Pegasus’ Gun …..PEGASUS GUNS …I did notice the headlines of the newspaper and had an awe-inspiring mixed feeling of being sad and rejoice together. I was weighing down to learn that Pegasus, who was flying through heaven with his great big wings, landed down on the earth … All of a sudden, I was taken away from newspaper headlines to my M.Phil. Classes, where I used to spare handsome time over the ontological and epistemological status of the Pegasus and like terms. And lo!! Lots of tiny Pegasus were flying around me and were claiming their legitimacy in the domain of our linguistic real world. Pegasus, our imaginary Greek hero (?), unexpectedly becomes the real protagonist of the newspaper. Ah! I jumped to my jumbo toes!! I had a ride on Pegasus that flew me, to a place full of fancy dreams that even the theory of error was put into the trashcan. But the logical problem was constantly infringing me from behind. My friends!! Perhaps all of you know Pegasus is now in the midd...
Posts
Break a leg Recently I was taken aback by the news in the paper that a petition has been filed in the Bombay High Court against the makers of Ludo Supreme, alleging that the online game promotes gambling that deviates from the original board game, which is a "game of chance". The decision regarding this popular game relies on skill or luck may soon be decided by the Bombay High Court - at least in the case of gaming application Ludo Supreme. Will you please lend your mind to ponder over the issue a little bit! It has been a curious habit of me to know the story of success-people, interesting-people, famous-people, privileged-people and even adverse-people, unsuccessful-people too? I question even to myself why I was successful in a particular case and not at other times? At my tender age I used to think it is luck but now I realised it was my incompetency that drove me such a bad consequence. Somehow I was fascinated with my growing up in a poor family where...
Dethroning the Truth Any number of restaurants and cafes claim to serve the “World’s Best Coffee,” but we can all agree that this judgment about the ‘best coffee’ is completely subjective. Indian coffee House at College Street? Coffee House at Central Avenue? Barista ? Jadavpur university’s canteen-coffee? Mrs. Magpie—the most insta-friendlyCafe? StarBucks? Sienna Café with delicious coffee ? And our favourite Wise Owl ? Paris Café—with French elegance, or the neighborhood shop around the corner and last but not the least our own kitchen-coffee? It is all a matter of personal preference. The tiny cute and colourful café, the brewed flavoured coffee, the cosy space to bring book or laptop in a comfortable ambience is tempting enough to ditch office or college instantly for an instant coffee. A hit meeting place for intellectuals, artists and students. But it is hard to grasp the truth about the coffee, where consumer’s truth is concerned. T...
It is a pleasure on our part to introduce our publication of Bengali book entitled প্রবন্ধসংগ্রহ : জে . এল . অস্টিন ― ভাষান্তর ও সমীক্ষা by Prof. Sandhya Basu, Madhu Kapoor and Kakali Ghoshal. As clear from the title, it is a translation and a somewhat critical study of some of the papers of the great British linguist philosopher J. L. Austin. His linguistic-philosophy took a different approach from Wittgenstein and other Language Philosophers who were mainly interested in formal languages representing states of affairs and making assertions about the world; whereas, Austin’s concern was regarding the utterances having variety of uses in our daily usage. The examination of ordinary language enables us to shell out attention to the wealth of linguistic facts and to undertake the philosophical problems from a fresh and unbiased standpoint. Austin’s most celebrated contribution to the contemporary philosophy is his theory of ‘Speech act’, presented in “ H...
My cup of tea for you ! Friends !! Today, early morning, I am so happy to serve you a special hot cup of tea, which I have prepared from the blending of some unique ingredients. But I am harbouring a doubt also whether you will really enjoy its taste or not. The reason is: when I served this tea to my friends and sisters –some of them liked its taste and others did not. However, all of them have their different opinions and reasons. And I found that no two tea-tasters, if I call them so, had the same observation. Rather, none agree in their explanation too. I was surprised and was little disappointed also to realize that my wonder effort had gone in vain. I don’t think you ever…ever… have a sip of this kind of tea––absolutely my artistic creation. I was little upset too. So, first, I choose to offer you for your feed-back. You might argue that it is a virtual tea, so how can one provide one’s opinion regarding its taste. Don’t be bothered, friends!!! all tea-s...