Contributed research papers chiefly on various aspects of Indic philosophy, Vedic literature, etc.

I examine social capital’s impact on financial reports. Based on the social capital literature, I predict that the quality of the financial reports is higher when a firm is headquartered in a region with high social capital. Consistent with this prediction, I find that the firms that are headquartered in this type of region in the USA have a lower probability of committing fraud by misrepresenting financial information. Further, I find that the firms in regions with high social capital have (...) lower levels of discretionary accruals and much more readable annual reports. (shrink)

Deepak Sarma completes the first outline in more than fifty years of India's key philosophical traditions, inventively sourcing seminal texts and clarifying language, positions, and issues. Organized by tradition, the volume covers six schools of orthodox Hindu philosophy: Mimamsa (the study of the earlier Vedas, later incorporated into Vedanta), Vedanta (the study of the later Vedas, including the _Bhagavad Gita_ and the _Upanishads_), Sankhya (a form of self-nature dualism), Yoga (a practical outgrowth of Sankhya), and Nyaya and Vaisesika (two forms (...) of realism). It also discusses Jain philosophy and the Mahayana Buddhist schools of Madhyamaka and Yogacara. Sarma maps theories of knowledge, perception, ontology, religion, and salvation, and he details central concepts, such as the _pramanas_ (means of knowledge), _pratyaksa_ (perception), _drayvas_ (types of being), _moksa_ (liberation), and _nirvana_. Selections and accompanying materials inspire a reassessment of long-held presuppositions and modes of thought, and accessible translations prove the modern relevance of these enduring works. (shrink)

It is often argued that the indispensability of continuum models comes from their empirical adequacy despite their decoupling from the microscopic details of the modelled physical system. There is thus a commonly held misconception that temperature varying across a region of space or time can always be accurately represented as a continuous function. We discuss three inter-related cases of temperature modelling — in phase transitions, thermal boundary resistance and slip flows — and show that the continuum view is fallacious on (...) the ground that the microscopic details of a physical system are not necessarily decoupled from continuum models. We show how temperature discontinuities are present in both data (experiments and simulations) and phenomena (theory and models) and how discontinuum models of temperature variation may have greater empirical adequacy and explanatory power. The conclusions of our paper are: a) continuum idealisations are not indispensable to modelling physical phenomena and both continuous and discontinuous representations of phenomena work depending on the context; b) temperature is not necessarily a continuously defined function in our best scientific representations of the world; and c) that its continuity, where applicable, is a contingent matter. We also raise a question as to whether discontinuous representations should be considered truly de-idealised descriptions of physical phenomena. (shrink)

YO GA-DARSHAN A Sfitras of Patafijali with Bhaisya ofVy:1sa BY Ganganatha Jha he Yoga-darshana includes the Yoga-sfitras ofPataf1jali, and the ancient commentary thereon by Vyasa. The Yoga-sfitras of Patafijali are the classic?...

The chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi was one of the first twentieth-century scientists to propose a program to resolve the internal conflict of the modern Enlightenment: scientific detachment and moral nihilism with humanist values. Stefania Jha’s intellectual biography places Polanyi in the context of his time and culture, analyzes his key philosophical ideas, and explicates the application—and at times misappropriation—of his work. Polanyi’s method was not laid out in his published works, and his vocabulary tends to make his writings difficult (...) to understand. By exposing the structure of his theory of tacit knowing, and by tracing the growth of his thinking, Jha shows how the various elements of his thought are integrated. Through examination of his philosophical roots in Kant and the complexity of his evolving thought, she counteracts the popular notion that Polanyi’s philosophy stands apart from the western philosophic tradition. Jha’s deep analysis makes Polanyi’s shift of focus from science to philosophy more intelligible, his philosophy more approachable, and the causes he championed—such as the freedom of science and cultural freedom—more understandable. Applying his notion of tacit knowing in practical directions, Jha seeks to bring the study of Polanyi’s philosophy out of the specialists’ enclave and into such fields as ethics and clinical medicine. (shrink)

The paper is an attempt to revisit Rawls’ idea of a self, which elicits the concept of justice in the liberal tradition. Justice, as understood in the social and political context, is the basic feature of a well-ordered and rationally developed society and it is considered to be a virtue of the social institution. The liberal theory believes in the basic principle that right is prior to the good, and what is most fundamental to our personhood are not the ends (...) we choose but our capacity to choose them. Hence, in Rawls’ account of the self, absoluteness of the metaphysical priority has an edge over the absoluteness of the moral priority. The idea of an unencumbered self, in the social and historical sense, is at the core of the Kantian-Rawlsian theory of justice, which is under attack by the communitarians. Communitarians like Sandel, however, questions Rawls’ claim for the priority of right over good and maintains that liberals fail to recognize the self is ‘embedded,’ in and partly constituted by communal commitments and values which are objects of choice. In this paper, I examine communitarian critiques of Rawls’ liberal self. Further, I also refer to Rawls’ turn to the ‘political,’ which works as a ‘module’ that fits into and can be supported by a variety of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. (shrink)

This introduction to the Madhva school of Vedanta is accessible to a wide audience with interest in Hinduism, Indian thought and in the comparative philosophy of religion.Deepak Sarma explores the philosophical foundations of Madhva Vedanta and then presents translations of actual debates between the Madhva and Advaita schools of Vedanta, thus positioning readers at the centre of the 700 year-old controversy between these two schools of Vedanta. Original texts of Madhvacarya are included in an appendix, in translation and in Sanskrit.

A venture in a less traversed terrain of Indian scholarship, this article looks at the transformation in the value regimes that go into the making of colours in the Indian milieu. At one level, this study traces the sacredness imbued in colours and at another level the article delves into the genealogy that gives rise to a complex where colour, colonial investment in the economy of colours (with an aim at capitalizing colours as commodities), values and experiential dynamics enshrined in (...) the imageries and practices associated with colours all come together. With these entanglements, the idea is to engage with the social fabrics and the politics of colours in the Indian milieu. In this rendering, the distinction between values and forms collapses giving us in turn a field of aesthetic experience. Mobilizing a wide range of registers (written as well as pictorial, archival as well as literary), this story is narrated with key rubrics, such as, ambiguous location of colour in the discourse on visuality, social and cultural life of colours and the manner in which Western science and modernity has influenced the values pertaining to colours. However, the core anxiety is parked on the relation between colour, aesthetic experience and the question of value. (shrink)

Study on Śrīmadbhagavadgītātparya, exposition of Bhagavadgītā, Hindu philosophical text, by D.V. Gundappa.

So-called ‘distinctively mathematical explanations’ (DMEs) are said to explain physical phenomena, not in terms of contingent causal laws, but rather in terms of mathematical necessities that constrain the physical system in question. Lange argues that the existence of four or more equilibrium positions of any double pendulum has a DME. Here we refute both Lange’s claim itself and a strengthened and extended version of the claim that would pertain to any n-tuple pendulum system on the ground that such explanations are (...) actually causal explanations in disguise and their associated modal conditionals are not general enough to explain the said features of such dynamical systems. We argue and show that if circumscribing the antecedent for a necessarily true conditional in such explanations involves making a causal analysis of the problem, then the resulting explanation is not distinctively mathematical or non-causal. Our argument generalises to other dynamical systems that may have purported DMEs analogous to the one proposed by Lange, and even to some other counterfactual accounts of non-causal explanation given by Reutlinger and Rice. (shrink)

Exposition of Guḍārthatattvāloka of Dharmadatta Jhā, 1860-1918, commentary on the Siddhāntalakṣaṇa of Jagadīśatarkālaṅkāra, work on the basic tenets of the Nyaya school in Hindu philosophy.

The quest for knowledge, for Socrates, is a holistic approach in which the subject is required to transform himself. This brings Socrates’ philosophy closer to the self-enhancement practice of spiritualism. The present study tries to explore the spiritual hue in the key thoughts of Socrates, viz., self-knowledge, goodness, knowledge and virtue, conscious ignorance, training for death, and the investigative methods he used like irony, midwifery method, and dialectic method, etc. The work is an analytical study based on the relevant published (...) works and the dialogues of Plato in which the character Socrates represents the philosophy of the historical Socrates. (shrink)

There is a major debate as to whether there are non-causal mathematical explanations of physical facts that show how the facts under question arise from a degree of mathematical necessity considered stronger than that of contingent causal laws. We focus on Marc Lange’s account of distinctively mathematical explanations to argue that purported mathematical explanations are essentially causal explanations in disguise and are no different from ordinary applications of mathematics. This is because these explanations work not by appealing to what the (...) world must be like as a matter of mathematical necessity but by appealing to various contingent causal facts. (shrink)

The day to day experiences of answering machine messages, written notes, postcard messages, etc. and our intuitions regarding these seem to contradict the traditional assumptions in the semantics of indexicals. The primary analytical scope of the article is to undertake an analysis of Allyson Mount’s convergence of perspectives-based account of indexical reference and see whether it is able to successfully meet the challenges faced by Stefano Predelli’s intended context of interpretation approach towards the semantics of indexicals, thereby providing a viable (...) solution to the Answering Machine Paradox. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Robert Zydenbos' Review of An Introduction to Mādhva VedāntaDeepak SarmaIntroductionI am grateful to the editors of Philosophy East and West for asking me to write a response to Zydenbos' review of my book, An Introduction to Mādhva Vedānta. To this end, I will address four issues: typographical errors, unfounded claims about my translations, content and problems of method and theory, and the future of scholarship in Mādhva (...) Vedānta.Typographical DoṣasFirst, I wish to thank Zydenbos for pointing out the typographical errors. I take full responsibility for them and I intend to correct them in future editions. These are unintentional mistakes and should not be taken as an accurate indicator of my academic ability. I invite readers to examine my other publications on Mādhva Vedānta and to decide for themselves. Jayatīrtha (1365-1388 C.E.), a renowned Mādhva commentator, explained the reasons for such errors in his Pramāṇapad-dhati. He held that defective eyes, whether from cataract, jaundice, or the like,1 [End Page 670] can give rise to defective knowledge, and further, that if an object is too far away, too near, too small, obstructed, or even mixed with similar things, then this will give rise to incorrect knowledge.2 I knew that such errors were likely to occur (especially given the size of the fonts in the page proofs!), which is why I wrote the following in my acknowledgments: "Errors that remain in this text are entirely my own responsibility. If any are found I beg your forgiveness and hope that they inspire you to further study Mādhva Vedānta!" (p. xi). Perhaps all of the undue attention paid by Zydenbos to typographical errors (he devoted a significant portion of his review to them) will inspire further study!TranslationsI am delighted that Zydenbos found my translations to be "not badly done" and disappointed that he incorrectly "assumes" that they are not my own. Rest assured that they are mine. I was assisted by Professor Lawrence McCrea and scholars of the Pūrṇaprajña Saṃśodhana Mandiram (PPSM) and have dutifully acknowledged all of them in my book (p. xii). Zydenbos should know better than to speculate about matters he has no knowledge of.Content and Methodological IssuesThe typographical errors and accusations of plagiarism are far less interesting than the points that were raised about the content of my book. Disputes in the West about interpretations of Mādhva Vedānta are recent; it has been largely ignored in favor of Buddhism and the crypto-Buddhist school, namely Advaita Vedānta. There have been very few books on Mādhva Vedānta written by outsiders, and those few are no longer in print, are poorly written, use dated language, or are in a language that is not available to most lay Mādhvas. Interpretations of Mādhva doctrines made by their authors have remained unquestioned by Western readers given the relative novelty and obscurity of Mādhva Vedānta, while Mādhva insiders have ignored most of them. It is wonderful, then, that Zydenbos doubts my interpretations. After all, his disputes are among the first ones published by an outsider concerning the interpretation of Mādhva doctrines.3Zydenbos' skepticism is reason for celebration for it indicates that Western scholarship on Mādhva Vedānta has come of age. There are now enough scholars of Mādhva Vedānta (or, rather, scholars who claim knowledge of Mādhva Vedānta) in the West that such a debate can occur. I invite others to investigate the points of dispute and to join this expanding community!Zydenbos has also faulted me on the organizational principles of my introductory text. I have, as he correctly notes, intentionally ignored issues of contemporary politics, a topic that he finds essential. Although some historical and political issues are relevant, I find that philosophical discourse sans context is far more intellectually appealing. I am well aware of my biases and have acknowledged the limitations of my historical analysis: [End Page 671]... the history presented here is not intended to be comprehensive. Instead, it is intended... (shrink)

Polanyi’s philosophy of “man in thought,” by all appearances, chronologically and structurally, seems to be founded on his epistemology. Polanyi’s epistemology of tacit knowing as integration is teleological. By his “ontological equation,” he patterned comprehensive (and complex) entities as emergence on his epistemology. This forces him to make puzzling formulaic statements which land him in trouble with fellow scientists. The equation also lends itself to unwarranted problematic interpretations. The exploration leads me to suggest that Polanyi may be understood as a (...) “rational realist” who insisted on a tacit knowledge version of interactionist mode of mind-body relation. (shrink)

On Hindu ethics and code of conduct in Hindu smr̥tis.

Critical edition of treatise on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika philosophy with commentary.

According to my interpretation, based on the entirety of Michael Polanyi's epistemological works, his theory of tacit knowing is conceived of as three models tied together by the central feature of Intellectual Passions as integrator. The models are progressively refined forms of his first conception of tacit knowing: ‘we know more than we can tell’. The three models are: the Gestalt-Perception Model based on the gestalt notion of part-whole relations, the Action-Guiding Model incorporating the phenomenological-existential notion of intentional action, and (...) the Semiotic Model, an abstract conception of action directed to meaning showing that tacit knowing has a ‘from-to structure’. In the Semiotic Model integration is named by the logical term ‘inference’. Polanyi's conception of reality and his theory of truth are introduced linked to the models, to show why his epistemology is not subjectivist and his theory of truth is not relativist. (shrink)

Rangrez and Rangdār are two commonly used words in north India. ‘Rangrez’ is a painter/dyer, and in Sufi tradition is also a word for Allah. ‘Rangdāri’ is an illegal extortion tax, and the person w...

Study of the Prāmāṇyavāda, work on dealing with the concept of authenticity of proofs (prāmāṇyavāda) in Navya-Nyaya school in Hindu philosophy by Harirāmatarkavāgīśa, 17th century philosopher; includes complete text in Sanskrit.

Emergence of the requirement of justice -- Justice's major platforms -- Justice within human rights -- Judges' balancing exercise -- The calculus of social harmonization -- Equilibrating the forces of attraction and repulsion -- Principles of justice and the reasons for their mixing -- Metrics and dialectics for a reflective equilibrium -- Social institutions as equilibrium setting tools.

A reasoned argument or tarka is essential for a wholesome vāda that aims at establishing the truth. A strong tarka constitutes of a number of elements including an anumāna based on a valid hetu. Several scholars, such as Dharmakīrti, Vasubandhu and Dignāga, have worked on theories for the establishment of a valid hetu to distinguish it from an invalid one. This paper aims to interpret Dignāga’s hetu-cakra, called the wheel of grounds, from a modern philosophical perspective by deconstructing it into (...) a simple probabilistic mathematical model. The objective is to understand how and why a vāda based on a probabilistically weaker hetu can degrade into a Jalpa or vitaṇḍā. To do so, the paper maps the concept of ‘Bounded Rationality’ onto the hetu-cakra. Bounded Rationality, an idea coined by the management thinker Herbert Simon, is often employed in understanding decision-making processes of rational agents. In the context of this paper, the concept would state that the prativādin and ālocaka (debater) may not hold unbounded information to back their pratijñā (proposition). The paper argues that within the probabilistically deconstructed hetu-cakra model, most people argue in the ‘Zone of Bounded Rationality’, and thus, the probability of a debate degrading into Jalpa or vitaṇḍā is high. -/- . (shrink)

_Swaraj_ has a prominent place in modern India's socio-political imagination. Its multiple interpretations by the leaders and organisations, often on the opposite spectrum of political ideologies, have shaped the nation's socio-cultural, political, and economic thinking and intellectual life. This paper examines the Gandhian conception of s_waraj_ by comparing it with other equally important concepts in Gandhian lexicons of politics, such as truth, nonviolence, _satyagraha_, and _sarvodaya_. It underlines the significance of the socio-economic conception of _swaraj_, which Gandhi expressed through constructive (...) programmes. The second part of this paper examines its re/interpretations by the two prominent socialist leaders – Jayaprakash Narayan (1902-1979), popularly known as JP, and Rammanohar Lohia (1910-1967). They were founding members of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP), formed in 1934. Although inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's (1869-1948) leadership and programme, JP and Lohia were, at one point, ideologically opposed to Gandhian ideals and methods. However, in their distinct ways, both re/interpreted the Gandhian conception of _swaraj_ in post-independence India for the 'reconstruction' of its polity and society. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this essay, I shall discuss Gadamer’s interpretation of Celan’s dialogical poetry in his essay “Wer bin Ich und wer bist Du?” (“Who am I and Who are You?”). One may argue that this is Gadamer’s articulation of the problem of the self-other relationship. To understand the question of self and other, it is first of all necessary to return to the poetic word from which the question arises. Speaking is, for Gadamer, the most profoundly self-forgetful action, because when (...) one speaks, one is so deeply “within the word” that one is not turned toward the word but, rather, to what one wants to say with the word. For hermeneutics, interpreting means putting oneself on the task of the poetic text. The proximity between poetizing and interpreting emerges, also in its specificity concerning the proximity between poetizing and thinking. Such a proximity, in turn, divides itself into two extremes: the word that sublates itself, and the word that stands for itself. It is hence the uncertain fullness of language, where, unsurprisingly, both poetizing and interpreting come into themselves, which constitutes the link between the one and the other. Therefore, the interpreted word, intertwined with the poetic word does not replace what it indicates, but merely points beyond itself, to what is other than itself. Both pursue a meaning that points toward an open realm. (shrink)

Festschrift in honor of V.N. Jha, b. 1946, Indologist; comprises contributed papers on various aspects of Vedic literature and philosophy.

On the doctrine of recognition (Patyabhijñā philosophy) in Kashmir Saivism.

The world is really feeling the heat, not only in the form of climate change, but because of fuming farmers’ unrest. Farmers’ suicides have become a common way of expressing their anger and anxiety as no one is there to take heed to their problems. This research paper tries to examine the in-depth analysis of the great agrarian crisis in India and how it was completely mistaken in understanding the real cause. With the comparative studies of the two villages of (...) India, with a completely different technological, economical and cultural background, a deep observation was made possible in finding out that, it is the growing alienation of farmers with new agricultural technologies and the collapsing local natural resource base, which will further uproot the farmers and aggravate the great Indian agrarian crisis. Traditional agricultural knowledge and practices immensely contribute in preserving the identity of farm community and gives them a feeling of pride, which is vital for the reviving and resurrection of farmers’ dignity in India. Agriculture preserves the Indianness of India, and uprooting of farmers is analogous to uprooting our own identity. (shrink)

Treatise on Hindu logic according to the neo-nyaya tradition of Mithila, Bihar.

Critical study, with text and commentary of Vedāntasiddhāntamuktāvalī of Prakāśānanda, 16th cent., of Vendānta philosophy.

Exposition of Daśaprakaraṇa (ten minor collective tracts) on Dvaita Vedanta by Madhva, 13th cent. ; includes complete text in Sanskrit.