This article discusses the importance of human beings ‘material’ (matter) and ‘spiritual’ (spirit) advancement in Rammanohar Lohia’s concept of modernity and modern civilization. Lohia consistently defended materialism (reason) and spirituality as pivotal human values in his writing and speeches. This article engages with his ideas through a detailed reading of his works, focusing particularly on his essays: ‘Materiality and Spirituality’ and ‘Meaning of Modern Civilisation’. According to him, rational thinking emerges from materialism. He believed spiritual instinct keeps a check on (...) the malicious employment of rationality and science; similarly, rationality prevents the perversion of spirituality into superstition and dogmatism. This article articulates two aspects of interpreting modernity: first, it reframes the epistemological understanding of materialism and spirituality, challenging and clarifying prevailing misconceptions; second, it advocates a comprehensive reconstruction of Indian society, which we understand as praxis. His concept of modernity is an amalgamation of theory and praxis. Lohia unequivocally emphasizes that Indian society would reach the height of development by simultaneously engaging in the spiritual and material development of Indian civilization. (shrink)

The book takes a critical view of the Kantian and the Neo-Kantian moral philosophers' preference to universalism, unity of morality, moral impartiality, consensus and common morality. The central claim of the book is if we treat human condition as complex and infested with irreducible choices and alternatives, then moral rightness and wrongness ought to operate beyond these binaries; giving epistemic status to Pluralism's multiple rationalities. Redefining liberal-pluralism, the book also argues that moral reasoning is necessarily bound by paradoxes and contradictions, (...) seen in our choices of life-projects, in the conflict between individual morality and common morality, and in justifying what is morally reasonable in the interpersonal framework. Equivocation in moral argumentation cannot be valued without understanding the nature of the 'interpersonal' that ought to sufficiently argue for moral disagreement, irreducible pluralism and limits of morality. Liberal-pluralism, thus, signifies quasi-relational (partially admitting Gilbert Harman) nature of moral reasoning in the multi-agent framework. It also takes account of reciprocity, fairness, reasonableness, tolerance, open-ended morality and agreeing to disagree. However, this idea of liberal-pluralism no way undermines rationality and reason nor turns anti-theory; but only treats morality as guided by 'reason without unification' and 'pluralism without relativism'. (shrink)