Values and Their Significance (An old and Rare Book)

About the Author Sm.Karabi Sen, working as reader in the department of philosophy, is a well-known philosopher engaged in the pursuit of scientific philosophy, social inquiries and the philosophy of value. She is the founder of scientific philosophy in India and is engaged in valuable research in criminology, education and womens liberation

Preface Questions concerning values and their significance have always proved to be a fascinating study to thinkers. No person can escape from entertaining some value. Nor is it possible for anybody to prevent situations in one's life when it becomes necessary to face and solve problems regarding the nature, origin and final significance of values. Consciousness about capacities and limitations of our own selves and of those of others, about our desires, deeds and interrelationships precipitate the occurrence of such situations in our lives. The growing knowledge of our environmental conditions, of past histories and future possibilities make man more sensitive to questions of the origin and destiny of values. It is' true that such questionings by the human mind are not a specialty of the modern era. They can be traced back to the early days of philosophy and are in a sense perennial. But the sudden advances made in almost all the branches of knowledge during the last two or three centuries have made man better equipped both to grasp them and to answer them.

The present treatise concerning values and their significance has been carried out in the following manner: Chapter I, which is also the Introduction to the work, is a discussion on the general nature of value and an attempt to understand precisely the relationship between values and the human mind. Chapters II & III are devoted to the search for those typical experiences which are responsible for the genesis of value. It is found that experiences of suffering in general and of death in 'particular are the main factors behind the origin of our values. While in Chapter II effort has been made to see how values emerge from our experiences of the sufferings of others. Chapter III studies the analyses made by prominent existentialist thinkers of the self's awareness of its own being and non-being and the intimate connection of our feelings of anxiety and responsibility with such ideas.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages