In this paper, I defend an account of the reasons for which we act, believe, and so on for any Ф such that there can be reasons for which we Ф. Such reasons are standardly called motivating reasons. I argue that three dominant views of motivating reasons (psychologism, factualism and disjunctivism) all fail to capture the ordinary concept of a motivating reason. I show this by drawing out three constraints on what motivating reasons must be, and demonstrating how each view (...) fails to satisfy at least one of these constraints. I then propose and defend my own account of motivating reasons, which I call the Guise of Normative Reasons Account. On the account I defend, motivating reasons are propositions. A proposition is the reason for which someone Ф‐s when (a) she represents that proposition as a normative reason to Ф, and (b) her representation explains, in the right way, her Ф‐ing. As I argue, the Guise of Normative Reasons Account satisfies all three constraints on what motivating reasons must be, and weathers several objections that might be leveled against propositionalist views. (shrink)

The sympathetic plot—featuring a goal-directed protagonist who confronts obstacles, overcomes them, and wins rewards—is ubiquitous. Here, I propose that it recurs because it entertains, engaging two sets of psychological mechanisms. First, it triggers mechanisms for learning about obstacles and how to overcome them. It builds interest by confronting a protagonist with a problem and induces satisfaction when the problem is solved. Second, it evokes sympathetic joy. It establishes the protagonist as an ideal cooperative partner pursuing a goal, appealing to mechanisms (...) for helping. When the protagonist succeeds, they receive rewards, and audiences feel sympathetic joy, an emotion normally triggered when beneficiaries triumph. The capacities underlying the sympathetic plot evolved for learning and cooperation before being co-opted for entertainment. (shrink)

In Aesthetic Theory, Adorno discusses the progressive spiritualization of art over the course of two centuries. By excluding natural beauty, art established itself as a realm of freedom created by the autonomous subject. Yet, similar to the process of rationalization that Adorno and Horkheimer describe in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, spiritualization also exposes the autonomy of art to the return of the repressed. In this paper, I establish a distinction in Adorno's work between spiritualization in its traditional sense, which designates (...) this cycle of repression and return, and spiritualization in its radical sense, as the process that turns art against its history of domination. Spiritualization in this latter sense is the basis for an encounter with the repressed that exhibits a non- dominating stance toward otherness. (shrink)

There is emerging evidence to demonstrate the efficacy of music based interventions for improving social functioning in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). While this evidence lends some support in favour of using song over spoken directives in facilitating engagement and receptive intervention in ASD, there has been little research that has investigated the efficacy of such stimuli on socio-communicative responsiveness measures. Here, we present preliminary results from a pilot study which tested whether sung instruction, as compared to spoken directives, (...) could elicit greater number of socio-communicative behaviours in young children with ASD. Using an adapted single-subject design, three children between the ages of 3 and 4 years, participated in a programme consisting of 18 sessions, of which 9 were delivered with spoken directives and 9 with sung. Sessions were counterbalanced and randomized for three play activities - block matching, picture matching and clay play. All sessions were video-recorded for post-hoc observational coding of three behavioural metrics which included performance, frequency of social gesture and eye contact. Analysis of the videos by two independent raters indicated increased socio-communicative responsiveness in terms of frequency of social gesture as well as eye contact during sung compared to spoken conditions across all participants. Our findings suggest that sung directives may play a useful role in engaging children with ASD and also serve as an effective interventional medium to enhance socio-communicative responsiveness. (shrink)

This paper develops a meta-theory of business based on virtue theory which links the concept of virtues, the common good, and the dynamic economy into a unifying and comprehensive theory of business. Traditional theories and models of business have outlived their usefulness as they are unable to adequately explain social reality. Virtue theory shows firms that pursue ethically-driven strategies can realise a greater profit potential than those firms who currently use profit-driven strategies. The theory expounds that the business of business (...) is ethical business and that the crises that business and society face today are crises of leadership and ethics. The issues of leadership and corporate social responsibility are discussed in the context of the proposed theory. (shrink)

Ethical guidance in research is underpinned by the need to show respect for study participants by upholding autonomy in participant decision-making, and confidentiality and protection of individual rights, privacy and interests, yet decision-making could also be influenced by the participant’s sociocultural and belief systems. This calls for a more Africanised approach to research ethics where these values and beliefs are upheld. While national and international ethics guidelines do exist, there is little evidence that such a paradigm shift in research ethics (...) is adequately interrogated in the teaching and learning curricula in higher education, where research skills are developed and nurtured. Critical reflection is used to highlight opportunities to stimulate learning and debates underpinned by humanised pedagogy in higher education. (shrink)

In recent years, the National Crime Records Bureau recommendation is that the growth rate of crime against women has skyrocketed in India, even higher than the population growth rate. According to lawyer, Kamlesh Vaswani, the commercial exploitation of coital activity paramount in pornography is the result of crimes against women, and fills perverse traits in the roots of society. Following that, he filed a petition (2013) in the Honourable Supreme Court to blanket ban pornography with the aim of diluting the (...) subordination of women and the crimes against women in society. Taking this into consideration, I argue that the Vaswani petition draws back the issue of twentieth century Western political and philosophical debate on pornography which triggers one of the moot problems of moral legislation—whether the state should be neutral or not towards individuals’ preferences, merits, desires, and the status to live well. This article focuses on whether this discourse has any relevance in the Indian value system. In this article, through the comparison between Indian and Western values, I make an attempt to analyse the moot problem of moral legislation which is bridging the gap between public and private morality for the well-being of women as well as our society. (shrink)

This book critically analyses the "mutual illuminations" between literature, religion, architecture, films, performative arts, paintings, woodworks, memes and masks cutting across time and space. In architecture for example, the eventual success of a project depends on the harmony between physical sciences and aesthetics, design and planning, knowledge of building material, the local climate, and awareness of cultural sensibilities. This volume affirms that aesthetics and arts are deeply linked through existential issues of who I am. The essays in this volume present (...) diverse discursive structures showcasing the in-between spaces between various art forms and mediums, such as, architecture, literature and memory, Kafka in SoHo; Kafka and Bernhard, Kirchner's woodcuts; pictorial and stage representations of E.T.A Hoffmann, Hesse's fairy tales; translations of Pañcatantra; Nietzsche, ritual arts and face masks; martyrdom in La chanson de Roland, Goethe and Hafiz, Indian thought in Martin Buber; Rhythms of the 'Third' across cultures; Dadaism and contemporary memes This book examines these sublime linkages in a comparative and interdisciplinary way. Engaging and intersectional, this volume will appeal to students and scholars of arts and aesthetics, literature, philosophy, architecture, sociology, translation studies and readers who are interested in cultural, intertextual, intermedial, and comparative studies. (shrink)

Conversations with The Universe: How the World Speaks to Us reveals how repetitions, coincidence and synchronicity are part of a personal conversation from the Universe, intended to provide ease and guidance. We are not alone, nor have we been creating life experiences on our own. There is a co-creative Universal Intelligence who is very much involved and continually seeking a dialogue. The problem is not so much the life challenges, but our own individual lack of communication with our co-creator.

An attempt has been made in this paper to trace Gandhi's principle of 'nonviolence' in the context of 'Enlightenment Rationality' on the one hand and 'Globalization' on the other. The ideas of freedom/independence, autonomy, sovereignty, property, maturity/adulthood, public and private, tolerance, scientific rationality, secularism, humanism, democracy, nation/ state, universality of moral actions, humanity as an end in itself, critique of religion, etc., are the most operative terms of European Enlightenment of the 19th century. Though these ideas evolved and developed in (...) Europe, yet they proliferated beyond Europe to other continents and subcontinents. Gandhi appreciated these ideas and like a genius, he interpreted them into indigenous concepts and principles such as truth, simplicity, faith, brahmacharya, purushartha, satyagraha, swaraj, karma, compassion, trusteeship, vegetarianism/fruitarianism and above all nonviolence with the aim of attaining swaraj - victory over one's passions, lusts, greed, etc., and independence and sovereignty of the country. I may point out, though I shall not be in a position to develop it here, that the basic concepts of the Enlightenment were questioned and repudiated by Marx, Engels and Lenin on the one hand and the critical theorists like Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse and Habermas on the other. In the era of globalization, the Enlightenment concepts have become almost obsolete. But Gandhi's principles are still valid. These are the only viable principles to resolve moral dilemmas that everybody faces, being constantly confronted by equally valid alternatives in globalization. Hence I'll propose a modest critique of the Enlightenment and the globalization from Gandhi's perspective of nonviolence. (shrink)

The aim of this article was to discuss the modeling and control method of quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle. In the process of modeling, mechanism modeling and experimental testing are combined, especially the motor and propeller are modeled in detail. Through the understanding of the body structure and flight principle of the quadrotor UAV, the Newton–Euler method is used to analyze the dynamics of the quadrotor UAV, and the mathematical model of the UAV is established under the small angle rotation. Process (...) identifier is used to control it. First, the attitude angle of the model is controlled by PID, and based on this, the speed in each direction is controlled by PID. Then, the PID control of the four rotor aircraft with the center of gravity offset is simulated by MATLAB. The results show that the pitch angle and roll angle can be controlled by 5 degrees together without center of gravity deviation, and the PID can effectively control the control quantity and achieve the desired effect in a short time. Classical BP algorithm, classical GA-BP algorithm, and improved GA-BP algorithm were trained, respectively, with a total of 150 sets of training data, training function uses Levenberg-Marquardt, and performance function uses mean squared error. In the background of the same noise, the improved GA-BP algorithm has the highest detection rate, classical GA-BP algorithm is the second, and classical BP algorithm is the worst. The simulation results show that the PID control law can effectively control the attitude angle and speed of the rotor UAV in the case of center of gravity deviation. (shrink)

Contribution of Hindu saints of medieval period to Hindu philosophy.

Contribution of Hindu saints of medieval period to Hindu philosophy.

Along with political, economic, ethical, rehabilitative and military dimensions, psychopathological sequelae of war and terrorism also deserve our attention. The terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre ( W.T.C.) in 2001 and the Gulf War of 1990-91 gave rise to a number of psychiatric disturbances in the population, both adult and children, mainly in the form of Post-traumatic Stress disorder (PTSD). Nearly 75,000 people suffered psychological problems in South Manhattan alone due to that one terrorist attack on the WTC in (...) New York and the Pentagon in Washington. In Gulf War I, more that 1,00,000 US veterans reported a number of health problems on returning from war, whose claims the concerned government has denied in more than 90% cases. Extensive and comprehensive neurological damage to the brain of Gulf War I veterans has been reported by one study, as has damage to the basal ganglia in another, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in a third, possibly due to genetic mutations induced by exposure to biological and chemical agents, fumes from burning oil wells, landfills, mustard or other nerve gases. The recent Gulf War will no doubt give rise its own crop of PTSD and related disorders. In a cost-benefit analysis of the post Gulf War II scenario, the psychopathological effects of war and terrorism should become part of the social audit any civilized society engages in. Enlightened public opinion must become aware of the wider ramifications of war and terrorism so that appropriate action plans can be worked out. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, the vernacular science periodical emerged as a key medium for building science-literate publics in colonial South Asia. This article argues that the Hindi science monthly Vigyan became a discursive laboratory for experiments with language, literary genres, narrative plots, and settings to create culturally grounded science lessons for Hindi readers in the mid-1910s. I focus on the writings of Prem Vallabh Joshi, a pandit, science graduate, and small town teacher, who experimented with distinct literary genres to (...) create a sensibility for science – an experimental temper – amongst Vigyan’s readers. Through his strategic use of scientific experiments in the “history of” a particular branch of knowledge, detective mysteries, and the genre of the fictionalized dialogue, Joshi inducted colonial readers into experimental culture and global scientific modernity. As a reflexive participant in the ongoing confrontation between “Western” science and Hindu śāstra in colonial society, Joshi staged a fictional encounter between the experimental demonstration of the iconic air-pump and the textual authority of śāstra. This article examines the encounter between sastric commitments and scientific sensibilities and their conjoined mobilization in Vigyan in the era of linguistic nationalism. In this colonial vernacular publishing culture, the serial possibilities of the periodical and the history of science itself became critical resources in the ontological confrontations between experimental science and traditional authority. (shrink)

This study examines on the basis of historical evidence the ethical perceptions of the Sikh community at the turn of the last century.

This book portrays the Supreme Reality in five facets, discusses the issues of Divine Ordinance and Grace, humanism and peace, suffering and death from Sikh perspective.

Despite the expansion of the regulatory state, we continue to witness widespread unethical practices across society. This paper addresses these challenges of ethical failure, misalignment, and dissonance by developing a conceptual framework that provides an explicit basis for understanding virtuousness and the common good directed toward the goal of eudaimonia or human flourishing. While much of the literature on virtuousness has focused on the organization, this paper uses a more comprehensive understanding that also incorporates the agent and the economy examined (...) through their relational order. The common good provides direction for guiding behavior of all the various stakeholders and the context for understanding virtuousness, while it is through virtuousness that the common good is effectively realized. Virtuousness and the common good are therefore in effect ‘two sides of the same coin.’ This paper develops a virtuousness–common good conceptual framework which explores the basis for harmonizing the goals of the individual, organization, and the economy. (shrink)

Critical interpretation of philosophies of Śaṅkarācārya and Gautama Buddha.

In this benchmark five-volume study, originally published between 1922 and 1955, Surendranath Dasgupta examines the principal schools of thought that define Indian philosophy. A unifying force greater than art, literature, religion, or science, Professor Dasgupta describes philosophy as the most important achievement of Indian thought, arguing that an understanding of its history is necessary to appreciate the significance and potentialities of India's complex culture. Volume V is the last volume of Professor Dasgupta's work. He had finished the manuscript at the (...) time of his death, late in 1952. His widow, Dr Surama Dasgupta, saw it through to publication, and prefaced the book with an account of her husband's life-work. The volume contains an examination of the literature of southern Saivism, Vira-Saivism, the philosophy of Srikantha, the Saiva philosophy in the Puranas, and Saiva philosophy in some important texts. (shrink)

Every academic endeavour rests ultimately on a particular assumption of human nature. Two views of human nature are compared and contrasted: (1) a utilitarian naturalistic humanism which holds essentially the view that human nature is materialistic, and (2) an Aristotelian-Thomistic natural law/virtue ethics humanism which holds the view that human nature is both materialistic and spiritualistic. This paper argues that the latter view better captures and explains the metaphysical realities of human nature. In addition, the role of virtues and its (...) applications in management practice are presented. Organisational policy mechanisms and managerial implications will depend on which view of human nature one adopts. The failure to integrate the virtues and natural law ethical principles into management practice threatens the stability and survival of the firm since they are required to correct the dysfunctional aspects and ethical deficits of the current business philosophy. (shrink)

This paper discusses the philosophical argument and the application of the Triple Font Theory for moral evaluation of human acts and attempts to integrate the conceptual components of major moral theories into a systematic internally consistent decision-making model that is theoretically driven. The paper incorporates concepts such as formal and material cooperation and the Principle of Double Effect into the theoretical framework. It also advances the thesis that virtue theory ought to be included in any adequate justification of morality and (...) the need to integrate or coordinate notions of virtue into various act-oriented or principles-based ethics. The TFT offers a comprehensive and practical approach to ethical decision-making and is a useful alternative embedded in traditional wisdom. This paper provides a more general framework of the TFT than traditionally presented. Practical judgment is shown to play a constitute role in providing a guide for right action and is the “glue” that integrates the various components of the TFT. (shrink)