Thursday, November 17, 2011

Boatman and black swan

Madhu Bhaina has recounted one of his pet stories that we often heard at Sundargarh in the current issue of Navaprakash. The ordeal of a highly educated man incapable of swimming rescued by the unschooled boatman is the theme of the parable that privileges the practical knowledge over the pedantic. So far so good, but methodologically, drawing inferences from inadequate instances of observations might prove to be dubious.

Kush once wrote in the Sabda Newsletter quite daringly that the age of Thakur Ramakrishna and his stories are over and the challenge for the mind is to delve into the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. Learning the ropes in philosophy, admittedly, is a great help in wading one's way through minefields of fallacies. [TNM55]

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