Divisions Act As Barriers To Intellectual Progress, Says Amartya Sen

Divisions between groups and sects not only damage social lives but also work as barriers to intellectual progress within and across nations, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said at an event in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

Noting that there are deep links between friendship and knowledge, Sen said people's intellectual horizons expand when they learn from each other. "Divisions between groups and sects not only damage our social lives, but they can also work as barriers to intellectual progress within and across the nations," Amartya Sen said. "Friendship is, in fact, central to the development of knowledge."

The economist was speaking as the chief guest at a ceremony held by the Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) to award the Infosys Prize 2019.

Amartya Sen said the constructive role of friendship applies not only across national borders but also within. "We can give to the world much more than what we get from it," he said. "For example, the mathematical revolution in India from the fifth century onwards, led particularly by Aryabhata, was influenced by intellectual developments in Greece, Babylon and Rome.

"But Aryabhatian mathematics, in turn, took gigantic leaps in India and then spread abroad with transformational impact on China, the Arab world and eventually Europe," Amartya Sen, a professor of Economics at Harvard University, said.

The winners of the Infosys Prize 2019 were announced across six categories, namely engineering and computer sciences, humanities, life sciences, mathematical sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences.