The term ?boson? appears in almost all discussions on elementary particles and carries a reference to the name of Satyendra Nath Bose, the co-founder of quantum statistics. Yet, in spite of this wide use of a term coined after his name, Bose himself remains a shadowy figure in the history of science. This article is an attempt to reconstruct how Bose arrived at the statistics for which he is now remembered, and his subsequent two-year brief role (...) in international science. Through the lens of Bose's practice, I seek to grasp the contexts of those peripheral scientists who enter the practice of science from outside of the main group, and yet somehow manage to create a lasting contribution within it. (shrink)

Abstract While much has been written about science and the Abrahamic religious traditions, there is little about the Hindu tradition and science. We examine two recent authors who have explored the relationship between the two, in one case across the full spectrum of Indian history, and in the other with a specific focus on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, a ninth- to eleventh-century CE document centered on the Lord Krishna. These two publications are compared with a symposium of articles by scientists and (...) scholars of the Hindu tradition that consider both science and religion heuristically in terms of “knowing the unknowable.” Each contribution explores this concept in accordance with the scientific or religious topic's internal self-understanding, without any cross-fertilization (“cherry picking”) across the boundaries. Finally, we consider the author's own approach, which is intermediate between the previous mentioned in that it reviews the work of Hindu scientists who shaped the course of their research in accordance with their Vedāntic beliefs. These include Satyendra Nath Bose, who collaborated with Einstein on his quest for a unified field theory, and gave his name to a class of fundamental particles called bosons. (shrink)

The advent of the intelligent robot has occupied a significant position in society over the past decades and has given rise to new issues in society. As we know, the primary aim of artificial intelligence or robotic research is not only to develop advanced programs to solve our problems but also to reproduce mental qualities in machines. The critical claim of artificial intelligence advocates is that there is no distinction between mind and machines and thus they argue that there are (...) possibilities for machine ethics, just as human ethics. Unlike computer ethics, which has traditionally focused on ethical issues surrounding human use of machines, AI or machine ethics is concerned with the behaviour of machines towards human users and perhaps other machines as well, and the ethicality of these interactions. The ultimate goal of machine ethics, according to the AI scientists, is to create a machine that itself follows an ideal ethical principle or a set of principles; that is to say, it is guided by this principle or these principles in decisions it makes about possible courses of action it could takea. Thus, machine ethics task of ensuring ethical behaviour of an artificial agent. Although, there are many philosophical issues related to artificial intelligence, but our attempt in this paper is to discuss, first, whether ethics is the sort of thing that can be computed. Second, if we are ascribing mind to machines, it gives rise to ethical issues regarding machines. And if we are not drawing the difference between mind and machines, we are not only redefining specifically human mind but also the society as a whole. Having a mind is, among other things, having the capacity to make voluntary decisions and actions. The notion of mind is central to our ethical thinking, and this is because the human mind is self-conscious, and this is a property that machines lack, as yet. (shrink)

According to 'statism,' the distinctive nature of the state association gives rise to certain demands of distributive justice that exclusively obtain within the state and apply between fellow citizens. This chapter is devoted to critically examining the merits of the statist position. I consider three main strategies that statists employ in defense of their claim about the scope of egalitarian distributive justice—based on, respectively, the relevance of coercion, co-authorship of the state's terms, and the state's provision of basic goods. I (...) argue that this scope restriction is unjustified on two grounds. First, I offer reasons for rejecting the empirical claims posited by statists concerning how the global domain differs from the state. Second, I explain problems facing the normative claims defended by statists concerning the factors in virtue of which demands of distributive justice arise. I conclude that the restriction of demands of egalitarian distributive justice to the state, at least according to the statist positions that I have considered, is unjustified. (shrink)

In cognitive science, there are many computational theories regarding the function of the mind; connectionism is one of them. Connectionist networks are intricate systems of simple units related to their environment. Some have thousands of units, but those with only a few units can also behave with surprising complexity and subtlety. This is because processing occurs in parallel as also interactively, in marked contrast with the serial processing to which this is accustomed. In the first section of this paper, I (...) intend to describe a simple network that illustrates several features of connectionist processing. Secondly, I would like to examine its relation with other areas in realm of cognitive science. Thirdly, I shall make an attempt to find out whether this theory contributes to the replacement of folk psychology. Lastly, I find that connectionist thus fails to account for the real nature of the mental states because of its not too clear attempt to reduce mental states to the machine states. The mechanistic theory of mind in all its hues faces the question as to how we can account for the qualitative content of our consciousness. It cannot ultimately tell us how the subjective experience is possible and how consciousness to be real feature of universe. (shrink)

Recent years have featured a leap in academic and public interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities and related corporate reporting. Two main themes in this literature are the exploration of management incentives to engage in and disclose this information, and of the use and value of this information to market participants. We extend the second theme by examining the interest that specific investor classes have in the use of CSR information. We rely on feminist intersectionality, which suggests that gender (...) intersects with other identities to yield different values, experiences, and opportunities that can lead to gender-based preferences for CSR information. Based upon a survey of 750 US-based retail investors, we find that female retail investors have a greater interest in the use of CSR information, relative to male retail investors. Women express greater anticipated future demand for this information than do men. Further, the magnitude of the increase from current use to anticipated future demand is greater for women than men. Age is a significant modifying factor in that the discrepancy between women of any age and older men is greater than that between women and younger men. Finally, women also exhibit greater demand for streamlining of the information flow, consistent with pressures induced by time poverty. It appears that current disclosure practices provide a less than optimal match with the needs of the information consumers that are primarily interested in using this information. This mismatch may result in a systematic disenfranchisement of female investing classes which suggests an ethical need to level the playing field. (shrink)

In mid-twentieth century, the hypothesis, ‘a machine can think’ became very popular after, Alan Turing’s article on ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’. This hypothesis, ‘a machine can think’ established the foundations of machine intelligence (MI), and claimed that machines have consciousness and creativity, with the power to compete with human beings. In the first section, I shall show how consciousness and creativity is conceptualized in the domain of MI. The main aim of MI is not only to construct difficult programs to (...) solve our day-to-day problems, but also to reproduce mentality in machines. It was claimed that all the mental qualities are ascribable to machines. My intention in this paper is to clarify consciousness and creativity from a subjective point of view. My claim is that consciousness and creativity cannot be fully represented in a mechanistic domain. There are subjective mental or conscious states, which can be seen in a first-person perspective of their proper understanding. (shrink)

This book presents in brief, yet systematic way the philosophy of the great Indian thinker. The author's purpose in this book is "to present in English to the Western world the life and the philosophy of Gandhi and to show the importance of his ideals of truth, love, and non-violence for the solution of the social and political problems of the present age".

A major contradiction of globalisation lies in the universalisation of the imperatives of international finance-capital. The ascendancy of international finance has kept inter-imperialist rivalry under check since the past few decades, and imperialist nation-states under its imperatives have displayed greater unity under the leadership of the US. But the dominance of speculative finance and the deflationary impact it generates, threatens to precipitate worldwide recession. The US is trying to pre-empt any potential competition in this milieu, by pursuing an aggressive and (...) unilateralist military policy of endless war. However, the capacity of the US to sustain such high levels of military expenditure and debt-induced consumer spending is circumscribed by the fragility of the dollar hegemony in the backdrop of the growing indebtedness of the US vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Re-appearance of recessionary conditions in the US would be set the stage for inter-imperialist contradictions as well as the contradiction between imperialism and the Third World to play themselves out and create possible ruptures in the present world order. (shrink)

Using the databases created under Education Watch, a civil society initiative to monitor primary and basic education in Bangladesh, this paper explores trends, socioeconomic differentials and cost in private supplementary tutoring among primary students and its impact on learning achievement. The rate of primary school students getting access to private supplementary tutoring is increasing at two percentage points per year and reached 31% in 2005. Incidence of private tutoring was greater among boys and urban students than respective counterparts. Educated parents (...) and well‐off families were more likely to arrange supplementary tutoring for their children. A wide variation in the cost for private tutoring prevailed. The tutees spent 46% of their total private expenditure for education on supplementary tutoring. Supplementary tutoring helped students learn more than those who had no such support. Private tutors for primary school students have become a well‐accepted norm. Finally, a number of social implications are discussed. (shrink)

Fat stigma is pervasive. Being fat is widely regarded a bad thing, and fat persons suffer numerous social and material disadvantages in virtue of their weight being regarded that way. Despite the seriousness of this problem, it has received relatively little attention from analytic philosophers. In this paper, I set out to explore whether there is a reasoned basis for stigmatizing fatness, and, if so, what forms of stigmatization could be justified. I consider two lines of reasoning that might be (...) advanced to defend fat stigma. The first is broadly consequentialist. It seeks to justify stigmatizing fatness based on the public health benefits that might be produced by doing so. The second argument takes stigmatizing fatness to be a warranted response to the morally blameworthy failure to slim down exhibited by fat persons. Clarifying and assessing each of these two lines of reasoning is the main task of this paper. I argue that, upon careful examination, both these attempts to justify the stigmatization of fatness fail. (shrink)

Virginia Held argues that terrorism can be justified in some instances. But unlike standard, consequentialist justifications, hers is deontological. This paper critically examines her argument. It explores how the values of fairness, responsibility, and desert can serve to justify acts of terrorism. In doing so, two interpretations of her account are considered: a responsibility-insensitive and a responsibility-sensitive interpretation. On the first, her argument collapses into a consequentialist justification. On the second, it relies on an implausible conception of responsibility. Either way, (...) her argument fails as a distinctly deontological defense of terrorism. (shrink)

Gillian Brock's "Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account" and Darrel Moellendorf's "Global Inequality Matters" present carefully crafted accounts of the obligations we have to non-compatriots and offer practical proposals for how we might get closer to meeting these obligations.

In the past few decades, there has been a growing literature on relational egalitarianism. Relational egalitarianism is a view on the nature and value of equality. In contrast to the dominant view in recent debates on equality—distributive egalitarianism, on which equality is about ensuring people have or fare the same in some respect—on the relational view, equality is a matter of the terms on which relationships are structured. But what exactly does it mean for people to relate as equals? And (...) why are relations of equality valuable? Relational egalitarians have offered quite different answers to each of these questions. In this article, I draw attention to some key issues that underlie these disagree- ments, and I offer a taxonomy of different viewpoints that have emerged in the recent literature on these matters. (shrink)

Cleaning the floor, stripping the bed, arranging a bouquet of flowers—such tasks are essential to keeping a hospital room clean and creating a pleasant atmosphere. They usually fall under the purview of female* nurses, cleaning staff and housekeepers. In everyday hospital life, the demands for hygienic cleanliness commingle with the imperatives of economization, marketing logic, and attention to the affective and emotional needs of the actors in these rooms. Although the standards of clinical hygiene are based on medical knowledge, the (...) division of labor and the demands for cleanliness at various hierarchical levels also reveal gendered and partly racialized ideas that point beyond the clinical context. This blending of imperatives in the hospital environment invites deeper consideration of the history of bacteriology: The logic and language of defense against infection in science and everyday life is also interwoven with social markers of difference.Drawing on the findings of an ethnography on cleanliness and cleaning work in hospitals, as well as a history of knowledge approach, the article links the question of (feminized) care for the environment with the question of the atmosphere of clinical rooms. In what ways, and to what effect, does scientific knowledge about medical hygiene also carry with it cultural and aesthetic perceptions of beautiful and pleasant cleanliness that reveal feminine connotations rooted in the nineteenth century? (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDen Boden putzen, das Bett abziehen, einen Blumenstrauß arrangieren – Bemühungen um Sauberkeit sowie eine angenehme Raumatmosphäre obliegen im Krankenhaus meist weiblichen* Pflegerinnen, Reinigungskräften und Hauswirtschafterinnen. Im Klinikalltag vermischen sich Anforderungen an hygienische Sauberkeit unter Prozessen der Ökonomisierung mit Logiken des Marketings sowie mit affektiv-emotionalen Bedürfnissen der Akteur_innen dieser Räume. Obwohl die Maßstäbe klinischer Hygiene auf medizinischem Wissen basieren, sind die Arbeitsteilung sowie Ansprüche an Sauberkeit auf verschiedenen Hierarchieebenen zugleich von vergeschlechtlichten und teils rassifizierten Vorstellungen durchdrungen, die über den klinischen (...) Kontext hinausweisen. Dies legt schon eine Beschäftigung mit der Geschichte der Bakteriologie nahe: Die Logik und Sprache der Infektionsabwehr ist in Wissenschaft und Alltag auch verwoben mit sozialen Differenzmarkierungen.Unter Rückgriff auf die Ergebnisse einer Ethnografie zu Sauberkeit und Reinigungsarbeiten im Krankenhaus, die wissensgeschichtlich fundiert werden, wird in dem Beitrag die Frage nach der (feminisierten) Sorge für die Umwelt mit der Frage nach der Atmosphäre klinischer Räume verknüpft. Auf welche Weise und mit welchen Effekten verschränken sich wissenschaftlich-medizinisches Hygienewissen mit einem alltäglichen, jedoch historisierbaren Wissen über schöne und angenehme Sauberkeit, das immer noch weiblich konnotiert ist? (shrink)