Volume 8, Number 4, 2016
Tirtha Prasad Mukhopadhyay Ph.D
Associate Professor, Digital Arte y Empresa, Universidad de Guanajuato, Campus Irapuato-Salamanca, Mexico.
Volume 8, Number 4, 2016 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v8n4.01
The focus for this issue has been human sciences – perhaps a term that indicates toward a total scientific orientation, that is an approach based on observation, experiment and hypothesis testing, as much as codifying the phenomenal properties of human life by means of predictive mathematical models. In short, the question is to understand the complex and biologically advanced nature of the human corpus, and the array of intricate functions and behaviors visible in the social sphere. To accomplish this task is also to ask for a mysterious version of material nature, no less fascinating than a mystical or religious myth of creation.
It would be erroneous to suggest that an initiative for human sciences has been the product of European enlightenment, and its post-modern variations. The skeptical temperament also writes the genesis of a universe. A good Indian example is Charvaka. In the West, Sextus Empiricus emphasized on the possibility of knowledge, and the importance of empirical understanding. All other systems of knowledge are fancy toys that promote idle speculative conundrums.
The question that we should posit logically is how we should define the scientific initiative for human arts and intuitions, and for culture. The answer is already on the way. The development of anthropology and cognitive sciences tends to re-invent the problems that were once relegated to philosophy, and psychology. But this is only a brand simple way of advocacy for the social sciences. The arts could benefit from a science based approach if its qualities were harnessed for our world, which is so full of unexpected quirks, and possibilities non sequitur. Technologies have rendered the older artistic and expressive formats obsolete.
But all the more interesting is the vision of the new knowledge that is beginning to emerge with science based approaches to some profound human questions. I find the disconnectedness and? focalization of paradigm very interesting. It is as if we only know about localized structures. The experimental proof of a certain activity or trend in human society gives us certitude about that particular aspect ?w?hich has been investigated, and no more?, ?and neither is there certainty that the conclusion may not be challenged, modified or abrogated and hence bringing about unpredictable connections in the concatenation. Perhaps the sciences promote a regard for the method, more than that of any inference. But the sciences offer the conviction that this is the best we could do to resolve the crises and torrents of life.
