Dimapur, November 16 (MExN): The Department of Philosophy, ICFAI University Nagaland, celebrated World Philosophy Day at the IUN auditorium on November 15. The students gave talks on the broad category of aesthetics and the practical applicability of philosophy which has been an area the department has been focusing on in their current semester.
The Vice Chancellor, CP Alexander, spoke about the importance of not limiting our thoughts. He highlighted the boundaries that we had created and discussed the need to understand representation and internal private language. He stressed on the need to understand mathematics, binary numbers and logical algorithms. He encouraged the students to pursue philosophy and learn to apply it in practice.
In a programme that was led by Namdunlung Newmai, four students presented their papers. Purnima Kanojia presented on “Aesthetics of Celestial Objects” where she spoke about the beauty of celestial objects like the spiral arms of the milky way, aurora, the clouds, etc and highlighted the presence of beauty in the object.
Ayangla Sangru presented on “Aesthetics in Sports” and spoke on purposive sports and aesthetic sports and the influence aesthetics has in games like gymnastics and figure skating where it’s not only about execution but also about the aesthetics which becomes subjective.
A paper on “Inner Beauty” was presented by Temsuinla Imchen where the emphasis of beauty is on the intangibles like grace, integrity and the true soul of a person. Roviselhou presented a paper on “Development of the Ideal Male Body from the 19th century to the 21st century”. He highlighted the changing perception of what an ideal body has been considered through the ages and spoke of how culture defines our perception of beauty.
Earlier, Rovikotuo Yhoshü, HoD of the department spoke of how UNESCO started the celebration on November 21, 2002 and ever since has always been celebrated on the 3rd Saturday of every November. He spoke of the objectives of celebrating the Day which was to raise public awareness on the importance of philosophy, its critical use and to foster philosophical analysis in research and studies on contemporary issues.
