Dialog between Science and Philosophy: a new event

The event, sponsored by the Indian council of Philosophical Research, Delhi, is scheduled to be held as a Discussion meeting in the Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research, Bangalore from 25th Oct to 27th October.

The event is an outgrowth of the ongoing Dialog between Science and Philosophy started nearly a decade back in Nava Nalanda Mahavihara ‘Nalanda’ Bihar (for the past Nalanda Dialogs, please visit this link).

This Bangalore Event is actually a part of a current project motivated by the lessons of the Nalanda Dialogs — a project entitled “Dialog across Traditions – Modern science and traditional Indian insight about Reality”.
 

In this event the organisers will try to engage Indian philosophers of different schools in a Dialog with science, will try to get the philosophers response to questions pertaining to different areas of difficulties related to foundation of science issues. Sample questions are already being distributed among the philosophers after locating them mainly in places of traditional importance like Mithila, Varanasi and places in South India .

The process of locating scholars interested to respond to the issues are still going on.

For almost all details related to this Project as well as many events prior to the October Dialog, check this link. The organisers will really appreciate suggestions from readers about Areas of Indian Philosophy which can be better extended to meet the epistemological criteria of modern science (particularly Physical science, since the organisers come themselves from Physics).

Note by EF: When I received the announcement above from Debajyoti Gangopadhyay, I inquired about the use of the term “dialog”. What follows is his answer (only slightly edited):
“Yes, the use of the term “Dialog” is really intended to develop a two-way conceptual exchange that can be helpful for both the parties. We are aware of Daya Krishna’s attempt to develop Dialog. Some of our respondent Philosophers (like, e.g., Prabal Sen) took part in one of Daya Kishna’s Dialogs (in Sen’s case, long back, in Tirupati, possibly in 1982). That was of course an inspiring effort; but that was Modern Indian Philosophers asking their traditionally trained colleagues.

But our attempt to develop Dialog is different, as all of us (the three Project Investigators) are trained basically in Physics and the questions are mainly about different issues related with foundation of Physics. We need to be careful that the outcome of this Dialog may be of practical use for a Physicist also, in understanding, for example, what constitutes an explanation, or how our understanding of Reality based on Physics is conditioned by metaphysical presumptions.

From my part, I am always glad to hear from people interested in a common quest and I find the kind of questions Debajyoti used to exemplify his purposes very relevant and well put. I just wonder how to structure a common way of discussing —and look forward to hearing about successful attempts.