A feminist theory of content allows us to appreciate the nuanced role that historical and socio-cultural forces play in shaping the content of many of our terms. In this chapter, Maitra first shows how the classic articulation of externalism in literature is ineffective for feminist purposes. She then identifies two important ingredients that a feminist theory of content requires, namely, accounts of how the social and physical world shape content and what is required to transform that content. The final part (...) of her argument develops the first approximation of a feminist theory of content drawing from Ruth Millikan’s “consumer” account of meaning and mental representation. Using as an example José Jorge Mendoza’s analysis of how the history of U. S. immigration and citizenship law has shaped the term ‘whiteness,’ this chapter argues that feminist theorizing and activism stand to benefit from the possibility of a feminist theory of mental content that makes explicit how the contents of many terms with social and political import are determined and held stable. (shrink)

Despite the growing importance of ‘social value’ as a central feature of research ethics, the term remains both conceptually vague and to a certain extent operationally rigid. And yet, perhaps because the rhetorical appeal of social value appears immediate and self-evident, the concept has not been put to rigorous investigation in terms of its definition, strength, function, and scope. In this article, we discuss how the anthropological concept of liminality can illuminate social value and differentiate and reconfigure its variegated approaches. (...) Employing liminality as a heuristic encourages a reassessment of how we understand the mobilization of ‘social value’ in bioethics. We argue that social value as seen through the lens of liminality can provide greater clarity of its function and scope for health research. Building on calls to understand social value as a dynamic, rather than a static, concept, we emphasize the need to appraise social value iteratively throughout the entire research as something that transforms over multiple times and across multiple spaces occupied by a range of actors. (shrink)

In her 2007 book Epistemic Injustice Miranda Fricker identifies testimonial injustice as a case where a hearer assigns lower credibility to a speaker due to “identity prejudice.” Fricker considers testimonial injustice as a form of epistemic injustice since it wrongs the speaker “in her capacity as a knower.” Fricker recommends developing the virtue of “testimonial justice” to address testimonial injustice. She takes this virtue to involve training in a “distinctly reflexive critical social awareness.” The main goal of this article is (...) to argue that Fricker's proposed training falls short of the target and that a cultivation of the capacity of being present—the ability to be mindful—would be necessary to develop the critical social awareness that Fricker requires. I want to explore the impact of compassion and open‐mindedness—virtues cultivated in mindfulness training—on testimonial justice specifically and virtue epistemology generally. In attempting to develop an epistemic account informed by mindfulness—a mindful epistemology—my primary goal is to bring Buddhist insights on how to anchor the mind by training it to be fully present and attentive into the focus of mainstream Western philosophy. More specifically, I argue that doing so allows us to appreciate the crucial role that a prediscursive level of cultivation plays in the development of testimonial justice. (shrink)

Philosophy of The Bhagavad Gita: A Contemporary Introduction presents a complete philosophical guide and new translation of the most celebrated text of Hinduism. While usually treated as mystical and religious poetry, this new translation focuses on the philosophy underpinning the story of a battle between two sets of cousins of the Aryan clan. Designed for use in the classroom, this lively and readable translation: - Situates the text in its philosophical and cultural contexts - Features summaries and chapter analyses and (...) questions at the opening and end of each of the eighteen chapters encouraging further study - Highlights points of comparison and overlap between Indian and Western philosophical concepts and themes such as just war, care ethics, integrity and authenticity - Includes a glossary allowing the reader to determine the meaning of central concepts Written with clarity and without presupposing any prior knowledge of Hinduism, Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita: A Contemporary Introduction reveals the importance and value of reading the Gita philosophically. (shrink)

Academic integrity is a set of ethical ideals and values that guide the behavior of individuals in academic and educational settings. It encompasses honesty, trustworthiness, fairness, and a commitment to upholding the highest standards of ethical conduct in the quest for knowledge, learning, and research. Academic integrity is essential in maintaining the trustworthiness, reputation, and effectiveness of educational institutions and scholarly communities. Whereas, AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is a broad field of computer science that focuses on creating frameworks, software, or (...) machines that can perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence. These tasks include problem-solving, learning from experience, understanding natural language, recognizing patterns, and making choices. AI systems aim to mimic or replicate human cognitive functions, and they can range from simple rule-based systems to highly complex, autodidactic neural networks. AI can significantly impact academic integrity and research in both positive and potentially challenging ways. (shrink)

Globalization of the Indian economy has dramatically influenced social life in India. The expansion of the middle class is said to have occurred as a consequence of this process. Based on ethnographic research among lower-middle-class families in West Bengal, India, the author examines the apparent paradox between women's positive perceptions of empowerment and the overall negative impact of structural adjustment policies on women. Many scholars argue that globalization has been detrimental to women due to growing structural gender inequalities, but many (...) respondents identify greater opportunities to challenge preexisting patriarchal norms through the role models available in the globalized media. While there are increasing inequalities for households, women do not consider these to be gender disadvantages, emphasizing instead the opportunities for greater independence. The author pays particular attention to the confluence of the prowomen consumer discourses of the global market with earlier developmentalist notions of the public role of women. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 3, Page 233-234, March 2022.

This book presents a rethinking of the world legacy of Mahatma Gandhi in this era of unspeakable global violence. Through interdisciplinary research, key Gandhian concepts are revisited by tracing their genealogies in multiple histories of world contact and by foregrounding their relevance to contemporary struggles to regain the ‘humane’ in the midst of global conflict. The relevance of Gandhian notions of ahimsa and satyagraha is assessed in the context of contemporary events, when religious fundamentalisms of various kinds are competing with (...) the arrogance and unilateralism of imperial capital to reduce the world to a state of international lawlessness. Covering a wide and comprehensive range of topics such as Gandhi’s vegetarianism and medical practice, his successes and failures as a litigator in South Africa, his experiments with communal living and his concepts of non-violence and satyagraha. The book combines historical, philosophical, and textual readings of different aspects of the leader’s life and works. _Rethinking Gandhi in a New World Order_ will be of interest to students and academics interested in peace and conflict studies, South Asian history, world history, postcolonial studies, and studies on Gandhi. (shrink)

A recent trend in curriculum reform argues that a successful liberal education curriculum must incorporate courses on multiculturalism. Though there is some agreement on what topics to cover in those courses, very little attention has so far been directed to the issue of how those courses must be designed. What is important in addressing this 'how' question is a clear understanding of the concepts involved. The question I explore in this paper is: what is the best way of understanding the (...) nature of the concept of 'Indian culture' that would in turn help us achieve the proposed goal of liberal education. I argue that neither essentialism nor postmodernism - the two popular ways of understanding a concept in mainstream philosophy - is going to be of much help. I also consider a historical alternative suggested by Uma Narayan. I then offer a naturalist way of understanding this concept and note its relative advantages over Narayan's historical account. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of Buddhist mindfulness in developing a feminist conception of self-consciousness. I will open with a discussion of the role and function of self-consciousness within feminist consciousness. Although largely unrecognized in the literature, feminist self-consciousness is an essential component of feminist consciousness and, as such, the political activity of feminist consciousness-raising is dependent on the development of a distinctively feminist self-consciousness. Mindfulness is understood in terms of certain meditative practices to attain an altered consciousness that provides (...) a better awareness of one’s bare subjectivity. In Buddhism successful mindfulness results in a cessation of suffering and pain and finally of the self itself as ordinarily understood (anatman). I will argue that similar meditative practices can play a role in articulating feminist self-consciousness. Techniques used to cultivate mindfulness can help us articulate and attain a feminist self-consciousness that takes into account the particular situations, contexts, and positions of individual women and does not homogenize them in one group in an essentialist fashion. What makes the comparative relevance of Buddhist thinking on self-consciousness to feminism interesting is their shared suspicion of essentialism and shared interest in finding ways to liberation. One of the central points of this paper is that meditative practices associated with attaining mindfulness could provide a perspective to attain self-consciousness in many feminist contexts. -/- At first glance, this comparative engagement may seem far-fetched and at best forced. One might argue that while the Buddhist engagement with liberation is motivated by an other-worldly concern, feminist conception of liberation is fundamentally this-worldly. Even with this difference, however, it seems worthwhile to explore how understanding mindfulness and its associated meditative practices can illuminate our understanding of feminist self-consciousness. Especially if meditative practices are understood not as a means to withdraw from the world but to engage with it with a better understanding of reality, then that kind of self-knowledge can certainly be useful to understanding and raising feminist consciousness. (shrink)

In the Discourse on Metaphysics Leibniz writes, 'Our perceptions are always true, it is our judgments that come from ourselves that deceive us' (section 14). Leroy Loemker in his 'Leibniz's Doctrine of Ideas' criticizes this account of error. His main worry can be presented in the form of the following syllogistic argument, which he derives from Leibniz's doctrine of ideas: (a) There cannot be a false perception; (b) All judgments are perceptions; and therefore (c) There cannot be a false judgment. (...) However, in this paper I argue that Leibniz can distinguish between a perception and a judgment in their semantic aspect. The sense in which a perception turns out to be false (or true) for Leibniz is different from the sense in which a judgment turns out to be false (or true). This is because, while a perception, understood in Leibniz's terms, lacks truth-conditions, a judgment, in being representational, has such conditions. Thus while a perception remains true always, a judgment can be false. Pointing to the equivocal use of 'false' in (a) and (c) above, I conclude that (c) does not follow from (a) and (b). (shrink)

Authored with Melissa Burchard. The two authors have shared for nearly twelve years a dialogue regarding maternal matters, and ambivalence is at the heart of many of them. What we have come to believe is that maternal ambivalence is heavily shaped by socio-cultural factors lying outside/beyond a mother’s will. This leads us to challenge recent discussions in philosophy which characterize ambivalence in terms of unresolved conflict among one’s desires and thus a problem of will, or as insufficient coherence in one’s (...) identity. Drawing from our personal experiences of maternal ambivalence, colored as they are by our socio-cultural backgrounds, we argue that socio-cultural factors shape not only the experience of maternal ambivalence but the very phenomenon. We approach this issue through a feminist project of actively shared knowledge construction, privileging personal and conversational narrative as a ground for theorizing. After framing the issues, we offer a set of dialogues between us that explicitly reflect the issues of ambivalence we have pursued over the years. This enables us to demonstrate the profoundly situated nature of our understanding of maternal ambivalence as it emerges through the stories and conversations we relate, on questions ranging from whether to have children or not and which children to have (adopting), to how being a (good) mother differs for Indian and American women who are also philosophers. We believe this is important methodologically as well as for its content, as dialogical construction of knowledge is appropriate for feminist investigations as much as dialectical process is for philosophical ones. Further, the interplay of our quite different perspectives offers unique insights, as we engage in both comparative and constructive analyses at the same time. -/- The most significant implication of our discussion is that maternal ambivalence cannot be adequately theorized or responded to without direct attention to situatedness because of the many features of both mothering and ambivalence that are affected by particularities. So, for example, we argue that in some cultural discourses of mothering, admitting ambivalence is a betrayal of cultural/maternal values, whereas other cultures have at least some room for expressing ambivalence without serious censure. Ultimately, we conclude that although maternal ambivalence itself is often seen as an indicator of failure or wrongness in mothering, it is more reasonable to see it as an ordinary response to a complex, layered and demanding experience, and an indicator of the difficulties of mothers’ situations and depths of self-reflection. (shrink)

The "incompatibility charge" argues that externalism fails to explain "self-knowledge" or the privileged knowledge that we ordinarily take ourselves to enjoy in relation to at least some of our own mental states. This dissertation attempts to provide an externalist reply to this charge. First, I suggest that the "compatibility debate" needs to be reoriented. This is because the mere internality or externality of determining factors cannot by itself explain how one can know the content determined by those factors. Thus the (...) task of explaining self-knowledge is one of explaining how we come to make these claims and where do they derive their privileged status from. Further, a story about the underlying epistemology of these claims has to be told not only by the externalists but also by the internalists. ;Chapter One introduces a distinction between two ways of understanding the epistemic privilege, namely, between "privilege in access", that consists of the way in which these claims are made and validated, and "privilege in authority", that consists of their infallibility. I argue that the epistemology underlying the phenomenon of self-knowledge can be best understood in terms of the privilege in access. ;Chapter Two turns to the incompatibility charge. I argue that the exchanges of arguments that have been taken place between the incompatibilists and the compatibilists in the literature rely on the implicit presupposition that a concept must always have an univocal and unambiguous referent and this fact should be discoverable a priori. I argue that a thorough going externalist should reject this questionable presupposition. ;Chapter Three criticizes the internalist argument that the internalists' job in accounting for self-knowledge is different from the externlaists' job. I conclude by noting that the internalist accounts have as much, if not more, difficulty in accounting for self-knowledge. ;Chapter Four suggests an externalist account of self-knowledge from the perspective of Sellars. The uniqueness of the Sellarsian account lies in the fact that it offers an interesting way of understanding the privilege of self-knowledge claims according to which though these claims enjoy non-inferential privilege, they are nonetheless defeasible and also justifiable from an independent source. (shrink)

"This collection is the first book to focus on the emerging field of study called feminist philosophy of mind. Each of the twenty chapters of Feminist Philosophy of Mind employs theories and methodologies from feminist philosophy to offer fresh insights and perspectives into issues raised in the contemporary literature in philosophy of mind and/or uses those from the philosophy of mind to advance feminist theory. The book delineates the content and aims of the field and demonstrates the fecundity of its (...) approach, which is centered on the collective consideration of three questions: What is the mind? Whose mind is the model for the theory? To whom is mind attributed? Topics considered with this lens include mental content, artificial intelligence, the first-person perspective, personal identity, other minds, mental attribution, mental illness, perception, memory, attention, desire, trauma, agency, empathy, grief, love, gender, race, sexual orientation, materialism, panpsychism, and enactivism. In addition to engaging analytic and feminist philosophical traditions, essays draw from resources in phenomenology, philosophy of race, decolonial studies, disability studies, embodied cognition theory, comparative philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology"--. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

We initiate the study of computable model theory of modal logic, by proving effective completeness theorems for a variety of first-order modal logics. We formulate a natural definition of a decidable Kripke model, and show how to construct such a decidable Kripke model of a given decidable theory. Our construction is inspired by the effective Henkin construction for classical logic. The Henkin construction, however, depends in an essential way on the Deduction Theorem. In its usual form the Deduction Theorem fails (...) for modal logic. In our construction, the Deduction Theorem is replaced by a result about objects called finite Kripke diagrams. We argue that this result can be viewed as an analogue of the Deduction Theorem for modal logic. (shrink)

In this paper, we take up the call to further examine structural injustice in health, and racial inequalities in particular. We examine the many facets of racism: structural, interpersonal and institutional as they appeared in the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, and emphasize the relevance of their systemic character. We suggest that such inequalities were entirely foreseeable, for their causal mechanisms are deeply ingrained in our social structures. It is by recognizing the conventional, un-extraordinary nature of racism within social systems (...) that we can begin to address socially mediated health inequalities. (shrink)

The National Medical Commission of India introduced the Competency Based Curriculum in Medical Education for undergraduate medical students in 2019 with a new module named Attitude, Ethics and Communication (AETCOM) across the country. There was a consensus for teaching medical ethics in an integrated way, suggesting dedicated hours in each phase of undergraduate training. The AETCOM module was prepared and circulated as a guide to acquire necessary competency in attitudinal, ethical and communication domains. This study was aimed to explore the (...) perceptions of students and medical teachers and identify the challenges in teaching and learning process of the newly implemented AETCOM module. It was a mixed method designed study with structured questionnaires for students and teachers at various medical schools in India. Based on the quantitative data, in-depth interviews with medical teachers were undertaken. Challenges were perceived by both students and teachers. The students had a mixed perception, facing difficulties in passive learning with scarce resource materials. Challenges identified by teachers were a lack of knowledge and skills required for teaching bioethics, the logistics of managing large numbers of students in the stipulated time frame, interdisciplinary integration—both horizontal and vertical, and assessment program in terms competency-based education. The study draws the attention of all stakeholders for a revision and efforts for further improvement in the teaching and assessment process, and setting a standard model in medical education in India. (shrink)

Chandra Mohanty, in introducing the phrase “feminism without borders,” acknowledges that she is influenced by the image of “doctors without borders” and wants to highlight the multiplicity of voices and viewpoints within the feminist coalition. So the question of agency assumes primary significance here. But answering the question of agency becomes harder once we try to accommodate this multiplicity. Take, for example, the practice of veiling among certain Muslim women. As many third-world feminists have pointed out, although veiling can't simply (...) be perceived as an expression of women's oppression, it can't be perceived as an expression of “free agency” either since what is required for true feminist agency is women's ability to “formulate choices” and not simply to make choices. In this paper I argue that this ability includes two related abilities: first, to develop a perspective of self that acknowledges and accepts its own grounding in its given intersectionalities; second, to realize that its interdependencies and interconnectivities enable a sense of continuity and solidarity that works collaboratively toward consensus without sacrificing or stifling all differences. My main argument is that feminist self-consciousness informed by Buddhist mindfulness gives us opportunities to articulate clearly and to cultivate both of these abilities. (shrink)

Articles on Mimamsa and Advaita, branches of Hindu philosophy.

Vrinda Dalmiya's Caring to Know is an exciting, impressive, and above all important work on caring in ethics and epistemology. Its central focus is to articulate what Dalmiya calls "care-knowing"—which proposes care as a basic intellectual virtue. In developing its dual aspects—caring as a process and caring as a disposition—Dalmiya offers a systematic argument that defends the viability and efficacy of care-knowing. The early chapters set the stage by offering a "thumbnail" account of the main moves in the literature on (...) care ethics and virtue epistemology. All the building blocks are then assembled to develop the central concept of the book, namely the virtue of "relational humility," a... (shrink)

Angelaki, Volume 16, Issue 4, Page 1-4, December 2011.

This paper examines the often-mentioned similarity in comparative moral philosophy between the Hindu Text Bhagavad-Gita’s notion of duty and Kant’s notion of duty. It is commonly argued that they are similar in their deontological nature where one is asked to perform one’s duty for the sake of duty only. I consider three related questions from Gita’s and Kant’s perspectives. First, What is the source of our duties: Self or Nature; second, How do we know that an act x is our (...) duty, and third, What would be an acceptable example of a duty. In all these three cases I show that their respective answers diverge quite clearly and conclude by arguing that the reason for this divergence lies in their respective contexts: while the ideal of Kantian morality is to become a member of the ‘kingdom of ends’, the aims of the Gita’s system of duties are the sustenance of the social order and the realization of one’s identity with the Supreme Self. (shrink)

Consciousness is a central topic in Hindu philosophy. This is because this philosophy understands reality in terms of brahman or atman (typically translated as the self), and consciousness is conceived as the essential marker of self. The prominent Hindu text Bhagavad Gita offers an exception. Self is conceived in the Gita not in terms of its essential identity with pure or transcendental consciousness. But the question remains, does the Gita still offer us a theory of consciousness? The goal of my (...) paper is to show that the Gita can be taken as offering an interesting empirical theory of consciousness. My paper focuses on determining the nature of attention in the Gita's understanding of yoga, and to articulate the role of such attention in the Gita's theory of consciousness. My working conclusion is that what differentiates an ordinary person's consciousness from a yogi's consciousness is the nature of their attention both in terms of its manner and its object. I argue, further, that exploring the Gita's theory of consciousness, especially in conjunction with the nature of attention, is immensely fruitful because it allows us to see the Gita's potential contribution to our contemporary philosophical discussion of consciousness and attention. This is because bringing the Gita into discussion allows us to appreciate a dimension of the metaphysics of attention–namely, the dimension of manner of attending and its cultivation, and the moral and social implications in the proposed redirection of one's attention--not often recognized in the contemporary Western discussion. (shrink)

Angelaki, Volume 16, Issue 4, Page 145-158, December 2011.

The chapter offers a sustained comparison between American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars and Buddhist philosopher Dignaga and argues that while their views are prima facie inconsistent with one another, there are important areas of agreement worthy of exploration.

Mobile applications (apps) have gained significant popularity as a new intervention strategy responding to violence against women and girls. Despite their growing relevance, an assessment from the perspective of public health ethics is still lacking. Here, we base our discussion on the understanding of violence against women and girls as a multidimensional, global public health issue on structural, societal and individual levels and situate it within the theoretical framework of structural injustice, including epistemic injustice. Based on a systematic app review (...) we previously conducted, we evaluate the content and functions of apps through the lens of structural injustice. We argue that technological solutions such as apps may be a useful tool in the fight against violence against women and girls but have to be situated within the broader frame of public health that considers the structural dimensions of such violence. Ultimately, the concerns raised by structural injustice are—alongside key concerns of safety, data privacy, importance of human supportive contact, and so forth—crucial dimensions in the ethical assessment of such apps. However, research on the role and relevance of apps as strategies to address the structural and epistemic dimensions of violence remains scarce. This article aims to provide a foundation for further discussion in this area and could be applicable to other areas in public health policy and practice. (shrink)

The Ethics of Governance: Moral Limits of Policy Decisions offers a toolbox drawn from normative ethics which finds applications in public governance, primarily focusing on policy making and executive action. It includes ethical concepts and principles culled from different philosophical traditions, ranging from more familiar Western theories to non-Western ethical perspectives, thereby providing a truly global, decolonized and expanded normative lens on issues of governance. The book takes a unique and original approach; it demonstrates the use of the ethical toolbox (...) in the context of actual examples of governance challenges. Taking three major case studies each representing an aspect of human-human and/or human-nature and/or human-animal relationship, the book attempts to show the significance of public practical reasoning in policy decisions with the aim of arriving at reasonable responses. Acknowledging the challenges that policy makers often face, the book highlights the fact that policy making is hardly an exercise yielding a black-or-white solution; rather it involves finding the most reasonable normative outcome in a given situation, especially employing an expanded understanding of values including well-being, sustainability, interdependence and community. This effort that helps bridge the gap between ethical theorists and policy practitioners exemplifies the necessary role of ‘engaged philosophy’ in public governance. In the major case studies, Boxes offer facts and figures along with pertinent ethical questions that have been raised and discussed. Aiming to aid the engagement of a diverse audience including non-philosophy readers, each chapter also includes Boxes containing examples, shorter case studies, at-a-glance charts, and tables with comprehensive ethical tools for a quick recap. (shrink)

Bhagavad-gītā: A Critical Introduction is a collection of ten original chapters authored by nine scholars of the Gītā. While no single theme runs through all the chapters, they all revolve around the hermeneutics of the Gītā, especially in the exegetical and commentarial traditions. The first three chapters focus on the questions of structure of the text, both in terms of its organizational form and the coherence of its content. Chapters 4 through 6 focus on the Gītā's commentarial and exegetical history (...) especially within the Vaiṣṇava tradition. Chapters 7 through 9 focus on the socio-religious and cultural impacts of the Gītā that expand the scope of its influences. Finally, chapter 10 brings the focus back to... (shrink)

While Nyaya texts seldom address the topic of concepts directly, it is my contention that Nyaya system can accommodate a sustained notion of concepts and clarifying its parameters can help us with a debate in Nyaya epistemology of perception that has been popular in contemporary discussion of Indian philosophy. This debate focuses on the exact nature of nirvikalpaka perception and its viability within Nyaya direct realism. One of the central questions in this regard is the role of concepts in our (...) perception. Using an account of concepts developed in contemporary Western philosophy by Millikan as a template I will articulate a few aspects of Nyaya theory of concepts. One of the outcomes of this undertaking will be that Nyaya theory of concept as developed here will not preclude nirvikalpaka perception. (shrink)