M.Ph Students Successfully Defend Thesis

NASHIK, MARCH 8, 2008: The Second year students of the M.Ph. course successfully defended their Master thesis in grand style. In keeping with the requirements of the M.Ph. degree course the students presented their dissertations which demonstrated their competence in scientific research in philosophy by way of an objective presentation of a selected topic and a critical personal evaluation.

        Cl. Leon Cruz Ratinam successfully defended his study on the topic entitled “Experiential And Explanatory Conjugates - Bernard Lonergan's Contribution to the Primary and Secondary Qualities”, on January 12, 2008. He explained that the concept of experiential and explanatory conjugates is very relevant today, in a world where simple facts of life are not explained properly, thereby leading to a sort of relativism. He further went on to show that the experiential conjugate referred to personal relations between different persons and things while explanatory conjugates dealt with a scientific relationship among the two objects within the relation.

       Cl. Suman Goli Showry defended his thesis on February 23, 2008 on the “Religious Pluralism in the writings of Bernard Lonergan”. Here he mentioned that Lonergan, believed in a Universalist point of view of religion. By ‘Universalism’ Lonergan did not intend to say that all religions are same. In Lonergan’s terminology it means that the ‘essence of religion’ is same for all religions while preserving, at the same time, the different manner of expressing faiths. The student further contested that this basic contention of Lonergan led him to identify certain essential elements of religion in order to make a broad application to all religions.

       On March 1, Cl. Prashant Kumar stood before a panel of three professors to defend his thesis “The Ethical Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas”. Here the student claimed that the ultimate goal of life is seeking happiness and the path to happiness lies in the following of the virtues. It is the ‘virtues’ that help one come out of any trial or tribulation. When one is virtuous one would know how to deal with any life situation and have mastery over the way one lives his or her life.