Seminar on, Philosophy of Social Sciences

To celebrate the Annual Philosophy-Day on the 3^rd Thursday of November, a one day seminar on the theme, “Philosophy of Social Sciences” was held at UNESCO Madnanjeet Singh Institute of Kashmir Studies, University of Kashmir. The event was sponsored by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi.

The audience of the Seminar came from heterogeneous fields and comprised undergraduate and post graduate students, Research Scholars, faculty members, Heads of various University Departments, Directors of Research Institutes of the University and members of the civil society.

In his inaugural address Prof. G. M. Khawaja, Co-ordinator of the seminar deliberated upon the importance of celebrating the Day and highlighted the role of philosophy in the discourses of Social Sciences. He also emphasized upon the need for evolving indigenous perspective on a host of issues. The speaker lamented the current apathy of academia towards philosophy, the queen of sciences.

The first session was chaired by Prof.Mohammad Ashraf Wani, Dean Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kashmir. Three papers were presented in this session.

The first paper entitled, “Philosophy of Social Sciences; with Special reference to Economics”, was presented by a noted economist and Scholar Prof. Nisar Ali. Prof. Nisar spoke on the need for integrating philosophy and increasingly vulgarized modes of doing economics. He argued that philosophy has been important from ancient days for understanding economics and that many important questions of economics are philosophical in nature. He lamented the overemphasis on quantification at the cost of qualitative and value dimensions. He passionately argued for the need to reinstate philosophy in approaching increasingly elusive questions of political economy.

Prof. Gilkar in his article on “Philosophy of Accounting” brought out the implicit logic and rationality of accounting. He argued that Capitalist enterprises have well thought out structures for ensuring transparency and accountability. He highlighted the role of accounting for guarding public interests by way of auditing the huge public sector enterprises. He highlighted the importance of ethics in corporate governance.

Dr. Javid in his paper entitled, “Contestations in Contemporary Philosophy: An Overview of John Rawls and his Critiques” argued for the continued relevance of political philosophy and critically appraised Rawl’s contribution to the field. His tightly argued paper succeeded in highlighting flaws in fundamentally conservative or right wing position of Rawls’s elaborate system. The paper attempted to present a broad overview of the current state of affairs in political philosophy.

The post lunch session was chaired by Prof Nisar Ali. Two papers were presented in this Session.

Prof. Mohammad Ashraf Wani in his paper entitled “Psycho-Sociological Approach to History”, raised many issues that evoked a lot of debate and fruitful discussion. His key theses were that history is basically determined by heroes whom he identified with prophets, saints and revolutionaries – an elite class (in moral-intellectual-spiritual terms) who are no longer dictated by lower self (nafs) that otherwise holds majority of humanity captive; he called (Aam-loag) common folk. Building on Toynbee and Frankfurt-Annale schools he argued for the primacy of the subject for historical causation. These moves could be developed in evolving our grand indigenous perspective on social sciences.

The last paper entitled “Rethinking the Social and Mystical: Marxism, Perenialism and Mysticism” was presented by Dr. Maroof Shah. He argued for mystical counter-perspective on social sciences to be developed. Building on our intellectual heritage moulded by mysticism and attempted to create a space for dialogue between Mysticism and Marxism. He pointed out that mysticism makes some radical claims that, if taken seriously, question much of the received wisdom in modern disciplines of social sciences. Kashmir as a mystical culture that is founded on an epistemology that can be characterized as Intuitionist, stands for an intellectual heritage that transcends even the so called secularized disciplines of social sciences. The paper also generated some debate.

Vote of thanks was presented in his inimitable way by Prof. Gulshan Majeed who seized the opportunity to dilate on importance of philosophy and celebrating Philosophy-Day.

This was perhaps the first ever celebration of Philosophy-Day in a land once known as Sharda-Peeth; that produced all time giants, of the stature of Plato and Sankara, in the likes of Abhinavagupta.

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