This essay explores the history of the silty sediments that make up the littorals of the Bengal Delta to see how they emerged as an object of scientific inquiry and as part of a hydrosocial and political history. By using the conceptual framing of hydrosociality, the piece investigates the political and legal possibilities of amphibious landscapes to document the colonial legal engagement with and scientific puzzlement over these silty sediments and their postcolonial afterlives. As temporary landscapes, silts and sediments pose (...) a unique problem for historians, for they leave scanty archival traces. When they emerge in the state archive it is as sites of conflict, rather than sites of life. They also emerge as a problem for science to map and solve. This essay gathers some snippets of the fragmentary journey of shoals as they emerge and disappear in the scientific and legal archive. Focusing on three moments of interruption in the colonial and postcolonial encounters with the littorals of the Bengal Delta, it argues that the inability of scientific discourse to come up with a conceptual grammar was conducive to new legal articulations about these spaces. Unfortunately, the consequences of this are playing out in the contemporary moment as a humanitarian crisis. (shrink)

The classical theory of rational choice is built on several important internal consistency conditions. In recent years, the reasonableness of those internal consistency conditions has been questioned and criticized, and several responses to accommodate such criticisms have been proposed in the literature. This paper develops a general framework to accommodate the issues raised by the criticisms of classical rational choice theory, and examines the broad impact of these criticisms from both normative and positive points of view.

Mrs. Smith's eyes filled with tears as she said, “I feel like I've done something wrong. Are they punishing me because I've been refusing therapy and won't go to a nursing home?” She acknowledged that she hadn't always listened to her doctors but said that she knew better now and wanted to go home and see if she could make it work. Many staff members at our rehabilitation hospital had explained their safety concerns to her, and some had enlisted her (...) adult daughter, with whom she lived, to convince her too. The rehabilitation team had called on the ethics consultation service, of which I am a part, to help figure out whether Mrs. Smith had the capacity to make an informed refusal of discharge recommendations. (shrink)

Dignity of risk is a simple concept that is surprisingly hard to enact, honor, and prioritize in health care. The term was coined 50 years ago by Robert Perske in an article entitled "The Dignity of Risk and the Mentally Retarded". And as I have written in "Discharge Decisions and the Dignity of Risk", "the concept involves respect for persons, self-determination, and attempts to minimize paternalism or parentalism". Most simply, the dignity of risk embraces respecting or honoring an individual's choices (...) or decisions even in the face of potential harms.The central tension between safety/protection and autonomy/self-determination is at the core of the concept, but it also involves appraisals... (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 3, Page 37-48, May–June 2022.

This book presents a rethinking of the world legacy of Mahatma Gandhi in this era of unspeakable global violence. Through interdisciplinary research, key Gandhian concepts are revisited by tracing their genealogies in multiple histories of world contact and by foregrounding their relevance to contemporary struggles to regain the ‘humane’ in the midst of global conflict. The relevance of Gandhian notions of ahimsa and satyagraha is assessed in the context of contemporary events, when religious fundamentalisms of various kinds are competing with (...) the arrogance and unilateralism of imperial capital to reduce the world to a state of international lawlessness. Covering a wide and comprehensive range of topics such as Gandhi’s vegetarianism and medical practice, his successes and failures as a litigator in South Africa, his experiments with communal living and his concepts of non-violence and satyagraha. The book combines historical, philosophical, and textual readings of different aspects of the leader’s life and works. _Rethinking Gandhi in a New World Order_ will be of interest to students and academics interested in peace and conflict studies, South Asian history, world history, postcolonial studies, and studies on Gandhi. (shrink)

As I organize a pile of ethics consult chart notes in New York City in mid‐April 2020, I look at the ten cases that I have co‐consulted on recently. Nine of the patients were found to be Covid positive. The reasons for the consults are mostly familiar—surrogate decision‐making, informed refusal of treatment, goals of care, defining futility. But the context is unfamiliar and unsettling. Bioethicists are in pandemic mode, dusting off and revising triage plans. Patients and potential patients are fearful—of (...) the disease itself and of the amplification of health disparities and inequities. There is much to contemplate, but as I go through my cases, I worry about disability, about biases and racist stereotypes. In this pandemic, historically marginalized communities are at risk of further disenfranchisement. (shrink)

I am leading a debriefing session—the second part of a three-part model we have started for ethics consultations at our rehabilitation hospital. The debriefing is loosely organized. We begin with follow-up from a recent ethics consultation. For some team members, this is a time to learn how ethics was involved and how things got resolved. I then ask for their responses to the case: what went right, what went wrong.One team member remarks, "I was angry at Maria's daughter. She never (...) let anyone get a word in edgewise, including her mother." Another says, "I was emotionally exhausted. Her daughter was manipulative. She was good at splitting the team and playing us against each other." Respecting the patient's .. (shrink)

A defining characteristic of modern science is its ability to make immensely successful predictions of natural phenomena without invoking a putative god or a supernatural being. Here, we argue that this intellectual discipline would not acquire such an ability without the mathematical zero. We insist that zero and its basic operations were likely conceived in India based on a philosophy of nothing, and classify nothing into four categories—balance, absence, emptiness and nonexistence. We argue that zero is a tangible representation of (...) nonexistence and constitutes all nonzero numbers, which together represent existence. It appears that zero’s journey out of India somewhat separated its mathematical and philosophical aspects, with the former being more valued by some cultures and the latter by others. The European culture, in which modern science grew, largely ignores a philosophy of nothing due to a deep-rooted Greek philosophical base, although this science relies on the notion of nonexistence through zero. Consequently, zero is a mere number of convenience without its foundational philosophy in science, and techniques to circumvent zero are developed. We insist that, while such techniques contribute to the progress of science and mathematics within the current framework, a tendency to avoid zero and its philosophy leads to approximations and may hinder a deeper understanding. Finally, we argue that nonexistence may notionally constitute existence, and hence may be the fundamental. This implies that, if a supernatural being exists, it is not the fundamental. The independence of modern science from a supernatural being is consistent with this. (shrink)

As ethics consultants on a busy consult service in a large urban setting, we would approach this case by gathering more information and context. This involves clarifying the clinical facts, underst...

Unification of natural science and social science is a centuries-old, unmitigated debate. Natural science has a chronological advantage over social science because the latter took time to include many social phenomena in its fold. History of science witnessed quite a number of efforts by social scientists to fit this discipline in a rational if not mathematical framework. On the other hand a tendency among some physicists has been observed especially since the last century to recast a number of social phenomena (...) in the mould of events taking place in physical world and governed by well-known systems and equations of physics. It necessitated the introduction of social physics as a new inter-disciplinary subject. Obviously this attempt is aimed at explaining hitherto unsolved or highly debated issues of social science. Physicists are showing special interest on problems on economics, ranging from some topics of normative economics to the movement of prices of derivatives. Statistics has been widely used in these attempts and at least two sub-disciplines of the subject, namely, stochastic process and time series analysis deserve special mention. All these research activities gave birth to another inter-disciplinary subject named as econophysics. Interestingly, global financial crisis of 2007–08 has revived the need of determination of prices of derivatives in a more accurate manner. This article adumbrates a sketch of the theoretical synthesis between physics and economics and the role played by statistics in this process. (shrink)

In His Learned Book, Development Of Nyaya Philosophy And Its Social Context Professor Sibajiban Bhattacharyya Has Traced The History Of Nyaya Philosophy With Reference To Its Social Contexts. That This System Of Philosophy, Darsana, Is Not Unnecessarily Abstract But Has Taken Congizance Of Its Theoretical Ancestry As Well As Practical Circumstances Will Be Evident To The Perceptive Reader. As A Branch Of Knowledge, Vidya, Philosophy As Darsana Was Known In India For A Long Time. In Kautilya'S Arthasastra The Recognized (...) Branches Of Knowledge Are Four: (I) The Three Vedas (Trayi), (Ii) Trade And Commerce (Varta); (Iii) Law And Order (Dandaniti) And (Iv) Anvisiki, Which According To Kautilya Means Sankhya, Yoga And Lokayata. However, Later On Anvisiki Stood For Logic And Metaphysic. In The History Of Indian Philosophy The First Use Of The Term Darsana Has Been Attributed To Haribhadrasuri, The Jaina Philosopher And Author Of The Sad Darsana Samuccaya. Nearly 400 Years After Haribhadrasuri The Term Darsana In The Current Sense Was Used By Sankaracarya In His Commentary On The Brahmasutra. In This Comprehensive Book Professor Bhattacharyya Has Dealt With The Works Of Mostof The Famous Nyaya Thinkers Like Gautama, Vatsyayana, Jayanta Bhatta, Bhasarvajna, Udayana, Vardhamana And Various Other Writers Down The Centuries. This Scholarly Book From The Pen Of Bhattacharyya Is Highly Readable And Informative. It Is Hoped That The Book Will Be Profitably Used By Researchers, Scholars And The General Reading Public. (shrink)

Treatise on the concept of relation in Nyaya school in Hindu philosophy.

Contributed articles presented at a seminar held on Oct. 1992.

Basic work on Hindu logic and epistemology of the neo-Nyaya school in Hindu philosophy; portion of Tattvacintāmaṇi deals with perception.

Angelaki, Volume 16, Issue 4, Page 145-158, December 2011.

Angelaki, Volume 16, Issue 4, Page 1-4, December 2011.

Culture, livelihoods and political-economic status all influence people's perception of introduced and invasive species, shaping perspectives on what sort of management of them, if any, is warranted. Indigenous voices and values are under-represented in scholarly discourse about introduced and invasive species. This paper examines the relationship between the Xeni Gwet'in First Nation (one of six Tsilhqot'in communities) and wild or free-roaming horses in British Columbia, Canada. We outline how Xeni Gwet'in people value horses and experience management actions, contextualising the controversy (...) over wild horses amidst power imbalances in the expression of environmental values. We suggest that Indigenous voices are vital to include when evaluating impacts of controversial species and developing management strategies. (shrink)

The decimation of the Sundarbans has resulted from attempts to satisfy short-term demands by exhausting the chances of satisfying future demands. The forest cannot be preserved by a policy that under-valorizes the urgency of the short-term needs or by a policy that is imposed from above, but it may be by social forestry. Social forestry augments the supply of forest products from non-forest lands, and, most significantly, includes the users in developing appropriate forest policies.

Sibajiban Bhattacharyya, Indian philosopher; contributed articles.

Chapter I. Phenomenology and psychology -- chapter II. The phenomenological concept of consciousness-the concept of interntionality and its relevance for psychology -- chapter III. Behaviourism and phenomenology -- chapter IV. Phenomenology and Gestalt psychology -- chapter V. Sartre's constribution to phenomenological psychology -- chapter VI. Max Scheler on the nature of sympathy -- chapter VII. Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological psychology -- chapter VIII. A concluding assessment of phenomenological psychology.

Articles, most previously published in periodicals, 1955-1975.

Contributed research papers presented at International Conference on "Importance of Commentaries for Understanding Sanskrit Text", organized by Department of Sanskrit, University of Gour Banga, Malda on 5th-6th April 2017.

Study of Saṅkṣepaśārīraka of Sarvajñātman, condensed version of Śārīrakamīmāṃsābhāṣya of Śaṅkarācārya, work on Advaita Vedanta philosophy.