasising Its Methods, Temper And Goals While Delving Into Specificities. Major Schools Of The Philosophic Tradition (Carvaka Materialism, Jainism, Buddhism, Yoga, Vedanta Among Them) Are Thoroughly Analysed.

We review the literature on how perceiving an AI making mistakes violates trust and how such violations might be repaired. In doing so, we discuss the role played by various forms of algorithmic transparency in the process of trust repair, including explanations of algorithms, uncertainty estimates, and performance metrics.

We investigate the research question: Why are there very few social enterprises in China? Our findings unpack four types of institutional challenges to social entrepreneurship, as perceived by social entrepreneurs: norms of a strong role for government; misunderstood or unknown role for social enterprises; non-supportive rules and regulations; and lack of socio-cultural values and beliefs in support of social goals. We contribute to the literature on social enterprises by showing how an institutional environment may be “non-munificent,” i.e., non-supportive for the (...) existence of social enterprises and their goals, and we thus address the need for more attention to the institutional environment in which social entrepreneurship takes place. Further, by using Q-methodology on 42 social entrepreneurs along with illustrative qualitative data from interviews, we address the need to go beyond anecdotal case studies and introduce methodological plurality in social entrepreneurship research. Finally, our findings on institutional challenges provide us with an opportunity to discuss how social entrepreneurs may engage with purposive activities to overcome such challenges, leading us to initiate a conversation between the social entrepreneurship and institutional work literatures. (shrink)

Festschrift volume to K. Ramakrishna Rao, Indian psychologist, philosopher and educationist; contributed articles.

This paper investigates how social enterprises navigate through the ethical complexity of social change and extends the ethical quandaries faced by social enterprises beyond organisational boundaries. Building on the emerging literature on the ethics of SEs, I conceptualise ethics as an engagement with power relations. I develop theoretical arguments to understand the interaction between ethical predispositions of a SE and the normative structure of the social system in which it operates. I applied this conceptualisation in a hierarchical and heterogeneous rural (...) Indian context to provide insights into the moral ambiguity of ethical decision-making and suggest pathways for ethical actions. Taking a qualitative case study approach, I followed an exemplary SE’s implementation process in India. I observed ethical challenges in designing the implementation process, selecting the beneficiaries and sustaining the programme. I also identified three actions of the SE—the action of recognition, the action of reposition and the action of collaboration—and developed a transformative process model. I discuss the theoretical implications of this research for SEs and recommend a critical engagement with ethical theories to address systemic problems. (shrink)

Positive Polarity indefinites, such as some in English, are licensed in simplex negative sentences as long as they take wide scope over negation. When it surfaces under a clausemate negation, some can in principle take wide scope either by movement or by some semantic mechanism; e.g., it can take pseudoscope if it is interpreted as a choice function variable. Therefore, there is some uncertainty regarding the way in which PPI indefinites get licensed: can pseudoscope suffice? In this article we show, (...) using novel data from Hindi-Urdu and English, that pseudoscope is not sufficient, and that it is the syntactic position of PPI indefinites at LF, rather than their actual scope, which is relevant for licensing. These facts support a unified view of PPI indefinites as generalized quantifiers, and disfavor analyses where they are, or can be, interpreted as choice function variables. (shrink)

Over the past hundred years, a number of scientific investigators claim to have adduced experimental evidence for phenomena information” seems to behave like a weak signal that has to compete for the information-processing resources of the organism, a reduction of ongoing sensorimotor activity may facilitate ESP detection. Such a meaningful convergence of results suggests that psi phenomena may represent a unitary, coherent process whose nature and compatibility with current physical theory have yet to be determined. The theoretical implications and potential (...) practical applications of psi could be significant, irrespective of the small magnitude of psi effects in laboratory settings. (shrink)

We dub the kyaa in (2a) polar kyaa, which we distinguish from the homophonous thematic kyaa ‘what’. in (3). In (3), kyaa is the theme argument of the verb diyaa ‘gave’. The same has been argued for the scope marking construction, at least under the indirect dependency approach (Dayal 1994 among others). The preverbal position has been argued to be the unmarked position for wh-words in Hindi-Urdu (Kidwai 2000, among others).

Does language dominance modulate knowledge of case marking in Hindi-speaking bilinguals? Hindi is a split ergative language with a rich morphological case system. Subjects of transitive perfective predicates are marked with ergative case (-ne). Human specific direct objects, indirect objects, and dative subjects are marked with the particle -ko. We compared knowledge of case marking in Hindi-English bilinguals with different dominance patterns: 23 balanced bilinguals and two groups of bilinguals with Hindi as their weaker language: 24 L2 learners of Hindi (...) with age of acquisition (AoA) of Hindi in adulthood and 26 Hindi heritage speakers with AoA of Hindi since birth) in oral production and acceptability judgments. The balanced bilinguals outperformed the English-dominant bilinguals; the L2 learners and the heritage speakers, who showed similar lower command of the Hindi case marking system, with the exception of –ko marking as a function of specificity with direct objects. We consider how dominant language transfer, age of acquisition of Hindi, and input factors may explain the acquisition and knowledge of morphology in Hindi as the weaker language. (shrink)

This book analyses global issues holistically and offers pragmatic solutions from a Jainism perspective. Accordingly, it presents a fresh vision of individual development, social transformation and cosmic wellbeing based on the central tenets and practices of Jainism. Through this book, readers learn viable solutions to the current problems of environmental disharmony, economical distress, and religious and cultural conflicts. It deals with religious pluralism and brings to fore the need for harmony of religions and interfaith dialogues. The book is interesting for (...) people from varied walks of life who are looking forward to a world that is established in peace, harmony and wellness. It is of immense value and interest for people from all walks of life to the Jain community to revisit the basic tenets propounded in classical literature. (shrink)