The present essay intends to delineate the sense of bhakti in the Bhagavadgītā. There are two notions of bhakti: one having its roots in the Ṛgveda and the other originating with the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The Vedic notion of bhakti was more or less forgotten by the time of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Most of modern commentators, when they trace the lineage of bhakti to the Vedas, try to understand and interpret it in light of the later notion of bhakti. The earlier (...) sense of bhakti is “sharing, participation, partaking, belonging to", while the later sense of the term is “attachment, devotion, service, love". It is argued in the essay that bhakti only in the Vedic sense is presented in the Bhagavadgītā. (shrink)

Tattvopaplavada, an ancient Indian school of scepticism, and Pyrrhonism, an ancient Greek school of scepticism, are the objects of examination of this paper because while, on the one hand, both attack the senses and reason as means of valid knowledge, on the other hand, both can serve as a basis for questioning Faith as the fount of human action. The aim of the paper is to examine how can these two schools of scepticism, which assert the impossibility of valid knowledge, (...) question faith without running into the risk of self-contradiction? Equally important is the question whether do they, in the process, commit the cardinal error of falling into the trap of self-reference? The aim of the paper is to examine the accusation of the critics of Scepticism that in the absence of certain basis of knowledge, human action is impossible. p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; direction: ltr; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; orphans: 2; widows: 2}a:link { so-language: zxx}. (shrink)

The study aims to fill a conceptual gap that occurs between Nietzsche’s free spirit and the appearance of Übermensch. Nietzsche has been recognized as an exceptional scholar in the history of modern philosophy and in many domains of contemporary analysis. To date, Nietzsche remains one of the most challenging thinkers of all time. Much attention has been paid by academics to Nietzsche’s major philosophical works such as the concept of Übermensch (Overman), will to power, the death of God, and his (...) critique of Christian morals; however, his views on free spirit have received little attention. He affirms that the free spirit is achieved; however, it is not his ultimate ideal. As the free spirit continues to grow and expand, substituted by the Übermensch, we must aim toward the ultimate goal. He often expressed his thoughts in parables and metaphoric style rather than obvious reasoning. This makes it more challenging to demarcate the key arguments in Nietzsche’s writing. (shrink)

The path of devotion (bhakti-mārga) is firmly rooted in duality, whereas the path of knowledge (jñāna-mārga), particularly in the Advaita tradition, establishes non-duality. Thus, the two streams seem to be quite divergent in nature, having no connection with each other. The present paper examines the pivotal role of bhakti in Advaita Vedānta, with a specific focus on Svāmī Vidyāraṇya’s elucidations. It explores the intrinsic connection between the paths of devotion and knowledge, highlighting their substantial role in the attainment of mokṣa (...) within the framework of the Advaita tradition. It also delineates the concept of bhakti, as laid down in the Bhaktisūtras, tracing its origins in the Vedas, and investigates its significance in the philosophy of Advaita Vedānta. The primary objective of the paper is to examine how Vidyāraṇya’s interpretation of jñāna and bhakti underscores their interconnectedness in unique ways. A careful study of his exposition makes us clearly realise that the two paths are only complementary and that they only converge and not diverge. (shrink)

Dummett construes that the issue of realism does not centre around the nature of entities; it is rather associated with the nature of truth. The real question is not the objectivity of entities of a certain class; it is rather a question of objective truth of statements of a certain class, and the class possesses an objective truth value independently of our means of knowing it. This has been criticized by Dummett in his proposal of an anti-realist position. The disputed (...) or given class (the class about which the question of objective truth arises) may be that of statements about physical objects or about mental events, or about mathematical entities, or about past or future. Realism about the disputed class is characterized by Dummett as the belief that the statements of the disputed class possess an objective truth-value, that means the statements are true or false independent of any means of recognition. The realist therefore admits evidence transcendent truth of statements in question and every statement of a given class is determinately either true or false. Dummett has argued that this principle cannot operate globally because there is no determinate truth available for a large segment of natural language. It can operate where we can verify the truth/falsity of statements. For him any cognition transcendent truth is beyond our cognition grasp and therefore it remains forever indeterminate and unknowable. If truth is beyond our cognitive grasp, we cannot explain how truth can be ascribed to language at all. We cannot even explain the meaning of statements if truth-conditions of those statements themselves are beyond our knowledge. He holds that the world is empirically real in so far as it is given in experience, but it cannot be transcendentally real as there is no such reality which can be made intelligible at all. Transcendental reality is an incorrect assumption as it has no foothold in our verifiable language. My aim in this paper is to deal with Dummett’s view on meaning where he has discarded the truth-conditional theory of meaning by denying truth to be the central notion in the theory of meaning. He holds that the truth-conditional theory should be substituted by verifiability and hence Dummett’s view is called as semantic anti-realism. The paper also discusses briefly Rorty and Davidson’s view on truth and meaning. (shrink)

The paper critically engages with Simone de Beauvoir’s promising claim that reproductive technology is the emancipatory tool for women and the Indian problem of surrogacy. Beauvoir believes in voluntary motherhood in which reproductive technologies play a significant role in empowering women. Although in India, surrogacy is seen as a choice-based job, surrogate mothers are subjected to exploitation, commodification, poor living conditions, and unethical treatment. I argue that Beauvoir’s description of technology and motherhood needs further revision in today’s world where surrogacy (...) is not only disempowering women but also crushing their maternal self by viewing them merely as machines for fulfilling societal values. Recently, the Indian government has taken strong majors to regularise surrogacy will be further explored. In doing so, an attempt will be made to critically analyse the meanings of women’s choices in relation to the use of reproductive technologies within the existentialist framework of Beauvoir. (shrink)

The rationale that led to the articulation of this paper originates in the ambiguous nature of what is known to be the responsibilities of a business enterprise, if any at all, toward the market it serves. Is the relationship simply one of demand–supply and circulation of financial and other resources? Or is there more to it? Contrary to popular belief perhaps, there is an ethical angle to the subject. In recent years, substantial attention has turned to this ethical angle; something (...) that has been made possible by the ever-increasing impact a corporate enterprise has on the construction and progression of the market in which it operates. It only follows from here that it is of utmost importance to a contemporary philosophically motivated individual to contemplate the nature of this relationship and raise relevant questions on the subject, finding answers to which need more than just a moment’s consideration. One such question that we have raised, as the primary concern for this paper, is a conundrum that seems to permeate the idea of corporate social responsibility. To be precise, in a situation of choice which does the company prioritize? Profit maximization or social responsibility? (shrink)

‘Tractatus, since I first read it, has been a constant source of philosophical inspiration to me’ so says Ganguly in the preface of his book Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: A Preliminary. This extraordinary commentary on Tractatus is unique in the sense that it has discussed all the commentaries available at that time while examining and critiquing, wherever necessary, the commentaries as well as the original with utmost passion and sincerity. His approach to the author was feasibly sympathetic and sensitive, though he never (...) fails in his duty of being a rigorous critique while examining an apparent inconsistency or weak arguments. As it is nearly impossible to deal with all the contentious topics of the Tractatus that Ganguly dealt with in a single paper, I would like to concentrate only on the fundamental claim of Ganguly that the Tractatus 6.54 cannot really get Wittgenstein out of the paradoxical situation. Hence the paper will be divided into three main sections. In the first section, the paper will deal with the palpable paradox that results from the reading of Tractatus 6.54 and the controversies involved in various interpretations of the paradox. In the second section, there will be an attempt to focus on the problem of description in the distinction between saying and showing, between thinking and imagining, between thought and reality in order to understand the annotation of T6.54 by Ganguly. In the third section, there will be an attempt on my part to interpret the paragraph Tractatus 6.54 in the light of the distinction between Sinnloss and Unsinn from a non-resolute perspective and evaluate Ganguly’s account of the paragraph in question from that perspective. (shrink)

Larry Laudan (Philosophy of Science, 57(1), 44-59, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 21(2), 315-322) proposes and defends a naturalistic philosophy of science called normative naturalism. The paper will delineate the cardinal features of normative naturalism and some of the critiques against it. The objective of the paper is to present an analytical review of normative naturalism. The objections raised in this paper are limited to evaluating Laudan’s normative naturalism in the light of his theory of axiology. We will (...) assess whether Laudan’s interpretation of the hierarchical model is historically accurate, the instrumental conception of scientific methodology, and the naturalness of the axiological criterion. The analysis of Laudan’s account of axiology reveals some inherent contradictions in his normative naturalism. We propose a strategy to rectify these inconsistencies in order to make Laudan’s normative naturalism compatible with his naturalistic project. (shrink)