v. 1. Opponents' position (Pūrvapakṣa) -- v. 2. Pramā-lakṣaṇa-siddhānta.

Study of inference in Nyāyamañjarī of Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, fl. 850-910, work on Nyaya philosophy.

Articles on the life and work of Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950, philosopher and thinker from India, and his views on Ramakrishna, 1836-1886, Hindu saint, and his life.

In 1971, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter introduced his study of Nietzsche as an investigation into the history of modern nihilism in which “contradiction” forms the central thread of the argument. For Müller-Lauter, the interpretive task is not to demonstrate the overall coherence or incoherence of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but to examine Nietzsche’s “philosophy of contradiction.” Against those such as Karl Jaspers, Karl Löwith and Martin Heidegger, Müller-Lauter argued that contradiction is the foundation of Nietzsche’s thought, and not a problem to be corrected or (...) cast aside for exegetical or political purposes. For Müller-Lauter, contradiction qua incompatibility (not just mere opposition) holds a key to Nietzsche’s affective vision of philosophy. Beginning with the relationship between will to power and eternal recurrence, in this paper I examine aspects of Müller-Lauter’s account of Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction specifically in relation to the counter-interpretations offered by two other German commentators of Nietzsche, Leo Strauss and Karl Löwith, in order to confirm Müller-Lauter’s suggestion that contradiction is indeed an operative engine of Nietzsche’s thought. Indeed contradiction is a key Nietzschean theme and an important dynamic of becoming which enables the subject to be revealed as a “multiplicity” ( BGE §12) and as a “fiction” (KSA 12:9[91]). Following Müller-Lauter’s assertion that for Nietzsche the problem of nihilism is fundamentally synonymous with the struggle of contradiction experienced by will to power, this paper interprets Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction in terms of subjective, bodily life (rather than in terms of logical incoherences or ontological inconsistencies). Against the backdrop of nihilism, the “self” (and its related place holder the “subject”), I will argue, becomes the psycho-physiological battlespace for the struggle and articulation of “contradiction” in Nietzsche’s thought. (shrink)

In theories which contribute to the understanding of uncertainty in entrepreneurial action, scholars have traditionally attributed a negative connotation to uncertainty. This paper seeks to posit an understanding of uncertainty derived from Greek and Indian philosophy, where action of the human agent is not deterred by uncertainty, and rather, occurs despite uncertainty. This idea may be beneficial in making future entrepreneurs less apprehensive about uncertainty, by helping them locate the lessons from philosophy. I look at existing ideas that explore uncertainty (...) in entrepreneurial motivation, and present a multidisciplinary approach which sees uncertainty as a force that increases intent of action, rather than deterring it by drawing on the understanding of consequence and action in Aristotelean thought and Hindu philosophy, and extend the concepts of tuche and karma to posit a theoretical position which sees uncertainty as a factor that encourages entrepreneurial action and motivation. The understanding of uncertainty in management literature has been approached primarily from two disciplinary positions - economics and organisational theory. In economics, the classical understanding of uncertainty which commenced with Frank Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (1921), was largely abandoned in later years for a more quantifiable approach of calculating risk. Uncertainty, characteristically nebulous and difficult to grapple with, is unquantifiable. It is defined, in fact, by Knight, as something which cannot be predicted and quantified. Thus, in academics, where almost all disciplines try to make sense of the way the world works, uncertainty has always been a problematic concept. (shrink)

This article expands on existing models of analyzing business ethics of monetization in video games using the concept of categorical imperatives, as posited by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. A model is advanced to analyze and evaluate the business logics of video game monetization using a Kantian framework, which falls in the deontological category of normative ethics. Using two categorical imperatives, existing models of game monetization are divided into ethical or unethical, and presented using the case example of Star Wars: Battlefront (...) II. This analysis aims to provide video game developers and businesses with ethical guidelines for game monetization which may also be profitable for them in the long term. Within the framework of video game monetization, a deontological analysis is relevant due to the fact that the game developer is engaged in a continuous role of making the game more playable/payable. This article applies Kantian business ethics to the context of a new sector, that of video game businesses, and thereby presents a broader ethical perspective to video game developers, which will help them monetize games in an ethical manner which is also profitable in the long run. (shrink)

A close observation on the rapid change in the mind of young cohort has been made. Our Surveillance is before and after pandemic periods compels us to re-write some pre-occupied conceptions in the core of Philosophy and Psychology. We have worked on mind-body & mind-soul relationship from three angles that are Medical Science, Psychology and Philosophy. It is seen that the level of confidence is gradually diminishing among the youth due to different impetus and as a result many powerful strengths (...) are going out. Proclamation of human values in a new way must be declared so that we can save a thankful number of creative lives. Discussions have been made on thoughts, distress, medical causes of suicide or suicidal attempts, personality disorders, neuropsychology to open up a new world before the present generation. Each and every characteristics of life has positive impact and here we have tried to establish this fact. Physical and metaphysical aspects are reciprocating our lives and this should be injected in the mind of present generation and an approach can be taken to incorporate the matter in the curriculum right now. We have the intention to explain metaphysical love and its high, intelligent values proclaimed strength of mind of youth to infuse our dear world with great moral values. It may also save the earth from natural decay with their surprising discoveries. (shrink)

It can be demonstrated in a very straightforward way that confirmation and evidence as spelled out by us can vary from one case to the next, that is, a hypothesis may be weakly confirmed and yet the evidence for it can be strong, and conversely, the evidence may be weak and the confirmation strong. At first glance, this seems puzzling; the puzzlement disappears once it is understood that confirmation is of single hypotheses, in which there is an initial degree of (...) belief which is adjusted up or down as data accumulate, whereas evidence always has to do with a comparison of one hypothesis against another with respect to the data and is belief-independent. Confusing them is, we suggest, a plausible source of the so-called “base-rate fallacy” identified by Kahneman and Tversky which leads most of us to make mistaken statistical inferences. It is also in the background, or so we argue in some detail, of the important policy controversies concerning human-induced global warming. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the growing reliance on discourses of autochthony in nationalisms throughout the world. Native-ness is increasingly being made a key criterion for claiming national sovereignty over territory, as well as the more amorphous – but no less consequential – claim to national membership. By examining the crucial colonial genealogy of autochthonous discursive practices, I argue that claims to autochthony are metaphysical and, as such, deeply depoliticizing of the exclusions they produce. Drawing upon historical studies showing how (...) imperial-states deployed autocthonous discourses to divide those they categorized as Natives and Migrants from one another in an effort to maintain their imperial rule, I show the continuities of such practices in the Postcolonial New World Order of nation-states. Despite their rhetoric, I argue that contemporary, nationalist discourses of autochthonies have not – and cannot – succeed in realizing decolonization, precisely because of their reliance on modes of political, economic, and social exclusion based on the separation of people categorized as either Native-Nationals or as Migrants. The material force of ideas of Native-Nationalism, because they are premised on territorial sovereignty and not on the end of practices of expropriation and exploitation across the planet, are part of the worldwide relations of ruling and not threats to it. (shrink)

We investigate the epistemological consequences of a positive polymerase chain reaction SARS-CoV test for two relevant hypotheses: V is the hypothesis that an individual has been infected with SARS-CoV-2; C is the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of flu-like symptoms in a given patient. We ask two fundamental epistemological questions regarding each hypothesis: First, how much confirmation does a positive test lend to each hypothesis? Second, how much evidence does a positive test provide for each hypothesis against its negation? (...) We respond to each question within a formal Bayesian framework. We construe degree of confirmation as the difference between the posterior probability of the hypothesis and its prior, and the strength of evidence for a hypothesis against its alternative in terms of their likelihood ratio. We find that test specificity—and coinfection probabilities when making inferences about C—were key determinants of confirmation and evidence. Tests with 8) for V against ¬V regardless of sensitivity. Accordingly, low specificity tests could not provide strong evidence in favor of C in all plausible scenarios modeled. We also show how a positive influenza A test disconfirms C and provides weak evidence against C in dependence on the probability that the patient is influenza A infected given that his/her symptoms are not caused by SARS-CoV-2. Our analysis points out some caveats that should be considered when attributing symptoms or death of a positively tested patient to SARS-CoV-2. (shrink)

The War on Terror is an ambiguous term that has been used to circumvent the international laws of warfare. Instead of moving toward peace by way of limited warfare, and instead of preserving the independence of war and peace, War on Terror advances by masking itself in a fog of peace; it proliferates by overlapping the logic of “war-time” and “peace-time” operations. The fog of peace—as it shall herein be called—is a condition wherein the uncertainty qua “fog” of war,2 along (...) with its militarized logic, overlaps with and eventually replaces civilian peace-time-and-spaces. The War on Terror is thus not a limiting of war by way of the conventional modern mechanisms of international law and diplomacy; it is a continuation of war by other means, including the use covert, often black-boxed methods of information-capture and surveillance. Globally, states are expanding the powers of intelligence organs and deploying covert mass surveillance programs in the name of counter-terrorism. In this manner, counter-terrorism policies become instruments enabling states to become predatory, especially in relation to civilians. Under the banner of fighting terrorism, peace-time has unwittingly become colonized by the logic of war. (shrink)

In business ethics literature, the figure of Machiavelli is often taken as a representation of that which is dark, sinister and negative—a source of inspiration for undesirable and unethical actions. In this research, we examine the evaluation of Niccolò Machiavelli’s thought in extant studies, and posit that Machiavelli’s works consist of ideas that may appear contradictory, which, coupled with historically contextualized close reading of his texts have more to offer. In this theoretical investigation, we construct new conceptual categories of a (...) leader’s decision-making rubric and attempt to provide a structured framework that will allow us to specify the boundary conditions under which the apparent contrary views may be accommodated, by undertaking a close reading of Machiavelli’s texts. Our work contributes to business ethics literature in at least three ways. First, we present a holistic assessment of the research area that applies the tenets of Machiavelli’s writings to business ethics, management, and organizational studies, and delineate the dominant themes. We outline and substantiate the informal research networks, thought structures, and “invisible colleges” that form the intellectual framework of this research area through a bibliometric analysis and literature review. Second, we present a contextualized close reading of Machiavelli’s major treatises. Third, we reimagine the critical landscape of business ethics literature, specifically pertaining to Machiavelli’s oeuvre by shifting the single-minded focus from _The Prince_, by including _The Discourses_, which, as we show, has new and unprecedented implications for business ethics. In light of this, the parameters for ethical action by business leaders can be redrawn according to a Machiavellian schema. This marks a radical departure from the long-standing association between Machiavelli’s tenets and the absence of ethics, instead proposing a more positive and affirmative relationship between Machiavelli and business ethics. Specifically, while pointing out that the existing ethical frameworks foisted on Machiavelli’s texts do not do justice to the political philosopher’s worldview, which are complex insights into ideas of leadership, we urge researchers to incorporate the thoughts offered in this research in future investigations. (shrink)

Following Nietzsche’s call for a philosopher-physician and his own use of the bodily language of health and illness as tools to diagnose the ailments of the body politic, this book offers a reconstruction of the concept of political physiology in Nietzsche’s thought, bridging gaps between Anglo-American, German and French schools of interpretation.

Correspondence between Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950 and Dilip Kumar Roy, 1897-1980.

This study investigates the value of sharing. The primary data are the parent–child discourses regarding the value of sharing. The discourses are subsequently subjected to discourse analyses. The study also involves a semi-structured interview with the same parents who were a part of the discursive study as well. The data of the interview were subjected to thematic analyses. The aim of conducting the interview was to validate the discursive findings. The study provides exemplary discourses highlighting the issues of sacrifice and (...) reciprocity in sharing. (shrink)

In his book “Medical Philosophy: Conceptual issues in Medicine”, Mario Bunge provides a unique account of medical philosophy that is deeply rooted in a realist ontology he calls “systemism”. According to systemism, the world consists of systems and their parts, and systems possess emergent properties that their parts lack. Events within systems may form causes and effects that are constantly conjoined via particular mechanisms. Bunge supports the views of the evidence-based medicine movement that randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide the best (...) evidence to establish the truth of causal hypothesis; in fact, he argues that _only_ RCTs have this ability. Here, we argue that Bunge neglects the important feature of patients being open systems which are in steady interaction with their environment. We show that accepting this feature leads to counter-intuitive consequences for his account of medical hypothesis testing. In particular, we point out that (i) the confirmation of hypotheses is inherently stochastic and affords a probabilistic account of both confirmation and evidence which we provide here; (ii) RCTs are neither necessary nor sufficient to establish the truth of a causal claim; (iii) testing of causal hypotheses requires taking into account background knowledge and the context within which an intervention is applied. We conclude that there is no “best” research methodology in medicine, but that different methodologies should coexist in a complementary fashion. (shrink)

The Human-Animal Boundary shifts the traditional anthropocentric focus of philosophy and literature by combining the question "what is human?" with the question "what is animal?" The objective is to expand the imaginative scope of human-animal relationships by combining perspectives from different disciplines, traditions, and cultural backgrounds.

The present study aimed at understanding the subjective perception of happiness in a sample of Indian participants from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. Using convenience sampling, individual interviews were conducted with 60 participants aged between 19 to 73 years. This study employed reflexive thematic analysis to analyse the written transcripts. Nine themes were generated which captured the essence of happiness for Indians—Feelings and Expressions of Happiness; Human Ties and Happiness which encompassed four sub-themes—family bond, the company one keeps, the pandemic and social (...) disengagement, and the nation, society and happiness; Satisfaction with Material Needs and Resources; Lifestyle and Health; Work and Play; Accomplishment and Appreciation; Nature Connectedness; Religious and Spiritual beliefs; and Happiness as a Personal responsibility—Role of Positive Personality Traits. These findings revealed our respondent's multidimensional conceptualization of happiness, and adds to the growing body of happiness literature from the South Asian context. (shrink)

There are three questions associated with Simpson’s paradox (SP): (i) Why is SP paradoxical? (ii) What conditions generate SP? and (iii) How to proceed when confronted with SP? An adequate analysis of the paradox starts by distinguishing these three questions. Then, by developing a formal account of SP, and substantiating it with a counterexample to causal accounts, we argue that there are no causal factors at play in answering questions (i) and (ii). Causality enters only in connection with action.

In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, one of the principal Upaniṣads, we find a venerable and famous story where the god Prajāpati separately instructs three groups of people (gods, humans, and demons) simply by uttering the syllable “Da.” In this paper, our concern is not with ethics but theories of meaning and interpretation: How can all divergent interpretations of a single expression be correct, and, indeed, endorsed by the speaker? As an exercise in cross-cultural philosophical reflection, we consider some of the leading (...) modern theories of meaning—those of Grice, Quine, and Davidson—in order to see if the Upaniṣadic story receives a natural home in any of them. We conclude that the story is best understood through Grice’s theory of meaning rather than Quine’s or Davidson’s. (shrink)

In the curve fitting problem two conflicting desiderata, simplicity and goodness-of-fit pull in opposite directions. To solve this problem, two proposals, the first one based on Bayes's theorem criterion (BTC) and the second one advocated by Forster and Sober based on Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) are discussed. We show that AIC, which is frequentist in spirit, is logically equivalent to BTC, provided that a suitable choice of priors is made. We evaluate the charges against Bayesianism and contend that AIC approach (...) has shortcomings. We also discuss the relationship between Schwarz's Bayesian Information Criterion and BTC. (shrink)

The notion of a severe test has played an important methodological role in the history of science. But it has not until recently been analyzed in any detail. We develop a generally Bayesian analysis of the notion, compare it with Deborah Mayo’s error-statistical approach by way of sample diagnostic tests in the medical sciences, and consider various objections to both. At the core of our analysis is a distinction between evidence and confirmation or belief. These notions must be kept separate (...) if mistakes are to be avoided; combined in the right way, they provide an adequate understanding of severity. Those who think that the weight of the evidence always enables you to choose between hypotheses “ignore one of the factors (the prior probability) altogether, and treat the other (the likelihood) as though it ...meant something other than it actually does. This is the same mistake as is made by someone who has scruples about measuring the arms of a balance (having only a tape measure at his disposal ...), but is willing to assert that the heavier load will always tilt the balance (thereby implicitly assuming, although without admitting it, that the arms are of equal length!). (Bruno de Finetti, Theory of Probability)2. (shrink)

The role of Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) in health research is well established. Ethics committees have the good of research participants in mind but they must also assess scientific merit including the design and conduct of studies. In this article the authors’ focus is on qualitative research method and the challenge that the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) poses for ethics committees when they assess proposals using the methods outlined in the National Statement.We set out (...) a process for judging the standard of qualitative research proposals and propose that qualitative health research can be assessed using a hierarchy designed for evaluating interview studies. We contrast well-designed studies with those that have design flaws in order to focus on the hallmarks of research merit in studies that use qualitative research methods. Finally, we show that our proposal is compatible with the National Statement.Ethics review provides an early opportunity to identify and redesign inadequate studies that will not contribute to our knowledge base. The challenge for members of ethics committees with little experience in qualitative studies is to be able to assess research excellence by assessing research merit in proposals, recognising the special design features of qualitative research methods. (shrink)

There are three questions associated with Simpson’s Paradox (SP): (i) Why is SP paradoxical? (ii) What conditions generate SP?, and (iii) What should be done about SP? By developing a logic-based account of SP, it is argued that (i) and (ii) must be divorced from (iii). This account shows that (i) and (ii) have nothing to do with causality, which plays a role only in addressing (iii). A counterexample is also presented against the causal account. Finally, the causal and logic-based (...) approaches are compared by means of an experiment to show that SP is not basically causal. (shrink)

We introduce a distinction, unnoticed in the literature, between four varieties of objective Bayesianism. What we call ' strong objective Bayesianism' is characterized by two claims, that all scientific inference is 'logical' and that, given the same background information two agents will ascribe a unique probability to their priors. We think that neither of these claims can be sustained; in this sense, they are 'dogmatic'. The first fails to recognize that some scientific inference, in particular that concerning evidential relations, is (...) not (in the appropriate sense) logical, the second fails to provide a non-question-begging account of 'same background information'. We urge that a suitably objective Bayesian account of scientific inference does not require either of the claims. Finally, we argue that Bayesianism needs to be fine-grained in the same way that Bayesians fine-grain their beliefs. (shrink)

The underdetermination thesis poses a threat to rational choice of scientific theories. We discuss two arguments for the thesis. One draws its strength from deductivism together with the existence thesis, and the other is defended on the basis of the failure of a reliable inductive method. We adopt a partially subjective/objective pragmatic Bayesian epistemology of science framework, and reject both arguments for the thesis. Thus, in science we are able to reinstate rational choice called into question by the underdetermination thesis.

We address the need for a model by considering two competing theories regarding the origin of life: (i) the Metabolism First theory, and (ii) the RNA World theory. We discuss two interrelated points, namely: (i) Models are valuable tools for understanding both the processes and intricacies of origin-of-life issues, and (ii) Insights from models also help us to evaluate the core objection to origin-of-life theories, called “the inefficiency objection”, which is commonly raised by proponents of both the Metabolism First theory (...) and the RNA World theory against each other. We use Simpson’s Paradox (SP) as a tool for challenging this objection. We will use models in various senses, ranging from taking them as representations of reality to treating them as theories/accounts that provide heuristics for probing reality. In this paper, we will frequently use models and theories interchangeably. Additionally, we investigate Conway’s Game of Life and contrast it with our SP-based approach to emergence-of-life issues. Finally, we discuss some of the consequences of our view. A scientific model is testable in three senses: (i) a logical sense, (ii) a nomological sense, and (iii) a current technological sense. The SP-based model is testable in the first two senses but it is not feasible to test it using current technology. (shrink)

I show that van Fraassen's empiricism leads to mutually incompatible claims with regard to empirical theories. He is committed to the claim that reasons for accepting a theory and believing it are always identical, insofar as the theory in question is an empirical theory. He also makes a general claim that reasons for accepting a theory are not always reasons for believing it irrespective of whether the theory is an empirical theory.

Elliott Sober is both an empiricist and an instrumentalist. His empiricism rests on a principle called actualism, whereas his instrumentalism violates this. This violation generates a tension in his work. We argue that Sober is committed to a conflicting methodological imperative because of this tension. Our argument illuminates the contemporary debate between realism and empiricism which is increasingly focused on the application of scientific inference to testing scientific theories. Sober’s position illustrates how the principle of actualism drives a wedge between (...) two conceptions of scientific inference and at the same time brings to the surface a deep conflict between empiricism and instrumentalism. (shrink)