Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad offers illuminating new perspectives on contemporary phenomenological theories of body and subjectivity, based on studies of diverse classical Indian texts. He argues for a 'phenomenological ecology' of bodily subjectivity in health, gender, contemplation, and lovemaking.

Benacerraf has presented two problems for the philosophy of mathematics. These are the problem of identification and the problem of representation. This paper aims to reconstruct the latter problem and to unpack its undermining bearing on the version of Ontic Structural Realism that frames scientific representations in terms of abstract structures. I argue that the dichotomy between mathematical structures and physical ones cannot be used to address the Benacerraf problem but strengthens it. I conclude by arguing that versions of OSR (...) that do not rely on mathematical frameworks for representational purposes need not be vulnerable to Benacerraf’s second problem. (shrink)

The paper outlines a structuralist unification between two existing relational theories of the self, i.e., Beni's Structural Realist theory of the Self and Gallese's Embodied Relational Self. Each one of these theories provides a structuralist account of some aspects of the self but leaves out some other aspects which are indispensable to a comprehensive account of the self. SRS accounts for the reflective aspects of the self, and ERS accounts for the environmental and social aspects of the self. In (...) this paper, I argue that when paired with one another, SRS and ERS could amend one another's shortcomings, without giving way to a non-relational conception of the self. I draw on neurology of the connection between Cortical Midline Structures and the mirror neuron system to inform my unifying proposal. I also show that an informational framework can underlie the union. (shrink)

Classical Indian schools of philosophy seek to attain a supreme end to existence--liberation from the cycle of lives. This book looks at four conceptions of liberation and the roles of analytic inquiry and philosophical knowledge in its attainment. The central motivation of Indian philosophy--the quest for the Highest Good--is situated in the analytic philosophical activity of key thinkers.

“Risk” is all about living a faith filled life. Within the pages of this work you will discover the year-by-year history of the ups and downs of the happenings regarding Foursquare Church. There are no sure things in this crazy epic journey called life. The only constant we can hang our hope upon is the name of Jesus. Christ has called us to live beyond what we can see and lean only to what He has said. In the parable of (...) the talents Jesus was very clear about how He felt regarding those who would not risk. In Matthew 25:28-30 He states, “‘Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most and get rid of this “play-it-safe-mentality” who won’t go out on a limb. Jesus rewards those who Risk. Foursquare Church and its history is one successive detail regarding progressive risking on God and his faithfulness to reward said risk. I invite you to read and risk on God. You will find great joy in discovering the rewards of a life that is lived by faith. (shrink)

Marcello Barbieri has presented code biology as an alternative to the Peircean approach to biosemiotics. Some critics questioned the viability of code biology on grounds that Barbieri’s conception of science is limited. It has been argued that code biology’s mechanistic tendency is the cause of the allegedly limited conception of science. In this paper, I evaluate the scientific viability of the code model from the perspective of scientific realism in the philosophy of science. To be more precise, I draw on (...) resources of the mechanistic view in philosophy to argue that far from harbouring a limited conception of science, code biology could indeed improve the scientific prospects of biosemiotics. I show that the mechanistic and model-based tendency of the code model enhances its vigour as a full-blooded scientific approach to the study of meaning in living systems. To consolidate my claim, I draw on some recent debates in the mechanistic philosophy to argue that even relational approaches to understanding the meaning in living systems—such as an approach that is defended by Vega in a recent paper—could be underpinned by mechanistic processes at a foundational level. (shrink)

The field of Science and Technology Studies has long critiqued the idea that there is such a thing as a universal and singular ""Science"" that exists independently of human society, interpretation, and action. But surprisingly little attention has been paid to the colonial contexts in which the scientific endeavor has been practiced and on which scientific principles have been built. In this important book, Amit Prasad seeks to rectify this erasure, demonstrating that problematic idealized imaginaries of science, scientists, and (...) the scientific realm can be traced back to the birth of ""modern science"" during European colonialism. Such visions of science and technology have undergirded the imagination of the West (and thus its others), constructing hierarchies of technological innovation and scientific value, but also unexpectedly leaving society vulnerable to contemporary threats of misinformation and conspiracy theories, as has been strikingly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Far from being an indictment of STS, this rigorous book seeks to highlight such concerns to make STS engage more carefully with issues of colonialism and thus to enable readers to understand the rapidly changing global topography of science and technology today, and into the future. (shrink)

The paper aims to provide a detailed assessment of Tim Crane’s recent invocation of the notion of scientific models in the way of dealing with the issue of the brain’s representational states. In this paper, I assess Crane’s proposal under a charitable and a less charitable reading. I argue that Crane’s use of scientific models is at best compatible with his expression of psychological realism. However, Crane’s use of model-based strategy by no means underlay, support, or strengthen his psychological realism. (...) Rather, traditional reasons from the metaphysics of mind, acting quite separately from empirical scientific reasons, must be used to support this realism, and Crane has merely removed the threat posed to these metaphysical arguments by the existence of the so-called mereological fallacy in empirical neuroscience. Therefore, while he has saved the neuroscientific language from philosophical attack, he has perhaps even strengthened the divide between neuroscience and philosophy. I conclude the paper by outlining the sketch of a broadbrush scientifically informed strategy for defending psychological realism. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This article presents material from my ethnographic study in Śringēri, south India, the site of a powerful 1200yearold Advaitic monastery that has been historically an interpreter of ancient Hindu moral treatises. A vibrant diverse local culture that provides plural sources of moral authority makes Sringeri a rich site for studying moral discourse. Through a study of two conversational narratives, this essay illustrates how the moral self is not an ossified product of written texts and codes, but is dynamic, gen dered, (...) and emergent, endowed with historical and political agency and an aesthetic capacity that mediates many normative sources to articulate "appropriate" conduct. In so doing, the essay shows the value of including oral narrative in ethical inquiry, especially in narrative ethics, which, for most part, has focused on written sources. (shrink)

Presentación del editor: "Es sabido que un tema acaparaba la atención de los pensadores a principios del siglo XX: la historia. Mientras tanto entraba en escena el personalismo filosófico, corriente interesada en rescatar a la persona de las ideologias. Ocupando un lugar propio dentro del personalismo, no siempre en acuerdo con los demás personalistas, destaca la figura de Maurice Nédoncelle. Su filosofia de la persona y del amor plasmada en su libro sobre la reciprocidad de las conciencias es cada vez (...) más conocida; pero lo que no habia sido analizado hasta ahora es su pensamiento sobre la historia. con este estudio se da a conocer por primera vez la filosofía de la historia de Maurice Nédoncelle. La interpretación propuesta por el autor es quizás novedosa y hasta un poco audaz, pero está convencido de que Nédoncelle profesó una filosofía de la historia y de que muchas de sus afrimaciones filosóficas brotan del deseo de dar respuesta a las interrogantes sobre la historia en la que convergían los intereses de otros filósofos. Lo que interesará al lector es descubrir el gran valor de una reflexión sobre el sentido del devenir temporal que pone al centro las relaciones interpersonales. (shrink)

Bruce Janz, Jessica Locke, and Cynthia Willett interact in this exchange with different aspects of Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad’s book Human Being, Bodily Being. Through “constructive inter-cultural thinking”, they seek to engage with Ram-Prasad’s “lower-case p” phenomenology, which exemplifies “how to think otherwise about the nature and role of bodiliness in human experience”. This exchange, which includes Ram-Prasad’s reply to their interventions, pushes the reader to reflect more about different aspects of bodiliness.

According to Russell, the aim of education is three-fold: acquisition of the skills necessary for making life comfortable, to provide for the wise use of leisure by proper cultural growth and to cultivate the sense of citizenship. Russell argues that utility should not be the only aim of education. In addition to that, the humanistic elements of education are to be cultivated. He prefers to distinguish between ‘education of character’ and education in knowledge’. What he means is that the education (...) system must aim at eliciting in every boy and girl, the intrinsic quality that exists. Russell rejects the view that classics are ornamental and science is useful. The study of classics, he feels, will enable a man to become a full-fledged human being because they touch upon the aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of man. According to Russell, education should aim at broad cultivation of the mind leading to an awareness of man’s place and destiny in the society and the universe. (shrink)

The Gita is a central text in Hindu traditions, and commentaries on it express a range of philosophical-theological positions. Two of the most significant commentaries are by Sankara, the founder of the Advaita or Non-Dualist system of Vedic thought and by Ramanuja, the founder of the Visistadvaita or Qualified Non-Dualist system. Their commentaries offer rich resources for the conceptualization and understanding of divine reality, the human self, being, the relationship between God and human, and the moral psychology of action and (...) devotion. This book approaches their commentaries through a study of the interaction between the abstract atman (self) and the richer conception of the human person. While closely reading the Sanskrit commentaries, Ram-Prasad develops reconstructions of each philosophical-theological system, drawing relevant and illuminating comparisons with contemporary Christian theology and Western philosophy. (shrink)

The background target of the research going into the present article is to forge an intellectual alliance between, on the one hand, active inference and the free-energy principle (FEP), and on the other, Charles S. Peirce’s theory of semiotics and pragmatism. In the present paper, the focus is on the allegiance between the nomenclatures of active and abductive inferences as the proper place to begin reaching at that wider target. The paper outlines the key conceptual elements involved in a naturalistic (...) rendering of Peirce’s late semiotic and logical notion of abductive reasoning. The target is a cognitive-biological model of abduction which preserves the functional integrity of an organism and fulfils the existential imperative for living beings’ evidence of existence. Such a model is an adaptation of Peirce’s late logical schema of abduction proposed in his largely unpublished works during the early 20th century. The proposed model is argued to be a feasible sketch also of recent breakthroughs in computational (sensu Bayesian) cognitive science. (shrink)

Description: This is a first-hand study of such original texts as have been found important for this subject. It gives a connected and systematic account of the origin and development of the epistemologic thought in Indian philosophy from the beginning up to modern times. Due to difference of opinions of different commentators, the author directly analyses the interpretations of a number of original Sanskrit texts to bring out the exact philosophical import of these texts. The views held by various schools (...) of Indian philosophy are very critically assessed. The aim of this work has not been only to trace the problems of the theory of knowledge but also to study the epistemological position of important authors as a whole, so as to determine the contribution they made and the relations they stand to one another in the history of the subject. The last chapter of the work is attempted for the first time to synthesise Indian and Western thought. (shrink)

This Work Analyses Some Basic Concepts Of Indian Ethics. It Shows That A Varnadharma Cannot Be Both Natural And Obligatory, The Prescription Of Acting Desirelessly Makes Any Desireless Action Justified, The Jivan-Mukti Concept Is Inapplicable, Etc.

Commentary on the philosophical poems by Narayana Guru, 1856-1928, philosopher-saint; includes text.