Seminar on "Situating Commitment" by Nilanjan Bhowmick
This paper is about commitment to our expressed philosophical views. The road to commitment is not easy, of course, but when we finally get to set our views in order, we face the further problem of the contingency of our views. The reason comes from what sort of discipline philosophy is. According to Bernard Williams, we can never have an absolute conception of the world, but only a conception of our world’s setting. The history of philosophy is not vindicatory. Our views find no supporting echo in the past. Hence, philosophy is more of a humanistic discipline, more like history, trying to understand our context in the light of the past. Our views essentially become contingent. And this creates a problem: how can we be committed to our views as nothing grants them greater weight than just the context to which they belong? Williams says that our history will somehow provide us with enough material for commitment. I will argue that it is not so easy to describe philosophy as a humanistic discipline; contingency can be had in any case, whether history is there or not: hence the problem of commitment is not merely historical contingency, but logical contingency too. The role of history and the present will be have to factored out in the commitments that we have.
Bio Note:
Nilanjan Bhowmick is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of Delhi. His main areas of research include philosophy of language, Metaphilosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of science. He also takes interest in the nature of reasoning, especially in the nature of inference.
Date: April 16th, 2024
Time: 4:00 PM
Contemporary mass societies are based on a simple equation: the more complex social relations become, the more important are agents that translate and transmit social concerns to a wide public for consideration. These agents are the (mass) media with their formal or informal mandate to inform, mediate and control the various interests and power relations in modern societies. For more than a decade, mass media have been challenged by new forms of public communication, centrally organised by digital platforms, which control all the rules of the game. Citizens, organisations and even politicians are now able to cut out intermediaries and communicate directly with their stakeholders, aka followers.
Date: 28 March 2024
Mode: In-person
Venue: Academic Writing Lab, IIITD
"Controversies in Science: A Case Study from Quantum Optics " by Dr. Varun Bhatta
Dr. Varun S Bhatta is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at IISER Bhopal. Varun's research, at present, is situated in history and philosophy of science. His works on the philosophical analysis of wave-particle duality of light have been published in journals like Journal of General Philosophy of Science and Current Science. He is currently exploring a few philosophical questions about interference phenomena. His writings pertaining to philosophy have appeared in a few public media platforms like Scroll, The Wire and The Print. He is the co-moderator at Indian Philosophy Network.
Brief Description of Seminar:
Even though controversies are intrinsic to all disciplines, the way these disagreements emerge, sustain and end differ across disciplines. In this talk, I will present a controversy in Quantum Optics that has not been duly recognized. In the 1960s, the demonstration of interference effects using two laser-beams raised the question: can two photons interfere? Its plausibility contested Dirac's dictum, "Interference between two different photons never occurs". Disagreements about this conflict led to a controversy that is still ongoing. By tracing the evolution of the controversy, I identify the reasons for its perpetuation and, thereby, resolve the confusion. I will use this case study to comment briefly on the ways scientific controversies differ from those in the Humanities, especially Philosophy.
Details of the Seminar are as follows:
Date: February 23rd, 2024
Time: 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Venue: A-220, Meeting Room, Second Floor, R&D Building, IIITD
Decodingand Creating Context : Inclusive Institutions by Prakash and Reshma Tonse
This story workshop is organised as a part of the Digital Delhi Conclave V
Prakash is a fanatical advocate of using Behavioural Science and decoding Context to solve Business Problems. As co-founder of 1001 Stories, he uses Context ArchitectureTM to create better products, brands, and people. He occasionally conducts guest sessions at ISB and IIMs and is the President of Diversified Global, an organisation of more than 20 applied Behavioural Science consultancies from 6 continents.
Reshma Tonse is a Co-Founder at 1001 Stories. Her work is driven by Social Norms, Socio-Psychology, and a keen interest in Folklore, Culture Design and Behavioural Sciences. Before founding 1001 Stories, Reshma worked with Ogilvy and Lowe Lintas. Her work at 1001 has helped HDFC, ACKO, Scaler, Samsung, Mondelez, Swiggy among others to understand their consumers better while implementing interventions leading to an increase in customer engagement as well as revenue.
Date: 12th February 2024
Time: 3:00 p.m. local time
Seminar on “Translating Classical India Through Time and Space” by Srinivas Reddy, Brown University
Srinivas Reddy is a scholar, translator and musician. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a PhD in South and Southeast Asian Studies. His research interests incorporate translation studies, Vijayanagara history and classical Indian music theory and practice. His publications include Krishnadevaraya’s Telugu epic Amuktamalyada: The Giver of the Worn Garland (Penguin 2010) , Kalidasa’s play Malavikagnimitram: The Dancer and the King (Penguin 2015) , and Kalidasa's classic Meghadutam: The Cloud Message ( Penguin Random House India) and RAYA: Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara (Juggernaut 2020). Srinivas is also a concert sitarist and has given numerous recitals around the world. He now lives in Rhode Island and teaches at Brown University.
In this talk, Srinivas Reddy will discuss various challenges and potentialities related to the translation of classical Indian literature into contemporary English. Based on his forthcoming book, An Anthology of Classical Indian Literature, the talk will address topics such multilingualism, classicism, scholastic rigor, and poetic readability.
Date: 10th January 2024 [Wednesday]
Time: 12:00 noon
Mode: Hybrid (Online and Offline over Zoom)
Venue: A-220, Meeting Room, R&D Building, IIIT Delhi
Seminar on “The Commons: A Philosophical Inquiry” by Professor Akeel Bilgrami
In this lecture, invoking ideas in Locke, Nietzsche, Peirce, Foucault, Marx, and Wittgenstein, Akeel Bilgrami will speak of the commons in its earliest theorized form —land— and how exactly its undermining by the rise of capital was philosophically justified and what that justification reveals about the conceptual relations between culture, capital, and notions of trust and alienation.
Date: 11th December 2023 [Monday]
Time: 11:00 AM
Venue: A-219, AWL, R&D building, IIIT Delhi
AWL-SSH Symposium 2023 on "Democracy in the Times of Digital Transformation"
Computing and Contemplating Democracy : From Orality to Literacy and Beyond
Keynote speaker: Dr. Tabish Khair and Dr. Payel C Mukherjee (Moderator)
Date: 06th October, 2023
Workshop on 'Publishing Processes' by Anandadeep Roy
Anandadeep Roy is an Associate Commissioning Editor with Cambridge University Press. He works on the law, economics, and business and management titles from the Delhi office. He commissions academic monographs and coursebooks and publishes relevant and essential research in South Asia's expansive and mutable educational landscape. He especially looks for books that can significantly impact current debates and discussions.
Date: 09th October, 2023
Time: 11:30 am
Venue: IIIT-Delhi campus
Panel discussion on "Different Mirrors : Art and Aesthetics of Identity"
This panel discussion offers to explore the aesthetics of seemingly unsettling confrontations by poets and artists (past and present) between people who are victims of alienation for some or the other reason and those who represent the hegemonic, non-liberal thought and practices that cause alienation. The panel shall reflect upon on how some individuals have been able to shatter the enclosures of narrow spaces to create a space of identity that could change the landscape of existence unpredictably. It is interesting to see how these individuals could experience a deep feeling for the powerless which in turn have been appreciated by the alienated because they were not superficial. We find that there is a deeper engagement in their voice of being different that inspired many to forge ahead for their own identities. From a long list of such inspiring individuals, a few like Micheangelo’s painting that revolutionized art world and defied conventionalism, or the Vachana-poets rebel through poetry are cited here as exemplary because of their contribution to the cause of humanity.
Speakers: Dr. Meera Chakravorty (speaker), Dr. John Clammers (speaker), Dr. Shiv Viswanathan (discussant) and Dr. Payel C Mukherjee (Moderator)
Date: 06th October, 2023
Seminar on “Do we need Masters and Slaves? Hegel and the Idea of Recognition” by Dr. R. Krishnaswamy
Political theories are caught between finding abiding principles of socio-political norms of cooperation which can be either just or fair for everyone involved versus ensuring that obedience to those principles or rules is not part of the reason why they ought to cooperate. If people are generally cooperative then they don’t need principles that, through different mechanisms, are meant to bind them to those sets of behaviour. And on the other hand, if we are, by nature, not socio-political animals, no amount of coercion, short of violent means of submission, can make us conform to principles of fair cooperation. This is a dilemma for many theorists. I argue in my book that this whole problem can be side-stepped if we start with the right notion of recognition. We can help build the right rules of cooperation which acknowledges both the open-endedness of collective life as well as create norms for which there are easy motivating reasons for people to obey. In this talk, I will first give an overview of some of the main arguments of the book. Then I will take up Hegel’s Idea of Recognition, which is central to my story. I will first present a minimal reading of the Master-Slave idea followed by Kojeve’s ‘existentialist’ reading of that idea. Then I will follow it up with Brandom’s ‘cognitive’ reading of the Master-Slave argument. I will then present my own take on Hegel’s idea of recognition. At the end, I will draw out some implications of my view for the larger political problem of norms, justice and cooperation.
Date: 22nd September, 2023 (Friday)
Time: 11:00 am
Venue: IIIT-Delhi campus
Seminar on ‘The Challenges of Normative Political Theory in India’
The three-decade-long underdevelopment debate within Indian political theory (IPT) recognizes that a derivative discourse embedded in the dominant Western tradition compels us to either neglect or evade the conspicuous absence of non-Western perspectives in political theory. This talk will focus on different strands of this debate to expose the challenges and difficulties within IPT. Dr. Ali argues for a need to methodologically confront this challenge. As an initial possibility towards that direction, the possibility of a native (not nativist) Indian political theory is the focus of his talk. While drawing methodological stimuli from the underdevelopment debate and some parallel debates within contemporary Indian philosophy, Dr Ali argues for an epistemic openness vis-à-vis the West, while keeping the Indian context central to understand, analyse and even go beyond the dominant West, especially Habermas.
Speakers: Dr. Muzaffar Ali
Date: 25th Aug 2023
Summer Research Workshop, 2023
Date: 21st June 2023 (Wednesday), 28th June 2023 (Wednesday) and 5th July 2023 (Wednesday)
AWL is hosting a two-day summer Research Workshop on 21st June 2023 (Wednesday) and 28th June 2023 (Wednesday) from 12:00-13:30 (IST) at Academic Writing Lab, A007 (R&D building) IIIT-Delhi campus.
Day 1:
Topic: Approaches to Research Writing
Day 2:
Topic: Drafting your research paper
Day 3:
Presenting your research
Panel discussions on “Beyond Borders and Pathways of Difficult Narrations.”
Date: 19th May 2023.
Panel A: Narratives of conflict and discontent: Memories, experiences and the interplay of language.
Panelists : Urvashi Bhutalia and Dr. Arvinder A. Ansari
Moderator : Dr Payel C Mukherjee
Panel B: Narratives of violence: Representations and Reconstructions.
Panelists : Dr. Meera Chakravorty, Dr. Debdatta Chowdhury, Vijay Kachru, and Abhishek Goyal
Moderator : Ms. Rushali Saha
Book Discussion on "Ambedkar: The Formative Years"
Date: 20th April
Speaker: Prof. Aakash Singh Rathore
Research Lecture Series VI on "Research Ethics and Common Mistakes in Research Writing"
Speakers: Dr. Payel C Mukherjee, Dr. Sumitava Mukherjee
Date: 2nd-3rd May 2023
Speakers: Prof. David Parkinson, Prof. Ipshita Chanda, Dr Sharmita Lahiri
Date: 21st-23rd March
Public Keynote Lecture On: 'How to stay smart in a smart world'
This public keynote is collaboratively hosted and jointly organised by the Decision Lab, Dept of HSS, IIT Delhi and AWL Humanities initiative, IIIT-Delhi.
Professor Gigerenzer is a world renowned behavioral scientist and decision researcher. His award-winning popular books Calculated Risks, Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious, and Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions have been translated into 21 languages. His academic books include Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart, Rationality for Mortals, Simply Rational, and Bounded Rationality (with Reinhard Selten, a Nobel Laureate in economics). You can read more about the speaker here: https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/staff/gerd-gigerenzer.
Date: 10 February, 2023
Time: 18:30 hrs IST
Venue: Online
To attend, register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSn0Sv8ivs5m22g2PDFkT25huJLooGASGFbaFsiZrsYVkmVw/viewform?pli=1
Book Discussion on 'Aesthetic Perceptions of Urban Environments'
AWL-Humanities Initiative hosted a book discussion on 'Aesthetic Perceptions of Urban Environments' on October 13, 2022 at 10:30 am with Prof. Arundhati Virmani, Prof. Jean Boutier, Dr. Smriti Singh, Sarah Khan were speakers at IIIT-Delhi campus.
AWL is hosting the fourth edition of its research writing lecture series on September 26, 2022 where Dr. Payel C Mukherjee spoke about Scientific Misconduct and Ethic in Research and Publication.
AWL hosted a two day research workshop for students enrolled in Ph.D. courses in the Department of Electronics and Communication at IIIT-Delhi on August 8, 2022.
AWL hosted a research workshop for students enrolled in PhD courses in the Department of Electronics & Communications at IIIT-Delhi on June 2, 2022.
AWL hosted a two day research workshop for students enrolled in PhD courses in the Department of Social Science and Humanities in IIIT-Delhi on May 17, 2022 and May 19, 2022.
Research Writing Lecture Series III
AWL hosted the third edition of its research writing lecture series on May 23, 2022 where Dr Payel C Mukherjee spoke about writing techniques in research and how to write a research pitch. The recording of the event can be accessed here.
Disruption and Its Discontents: Ethics, Politics, and Epistemology of Disruptive Technology
A two-day symposium hosted by Academic Writing Lab (AWL) and Dept. Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), IIIT- Delhi
Date: August 19-20, 2022
The concept of agency in the era of artificial intelligence
Speakers - Dr Rahul De, Sai Dattatharani
Date - February 16, 2022
Two days lecture series on Research Writing
AWL hosted a two-day research writing series on January 27-28 2022, which provided a holistic introduction to research writing, its categories, approaches and specificies. To view the recording of the two day event, click here for Day 1 Recoring , Day 2 Recording and to view the presentations and other related materials, click here for Dr. Parkinson Presentation and Dr. Ipshita Presentation
