There is considerable evidence that language comprehenders derive lexical‐semantic meaning by mentally simulating perceptual and motor attributes of described events. However, the nature of these simulations—including the level of detail that is incorporated and contexts under which simulations occur—is not well understood. Here, we examine the effects of first‐ versus third‐person perspective on mental simulations during sentence comprehension. First‐person sentences describing physical transfer towards or away from the body (e.g., “You threw the microphone,” “You caught the microphone”) modulated response latencies (...) when responses were made along a front‐back axis, consistent with the action‐sentence compatibility effect (ACE). This effect was not observed for third‐person sentences (“He threw the microphone,” “He caught the microphone”). The ACE was observed when making responses along a left‐right axis for third‐person, but not first‐person sentences. Abstract sentences (e.g., “He heard the message”) did not show an ACE along either axis. These results show that perspective is a detail that is simulated during action sentence comprehension, and that motoric activations are flexible and affected by the pronominal perspective used in the sentence. (shrink)

The view in intercultural philosophy that there is philosophy in all cultures, does not hold in relation to Indian thought. Since modern times a vibrant Indian philosophical tradition has been lacking. Against the background of a reconstruction of the logic of negation in the classical texts of Indian thought, the essay asks for the causes of the end of this philosophical tradition. It shows that its causes can be found in a dialectic of the self-repeal of reason and in the (...) dependence of Indian philosophical thinking upon religious tradition. (shrink)

Das Denken des Advaita und des Tantra führt auf je eigenem Wege zur Wahrheit vom Eins-Seienden und zielt damit auf jene Einsicht ab, die den Menschen dazu befähigt, aus ihr heraus zu handeln. Getragen wird der Erkenntnisweg vom individuellen Leib. Der Leib rückt ins Zentrum als Mittel zur Einsicht sowie als unmittelbarer Bezugspunkt des Handelns des Individuums: Metaphysik steht in0enger Beziehung mit Moralität. Man darf, mit anderen Worten, von "embodied cognition" reden, die jedoch auf einem kontrollierbaren Weg, den die Meditation (...) vorgibt, zu vollziehen ist. Dieser Gedankengang wird in Auseinandersetzung mit den Vorsokratikern, Platon und Aristoteles entwickelt."-Back cover. (shrink)

There is considerable evidence that language comprehenders derive lexical-semantic meaning by mentally simulating perceptual and motor attributes of described events. However, the nature of these simulations—including the level of detail that is incorporated and contexts under which simulations occur—is not well understood. Here, we examine the effects of first- versus third-person perspective on mental simulations during sentence comprehension. First-person sentences describing physical transfer towards or away from the body modulated response latencies when responses were made along a front-back axis, consistent (...) with the action-sentence compatibility effect. This effect was not observed for third-person sentences. The ACE was observed when making responses along a left-right axis for third-person, but not first-person sentences.sentences did not show an ACE along either axis. These results show that perspective is a detail that is simulated during action sentence comprehension, and that motoric activations are flexible and affected by the pronominal perspective used in the sentence. (shrink)

This paper investigates relationships between men’s testosterone and family life in a sample of approximately 350 Jamaican fathers of children 18–24 months of age. The study recognizes the role of testosterone as a proximate mechanism coordinating and reflecting male life history allocations within specific family and cultural contexts. A sample of Jamaican fathers and/or father figures reported to an assessment center for an interview based on a standardized questionnaire and provided a saliva sample for measuring testosterone level. Outcomes measured include (...) subject demographics such as age and relationship status as well as partnership quality and sexuality and paternal attitudes and behavior. The variation in these fathers’ relationship status was not associated with men’s testosterone. Too few stepfathers participated to enable a direct test of the prediction that stepfathers would have higher testosterone than biological fathers, although fathers who reported living with partners’ children did not have higher testosterone than fathers not reporting residing with a non-biological child. Fathers’ relationship quality was negatively related to their testosterone. Measures of paternal attitudes and behavior were not related to fathers’ testosterone. Consistent with previous ethnography, this sample of Jamaican fathers exhibited variable life history profiles, including residential status. We discuss why fathers’ relationship quality was found to be negatively related to their testosterone level, but other predictions were not upheld. (shrink)

This essay examines debates over alternative ethical formulations that break from the Kantian model through contemporary fiction—Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (2006), Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty (2005). The essay returns to the theory, the ethics of care, put forward by Carol Gilligan in In a Different Voice (1982), which has regained significance in the context of questions surrounding care in contemporary ethical thinking. While the three novels are concerned with ideas (...) of care, beauty, justice and the tyranny of the mainstream, this essay examines particular themes in particular texts which suggest that ideas with otherwise subversive potential—like care or beauty or justice—lose their radicalism when they are incorporated within the impersonal, masculinist mainstream. Carol Gilligan’s feminine ethics of care, with its respect for the particular, is not only still important as the stimulus to thinking about alternatives to overarching ethical discourses, but it could also re-confer these concepts of care, beauty and justice their revolutionary potential. (shrink)

'The Liberals tells us the story of an India in transition from a very personal vantage point, one that is full of cheeky intelligence and delicious insight. Hindol Sengupta has given us lots to think about and even more to chuckle about'- Santosh Desai 'Here is an account of Manmohan's children, the Gen Next who have the world as their oyster... Hindol Sengupta's droll memoirs at such a young age will echo in many a young person's mind. Hindol speaks (...) for India's future and a funky future it is too!' - Meghnad Desai 'An engaging personal tale of the post-reform generation told with spirit by one of its children' - Gurcharan Das 1991. The year the Indian economy opened up to the world and unleashed a billion desires and dreams. But who are these restless dreamers? This is a very private story of a very public middle-class consumption revolution. From proselytizing American schools in Calcutta to Page-3 parties in Delhi and television studios in Bombay, The Liberals brings to life unforgettable characters spawned by the needs of the world's largest democracy. Communist Bob Dylans jam with murderous villagers, girlfriends give lessons in capitalism, TV stylists snarl over white shirts, Amar Singh talks about love and Akshay Kumar about what it takes to be the boy next door. Through it all, Hindol Sengupta lives to tell the tale of GDP rising. This is the autobiography of liberalization, entertaining and immensely relatable, and an insider's account of finding one's place in a newly liberalized India. (shrink)

From the cutting edge of science and living spirituality: a guide to understanding our identity and purpose in the world • Outlines the new understanding of matter and mind coming to light at the cutting edge of physics and consciousness research • Explains how we can evolve consciously, become connected with each other, and flourish on this planet • Includes contributions from Maria Sagi, Kingsley L. Dennis, Emanuel Kuntzelman, Dawna Jones, Shamik Desai, Garry Jacobs, and John R. Audette For (...) the outdated mainstream paradigm the world is a giant mechanism functioning in accordance with known and knowable laws and regularities. The new paradigm emerging in science offers a different concept: The world is an interconnected, coherent whole, and it is informed by a cosmic intelligence. This is not a finite, mechanistic-material world. It is a consciousness-infused whole-system world. We are conscious beings who emerge and co-evolve as complex, cosmic-intelligence in-formed vibrations in the Akashic Field of the universe. Ervin Laszlo and his collaborators from the forefront of science, cosmology, and spirituality show how the re-discovery of who we are and why we are here integrates seamlessly with the wisdom traditions as well as with the new emerging worldview in the sciences, revealing a way forward for humanity on this planet. They explain how we have reached a point of critical incoherence and tell us that to save ourselves, our environment, and society, we need a critical mass of people to consciously evolve a new thinking. Offering a guidepost to orient this evolution, Laszlo examines the nature of consciousness in the universe, showing how our bodies and minds act as transmitters of consciousness from the intelligence of the cosmos and how understanding science’s new concept of the world enables us to re-discover our identity and our purpose in our world. With bold vision and forward thinking, Laszlo and his contributors Maria Sagi, Kingsley L. Dennis, Emanuel Kuntzelman, Dawna Jones, Shamik Desai, Garry Jacobs, and John R. Audette outline the new idea of the world and of ourselves in the world. They help us discover how we can overcome these divisive times and blossom into a new era of peace, coherence, connection, and global wellbeing. (shrink)

This review critically engages with Radhika Desai’s concept of geopolitical economy as a framework for understanding the evolution of the capitalist state system. While presenting a useful challenge to many of the most deeply-held beliefs in International Relations theory, Desai’s over-reliance on a geopolitical lens produces a relatively one-sided account of the ways in which capitalism forges distinct international regimes and ideological formations under a given set of historical conditions of possibility. Thus, Desai’s somewhat opaque reading of (...) the international relations of capitalism clouds our understanding of what the current conjuncture might entail for any possible future beyond the social discipline of capital. (shrink)

Before becoming an internationally renowned sadhu espousing words of wisdom in an Indian forest, Sampath Chawla pulls down his pants. The wedding guests are horrified. His supervisor at the small-town post office fires him on the spot—it is, after all, his daughter's wedding.In Kiran Desai's novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, the oafish Sampath probably shouldn't have been invited to the wedding in the first place. At the post office he has been sulking for some time. "The post office. (...) The post office. The post office. It made him want to throw up."1 More troubling, he routinely opens other people's mail and reads their private letters throughout the workday. The letters give Sampath insights into the lives of... (shrink)