Iranian scholar Ramin Jahanbegloo interviews one of the most well-known environment activists of our time, Vandana Shiva, and in the process, addresses issues ranging from nature and spiritualism, the Chipko Movement and the birth of Navdanya, 'earth democracy', and 'seed globalization' to the functioning of neoliberal paradigm in India, swadeshi and village governance, corruption in India, the future of Indian farmers, and the relevance of Gandhi in the twenty-first century.

The field of enquiry into the phenomenon of language has long been dominated by the Computational-Representational (C-R) theories of language. This seems to be the most natural and plausible state of affairs, given the revolutionary impact that the advent of computers and the emergence of information technology have had in our lives lately. Noam Chomsky’s variant has been the most influential among such theories. However, there are certain conceptual issues pertaining to the very method, object and modality of the Chomskyan (...) project. In the present paper, I will try to locate these issues and contend that they arise from the peculiar conception of human embodiment involved in the propositions forming the Chomskyan scheme of language. They come to light only when engaged closely with from a phenomenological viewpoint. And this will be done in the first part. Once this is done, I will propose an alternative approach towards language, contained in the phenomenological insights on human embodiment and perception of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau Ponty. I will also hint at how befitting this alternative scheme is to the connectionist-neural network models of language, which are fast replacing the C–R models lately. (shrink)

From seed to table, the food chain is gendered. When seeds and food are in women’s hands, seeds reproduce and multiply freely, food is shared freely and respected. However, women’s seed and food economy has been discounted as “productive work.” Women’s seed and food knowledge has been discounted as knowledge. Globalization has led to the transfer of seed and food from women’s hands to corporate hands. Seed is now patented and genetically engineered. It is treated as the creation and “property” (...) of corporations like Monsanto. Renewable seed becomes nonrenewable. Sharing and saving seed becomes a crime. Diversity, nourished by centuries of women’s breeding, disappears, and with it the culture and natural evolution that is embodied in the diversity is lost forever. Food, too, is transformed in corporate hands. It is no longer our nourishment; it becomes a commodity. And as a commodity it can be manipulated and monopolized. If food grain makes more money as cattle feed than it does as food for human consumption, it becomes cattle feed. If food grain converted to biofuel to run automobiles is more profitable, it becomes ethanol and biodiesel. (shrink)

Publication date: 22 December 2020 Source: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 89 Author: Shiva Hemmati This paper examines Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece Jane Eyre through Irigaray’s notion of feminine divine in order to argue how Charlotte Brontë’s main characters achieve their autonomous gendered identity by expressing their erotic desire. It discusses the resistance of Charlotte Brontë’s female protagonist, Jane Eyre, to the dichotomies of active subject/passive object, self/other, body/mind, passion/intellect, and the domination/submission through her ethical and intersubjective (...) relationship with Rochester, her counterpart, rather than being an object of his desire. It is argued how Jane challenges these dualities of patriarchal society and the logic of the same by expressing her erotic nature. Where the patriarchal society tries to confine women in the patriarchal culture, Brontë develops Jane within and against those confines and allows her to experience her female desire by exploring the internal and external nature. Jane’s liberation from the dualities can be read through the lens of Irigaray’s feminine divine which focuses on women’s autonomous gendered identity and creates a balance between their passion and reason. Charlotte Brontë indicates how women are able to achieve individuality, social standing, and subjective identity by expressing their female desire. (shrink)

Bruce Janz, Jessica Locke, and Cynthia Willett interact in this exchange with different aspects of Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad’s book Human Being, Bodily Being. Through “constructive inter-cultural thinking”, they seek to engage with Ram-Prasad’s “lower-case p” phenomenology, which exemplifies “how to think otherwise about the nature and role of bodiliness in human experience”. This exchange, which includes Ram-Prasad’s reply to their interventions, pushes the reader to reflect more about different aspects of bodiliness.

The problem of alienation has come to the focus of philosophical discourse in terms of cogito’s loss of immediacy with the body and intimacy with the world, ever since Descartes—the founding father of modern thought—had his famous meditations. Putting the problem of alienation at the focus of philosophy, how should this human situation be reflected upon and the problem be addressed or dissolved at the least? One thing is clear that the method of enquiry cannot be purely intellectual wherein the (...) subject–object dichotomy has to be rigorously maintained. Rather, it has to turn intuitive at some stage, so that human subjective consciousness could be given its due place in the enquiry and the interplay of it with and the embeddedness of it in the material reality be revealed and accounted for as well. Only such an approach would address the problem at hand. But one cannot remain very optimistic about Western philosophy in this endeavor, due to the reasons to be elaborated in present paper. It is in this context that an enquiry into other philosophical systems becomes relevant. In the Eastern philosophical traditions, the issue at hand is addressed more creatively. Particularly in the Advaita Vedanta school of Indian Philosophy, the problem of alienation is tackled in an original way by elevating altogether the ‘being of man’ to a different level by way of an existential blending of his intellectual and intuitive capacities. Precisely in the Taittiriya Upanishad, man’s true nature is formulated in tune with nature, giving it a unique existential thrust. This conception once elaborated seems to be capable of productively addressing the issue at hand. An attempt will be made in the paper, at elucidating this view. (shrink)

Para ampliar la mirada sobre los ejes articuladores entre el feminismo y las propuestas de sustentabilidad planetaria, se presentan tres textos de Vandana Shiva, una de las figuras centrales en el mundo, en el ámbito del ecofeminismo. La autora expone nuevas formas de mirar y comprender conceptos como pobreza y democracia; denuncia el desarrollo como proyecto culturalmente tendencioso que destruye los estilos de vida sanos y sostenibles y crea pobreza material; y denuncia la violencia de la globalización corporativa.

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad offers illuminating new perspectives on contemporary phenomenological theories of body and subjectivity, based on studies of diverse classical Indian texts. He argues for a 'phenomenological ecology' of bodily subjectivity in health, gender, contemplation, and lovemaking.

The neoclassical interpretation of quantum mechanics which re-introduces older conceptual models of gravity and electromagnetism transformed by modern advancements in the field is discussed as a natural outcome from the interchangeability of quantum mechanics and fluid dynamics in light of recent macro-level experiments which show behaviors previously believed to be confined to the quantum world. This superfluid model of mechanics and the known behaviors of superfluids is suggested as a possible substrate and system for the storage and processing of data. (...) Methods of data storage found in natural systems such as the brain are compared via extensive use of analogies to support the conjecture that a rational and mechanical basis for spirituality can be supported under the neoclassical interpretation because of the inherent persistent structure and interaction of the suggested pervasive medium. This model of information theory spiritualism is suggested as a basis for the unification of physics with more philosophical approaches in the study of metaphysics. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE. (shrink)

We have become a singularly confessing society…. [The confession] plays a part in justice, medicine, education, family relationships, and love relations, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in the most solemn rites: one confesses one's crimes, one's sins, one's thoughts and desires, one's illnesses and troubles; one goes about telling, with the greatest precision, whatever is most difficult to tell…. One confesses—or is forced to confess.This is an observation made decades before all the changes that information and (...) communication technology have brought about in our social and personal lives lately. With the impositions of the current pandemic scenario added, we have now literally become confessing... (shrink)

The flow state – an experience of complete absorption in an activity – is linked with less self-referential processing and increased arousal. We used the heart-evoked potential, an index representing brain–heart interaction, as well as indices of peripheral physiology to assess the state of flow in individuals playing a video game. 22 gamers and 21 non-gamers played the video game Thumper for 25 min while their brain and cardiorespiratory signals were simultaneously recorded. The more participants were absorbed in the game, (...) the less they thought about time and the faster time passed subjectively. On the cortical level, the fronto-central HEP amplitude was significantly lower while playing the game compared to resting states before and after the game, reflecting less self-referential processing while playing. This HEP effect corresponded with lower activity during gameplay in brain regions contributing to interoceptive processing. The HEP amplitude predicted the level of absorption in the game. While the HEP amplitude was overall lower during the gaming session than during the resting states, within the gaming session the amplitude of HEP was positively associated with absorption. Since higher absorption was related to higher performance in the game, the higher HEP in more absorbed individuals reflects more efficient brain–heart interaction, which is necessary for efficient game play. On the physiological level, a higher level of flow was associated with increased overall sympathetic activity and less inhibited parasympathetic activity toward the end of the game. These results are building blocks for future neurophysiological assessments of flow. (shrink)

BackgroundThe current paper follows up on the results of an exploratory quantitative analysis that compared the publication and citation records of men and women researchers affiliated with the Faculty of Computing and Engineering at Dublin City University in Ireland. Quantitative analysis of publications between 2013 and 2018 showed that women researchers had fewer publications, received fewer citations per person, and participated less often in international collaborations. Given the significance of publications for pursuing an academic career, we used qualitative methods to (...) understand these differences and explore factors that, according to women researchers, have contributed to this disparity.MethodsSixteen women researchers from DCU’s Faculty of Computing and Engineering were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Once interviews were transcribed and anonymised, they were coded by both authors in two rounds using an inductive approach.ResultsInterviewed women believed that their opportunities for research engagement and research funding, collaborations, publications and promotions are negatively impacted by gender roles, implicit gender biases, their own high professional standards, family responsibilities, nationality and negative perceptions of their expertise and accomplishments.ConclusionsOur study has found that women in DCU’s Faculty of Computing and Engineering face challenges that, according to those interviewed, negatively affect their engagement in various research activities, and, therefore, have contributed to their lower publication record. We suggest that while affirmative programmes aiming to correct disparities are necessary, they are more likely to improve organisational culture if they are implemented in parallel with bottom-up initiatives that engage all parties, including men researchers and non-academic partners, to inform and sensitise them about the significance of gender equity. (shrink)

_Gale_ Academic OneFile includes Reversing globalization: what Gandhi can teach us by Vandana Shiva. Click to explore.

We perform conceptual acts throughout our daily lives; we are always judging others, guessing their intentions, agreeing or opposing their views and so on. These conceptual acts have phenomenological as well as formal richness. This paper attempts to correct the imbalance between the phenomenal and formal approaches to conceptualization by claiming that we need to shift from the usual dichotomies of cognitive science and epistemology such as the formal/empirical and the rationalist/empiricist divides—to a view of conceptualization grounded in the Indian (...) philosophical notion of “valid cognition”. Methodologically, our paper is an attempt at cross-cultural philosophy and cognitive science; ontologically, it is an attempt at marrying the phenomenal and the formal. (shrink)

This research examines the impact of implicit religious beliefs on work ethic in specific cultural contexts. Based on three studies, the authors found that thoughts related to religion impact work ethic, but only when the culture embraces religious values at work and in public environments. In a comparative setting, Moroccan participants primed with religious thoughts displayed greater work ethic, whereas similarly primed French participants exhibited less work ethic (Study 1). For North African–French biculturals, religious stimuli interacted with cultural identity to (...) predict work ethic (Study 2) and activated religious beliefs and cultural identity had a significant effect on their level of effort (Study 3). Our research reveals that implicit religious beliefs can predict work ethic in a manner contingent on a cultural setting. In cultures where religious values are historically embraced and encouraged, work ethic constitutes a religious construct that enhances work ethic. Conversely, in secular cultures, religious cues inhibit work ethic. We believe that within a multi-cultural, multi-religion work force, it is important to take note of these influences. (shrink)

Vedānta endeavours to base itself essentially on the facts of experience—in the fullest sense of the term. It recognizes the occurrence of everyday experience and the so-called fact of evil, but it refuses to view them as real. The real, it says, like Hegel, does not exist, and that which exists is not real. Evil is only an “existent"—as all this Samsara is—but not the ultimate Real. But it will be at once objected that if evil is an appearance, a (...) Maya, why should this appearance appear at all? If it has no foundation in reality, how and why does it occur at all? Further, how can anything be known as real unless it should appear ? Reality must appear. (shrink)

This article presents material from my ethnographic study in Śringēri, south India, the site of a powerful 1200yearold Advaitic monastery that has been historically an interpreter of ancient Hindu moral treatises. A vibrant diverse local culture that provides plural sources of moral authority makes Sringeri a rich site for studying moral discourse. Through a study of two conversational narratives, this essay illustrates how the moral self is not an ossified product of written texts and codes, but is dynamic, gen dered, (...) and emergent, endowed with historical and political agency and an aesthetic capacity that mediates many normative sources to articulate "appropriate" conduct. In so doing, the essay shows the value of including oral narrative in ethical inquiry, especially in narrative ethics, which, for most part, has focused on written sources. (shrink)

The present book of proceedings includes chapters related to the areas of pure, applied and inter-disciplinary mathematics reflecting the potential applications in the domains of sciences and engineering. The main areas include algebra and its applications, analysis and approximation theory, cryptography, computational fluid dynamics, continuum mechanics and vibrations, differential equations and applications, graph theory, fuzzy mathematics and logic, numerical analysis, optimization and its applications, wave propagation, etc. The scientists, engineers, academicians and researchers working in the proposed areas of coding and (...) information theory, computational fluid dynamics, differential equations, fuzzy sets and systems, numerical analysis, optimization, vibrations, etc. looking for new insight and ideas in these areas will be benefitted by the contents of this book. In fact, it will be useful to a large class of readers interested in recent findings related to mathematical sciences and their applications to the diverse domains of knowledge. The book will be a fruitful contribution to all knowledge seekers and researchers in the concerned areas who are looking for new insight and ideas. As it consists of updated research articles on emerging areas of mathematical sciences and their applications, it will be a valued addition to the learning resource centres of various universities, industries, and research and development organizations across the globe. (shrink)

The formalism of mathematics has always inspired ontological theorization based on it. As is evident from his magnum opus Being and Event, Alain Badiou remains one of the most important contemporary contributors to this enterprise. His famous maxim—“mathematics is ontology” has its basis in the ingenuity that he has shown in capitalizing on Gödel’s and Cohen’s work in the field of set theory. Their work jointly establish the independence of the continuum hypothesis from the standard axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, (...) with Gödel’s result showing their consistency to the affirmative, while Cohen’s showing it to the negative. These results serve as the cornerstone of Badiou’s mathematical ontology. In it, drawing heavily on Cohen’s technically formidable method of forcing, Badiou makes the latter result the key to his defense of the possibility of a faithful tracing of the consequences in the ‘state’ of an ‘event’ by a ‘subject’. Whereas, Gödel’s result based on the assumption of constructability becomes the pivot for criticism of the general philosophical orientation that Badiou calls ‘constructivism’. Viewed from a position internal to mathematical formalism itself, and taking into account the twentieth century developments in the relevant field, Badiou’s stance seems to be neither appreciative of the actual course of such developments, nor just to the philosophical view point that was actually maintained by Gödel. In the present paper, this concern is intended to be substantiated through an exposition of certain facts pertaining to the said developments as well as to Gödel’s philosophical inclinations. (shrink)

Reading a passage in the Sanskrit Mahābhārata—the attempted disrobing of Princess Draupadī after her senior husband has gambled her away (after losing all his wealth, his brothers and himself)—I suggest that we see in her attitude and angry words an expression of contempt. I explore how contempt is a concept that is not thematized within Sanskrit aesthetics of emotions, but nonetheless is clearly articulated in the literature. Focusing on the significance of her gendered expression of anger and contempt, and the (...) positive acceptance of it in the text, I suggest that contempt can be understood as a transformative attitude in a woman (even a high-born one) towards iniquities in a patriarchal culture. (shrink)

Classical Indian schools of philosophy seek to attain a supreme end to existence--liberation from the cycle of lives. This book looks at four conceptions of liberation and the roles of analytic inquiry and philosophical knowledge in its attainment. The central motivation of Indian philosophy--the quest for the Highest Good--is situated in the analytic philosophical activity of key thinkers.

Could there be a balanced philosophical stance capable of accommodating the scientific facts pertaining to free will without compromising the ideal of human freedom and autonomy? A stance that can render intelligible the inferences emerging from the factual analysis of free will in terms of the phenomenon called ‘Readiness Potential’(RP), at the same time, existentially upholding the ideal of freedom? In the present paper, an attempt will be made to bring to light such an existential phenomenological perspective implicit in the (...) philosophy of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In the analysis, some of the most relevant scientific facts pertaining to RPs and the corresponding scientific inferences as to the conception of ‘free will’ will be taken into account with a view to see how in this phenomenological scheme they could all be intelligibly accommodated. Once this is achieved, a unique version of compatibilism inherent in Merleau-Ponty’s thought will also be traced. (shrink)

In this paper, perhaps the first of its kind, an attempt is made to elucidate and examine the Vedantic theory of soul constructed on the basis of the experience of dreamless sleep which, being radically and qualitatively different from waking and dreaming states, is considered by the Vedantins as a state of temporarily purified individual soul (atman), a state of pure substantial consciousness. They take the experience of dreamless sleep as a model experience of the soul's final liberation from the (...) body and its internal as well as external faculties. The ultimate liberation, according to the Vedantins, is a state of total identification of the individual soul with the Universal Soul (Brahman), the summum bonum of every Vedantin. The paper also includes a critique of the Vedantic soul theory by the Buddhists who vehemently deny any autonomous and substantial soul whose essence is unchangingly permanent, pure consciousness and self-illuminating knowledge. The soul is instead interpreted by the Buddhists as a product of the functioning of a person's psycho-physical organism and a mere subject of knowing, thinking, desiring, etc. The analysis further shows that the Vedanta, especially the Advaita Vedanta, metaphysics of soul is inadequate in many respects and mainly based on a priori and scriptural arguments and emotive appeals, whereas the Buddhists deny any kind of autonomous and permanent agent of knowing, thinking and desiring by successfully reducing substantial consciousness to mere acts of knowing. (shrink)

While it is known that reward induces attentional prioritization, it is not clear what effect reward-learning has when associated with stimuli that are not fully perceived. The masked priming paradigm has been extensively used to investigate the indirect impact of brief stimuli on response behavior. Interestingly, the effect of masked primes is observed even when participants choose their responses freely. While classical theories assume this process to be automatic, recent studies have provided evidence for attentional modulations of masked priming effects. (...) Most such studies have manipulated bottom-up or top-down modes of attentional selection, but the role of “newer” forms of attentional control such as reward-learning and selection history remains unclear. In two experiments, with number and arrow primes, we examined whether reward-mediated attentional selection modulates masked priming when responses are chosen freely. In both experiments, we observed that primes associated with high-reward lead to enhanced free-choice priming compared to primes associated with no-reward. The effect was seen on both proportion of choices and response times, and was more evident in the faster responses. In the slower responses, the effect was diminished. Our study adds to the growing literature showing the susceptibility of masked priming to factors related to attention and executive control. (shrink)

Daya Krishna’s creative criticism of the prevalent traditionalist interpretation of classical Indian philosophy is analytically stated and evaluated. His objections to classifying Indian philosophies into orthodox and heterodox systems, applying to a group of differing philosophies the common labels of vedānta or vedāntic, making these terms multi-referential, inappropriately titling some books as Nyāyasūtra, Sānkhayarikārika, etc., though they discuss a miscellany of themes, etc., are also discussed and assessed. His calling of these terms and some others of their like, or the (...) practice of using them, mythical is examined. It is shown that they may not be accurate but their use has not become disutile. In their prevailing usage, seemingly misleading characters have become sterile and therefore they have ceased to be misleading and continue functioning as convenient classificatory terms. Enjoying his calling of the concept of puruṣārtha and the theory of puruṣārtha too mythical, it has been shown that the concept is not because it means any object of anyone’s and there are many such objects; the theory is not because it is historically an important component of classical Indian value theory. I have also shown that as presented by traditionalist writers, it is not a logical elegant theory, but a fairly workable one can be carved out of the classical theory by linking together some elements of it in newer ways with the logical cement obtainable from modern value theorizing. Something similar has been done with Daya Krishna ’s analysis of the traditionalist claim that Indian philosophy is spiritualist. DK links it with Indian culture through the concept of mokṣa. I have shown that it is the result of linking philosophy too tightly with religion, of course, through the doorway of the concept of mokṣa, by pointing out that mokṣa is a religious, and not an ethical, value. (shrink)