Author: A K Raina
B N Patnaik/Monima Chadha
Publisher: Indian Institute of Advanced Study
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 223
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8185952736
Description
Presenting a panorama of thoughts and opinions on science, tradition and their inter-relationship, this volume contains contributions by a wide spectrum of scholars scientists, philosophers, theorists of language, social scientists and others.
The aim is to develop a bridge between the world out there (science) and the world in here (tradition) the former built up of perpetual hypotheses and latter of perpetual facts. But then the hypotheses do change as do the facts: creative science and creative tradition are both live entities. Both have their respective cosmogonies: in science major events occur in real-time, in tradition they usually occur in the beginning or at the end.
This closing millennium belongs to sciences, shaped in no mean measure by traditions. It is necessary to understand their interaction in order to comprehend the tales of the human enterprise. This volume is an attempt in that direction.
The volume opens with a section on contemporary issues in modern science: issues of truth, reality and objectivity. Clearly these issues interface with questions tradition also raises and attempts to resolve. So the next section looks at the Indian tradition from a modernist perspective to assess these answers in the light of developments in scientific thought.
The impact of all this knowledge in terms of social power, history and pedagogy, on society and its organization is assessed in the final section of the volume. It is earnestly hoped that this work will spur the debate further on these complex and fascinating philosophical problems.
THE AUTHORS:
A.K. RAINA is a professor of electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He is also a fellow of IETE and a member of IEEE and a national expert of AICTE.
B.N. PATNAIK is a professor of linguistics at the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur. He is a generative linguist and works in linguistic theory, philosophy of language and comparative linguistic traditions. His other interests include Oriya literature and folklore.
MONIMA CHADHA is on the faculty of School of Philosophy, Linguistics and Bio-ethics, Monash University. She was earlier with the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur where she taught philosophy. She is the author of Topics in Indian Philosophy, published by Monash Distance Education Center.