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)

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)

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)

Children's reading and spelling errors show that orthographic learning involves complex interactions with phonology, morphology, and meaning throughout development. Even young children seek to make their visual word recognition strategies linguistically coherent. Orthographic knowledge gained through spelling affects reading, and vice versa. Developmental data support Frost's claim that letter-coding flexibility reflects the optimization of encoding resources in a highly developed system.

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)

Application of sedation at the end of life has been fraught with ethical and clinical concerns, primarily focused on its potential to hasten death. However, in the face of clinical data that assuage most of these concerns, a new threat to this treatment of last resort has arisen. Concern now pivots on its effects on the personhood of the patient, underpinned by the manner in which personhood has been conceptualised. For many authors, it is consciousness that is seen to be (...) the seat of personhood, thus its loss is seen to rob a patient of their moral and ethical worth, leaving them in a state that cannot ethically be differentiated from death. Here I proffer a clinically based alternative to this view, the Ring Theory of Personhood, which dispels these concerns about sedation at the end of life. The Ring Theory envisages personhood as a coadunation of three domains of concern: the innate, the individual and the relational elements of personhood. The innate element of personhood is held to be present among all humans by virtue of their links with the Divine and or their human characteristics. The individual elements of personhood pivot on the presence of consciousness-dependent features such as self-awareness, self-determination and personality traits. The relational component of personhood envisages an individual as being ‘socially embedded’ replete with social and familial ties. It is these three equally important inter-related domains that define personhood. (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.

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.

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

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)

Here we use two filtered speech tasks to investigate children’s processing of slow (.

Small and medium-sized firms form 90% of the worldwide population of businesses. However, it has been argued that given their smaller scale of operations, resource access constraints and lower visibility, smaller firms are less likely to participate in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. This article examines the different economic motivations of firms with varying combinations of visibility, resource access and scale of operations. Arguments are presented to propose that in terms of visibility, resource access and operating scale, very small and (...) very large firms are equally motivated to participate in CSR. However, the motivational bases for CSR participation are likely to be different. Medium-sized firms are the least motivated. This suggests a U-shaped relationship between firm size and CSR participation. This study contributes towards resolution of the long-standing debate on the effects of firm size on CSR participation, and highlights the importance of considering configurations of firm characteristics in the study of CSR outcomes. In conclusion, cautions are raised against the broad categorization of firms, without adequate attention to the underlying dimensions of such categorizations. (shrink)

Festschrift honoring Daya Krishna, b. 1924, professor of philosophy; comprises contributed articles.

This volume critically explores the cultural significance and fate of 'the literary' in the European and Indian traditions as it traces the history of the reception of works that have a deep hold on the lives and sensibilities of people across time and culture. The book grapples with three major concepts in the humanities-the literary, the philosophical/theological, and the historical. It looks at Homer's reception by Plato; Virgil's reception by Christianity; the many responses that The Mahabharata has received over centuries (...) and across cultures in India; and the reception of Kumaravyasa's Kumaravyasabharata, among other works, and analyses the understanding of truth, time, and history that influence the reading of these works in different times and cultural contexts. Part of the Critical Humanities across Cultures series, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of philosophy, literature, history, comparative literature, cultural studies and post-colonial studies. (shrink)

In Āryadevapāda’s Skhalitapramathanayuktihetusiddhi we find a problematic passage in which some Cārvāka theories are expounded. The problem here lies in the fact that, according to Āryadevapāda, the Cārvākas—who did not admit rebirth—would have upheld that happiness in this life can be gained by worshipping gods and defeating demons. As the Cārvākas were materialists, the reference to gods and demons does not fit so much with their philosophical perspective. In this paper, by taking into account several passages from Pāli and Sanskrit (...) Buddhist sources, I have tried to demonstrate that Āryadevapāda is here probably following the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, where mention is made of some Lokāyatikas who are said to have been able to infatuate gods and demons. In both the Pāli Canon and the Mahāyāna sūtras, however, the term lokāyata does not refer to “materialism”. It rather conveys the meaning of “art of disputation”, and is generally used in the description of brāhmaṇas well versed in the Vedas, in the recitation of mantras and in dialectic methods in general. It is the Laṅkāvatārasūtra that introduces the idea—corroborated also by a passage from the Mahābhārata—that these brāhmaṇas, skilled in lokāyata, would have indulged in some materialistic tenet. When the two terms, Cārvāka and Lokāyata, came both to mean “materialism”, around the IV century CE, it is highly probable that non-Cārvāka thinkers and commentators—as could be the case of Āryadevapāda—had in some occasion assimilated and integrated certain points of view, originally belonging to the ancient lokāyata perspective (for instance, the references to gods and demons), into what they believed Cārvāka philosophy had to be. (shrink)

Witnessing suffering and death in palliative care can cause moral distress, emotional exhaustion and maladaptive coping strategies. How sense and meaning is made from these experiences influences how physicians think, feel and act as professionals (professional identity formation or PIF). It also determines how they cope with their roles, care for patients and interact with other professionals. Timely, personalised and appropriate support is key as shaping how these physicians develop and contend with sometimes competing beliefs and roles. The Ring Theory (...) of Personhood (RToP) and the Krishna-Pisupati Model (KPM) offer a means of mapping PIF and thus moulding, coping and meaning making. This study uses the RToP and KPM to explore how caring for end-of-life patients impacts the personhood of palliative care physicians. Semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 13 palliative care physicians—eleven females and two males aged between 35 and 50 years—at a cancer specialist centre were conducted. Transcripts of the audio-recorded interviews underwent content and thematic analysis where complementary themes and categories identified were combined to form domains that highlighted the physicians’ key experience of providing end-of-life care. The domains identified were (1) identity formation, (2) conflicts, (3) KPM elements and (4) support systems. Together, results revealed that palliative care physicians are driven by Innate, Individual, Relational and Societal belief systems that create an intertwined professional and personal identity, enabling them to find meaning in their experiences and adapt to present contexts within cultural norms and professional expectations. However, their failure to recognise their need for support when hampered by evolving personal, existential and clinical factors underlines the exigency for ongoing surveillance and a potential role for a RToP-based tool and portfolio system that can detect and direct timely, appropriate support to in-need physicians. (shrink)

Recognition that the Principle of Respect for Autonomy fails to work in family-centric societies such as Singapore has recently led to the promotion of relational autonomy as a suitable framework within which to place healthcare decision making. However, empirical data, relating to patient and family opinions and the practices of healthcare professionals in Confucian-inspired Singapore, demonstrate clear limitations on the ability of a relational autonomy framework to provide the anticipated compromise between prevailing family decision-making norms and adopted Western led atomistic (...) concepts of autonomy. Evidence suggests that despite a growing infusion of Western influence, there is still little to indicate any major shift to individual decision making, particularly in light of the way society and healthcare are structured. Similarly, the lack of employing a shared decision-making model and data that discredit the notion that the complex psychosocial and cultural factors that affect the decision making may be considered “content neutral” not only prevents the application of relational autonomy but questions the viability of the values behind the Principle of Respect for Autonomy. Taking into account local data and drawing upon a wider concept of personhood that extends beyond prevailing family-centric ideals along with the complex interests that are focused upon the preservation of the unique nature of personhood that arises from the Ring Theory of Personhood, we propose and “operationalize” the employing of an authoritative welfare-based approach, within the confines of best interest decision making, to better meet the current care needs within Singapore. (shrink)

The volume editors have organized the volume as a set of ten couplets and triplets.

On the reintegration of the biological sciences and humanities; second portion of a projected formulation of a comprehensive philosophy of freedom.

Familialism is a significant mindset within Singaporean culture. Its effects through the practice of familial determination and filial piety, which calls for a family centric approach to care determination over and above individual autonomy, affect many elements of local care provision. However, given the complex psychosocial, political and cultural elements involved, the applicability and viability of this model as well as that of a physician-led practice is increasingly open to conjecture. This article will investigate some of these concerns before proffering (...) a decision-making process based upon a multidisciplinary team approach. It will be shown that such a multidimensional and multiprofessional approach is more in keeping with the inclusive and patient-centred ethos of palliative care than prevailing practices. It will be shown that such an approach will also be better placed to deliver holistic, coherent and sensitive end-of-life care that palliative care espouses. (shrink)