Showing papers by "Amartya Sen published in 2001"
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, Amartya Sen explains how in a world of unprecedented increase in overall opulence millions of people living in the Third World are still unfree, even if they are not technically slaves, they are denied elementary freedoms and remain imprisoned in one way or another by economic poverty, social deprivation, political tyranny or cultural authoritarianism.
Abstract: In Development as Freedom Amartya Sen explains how in a world of unprecedented increase in overall opulence millions of people living in the Third World are still unfree. Even if they are not technically slaves, they are denied elementary freedoms and remain imprisoned in one way or another by economic poverty, social deprivation, political tyranny or cultural authoritarianism. The main purpose of development is to spread freedom and its 'thousand charms' to the unfree citizens. Freedom, Sen persuasively argues, is at once the ultimate goal of social and economic arrangements and the most efficient means of realizing general welfare. Social institutions like markets, political parties, legislatures, the judiciary, and the media contribute to development by enhancing individual freedom and are in turn sustained by social values. Values, institutions, development, and freedom are all closely interrelated, and Sen links them together in an elegant analytical framework. By asking 'What is the relation between our collective economic wealth and our individual ability to live as we would like?' and by incorporating individual freedom as a social commitment into his analysis Sen allows economics once again, as it did in the time of Adam Smith, to address the social basis of individual well-being and freedom.
959 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In development as freedom Amartya Sen explains how in a world of unprecedented increase in overall opulence millions of people living in the Third World are still unfree Even if they are not technically slaves, they are denied elementary freedoms and remain imprisoned in one way or another by economic poverty, social deprivation, political tyranny or cultural authoritarianism.
Abstract: In Development as Freedom Amartya Sen explains how in a world of unprecedented increase in overall opulence millions of people living in the Third World are still unfree Even if they are not technically slaves, they are denied elementary freedoms and remain imprisoned in one way or another by economic poverty, social deprivation, political tyranny or cultural authoritarianism The main purpose of development is to spread freedom and its 'thousand charms' to the unfree citizens Freedom, Sen persuasively argues, is at once the ultimate goal of social and economic arrangements and the most efficient means of realizing general welfare Social institutions like markets, political parties, legislatures, the judiciary, and the media contribute to development by enhancing individual freedom and are in turn sustained by social values Values, institutions, development, and freedom are all closely interrelated, and Sen links them together in an elegant analytical framework By asking 'What is the relation between our collective economic wealth and our individual ability to live as we would like?' and by incorporating individual freedom as a social commitment into his analysis Sen allows economics once again, as it did in the time of Adam Smith, to address the social basis of individual well-being and freedom
515 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In dealing with the new form of gender inequality, the injustice relating to natality, there is a need to go beyond the question of the agency of women and to look for a more critical assessment of received values.
Abstract: Gender inequality has many distinct and dissimilar faces. In overcoming some of its worst manifestations, especially in mortality rates, the cultivation of women's empowerment and agency, through such means as women's education and gainful employment, has proved very effective. But in dealing with the new form of gender inequality, the injustice relating to natality, there is a need to go beyond the question of the agency of women and to look for a more critical assessment of received values. When anti-female bias in behavior {such as sex-specitic abortion) reflects the hold of traditional masculinist values from which mothers themselves may not be immune, what is needed is not just freedom of action but also freedom of thought — the freedom to question and to scrutinize inherited beliefs and traditional priorities. Informed critical agency is important in combating inequality of every kind, and gender inequality is no exception.
210 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the possibility of having a late time accelerated expansion phase for the universe and used a dissipative fluid in Brans-Dicke (BD) theory for this purpose.
Abstract: We investigate the possibility of having a late time accelerated expansion phase for the universe. We use a dissipative fluid in Brans-Dicke (BD) theory for this purpose. The model does not involve any potential for the BD scalar field. We obtain the best fit values for the different parameters in our model by comparing our model predictions with SNIa data and also with the data from the ultracompact radio sources.
63 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the cosmological scenarios with a four-dimensional effective action which is connected with multidimensional, supergravity and string theories, and the solution for the scale factor is such that initially universe undergoes a decelerated expansion but in late times it enters into the accelerated expansion phase.
Abstract: We have investigated the cosmological scenarios with a four-dimensional effective action which is connected with multidimensional, supergravity and string theories. The solution for the scale factor is such that initially universe undergoes a decelerated expansion but in late times it enters into the accelerated expansion phase. In fact, it asymptotically becomes a de Sitter universe. The dilaton field in our model is a decreasing function of time and it becomes a constant in late time resulting the exit from the scalar–tensor theory to the standard Einstein's gravity. Also the dilaton field results in the existence of a positive cosmological constant in late times.
55 citations
Posted Content•
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TL;DR: Rabindranath Tagore, who died in 1941 at the age of eighty, is a towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal and anyone who becomes familiar with this large and flourishing tradition will be impressed by the power of Tagore's presence in Bangladesh and in India.
Abstract: Rabindranath Tagore, who died in 1941 at the age of eighty, is a towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal. Anyone who becomes familiar with this large and flourishing tradition will be impressed by the power of Tagore's presence in Bangladesh and in India. His poetry as well as his novels, short stories, and essays are very widely read, and the songs he composed reverberate around the eastern part of India and throughout Bangladesh.
35 citations
TL;DR: A lecture given by the author at the Academic Conference on Charitable Services and Social Forces in History, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on 8 December 1999, as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This paper is the text of a lecture given by the author at the Academic Conference on Charitable Services and Social Forces in History, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, on 8 December 1999.
34 citations
05 Jul 2001
30 citations
TL;DR: Sen as mentioned in this paper argued that women's interests are very badly served by high fertility rates imposed on them, and that women can be expected to correct the adversity if they have more power.
Abstract: This article reprints the topic Population and Gender Equity, by Amartya Sen, which appeared in the July 24, 2000 issue of The Nation. Perhaps the most immediate adversity caused by a high rate of population growth lies in
the loss of freedom that women suffer when they are shackled by persistent bearing and rearing of children. Global warming is a distant effect compared
with what population explosion does to the lives and well-being of mother. Indeed, the most important aspect of the population debate is the adverse impact of high fertility imposed on women in societies. Given the connection between
over-frequent childbirth and the predicament of women, there are reasons to expect that an increase of gender equity would tend to lower fertility rates.
Since women's interests are very badly served by high fertility rates imposed on them, they can be expected to correct the adversity if they have more power.
TL;DR: The central issue with which this essay is concerned is the relation between high fertility rates and the low decisional power—indeed subjugation—of women.
Abstract: The point of departure of this article is the recognition that the most immediate adversity caused by a high rate of population growth lies in the loss of freedom that women suffer when they are shackled to a life of persistent bearing and rearing of children. This connection is important in itself because of its relevance to the well-being and freedom of women (and derivatively of men as well). Furthermore since the interests of young women are so closely involved it would also be natural to expect that anything that increases the voice and power of young women in family decisions will tend to have the effect of sharply decreasing fertility rates (and through that reducing the environmental adversities associated with population explosion). This expected connection has received very substantial statistical confirmation in inter-country comparisons across the world as well as in inter-state and inter-district correspondences within India. (excerpt)
TL;DR: In an often-quoted remark, Henry Ford, the great captain of industry, said, "History is more or less bunk." As a general statement about history, this is perhaps not an assessment of compelling delicacy as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In an often-quoted remark, Henry Ford, the great captain of industry, said, "History is more or less bunk." As a general statement about history, this is perhaps not an assessment of compelling delicacy. And yet Henry Ford would have been right to think, if that is what he meant, that history could easily become "bunk" through motivated manipulation. This is especially so if the writing of history is manoeuvred to suit a slanted agenda in contemporary politics. There are organized attempts in our country, at this time, to do just that, with arbitrary augmentation of a narrowly sectarian view of India's past, along with undermining its magnificently multireligious and heterodox history. Among other distortions, there is also a systematic confounding here of mythology with history. An extraordinary example of this has been the interpretation of the Ramayana, not as a great epic, but as documentary history, which can be invoked to establish property rights over places and sites possessed and owned by others.1 The Ramayana, which Rabindranath Tagore had seen as a wonderful legend ("the story of the Ramayana" is to be interpreted, as Tagore put it, not as "a matter of historical fact" but "in the plane of ideas") and in fact as a marvellous parable of "reconciliation"2 is now made into a legally authentic account that gives some members of one community an alleged entitlement to particular sites and land, amounting to a license to tear down the religious places of other communities. Thomas de Quincey has an interesting essay called "Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." Rewriting of history for bellicose use can also, presumably, be a very fine art. I note the contemporary confounding of historical studies in India as the starting point of this lecture, even though I shall not be directly
TL;DR: Stig Kanger was a philosopher of extraordinary power and creativity as discussed by the authors, who made far-reaching contributions in logic, choice theory, in the theory of rights, and in many other fields.
Abstract: Stig Kanger was a philosopher of extraordinary power and creativity. In logic, in choice theory, in the theory of rights, and in many other fields, Kanger made far-reaching contributions which were profoundly important for the respective subjects. But he was not invariably a person of the greatest perseverance. He would often make an extremely innovative departure from the received tradition, but then move on to something else without staying on to finish the work he had started.
01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In this article it is shown that the dualistic philosophy of mind and the world implies an erroneous conception of the relationship between knowledge and social interests, and between individuality or freedom, and social control and authority.
Abstract: We have been concerned with the influences which have effected a division between work and leisure, knowing and doing, man and nature. These influences have resulted in splitting up the subject matter of education into separate studies. They have also found formulation in various philosophies which have opposed to each other body and mind, theoretical knowledge and practice, physical mechanism and ideal purpose. Upon the philosophical side, these various dualisms culminate in a sharp demarcation of individual minds from the world, and hence from one another. While the connection of this philosophical position with educational procedure is not so obvious as is that of the points considered in the last three chapters, there are certain educational considerations which correspond to it; such as the antithesis supposed to exist between subject matter (the counterpart of the world) and method (the counterpart of mind); such as the tendency to treat interest as something purely private, without intrinsic connection with the material studied. Aside from incidental educational bearings, it will be shown in this chapter that the dualistic philosophy of mind and the world implies an erroneous conception of the relationship between knowledge and social interests, and between individuality or freedom, and social control and authority. The identification of the mind with the individual self and of the latter with a private psychic consciousness is comparatively modern. In both the Greek and medieval periods, the rule was to regard the individual as a channel through which a universal and divine intelligence operated. The individual was in no true sense the knower; the knower was the "Reason" which operated through him. The individual interfered at his peril, and only to the detriment of the truth. In the degree in which the individual rather than reason "knew," conceit, error, and opinion were substituted for true knowledge. In Greek life, observation was acute and alert; and thinking was free almost to the point of irresponsible speculations. Accordingly the consequences of the theory were only such as were consequent upon the lack of an experimental method. Without such a method individuals could not engage in knowing, and be checked up by the results of the inquiries of others. Without such liability to test by others, the minds of men could not be intellectually responsible; results were to be accepted because of their aesthetic consistency, agreeable quality, or the prestige of their authors. In the barbarian period, individuals were in a still more humble attitude to truth; important knowledge was supposed to be divinely revealed, and nothing remained for the minds of individuals except to work it over after it had been received on authority. Aside from the more consciously philosophic aspects of these movements, it never occurs to any one to identify mind and the personal self wherever beliefs are transmitted by custom.
Posted Content•
[...]
TL;DR: Rabindranath Tagore, who died in 1941 at the age of eighty, is a towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal and anyone who becomes familiar with this large and flourishing tradition will be impressed by the power of Tagore's presence in Bangladesh and in India as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Rabindranath Tagore, who died in 1941 at the age of eighty, is a towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal. Anyone who becomes familiar with this large and flourishing tradition will be impressed by the power of Tagore's presence in Bangladesh and in India. His poetry as well as his novels, short stories, and essays are very widely read, and the songs he composed reverberate around the eastern part of India and throughout Bangladesh.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the cosmological scenarios with a four dimensional effective action which is connected with multidimensional, supergravity and string theories, and the solution for the scale factor is such that initially universe undergoes a decelerated expansion but in late times it enters into the accelerated expansion phase.
Abstract: We have investigated the cosmological scenarios with a four dimensional effective action which is connected with multidimensional, supergravity and string theories. The solution for the scale factor is such that initially universe undergoes a decelerated expansion but in late times it enters into the accelerated expansion phase. Infact, it asymptotically becomes a de-Sitter universe. The dilaton field in our model is a decreasing function of time and it becomes a constant in late time resulting the exit from the scalar tensor theory to the standard Einstein's gravity. Also the dilaton field results the existence of a positive cosmological constant in late times.