thoughts-INFilo

My New Site

2006-09-18T06:20:00.000-12:00

Finally I've moved out of Blogger to a new site. To go to my New Blog and to get RSS feeds of it please mail me

My email: thesumesh[AT]y.c (Y=yahoo, C=com)

There won't be much activity in the blog you are watching now, so visit my new blog to see me. Thanks.

Some papers from Synthese (free till October 31,2006)

2006-09-15T01:11:00.000-12:00

Synthese is offering free access to some of its latest issues. As per one intimation from the publishers, "these issues are completely free to download and
print until 31 October".

1) Volume 151, Number 3, August 2006
New Perspectives on Reduction and Emergence in Physics,
Biology and Psychology is here

2)Volume 150, Number 3
The Logic of Time and Modality is here

3) Volume 149, Number 3
Metaphysics in Science is here
..

#This is for informational(non-commercial) purposes only.

phishing n pharming

2006-08-04T01:52:00.000-12:00

Karnatic Music, Malayalam literary works etc,.

2006-07-28T01:26:00.000-12:00

A fellow blogger is

here

. you can download some of his renditions from the site. A nice piece of Subhapanthuvarali Raga and a few poems and essays in Malayalam are here.

The BLOODY nonsense of the 'resilience' of Mumbaikars

2006-07-21T01:48:00.000-12:00

A fellow blogger says about the media stories of Mumbai blasts and the need for 'the struggle against forgetting', in this great blog.
Click here to read Venkity (filmmaker/theorist.

===Here he goes... "After all the gory images and the chaos that reigned everywhere was a sudden shift to praises about the 'resilience' of Mumbaites; their ability to get back to 'normalcy', with the trains back on rails with the usual crowds and congestion, and the commuters crowding them is as if nothing has ever happened. It seemed we were celebrating our ability to forget.

If one looks beyond 'resilience', one is outraged and shocked by the ability of a society to attain 'normalcy' so soon, which in other words, is only an indicator of our insensitiveness. It is inhuman to be normal so soon after such a tragedy."<>

.........
... "our society does not seem to have the time or patience for public mourning, to create social occasions of remembering the dead and raise human/e memorials for them – emotional as well as real. We only wait for another tragedy to occur to wake us up to yet another celebration of resilience."

The Best Higher Ed Joke

2006-07-14T01:42:00.000-12:00

At the very least, one of the best acad jokes.

An old presentation

2006-07-07T01:54:00.000-12:00

This blog is moving to a new site shortly. New philosophical topics will be posted on that site only.

One of my old presentation(ppt) is here. To view that click here Internal Representations

Tools of the trade (1): Types and Tokens

2006-06-30T02:02:00.000-12:00

Reductionism: One Word Too Many

2006-06-23T02:32:00.000-12:00

On the entirely different uses of the word "reductionism", in the hands of theorists of differing persuasions............................

Here Pops Out The Genie of The Concept of Gene

2006-06-16T15:57:00.000-12:00

The Concept of gene

A Great Indian Intellectual Balancing Act: Review of The Argumentative Indian (Amartya Sen 2005)

2006-06-09T03:43:00.000-12:00

(Prof. Sen's image is superimposed here on the cover of the book)
Click here to read this scholarly expression of everyday life thru' the eyes of a linguist while I post this blog.

A Great Intellectual Balancing Act: Review of
The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity by Amartya Sen432pp, Allen Lane, £25

(Draft)

This great book on Indian culture, history and tradition by the greatest living economist philosopher of the world will be enjoyable to the reading public in general and of immense help to the students of Indian culture and philosophy. Contrary to the western as well as the eastern popular characterizations of the ancient Indian tradition as one which is immersed in deep religiosity and 'profound spirituality', Prof. Sen reveals a view of India which has a remarkably consistent intellectual tradition and a relevant history of heterodoxy. By focusing on heterodoxy and loquaciousness Prof. Sen offers a fuller understanding of Indian traditions, which is a product of dynamic interaction of various factors. This general book on India illustrates the relevance of the argumentative, skeptical tradition of ancient India in the flowering of dynamism in Indian society and culture and of scientific, philosophical, mathematical, rational, and secular domains of knowledge.

If I know that you have drawing skills and time to spend on drawing a cartoon picture, then I would have requested you to draw a cartoon of Prof Amartya Sen's work in The Argumentative Indian as a balancing act. Prof Sen skillfully walks on a tightrope of the entwined threads of the past and present of Indian culture, with a long secular balancing bamboo pole in his hand. On the one side of the balancing pole has the vast Indian religious literature, religious and spiritual practices and on the other hand of the pole has the vigorous skeptical thought, science, mathematics and reasoning. And there are many flowers-‘Nagarjuna's penetrating philosophical arguments, Harsa's philanthropic leadership, Maitreyi's and Gargi's searching questions, Aryabhatta's astronomical findings, Kalidasa's dazzling poetry, Sudraka's subversive drama, Abul Fazal's astounding scholarship, Shah Jahan's aesthetic vision, Ramanujan's mathematics, Ravi Shankar's and Ali Akbar Khan's music etc’- attached to the balancing pole. An autumn in full bloom on the secular balance of Indian traditions! The rope on which Prof Sen does the act is tied to the pillars of development of science, mathematics and reasoning on the one end and the politics of tolerance and secularism on the other. A virtuoso performance of a funambulist of India before the reading public!

It is only very rarely that we get a scholarly work of this reach and range about Indian intellectual traditions. The book is not a short one, but one can enjoy till the last past page of this 432 page book, as it is full of anecdotes, discreet and insightful tit-bits from a wide variety of sources including autobiographical notes. So, if you take this on a Mumbai to Calicut train journey, you can finish it by the time you reach back in Mumbai while experiencing though only cursorily, the many facets of the diverse country with its "many distinct pursuits, vastly disparate convictions, widely divergent customs and a veritable feast of viewpoints".
One cannot ignore the multi-culturalism within Indian culture as one gropes out in Indian rural and urbanscapes, to mention, even in a city like Mumbai cultural heterodoxy is quite palpable. The "diversity" in music, costumes, festivals, architecture, and cuisine are striking and revealing the culture of India. For instance, there are cuisines-one of the important signpost of culture- of Gujarati, Malayali, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi, Mughali, and Kashmiri that satisfy the culinary adventure trips of people of all walks of life, in every city in India along with the new age food joints. Prof. Sen's work does not labour the obvious cultural traits or the popular stories of the 'bloody battles in India's past' or the orthodox characterization of added spirituality and religiosity. It deals with the aspects of questioning and skepticism that were the hallmark of ancient Indian culture but overlooked by many a commentator on Indian culture and philosophy. The Argumentative Indian programmatically focuses on the dialogic tradition of ancient India.

I call this enterprise programmatic because accepting that ancient Indian tradition was predominantly argumentative is just a beginning to see and then to interpret the vast literature of ancient India and to address the contemporary Indian concerns, in this light. Oftentimes much of the intellectual fruits of the ancient Indian thinkers have not been recognized, though they have influenced in important ways the pieces of knowledge we possess today. Prof. Sen's programme is to give the credit where it is due, in intellectual terms, for the Indian both ancient and contemporary alike, that s/he richly deserves, in a general sort of way. On the face of it, in each discipline, each subject, and each podium of Indian culture, this act has to be redone, in a specific sort of way.

Taking the argumentative tradition as a framework, say, for Indian philosophy, is particularly important in the present state of affairs and may yield many interesting results. Placing arguments where many put revelations will have much scope of integrating the vast and vibrant literature of ancient India with the contemporary science and philosophy. Placing heterodoxy, reasoning and choice where many put orthodoxy, destiny and determinism will have similar scope of revealing the basis of Indian democracy, culture and secularism.

A predominant way seeing ancient Indian culture and vast literature is to view it as high peaks of religious beliefs molded in deep spirituality and profound 'faith-based and unreasoning culture' as distinct from the "shallow rationalism" and 'scientific priorities of the West'. In this monolithic characterization of ancient Indian heritage, what are missed are the gems of the argumentative past of India: it's rational and scientific achievements. In the graph of this monolithic characterization, the products of ancients India are shown as having the highest value and the present world as having the least. The graph line glides down from top to bottom. Those who follow this model hold that there is a sharp decline in the intellectual achievement. Prof Sen is not the first person to deny this picture of India, many have argued against the above model. Some have even suggested an opposite model of intellectual growth, from bottom to top. They opine that there's a steady progress in intellectual achievements from ancient Indian to the contemporary India. Sen's writing does not support this model either. On the contrary, he carves out a niche for the argumentative past of India, in between these models, often cross-cutting both. He 'respects' (those who go against the popular reading of ancient Indian culture often face the bad notices that they do not respect it. see p5 fn.) and upholds the creditable achievements of the ancient as well as the contemporary India, so as to make them a significant part of global knowledge and culture. The best of India, with this focus, falls well within the "western spheres of success" of rationality and science. Against the contemporary reinterpretations-both Western critics and Indian cultural separatists- of India that play up the contrast between "Western rationality" and "Indian religious and spiritual DEEP rationality, Prof. Sen argues that these attempts miss 'crucial aspects of Indian culture'. It is however, important to note that in arguing thus Sen underlines 'the dialectical aspects of the relationship between India and the West'. In the sphere of global knowledge and culture India's contribution and tradition, like many other civilisations, has been important. In the contemporary socio-political scenario, it is a great lesson to understand that the cherished rational paradigms of the world are the conglomeration of the contributions of many different cultures.

The central theme of the book
At the outset of this remarkable work, which is divided into four sections, namely Voice and Heterodoxy (Part1), Culture and Communication (Part 2), Politics and Protest (Part 3), and Reason and Identity (Part 4), by one of the greatest philosopher of our time, Prof Sen outlines the main point of this collection of essays. The main theme can be stated in two sentences: India-"an immensely diverse country with many distinct pursuits, vastly disparate convictions, widely divergent customs and a veritable feast of viewpoints"- has a very long and consistent history of argumentative tradition. Focusing on this argumentative tradition in India has contemporary significance as far as the democratic character of the country is concerned. That is, on the positive side the recognition of the long argumentative tradition in India strengthens the democratic fabric and the public reasoning, on the negative side, it reminds us of the relative neglect of this tradition in ongoing cultural discussions.

A few problems and Issues at large
>>>(to be continued)

Review of Searle (2004)

2006-06-02T21:08:00.000-12:00

Review

This is not the title of this blog (2nd update)

2006-05-26T03:16:00.000-12:00

This is not a page in this blog also. And these comments are not meant as paradoxes!

This page will go, shortly, to my home page which is under construction. Till then, this page will serve as my home page. My research interest, papers, etc can be found here.

[This page is here for those few friends of mine, who are the readers of this blog now, whom I missed for a long time, as there was a gap in my studies and communication with them]

My Research: presentations, papers, and other pieces. Presentations:
1) Internal Representations- an approach to Artificial Intelligence Methodology
2) An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind
3) Rethinking Mental Representations- A study in Cognitive Science.
4) Concept of Knowledge and the Gettier Problem
5) Kant's theory of Mind in Contemporary terms.
6) Acquisition of Language and Acquiring Minds
7) On Intentionality
8) Re-presenting Intentionality: When Cognitive Science and Philosophy Meet Vakyapadiya
9) Derivations (in prep)

Papers (Manuscripts/Abstracts available on request)
1) Consciousness: Phenomenalityas the focus of enquiry
2) The Gettier Problem and It's Limited Scope
3) The Barriers-meaning and expereince- To RePresenting: an essay in AI
4) Derivations: An essay in Cognitve Science
5) The Only Concept of Consciousness
6) Phenomenology as a Science from Square One
7) Understanding the World in terms of the Study of Words- A study on Vakyapadiya
8) Sabdatattva: the Primacy of Representations (working paper)
9) The theory of Sphota and the data of Cognitive Science (working paper)
10) Representations are not 'Representaions', They are Derivations (working paper)
11) Inference in Indian Philosophy
12) The Broken Arm chair: A Critical Account of Philosophy as Conceptual Analysis

Reviews
1) When Postmodern Bug Bites a Mighty Philosopher- a reading of J. N. Mohanty's paper
2) The Work of a Philosophical Mind - review of The Mind doesn't work That Way- Jerry Fodor
3) Colouring Consciousness- a review of Consciousness, Colour and Content- Micheal Tye
4) Perceiving Philosophically- a review of Vision and Mind -Alva Noe and Evan Thompson
5) The Great Indian Intellectual Balancing Act- a review of The Argumentative Indian - Amartya Sen (draft)
6) Review Of Mind -A Brief Introduction. John. R Searle. (Draft)

My Take on Kripkensteinian Paradox (...Contd.)

2006-05-19T05:35:00.000-12:00

My Take on Kripkensteinian Paradox (preliminary)

2006-05-12T03:20:00.000-12:00

This blog entry is an extention of the points mentioned in the last blog the contents of which are not posted yet!
It may occur to you that my recent blog entries are taking the line of the memory and life of the White Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. The Character the White Queen lives backwards while her memory works forwards. Unlike Alice who remembers things only after they happen, the White Queen remembers things before they occur. Her memory of things that happened the week after next is the most vivid.

'I don't understand you,' said Alice. 'It's dreadfullyconfusing!'
'That's the effect of living backwards,' the Queen said kindly:'it always makes one a little giddy at first--'
'Living backwards!' Alice repeated in great astonishment. 'I never heard of such a thing!'
'--but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both ways.'
'I'm sure MINE only works one way,' Alice remarked. 'I can't remember things before they happen.'
'It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' the Queen remarked.
'What sort of things do YOU remember best?' Alice ventured to ask.
'Oh, things that happened the week after next,' the Queen replied in a careless tone. 'For instance, now,' she went on, sticking a large piece of plaster [band-aid] on her finger as she spoke, 'there's the King's Messenger. He's in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn't even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.' (thanx 2 Sorensen 4 bringing this into mind)

This possibility is not entirely quixotic. "It is all to do with perspective" says Stev hawking, " if we could stand outside the world, we could see the present affecting the past" (see Newscientist 22 April '06)

Now see my last blogs in the light of the light of the memory of the White Queen and the Newscientist!

[However, there are some other perspectives. That the noise of the Other , though peripherally, interfered my week-end-blogging is the reason why the blog-titles came without any significant contents. I'm working on some papers these days and this -became a rather demanding work due to time constraint- put all the other work on hold. I'll fill in the previous posts without much delay.]

From the last blog (! to be added) it is clear that I agree, in very general terms, with the project young Kripke undertook in his study on Wittgenstein.

"Philosopher Wittgenstein is Kripkenstein". Isn't it analytic?

2006-05-05T22:10:00.000-12:00

frORse, duCkRABbit, necker CUbE, etc. in the same raaga

2006-04-28T05:40:00.000-12:00

(To see a clearer image, click on it.)

Do you see any argument, from these examples in the same raaga to the conclusion, that truth is relative?

(Thanx 2 Mukundanunni 4 this thought. I'll b able 2 come back 2 these blogs nxt week only.)

Sign Languages are Languages; They are not LANGUAGES

2006-04-21T00:45:00.000-12:00

Sign Languages are not just Languages, they are LANGUAGES

2006-04-14T18:56:00.000-12:00

The title of this blog is the answer to a question. What is that question? I'm giving a clue only this time, but I'll return to this thought when I get two minutes to spare.

The clue: The following was the question asked, decades before, in the end-semester exam of a reputed philosophy Course. It goes without saying that the student became a well-known philosopher though he got FR grade only, in the test.

Q: Is this a question?
A: If this is an answer!

[Meanwhile, my dear reader, why don't you post something about sign languages in the comments section? I can put it in the main page. thanx.]

Before The Bird Flu Attack

2006-04-07T01:10:00.000-12:00

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?
[This blog is very much related the last two blogs. Courtesy: various internet sources; a few entries adapted slightly, a few new additions]

Grandpa: In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

School TEACHER: To get to the other side.

SOCRATES: Why do you think the chicken crossed the road?

Plato: For the greater good.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.
Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?
Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

Medha Patkar (NBA leader, India) : It will expose all that the government is doing in the name of development. The struggle has changed from 'Narmada Bachao' to 'Desh Bachao' to 'Dunia Bachao' because so many living beings across the world are facing displacement. With the joining of so many inhabitants of this world, the struggle has entered a new phase. The war is on but many other battles have come together.

Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.

A. B. Vajpayee (former Indian PM): That's a very interesting question. So...next question.

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

Isaac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.

Wolfgang Pauli: There already was a chicken on the other side of the road.

Karl Popper: To falsify the hypothesis that chickens could not cross roads.

Sir Edmund Hillary: Because it was there.

Michael Schumacher: It was an instinctive maneuver, the chicken obviously didn't see the road until he had already started to cross.

David Attenborough: And as we watch the lone chicken undertake this hazardous journey, we can only wonder at the awesome nature of this dangerous, yet necessary, migration.

Captain James T Kirk: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

Gaudapada: To show that you can't see the foot-prints of birds in the air.

Sanakaracharya: Logically, when the JIVA realizes thro' ultimate knowledge of the road and knowledge of it alone, karma being subsidiary, this essentail unity, liberation is attained here on the road and now-JIVAN-MUKTI. The final release and realization is obtained (VIDHEHA-MUKTI) after the death of the body.

Lao Tzu: If I told you, it would prove I don't know.

Moses: And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the Chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

John Lennon: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together - in peace.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.

Krishnamurti: To demonstrate that there is no duality of This side and That side unless you think.
Zen master: What is the sound of a chicken crossing the road

YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW THE ANSWERS.WELL, THAT WAS ZEN, THIS IS TAO:

Jane Austen: Because it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single chicken, being possessed of a good fortune and presented with a good road, must be desirous of crossing.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Radhakrishnan:To contact a mind of a very fine penetration and profound spirituality.

Epicurus: For fun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Tushar Gandhi: They crossed... because they identified with this battle and I think that is the spirit. By the way, the true Indian domain is dot-in, so flaunt it on your feathers.
I tell them I will register a dot-in domain for chickens, free. CHICKEN.IN

Johann von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

David Hume: Out of custom and habit.

Ronald Reagan: I forget.

John Sununu: The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.

The Sphinx: You tell me.

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Molly Yard: It was a hen!

Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.

Chaucer: So priketh hem nature in hir corages.

Wordsworth: To wander lonely as a cloud.

The Godfather: I didn't want its mother to see it like that.

Keats: Philosophy will clip a chicken's wings.

JOHN GRISHAM: To escape the Klansmen.

Blake: To see heaven in a wild fowl.

CHARLES DICKENS: It is a far, far better road that he crossed than he had ever crossed before...

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: But soft, what bird on yonder asphalt trots?

Othello: Jealousy.

Hamlet: To cross or not to cross, that is the question.

Oscar Wilde: Why, indeed? One's social engagements whilst in town ought never expose one to such barbarous inconvenience - although, perhaps, if one must cross a road, one may do far worse than to cross it as the chicken in question.

Kafka: Hardly the most urgent enquiry to make of a low-grade
insurance clerk who woke up that morning as a hen.

Swift: It is, of course, inevitable that such a loathsome, filth-ridden and degraded creature as Man should assume to question the actions of one in all respects his superior.

Macbeth: To have turned back were as tedious as to go o'er.
Whitehead: Clearly, having fallen victim to the fallacy of
misplaced concreteness.
Freud: An die andere Seite zu kommen. (Much laughter)
Hamlet: That is not the question.
Donne: It crosseth for thee.
Pope: It was mimicking my Lord Hervey.
Constable: To get a better view.
Philosophy Graduate:To analyse the scrambled-egg-ideas and unkempt-feather-concepts
Physics Post-Graduate: To prove if the road's arrow is fast enough, unscrambling of egg is possible.
Teenager: To EGG-cersize
Analytic philosopher : To SHOW fowl-language-use philosophy is the only way.
Johann von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.
Buddha: Therefore, on the road there is no chicken, no road, nor perception of the road, nor impulse to cross it, nor consciousness of the road, no feathers, no beak, no clawed feet, no chicken. No road no chicken no crossing... only the great prajnaparamita of the empty form of chicken and the empty form of the road, and that emptiness; gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond. "But, O Buddha," said Sariputta, "what is that crossing the road before us at this moment?" And the great One replied,"A chicken, Sariputta." "But why, O great One, does it cross the road?" "To get to the other side, Sariputta." Om.
Confucius: To advise the Duke of Chou on crossing roads with chickenly piety.
Charles Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.
Charles Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.
Richard Dawkins: Because of the selfishness of the road-crossing meme
Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.
Epicurus: For fun.

Pierre de Fermat: I just don't have room here to give the full explanation..Sigmund Freud: The fact that you thought that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.
Sigmund Freud The chicken was female and obviously interpreted the pole on which the cross walk sign was mounted as a phallic symbol of which she was envious.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.
George Bush: If we Americans work together, we can find the answer to this chicken thing.
George Bush: We don't care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either for us or against us. There is no middle ground.
Saddam Hussein: It is the Mother of all Chickens.
Richard M. Nixon: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.
George Orwell: Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests.
Joseph Stalin: I don't care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omelette.
Tarzan: Me chicken, you road.
C++ programmer: chicken->CrossRoad() was called from chicken->GetOtherSide()
Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered
within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and
each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial
intent can never be discerned, because structuralism
is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!
Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.
Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself,
the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road", and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.
Albert Camus: It doesn't matter; the chicken's actions have no meaning except to him.
Noam Chomsky: The chicken didn't exactly cross the road. As of 1994, something like 99.8% of all US chickens reaching maturity that year, had spent 82% of their lives in confinement. The living conditions in most chicken coops break every international law ever written, and some, particularly the ones for chickens bound for slaughter, border on inhumane. My point is, they had no chance to cross the road (unless you count the ride to the supermarket). Even if one or two have crossed roads for whatever reason, most never get a chance. Of course, this is not what we are told. Instead, we see chickens happily dancing around on Sesame Street and Foster Farms commercials where chickens are not only crossing roads, but driving trucks (incidentally, Foster Farms is owned by the same people who own the Foster Freeze chain, a subsidiary of the dairy industry). Anyway, ... (Chomsky continues for 32 pages. For the full text of his answer, contact Odonian Press)
Bill Clinton: That depends on how yuh define "road".
Bill Clinton: The chicken did NOT cross the road. Not a single time. Never. (It was a boulevard).
Hillary Clinton: It was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy against my husband.

COBOL: 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING.IF NO-MORE-VEHICLES THENPERFORM0010-CROSS-THE-ROADVARYING STEPS FROM 1 BY 1UNTILON-THE-OTHER-SIDEELSEGO TO 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING
Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents and balance your checkbook (though when it divides 3 by 2 it gets 1.4999999999).
Bill Gates: We own the road. We own the chicken. It's none of your damn business
HP Lovecraft: To escape the crawling horror lurking on this side of the road, a nameless and foetid monstrosity that cannot be conceived save in the dreams of madness.
Java If your road needs to be crossed by a Java chicken, the server will download a chicklet to the other side.
MAC No reasonable chicken owner would want a MAC chicken to cross the road, so
Microsoft (TM): The Microsoft (TM) chicken already owns both sides of the road and the space in the middle (check out "The Road Ahead", by Bill Gates).

Microsoft (TM): The Microsoft Chicken no longer worries about getting to the other side of the road. Its sole hell-bent mission is to somehow install MS Internet Explorer on your hard drive and choke the Netscape Chicken
there's no way to tell it to.

NT: The NT chicken will cross the road in June. No, August. September for sure.

OS/2: The OS2 chicken crossed the road in style years ago, but it was so quiet that nobody noticed.

VB: USHighways!TheRoad.cross (aChicken)

UNIX: Assuming the Unix Chicken has permission to cross the road:cd /usr/local/dev/chicken/bin/travel/ cr -o [road] -s [speed] -a [angle] -d [debug] -l [logfile] [destination side] -v [verbose]When the Unix Chicken's process is complete you may find out why it failed by looking in:/usr/local/dev/chicken/spool/crossings/errlog/ch10356723.x.out

WHO: To further spread Avian Flu to another unprepared country.

[Courtesy: various internet sources; a few entries adapted slightly, a few new additions
Suggestions, comments and additions (of Indian thinkers & co also, are welcome]

"The Secret Nostalgia of All Modern Philosophy"

2006-03-31T00:00:00.000-12:00

[NOTE in good taste (pun, also, intended!): This blog is written in haste and I feel some few of the points mentioned below have to be bolstered up with neuro-scientific evidences. I wish to propose a hypothesis from this blog. If someone enjoys phenomenological/postmodern writings, the parts of the brain that are involved in processing the information when s/he reads that material, include that part of the brain that processes metaphors.

If someone tries to argue against me that my point is an extension of the arguments of "the Phantoms in the Brain" and related paraphernalia, I won’t consider that she is arguing against me, since she can’t argue against me with that only argument, so I won’t argue against her claims. 'If so, my dear Jerry', I would say to her instead, in Fodorian style, 'so be it'.]

Books in and on analytic philosophy only very rarely, if at all, become popular. Even among those who buy it for this or that reason, only a few people care to read it. The market of books in analytic tradition has taken the skirt in, but the phenomenological tradition has steadily growing markets and lives on the fat of the land. Even those who do not own them, try to go through them. The reading public, at the very least, cares to skim through them. It is not a secret that serious philosophers, like Fodor, dream of getting the royalties of, say, Foucault. Fodor depicts a familiar sight at book stores thus: 'The place on the shelf where my [Fodor's] stuff would be if they had it (but they don't) is just to the left of Foucault, of which there is always yards and yards". Why this disparity. I have a different story to tell.

Phenomenological writing, let me say, is an art. Some people think they do not understand this art (to mention, Chomsky thinks he does not understand Derrida and Co.); others think the opposite (to point, academicians in Literature, Culture Studies etc, vouch for the greatness of postmodernism & the like). Some think it is complex because it contains phenomenological, modern, or postmodern elements; others opine that's why it is interesting. Phenomenological arts. Phenomenological art objects. These art works works exactly like an art object, without anyone's objection. Generally, one doesn't need to understand an art object fully, to appreciate it. More literally, one doesn't need to understand a single thing at all, to appreciate it. The different elements in the art object play, interact, or experiment with each other, in the mind of the spectator. The words in string have their own rhythm; it can generate an altogether different music in the mind of the reader. The complex array of words, creative use of language. The author knows-if s/he is NOT dead as when s/he is the author- how to create this sophisticated feeling in the mind of the imagined reader.

Besides, phenomenolgists project common-sense-understanding of ourselves in the artistic use of the language they employ. Even if one does not understand a single line in a passage one may like that passage, and rate it over straight forward scientific essays, simply because the language in which it is written has been used artistically. The author who knows how to use language artistically has some idea about how certain words, concepts, and images give a feeling of wonder and enjoyment. Great artists employ this artistic technique very effectively, as Picasso used Cubism.

Many feel the need of a certain kind of narrative, in order to make intelligible our existence in this planet and our experiences. Many also, feel in the prime area where science, religion, social science, common sense, parapsychology, different practices, cultures and so on play in the interest of differing human condition, phenomenology has, certainly, carved out a niche for itself. Whether true or false all these stories have an enduring appeal to the people who believe them. Phenomenology shares that appeal. It is a different question which is a fact and which is fiction. It is a different slide which, tells that science is the best narrative we've gotten so far.
Mainly due to the artistic phenomenological writing and the creative narratives it paints, it has been owned by the public as folk philosophy. The human condition and related enigmatic concerns make it popular; and every versions of it is popular.

Most of the reading public, generally speaking, are interested not in the complex scientific explanations of how we have experiences (despite of SciFi-s, SciPhi-s, and Pop Sciences). It may seem that cultural and social aspects of experience are more important and interesting to them. Most of us want to know more about this level of descriptions, and not surprisingly phenomenology has been part of the folklore since its inception. It continues to enjoy that cherished place in human psyche, as we relish certain narratives that tell us the phenomenological appearance of the world and affairs. Husserl himself once characterized phenomenology as "the secret nostalgia of all modern philosophy'. And it is.

{TO revise }

Ceteris Paribus

2006-03-24T04:48:00.000-12:00

All else being equal, that is all I want to say in this blog, the conclusion I would have liked to draw from the last blog apply, willy nilly, to all the avante garde phenomenological enquiries. Some people might be tempted to go for the philosophy-as -phenomenological-enquiry-alternative once the philosophy-as conceptual-analysis-alternative is unavailable. Temptation apart, that option is also not available to try out is the main point of this blog.

All the three points mentioned in the previous blog applies to the as-as -phenomenological-enquiry-alternative, also. Further, there are three more points, the broadened "intuition", the superficial nature of that enterprise and the unavoidable inconsistencies.

Phenomenology, it is said, is oriented towards "the things themselves", towards "what is given immediately in intuition (Anschauung)". Phenomenology, which is "an apriori science of the essences of all possible objects and experiences", doesn't philosophize essences, on the contrary, it "grasps them directly in immediate 'intuition'". Husserl takes the word "intuition" in a very broad sense (unlike Kant's methodical, insightful, and narrow use of the same TERM ANSCHAUUNG which is in resonance with the findings of cognitive science) beyond the purely sensuous as in "intuiting a conflict or a synthesis". To broaden the idea further, Husserl introduces a new notion of categorical intuition a genuine and non-sensuous form of intuiting, overlooked by philosophical traditions of all hues, it is said. For Heidegger Anschauung/Gegebenheit is the "magic word" of phenomenology.

Be that as it may, all that intuition can, at it best, yield is contingent claims only. So as mentioned in the last blog it is difficult to see how one can have "an apriori science" of phenomena or concepts.

Secondly, the superficial nature of the game, even if we grant that intuition results in contingent claims, as a philosophical enquiry this is just the beginning of that enquiry. The interesting part of the philosophical part of it deals with issues like how we come to have these claims? What is the nature of it? What is the relation between these claims and the related world? What are the distinguishable feature of it and how it is represented? The orientation towards "the things themselves", and "letting something show itself" is the beginning of revisionary metaphysics, if it is metaphysics, to use a Strawsonian term, and the first step in logical analysis, to avail of a Searlian critical remark.

Inconsistency in the approach in question is the third point. Phenomenological epistemologists are "engaged in a foundationalist enterprise" and are "trying to find conditions of knowledge and certainty....[or] intelligibility". These engagements grope after ontology, in one manner or the other. One can't have the cake of scientific realism and eat it too, in a phenomenological fashion. Either real world (whatever that means!) or phenomenological "revelation" of that.

An aside: See the differing notions of "intentionality" in use in varied phenomenologies. Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty all lead their people to "new [and different] land[s]", through their "concepts" of intentionality and the like. Read along the line that Husserl cherished "characterizing himself as a Moses leading his people to new land of what he came to call....transcendental subjectivity".

Commenting on Husserl's and Heidegger's notions of intentionality, Searl makes it clear that "these are more or less irrelevant to getting an adequate theory of the logical structure of the intentionality of the biological brains encased in biological bodies". J. N. Mohanty, admits this point when he says, "non-phenomenological philosophers and philosophies which are oriented after the natural sciences......may not solve the problem.. [Of objective body and objective mind] with a finality, but they at least know what to do with it. For here, they have the problem of correlating or identifying, or distinguishing between, two identifiable things, each with its own property or properties".

SO, if phenomenology, also, is not available as an option to DO philosophy, beyond the initial steps of characterization and description, is there a way to DO it? And all that I did say in this blog is this: Both philosophy-as-conceptual-analysis and philosophy-as-phenomenological-exercise are in the same boat, in so far as the result, the tool and the methodology adopted are concerned, all else being equal.
+=====================+=====================+

[Sailing is all that matters; the sailor, the experience of sailing and the results are immaterial! Any boat is good enough to this end. Thus spoke an upright Buddhist.]

### A paper titled "Phenomenology as a science from square one" (draft) available on request for comments.

The B-r-o-k-e-n Arm-chair (a critical discussion of philosophy-as-conceptual analysis)

2006-03-17T03:35:00.000-12:00

Undoubtedly, arm chairs have ergonomical advantage in a working enviornment where deep thoughts and dangerous reflections are the main engagements of the people. On the one hand, it is a good engineering solution to the problem the human body, especially the backbone, faces thanks to the bad engineering done (so far) by nature. The human body is not designed for resting on a chair for long spells, continuously. In the sitting posture , armrests support the arms and reduce the work load of shoulders and the upper arms. Further, the (upper) body weight does not put pressure on the backbone(discs) if it is shared by hands rested on the arms and by the (reclined, if available) backrest of the chair designed ergonomically. On the other, when the body is comfortably positioned in the arms of the chair, one may feel getting the freedom to enter the "battle-field of endless controversies". That is, arm-chair allows you to tread the reputed battle-field, with great ease, while your arms take rest on the armrests, as if in a dream where one ventures into the labyrinthine paths afar and around, as there's little constraints of the body unless one oversteps, say, the boundaries of the cot. That is, arm-chair gives a kind of buoyancy to thinking exercises.

(For all these and some other reasons, I, also, like to sit in arm-chairs and an arm-chair is one of my cherished possession. When people ask me if I own a house/flat, a car, a computer, etc., I say to them with pride, "I own an arm-chair".)

Though, arm-chair is not the "perfect chair"-and there may not be a perfect arm chair-, the issues it generated suggest that there may be a way to sit in a perfect posture, given the engineering of the body and anthropometrics. It's no accident that the arm-chair philosophy and the science of ergonomics developed at the same time, more or less! Some serious philosophers have maintained that philosophy is "the Queen/Mother of all the sciences", with the case at hand this claim is very well true: the arm-chair philosophy is the mother of the science of ergonomics!

(An aside: A case can be made for the extra ordinary relationship between arm-chairs and thought processes, for an evolutionary psychological view see Pinker, for a socio-biological view meet Wilson. But, it is advisable not to forget the catchy phrase of Gould, "Just So Stories")

However, in Philosophy, arm-chair is important for many historical reasons. By this, I don't mean to say that many serious philosophers have used the concepts CHAIR, or ARM-CHAIR to make certain philosophical advancements. My concern here is different. It symbolises a celebrated way of doing philosophy-philosophy as conceptual analysis. There's a claim put forward by some eminent theoreticians and seconded by many contemporary counterparts of them that philosophy is conceptual analysis, in toto. And it seems, analytic philosophy got its name from the practice of analysing the concepts that are of interest to analytic philosophers. The slogan was, 'Analyse it, if you can't do it logically or linguistically, do it metaphysically'.

Nonetheless, the claim that philosophy IS conceptual analysis is difficult to swallow even if you are enjoying the comfort of the arm-chair. Let me put this in a few words. If philosophy were conceptual analysis, and if philosophers were actively doing conceptual analysis for the last seventy or so years, there would have been the following three distinguishable observable features of this enterprise. 1) The result of analysis, 2) The instrument of analysis, 3) The methodology. Accordingly, we may ask, 1) what are the results of analysis done so far? 2) what's the tool employed in analysis to get necessary and sufficient conditions of a concept? 3) what characteristic methodology did the analysts follow?

The obvious point first, the positive result of analysing concepts is almost zero. No concept has been analysed satisfactorily, without remainder and no analyses that everyone could agreed upon has been suggested. The other result, in negative guise, is the moral that if you are not getting the desired general result, don't stick to conceptual analysis.

As for the second point, the tool that is employed in the activity and which is called upon to justify its result is intuition. But it is highly contestable whether intuition can yield anything other than contingent claims. Further, it is hard to make sense of intuition as a seperate faculty in the mind, satisfying the philosophers' need to reach at necessary and contingent conditions, given the cognitive architecture of the brain.

You tell about the third point, i.e., the methodology of conceptual analysis (one has to draw it from the literature). Is it sound? Do you see any plus points in following that?

If the first premise of my last argument holds and if you agree with me, i.e., if the second premise is false (~1.~2.~3), then the reaching the conclusion is like reaching the Cognitive Scienc e floor from the Philosophy floor by lift. Straight upward! The conclusion, however, is a conjunction. I hold on to the first horn of the conjunction, others may go for the second!

For the moral drawers:
1) Life may not be amenable to simple definitions and slogans.
2) Even if there's no analytic-synthetic distinction and there's no conceptual analysis, one can very well do analytic philosophy. (tell me how)

### An argumentative version of the same title, with different arguments, is available as a separate paper.(draft)

to post .......

2006-03-10T19:05:00.000-12:00

to post ....
meanwhile you may look at what Aman has commented on the last title. My idea is a bit different though.

When Does a Philosopher Die?

2006-03-03T16:15:00.000-12:00

I'm in my home town now, in Kerala. I'm xtremly bc this time. I'll be posting this blog after few days.
thanx.

The Death of Socrates by Louis David (1787)

2006-02-24T16:33:00.000-12:00

Click on the painting to see a larger version.
The forthcoming titles (March) includes;

1) When Does a Philosopher Die?
2) The Broken Armchair- a critical discussion of philosophy-as-conceptual analysis
3) Topics From Strawson.
4) On Friendship

Strawson, P. F. (23 Nov 1919- 13 Feb 2006)

2006-02-17T20:24:00.000-12:00

Sir Peter Strawson, the great twentieth century philosopher, is no more. The most influential British philosopher who put scientific metaphysics back in its place, after the unscrupulous criticisms against every form of it by logical positiivists and many a analytic philosopher, died on Monday (13 Feb 2006) at the age of 86.

I realise from the philosophical doctrines I uphold and appreciate that I owe most of those conceptions to Prof Strawson; either I got it directly from his delicate writings or via them. Though I never met him personally, it occurs to me that he is closer to me than the few other contemporary philosophers with whom I have personal contacts.

There are two important happenstances in my college life that prompted me to take the study of mind/brain seriously, and to commit myself to the study of philosophy (I never even imagined to be a philosopher; the golden dream of my entire school days was to be a scientist! In Pre-Degree days it got metamorphized into medical gowns! I'm contented with my present engagement as researcher in philosophy, though it was quite a shift from my earlier ways of looking at things, the new commitment encompasses all those earlier paths. After a shift and a gap in studies I'm coming back to philosophy again). My intellectual debts for being a researcher in Philosophy of Mind/Cognitive Science are due to two great people. The first person is my first TEACHER in my life Shri Radhakrishnan. M.(Calicut) who taught me psychology, philosophy, and a fascinating bit of all intellectual endeavours and who is now, my friend, philosopher, and GURU. The other is Prof. Peter Frederick Strawson whose books Individuals (1959), and Bounds of Sense (1966) I read with a sense of commingled interest and excitement, thanks to a suggestion made by Prof. Mukherji, Nirmalangshu (Delhi University) while he was teaching us Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

When I read Bounds of Sense -An Essay on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason for the first time, I was greatly relieved to see, a Kant different from many Kantians would have liked us believe and the one I wanted to see, in the "clear, uncluttered and unified interpretation .....of the system of thought which the Critique contains" as argued by Strawson. It was by the light of Strawson that I was able to see Kant in the guise of scientific metaphysics and related sound philosophical doctrines, to approach Critique critically and to reject some part of it decisively. It is not that I agree with everything Sir Strawson says in the text, far from it. Further, I think that Strawson did not try to reconstruct and thus missed some of the very important contributions of Kant. He focussed narrowly on the analytic arguments of the Critique . Even so he was well aware of this when he says " I have relegated some features of the work to a very subordinate place" for " some loss of balance and of clarity of line would certainly result if I made such an attempt". On the face of it, it stroke me apparent that the philosophy of mind part of the Critique is equally, if not more, important as the analytic part of it. The attempt to reconstruct the former part, Strawson agrees, "would be a profitable exercise in the philosophy of mind". I was hooked on to this line in the Bounds of Sense which, as I see in retrospect, put me on the tracks of Philosophy of mind. To do that exercise is one of my not-so-immediate-goal. In this regard, Prof Strawson's passing remark kindled interest in me to focus Kant from the angle of philosophy of mind and to set my long-term research goal.

Strawson's writings equipped me to see ahistorically the historical literature of philosophy and to recognise the important and common thread in all apparantly disparate philosophies -in Kant, Buddhism, Aristotle, Chomsky, Sankara, Averros, Frege, etc to name a few. That common thread is the most general -as opposed to special sciences- and the most fundamental -as opposed to the common sensical level- nature of philosophical enquiries. It is, in the main, concerned with the "conceptual structure which is presupposed in all empirical inquiries". A significant core of all masterly philosophical literature deals with this concern, either directly as a few of us do when they do descriptive/scientific metaphysics which is "content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world", or indirectly as most of us do when we do revisionary metaphysics which is " concerned to produce a better structure". That I was able, in some sense, to wade through the labyrinthine concerns of philosophy as found in the celebrated distinctions of analytic/continental, modern/post-modern, western/eastern, depictions, is also due to Prof. Strawson. Further, Strawson's philosophy enabled me to realise that rethinking the thought of the masters, in one's own contemporary terms, is the way to begin to do philosophy.

Strawson came to the philosophical scene in 1950 with a criticism of Russell's 'On Denoting'(1905), in his article 'On Referring' (Mind). By invoking distinctions such as a sentence and a statement, use and mention, or referring and meaning, Strawson argued that the nature of human natural (ordinary) language and formal logic are different. Formal logic is, he opined, "..not ...the unique and sufficient key to the functioning of language and thought in general". Accordingly, the grammatical and semantic complexities of the ordinary language can not be explained away by showing the logical structure of the sentences or by patterns of symbolic logic. This thesis is again discussed and developed in Introduction to Logical Theory (1952)
One idea that is at the heart of Strawsonian philosophy and pops up, in one form or other, in works like Individuals (1959), Bounds of Sense (1966), Freedom and Resentment (1974), Scepticism and Naturalism (1985), Analysis and Metaphysics (1992), Entity and Identity (1997), Philosophy of PF Strawson (1998) and in his celebrated criticisms of his contemporaries like Quine and Austin, in my opinion, is that philosophy attempts to "lay bare the most general features of ...[human] cognitive structure" which "in their most fundamental character, [do not change] "and " do not readily display itself on the surface of language, but lies submerged"

Strawson's language is simple, straight forward, argumentative, elegant, rigourous, precise and intellectually fertile, like most of the major proponents of analytic philosophy. While being overly serious and lacking playfulness and humour, it reveals his mastery of language and literature, and the tools of philosophy. He never was a popular philosopher of the public; he is a philosopher of philosophers- a philosopher of the classical sort. Strawson was the last emperor among philosopher kings when Oxford was "the world capital of philosophy".

Strawson is with us no more, the reports say-Sir Peter Frederick Strawson, philosopher, born November 23 1919; died February 13 2006. But for philosophers, Sir Strawson will be there, continuly engaging and constantly inspiring each one of them. He will not be there, in person, to answer your questions or clarify your doubts, yet his philosophy will be there to show you, if you are willing to see, the most central and enduring body of philosophical knowledge. And at a juncture like this, our duty as students of philosophy, is not to mourn at the personal lose many of us deeply feel at the sad demise of this light bearer, nor to eulogize his philosophical conceptions and contributions, but to engage his thoughts critically, to rethink his thoughts, to fill in the details he missed or overlooked, and thus to put philosophical knowledge forward and to keep the philosophicl intellect alive.

Forthcoming blog (next Friday/Sat) : When does a philosopher die?

This is not the title of this blog

2006-02-10T20:10:00.000-12:00

This is not a page in this blog also. And these comments are not meant as paradoxes!

This page will go, shortly, to my home page which is under construction. Till then, this page will serve as my home page. My research interest, papers, etc can be found here.

[This page is here for those few friends of mine, who are the readers of this blog now, whom I missed for a long time, as there was a gap in my studies and communication with them. My guess is that, I'm not a sophisticated narscicist blogger! What say You?]

My Research: presentations, papers, and other pieces.

Presentations:

1) Internal Representations- an approach to Artificial Intelligence Methodology
2) An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind
3) Rethinking Mental Representations- A study in Cognitive Science.
4) Concept of Knowledge and the Gettier Problem
5) Kant's theory of Mind in Contemporary terms. (Draft)
6) Acquisition of Language and Acquiring Minds (in prep)

Papers (Manuscripts/Abstracts available on request)

1) Consciousness: Phenomenality as the focus of enquiry
2) Inference in Indian Philosophy <(Working Paper)
3) The Barriers-meaning and expereince- To RePresenting: an essay in AI 4) Derivations: An essay in Cognitve Science <(Draft)
5) The Only Concept of Consciousness <(Working Paper)
6) The Gettier Problem and It's Limited Scope
7) The Broken Arm Chair <(Working Paper)

Reviews

1) When Postmodern Bug Bites a Mighty Philosopher- a reading of J. N. Mohanty's paper
2) The Work of a Philosophical Mind - review of The Mind doesn't work That Way- Jerry Fodor <(Draft)
3) Colouring Consciousness- a review of Consciousness, Colour and Content- Micheal Tye <(Draft)
4) Perceiving Philosophically- a review of Vision and Mind -Alva Noe and Evan Thompson <(Draft)

Philosophy of mind

2006-02-03T19:42:00.000-12:00

Philosophy of mind/Cog Sci is a fascinating subject that offers the charm of every intellectual enterprise. Its delicacy originates not from the point that it deals with mysterious problems that it, temptingly, overstep the boundaries of the sensible questions, but rather from the fact that the very problems it deals with are so obvious and common sensical to us. Every single problem it take with interest is part of folklore, almost every where..... (to be contd).

Staal visiting India shortly

2006-01-27T17:21:00.000-12:00

Professor Staal is visiting India in March 2006.He comes as a Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore. On March 6 he will give an inaugural address on "Dharma and Cakra in Buddhism and the Vedas" at a conference on "Dharma and Abhidharma" at Somaya Inst. in Mumbai. His April schedule includes a visit to Delhi and the Kumaon Hills together with Professors Romila Thapar and Michael Meister and two Vedic rituals in Kerala together with Professor T.P. Mahadevan.

New Days, New Year

2006-01-20T19:57:00.000-12:00

New Year Greetings

"Days to come stand in front of us
like a row of lighted candles
golden, warm and vivid candles....."
---------Cavafy

A Few Titles

2006-01-13T13:50:00.000-12:00

The following are the tentative titles, not in any order, of my once-in-a-week-engagement.
1) philosophy of mind
2) Public and Private uses of reason
3) What is 'analytic' in analytic philosophy?
4) To GRADE perchance to KILL......
5) There's nothin called Indian Philosophy as they painted it....
6) Why there's no mind-body problem in Kant?
7) When postmodern bug bites a mighty philosopher...
8) My take on the Gettier problem.
9) Education: state of the art and art of the state
10) IIT does not stand for Institute of Indian Technology! -a reminder for philosophers.
11) Concept of mind in ancient Indian treatises
12) Selections (quarterly)----selected articles, homepages and websites on mind and philosophy from the net.
13) This concept, That age
14) To think or not to think
15) Friendship is a ship.........?
16) Questions only trained -in philosophical nonsense- philosophers entertain
17) kaeleidoscope-philosophical humour, cartoons, poems, movies, and other deSIGNs!
18) 4 ya kids- T-shirt captions, deSIGNs, Chess, Logical Games, AI news, and what you say.
19) The mirAGE of enlightenment

On the way...

2006-01-06T01:32:00.000-12:00

thoughts INFilo is on the way. The contents, in the main, will be INFormal discussions on topics of phILOsophical interest.
Some sample contents will be posted on the coming Friday.