The Pauṣkara briefly discusses the meaning-expressing nature of śabda (constituted of phonemes, varṇa) and the means to the cognition of word and sentence meaning. According to this dualistic Śaiva Tantra, meaning is denoted by nāda, a capacity of varṇas. Varṇas also are the means to the cognition of meaning through a capacity (saṃskāra) manifested in them. Although the meaning-denoting capacity is natural to varṇas, the relation of words (which are nothing but groups of varṇas) with objects is fixed by convention. (...) This article translates and analyzes the relevant passages from the sixth and eighth chapters. Certain arguments of plagiarism levelled against the eighth chapter of the Pauṣkara are examined in the concluding part of the article. (shrink)

The dualist Śaiva doctrine considers that mala is that which obstructs the true nature of the self and sets in motion the operation of bondage. Though many dualist Śaiva tantras discuss the concept of mala, only the Pauṣkara presents a detailed exposition supported by numerous arguments. This article aims to closely report those arguments and to search within the Pauṣkara for answers to certain questions that the concept provokes.

Current discussions of hermeneutical injustice, I argue, poorly characterise the cognitive state of victims by failing to account for the communicative success that victims have when they describe their experience to other similarly situated persons. I argue that victims, especially when they suffer moral wrongs that are yet unnamed, are able (1) to grasp certain salient aspects of the wrong they experience and (2) to cultivate the ability to identify instances of the wrong in virtue of moral emotions. By moral (...) emotions I mean emotions like indignation that reflect an agent’s ethical commitments and bear on her ethical assessments. Further, I argue that victims can impart their partial understanding of the wrong they suffer to others who are not similarly situated by eliciting moral emotions such as pity that are tied to broad notions of justice and fairness. (shrink)

The mind is not structured anatomically, as emphasized by modern pathology. Instead, it is expanded as a whole in a subtle form behind the physical body. In the Indian system of medical philosophy, the mind is considered as the astral nerves made third body, which identified as the ‘Manomaya-sharira’ (subconscious mind). The mind is composed of millions of astralnadis, through which Pranic-energies circulate freely into the astral anatomy of mind. Seven-chakras are found parallel to the spine, serving as the major (...) seven innovation centres in the body. These Chakras facilitate the connection of the mind with the seven dimensions of the inner world. From these dimensions the Pranic-energies including Sattva, Raja, Tama are exported to the mind and its Nadi-tantras, influencing both the outer and inner subconscious minds. Subsequently, these elements, viz., Sattva, Raja and Tama are thrown from the mind to the outer world through the seven sense organs, manifesting as either constructive or destructive activities. Thus the mind exists due to ‘Prana’, (energy of Omkara) which increases through deeper meditation, sound sleep, and breathing exercises (O2). The positional behaviour of the mind shifts according to the physical and mental temperament, namely Triguna and Tridosha, or Panchavikara. The negative energy (Tama-guna) of the fourth dimension enters the astral Nadis-system of the mind via the interspace of the solar plexus, which crushes the mind’s structures, and consequently, all the Chakras are corrupted and the Nadis are blocked, so it generates a break in the circulation of ‘Prana’ into the Nadis. As a result, many socio-economic challenges and psychosomatic disorders occur. (shrink)

On Hindu ethics and code of conduct in Hindu smr̥tis.

True Hinduism has a power and beauty that no one acquainted with it can regard with anything but the deepest respect. This book contains a range of scriptures, an array of ritualistic procedures and traditions of brahminical orthodoxy, varied interpretations coupled with multiple views. True Hinduism has a power and beauty that no one acquainted with it can regard with anything but the deepest respect. You have to approach it as you approach poetry, with a willing suspension of disbelief. Above (...) all the peripheral myths, customs, beliefs and rites, rises the great. (shrink)

Few will dispute the fact that Sri Sankara, the most exciting philosopher of Advaita Vedanta has no clear-cut answers to the problem of reality. The shifting focus and emphasis on the various philosophical issues cited in the original exegetics of Sri Sankara by the modern thinkers certainly need a consensus on arriving at the meaningful and purposeful understanding of the true nature of reality. The concept of Adhyasa in its three variants has to be asserted from the non-contradictory ground of (...) reality. In this context, there is a need to differentiate between 'mere appearance' and the 'actual appearance' or the unmanifest reality. The present work attempts to establish the valid tones of a sound philosophy of Advaita Vedanta at its best. (shrink)

Farm to School programs aim to connect school children with local foods, to promote a synergistic relationship between local farmers, child nutrition and education goals, and community development. Drawing from 18 months of ethnographic research with a regional FTS project and interviews with child nutrition program operators implementing FTS across Georgia, we identify perceptions of food safety as an emerging barrier in efforts to bring local foods into schools. Conducting a thematic analysis of data related to food safety, we find (...) that FTS participation may be hindered by discourses and perceptions of safety risks attributed to local foods—and to local produce in particular. We argue that this results, paradoxically, from a core tenant of FTS and other local food movements: forging personal relationships with farmers, through which POs confront the transparency of local food production, in contrast to the opacity of food procured through standard supply chains. Faced with unfamiliar production practices, and responsibilized to protect students as “at risk” subjects, POs may decide that buying local food is “not worth the risk.”. (shrink)

The current study extends previous literature regarding the effectiveness of learning about academic integrity through peer instruction by assessing the impact of a peer instructional approach for actual and perceived learning gains over time. One trained residence don provided one interactive 30-min presentation covering four major aspects of academic integrity and misconduct to groups of undergraduate students. In total, 192 participants attended the workshop and were surveyed for their knowledge of academic integrity immediately before the presentation, immediately after the presentation, (...) and after a four week delay. Perceptions regarding the presentation also were assessed. Consistent with previous literature, results indicate perceived learning gains and preference for having an interactive presentation delivered by a residence don. In addition, actual gains in knowledge were found immediately after the presentation and gains remained evident over a four-week delay. Outcomes suggest that peer instruction is a viable and effective approach for educating students about academic integrity. (shrink)

Compared with the Greek and Latin fields, the systematic study of the concept of textual criticism in classical India has made little progress, despite the quality of work produced by specialists. And yet research of this nature would probably lead, paradoxically, to a clearer formulation of the aims and methods of modern critical editions of Indian texts.

The 600 Terms Covered Will Give Most Students Of Vedanta The Basic Language Equipment Needed To Deal With The Subject.

ABSTRACT Social media is becoming increasingly embedded in people’s daily lives. These virtual spaces are now regularly used as a tool for information dissemination. Drawing on the moral intensity literature combined with uses and gratifications theory, this research explores how using social media to consume information can affect the ethical decision-making process. This study compares the influence of two online media dissemination formats – an online news article and social media discussion thread – on individuals’ ethical perceptions and decisions. Results (...) indicate that social media usage has an effect on perceptions of social consensus, problem recognition, and ethical sensemaking. Overall, Social media is shown to inhibit ethical decision-making when used as an information dissemination tool. (shrink)

How can an incomplete and uncertain model of the environment be used to perceive, infer, decide and act efficiently? This is the challenge that both living and artificial cognitive systems have to face. Symbolic logic is, by its nature, unable to deal with this question. The subjectivist approach to probability is an extension to logic that is designed specifically to face this challenge. In this paper, we review a number of frequently encountered cognitive issues and cast them into a common (...) Bayesian formalism. The concepts we review are ambiguities, fusion, multimodality, conflicts, modularity, hierarchies and loops. First, each of these concepts is introduced briefly using some examples from the neuroscience, psychophysics or robotics literature. Then, the concept is formalized using a template Bayesian model. The assumptions and common features of these models, as well as their major differences, are outlined and discussed. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroscience aims to improve our understanding of aspects of human learning and performance by combining data acquired with the new brain imaging technologies with data acquired in cognitive psychology paradigms. Both neuroscience and psychology use the philosophical assumptions underpinning the natural sciences, namely the scientific method, whereby hypotheses are proposed and tested using quantitative approaches. The relevance of 'brain science' for the classroom has proved controversial with some educators, perhaps because of distrust of the applicability of so-called 'medical models' (...) to education. Nevertheless, the brain is the main organ of learning, and so a deeper understanding of the brain would appear highly relevant to education. Modern science is revealing the crucial role of biology in every aspect of human experience and performance. This does not mean that biology determines outcomes. Rather, there is a complex interplay between biology and environments. Improved knowledge about how the brain learns should assist educators in creating optimal learning environments. Neuroscience can also identify 'biomarkers' of educational risk, and provide new methodologies to test the effects of educational interventions. (shrink)

Résumé Ce compte rendu de Formes de vie de Jacques Fontanille cherche à montrer que l’ouvrage s’inscrit dans une certaine continuité, notamment par rapport à Pratiques sémiotiques, mais qu’il constitue aussi un nouveau tournant, qui fait évoluer la sémiotique et la positionne dans le champ des sciences humaines et sociales. D’abord, nous discutons le fait que, selon Jacques Fontanille, les formes de vie font « vaciller » la frontière entre la nature et la culture. Nous soulignons le fait que Jacques (...) Fontanille développe après Descola, Latour et Lotman les notions de régimes de croyance d’identification, de mode d’existence social et de sémiosphère. Ensuite, l’accent est mis sur le « vivre-avec » comme macro-expérience. Il s’agit de mesurer les conséquences d’un double choix qui permet de dépasser le stade de l’auto-organisation : d’une part, le rapport au monde est médié par l’actant-corps ; d’autre part, l’activité sémiotique consciente d’elle-même est une activité méta-sémiotique. Enfin, il importe d’évaluer la part du culturel dans la constitution des formes de vie. Nous nous interrogeons sur l’« instanciation » des formes de vie dans un lieu et dans un temps déterminés. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to explore if and how social media might come to bear on people’s understanding of ethics. Participants were asked to complete online surveys regarding social media interaction and respond to 14 scenarios depicting ethical dilemmas. Our results suggest that social media and people’s perceptions of ethics do share a relationship. Specifically, we found that people who reported being exposed to ethical violations on social media were more likely to find our unethical scenarios to be (...) personally unacceptable, to be of lower ethicality, and to react negatively to the content. These findings suggest that mere exposure to ethical violations is enough to produce awareness in people regarding ethical issues, which carries significant implications for ethics education. (shrink)

Un des débats les plus intéressants et les plus passionnés qui traversent la période du XVIIè et XVIIIè siècle concerne la finalité et les causes finales. L'importance du sujet se conçoit aisément si l'on songe à l'étendue et à la profondeur de ses implications. Par ses enjeux, le problème concerne les domaines épistémologique, esthétique, métaphysique et théologique. Comment doit-on penser, comprendre et étudier la nature? La philosophie s'interroge alors sur la scientificité non seulement des explications qu'elle donne, mais aussi des (...) questions qu'elle pose. Peut-on encore faire une théodicée, c'est-à-dire justifier d'un ordre final et providentiel de l'univers? La question porte tout autant sur la nature et Dieu que sur les pouvoirs de la raison humaine. L'étude de ces deux siècles de débats permet de comprendre la genèse de nos conceptions contemporaines de la nature. (shrink)

En el presente ensayo intentaremos exponer algunos aspectos de la crítica de Graeber al capitalismo financiarizado. En el primer apartado introduciremos su concepto de alienación, clave para entender el sentido de su obra. En los apartados posteriores presentaremos las ideas principales que se pueden encontrar en Bullshit Jobs, su último libro. En él expone una teoría de los trabajos basura o inútiles, que considera uno de los pilares fundamentales de la ideología neoliberal, junto con la omnipresencia de la burocracia y (...) la moralidad de la deuda. El fenómeno social de los trabajos basura es estudiado desde diversos niveles: qué son, cómo afectan a los que los realizan, cuáles son las causas económicas y por qué nadie hace nada para acabar con ellos.In the present paper I try to delve into some of Graeber’s critiques of the financialised capitalism. In the first section, I will introduce his idea of alienation, key to understand the sense of his work. In the rest of the paper I will present the main ideas of his last book, Bullshit Jobs. There Graeber presents a theory of bullshit jobs, which he believes to be an important base of the neoliberal system, along with the bureaucracy and the debt. He analyses the social phenomenon of bullshit jobs from different perspectives: what they are, how they affect the people doing them, which are the economic causes and why nothing is done. (shrink)

Assigning a date to Kumārila is notoriously difficult. Kumārila’s dates are usually assigned through a relative chronology of Brahmanical and Buddhist philosophers with whom Kumārila engages or is engaged. This is a precarious method because the dates of these interlocutors are equally unstable. But what if in considering systematic dialogues (_śāstra_) to be the primary medium for interreligious philosophical debate we have missed a source that does engage with Kumārila, and that can be reliably dated? In this article, I turn (...) to a religious group whom, it has been previously thought, did not respond to Kumārila until the eighth century—Jainas—as well as to a genre that is not typically viewed as a site of systematic philosophical dialogue—narrative. I argue that the _Padmacarita_, a Jaina Rāmāyaṇa composed by a Digambara writer called Raviṣeṇa, contains a narrative refutation of Kumārila’s commentary to _Mīmāṃsāsūtra_ 1.1.2. By bringing to light this refutation, and explaining how Raviṣeṇa’s _Padmacarita_ can be reliably dated, I assign Kumārila’s _terminus ante quem_ to the date of the _Padmacarita_’s composition, 676 CE. Finally, I suggest that Raviṣeṇa’s _Padmacarita_ is the earliest extant Jaina text to discuss Kumārila’s claims, and that Jainas used narrative to reflect on Mīmāṃsā before they turned to _śāstra_ as another medium for this dialogue. (shrink)

Leech et al.'s demonstration that analogical reasoning can be an emergent property of low-level incremental learning processes is critical for analogical theory. Along with insights into neural learning based on the salience of dynamic spatio-temporal structure, and the neural priming mechanism of repetition suppression, it establishes relational primacy as a plausible theoretical description of how brains make analogies.

Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 1, Page 134-143, January 2022.

Rashad Rehman, Nipa Chauhan and Rebecca Greenberg argue that beneficent paternalism should be integrated into shared decision-making in the NICU to maximize the patient’s best interests.

This commentary focusses on the evidence used by Halford et al. to support their postulated links between relational complexity and age differences in children's understanding of concepts. None of their developmental claims is consistent with recent cognitive-developmental research. Relational complexity must be an important variable in cognition, but it does not provide a satisfactory metric for explaining cognitive development.