Genealogies -- Psychoanalysis and archaeology -- Freud in the sacred grove -- Colonial rescriptings -- War, decolonization, psychoanalysis -- Colonial melancholy -- Haunting and the future -- The ethical ambiguities of transnational feminism -- Hamlet in the colonial archive.
In this rigorous investigation into the logic of truth Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap explain how the concept of truth works in both ordinary and pathological..
This book offers a novel account of the relationship of experience to knowledge. The account builds on the intuitive idea that our ordinary perceptual judgments are not autonomous, that an interdependence obtains between our view of the world and our perceptual judgments. Anil Gupta shows in this important study that this interdependence is the key to a satisfactory account of experience. He uses tools from logic and the philosophy of language to argue that his account of experience makes available (...) an attractive and feasible empiricism. (shrink)
Gupta’s Rule of Revision theory of truth builds on insights to be found in Martin and Woodruff and Kripke in order to permanently deepen our understanding of truth, of paradox, and of how we work our language while our language is working us. His concept of a predicate deriving its meaning by way of a Rule of Revision ought to impact significantly on the philosophy of language. Still, fortunately, he has left me something to.
We consider various concepts associated with the revision theory of truth of Gupta and Belnap. We categorize the notions definable using their theory of circular definitions as those notions universally definable over the next stable set. We give a simplified account of varied revision sequences-as a generalised algorithmic theory of truth. This enables something of a unification with the Kripkean theory of truth using supervaluation schemes.
After summarizing the essential details of Anil Gupta’s account of perceptual justification in his book _Empiricism and Experience_, I argue for three claims: (1) Gupta’s proposal is closer to rationalism than advertised; (2) there is a major lacuna in Gupta’s account of how convergence in light of experience yields absolute entitlements to form beliefs; and (3) Gupta has not adequately explained how ordinary courses of experience can lead to convergence on a commonsense view of the world.
_An Introduction to Indian Philosophy_ offers a profound yet accessible survey of the development of India’s philosophical tradition. Beginning with the formation of Brahmanical, Jaina, Materialist, and Buddhist traditions, Bina Gupta guides the reader through the classical schools of Indian thought, culminating in a look at how these traditions inform Indian philosophy and society in modern times. Offering translations from source texts and clear explanations of philosophical terms, this text provides a rigorous overview of Indian philosophical contributions to epistemology, (...) metaphysics, philosophy of language, and ethics. This is a must-read for anyone seeking a reliable and illuminating introduction to Indian philosophy. (shrink)
This volume reprints eight of Anil Gupta's essays, some with additional material. The essays bring a refreshing new perspective to central issues in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, and epistemology.
This article focuses on the transformation of the female reproductive body with the use of assisted reproduction technologies under neo-liberal economic globalisation, wherein the ideology of trade without borders is central, as well as under liberal feminist ideals, wherein the right to self-determination is central. Two aspects of the body in western medicine—the fragmented body and the commodified body, and the integral relation between these two—are highlighted. This is done in order to analyse the implications of local and global transactions (...) in women’s reproductive body parts for their right to self-determination and individual agency and what this means for their embodiment. We conclude by exploring whether women can become embodied subjects by exercising their proprietary right to their bodies through directing technology to achieve their own goals, while at the same time being fragmented into parts and losing their personhood and bodily integrity. (shrink)
We argue that distinct conditionals—conditionals that are governed by different logics—are needed to formalize the rules of Truth Introduction and Truth Elimination. We show that revision theory, when enriched with the new conditionals, yields an attractive theory of truth. We go on to compare this theory with one recently proposed by Hartry Field.
In this groundbreaking book, psychiatrist and ethicist Mona Gupta analyzes the basic assumptions of Evidence-based medicine (EBM), and critically examines their applicability to psychiatry. Highlighting ethical tensions between psychiatry and EBM, she asks the controversial question - should psychiatrists practice evidence-based medicine at all?
In November–December 2006, a four-part documentary, A Child against All Odds, aired on BBC television, presented by a renowned British infertility specialist, physician Robert Winston. The series portrayed the reproductive journeys of several couples who apparently had very low chances of biologically conceiving their own children. The series had all the ingredients of a medical thriller, with individuals, couples, and reproductive body parts (their own and donors’) crossing national boundaries and traveling thousands of miles in what Marcia Inhorn (2002) calls (...) a “quest for conception.” Whether it is “mail order” conception facilitated by courier services or actual persons traveling, a growing number of .. (shrink)
The Disinterested Witness is a detailed, contextual, and interpretive study of the concept of saksin (or that which directly or immediately perceives) in Advaita Vedanta, and a fascinating and significant comparison of the philosophies of ...
This article argues that psychoanalytic notions of affect – including ideas of anxiety and melancholia, as well as deconstructive concepts of auto-affection – offer a feminist ethico-politics and a notion of affect as interface. Beyond the confines of the experiential and the positivist, both psychoanalysis and deconstruction provide insights into affect as a technology that understands the subject as porous. I consider works by Derek Jarman and Shirin Neshat to demonstrate the importance of the ethico-politics of affect as interface in (...) contemporary cultural production. Both artists, in the process of considering the spectacular nature of notions of feminist and queer, use images of interface as a way of delimiting the spectacular nature of being and demonstrating the singularity of the event, the desire to fix through framing, and the parergonal nature of framing. The presence of the subject is questioned even as an auto-affection is suggestive of a spectral demand of the ethico-political. In the case of Jarman’s Blue, the denial of image as face in favour of the screen as interface is interrupted by sound and voice, which gesture toward representation as impossible but necessary. In the case of Neshat, the persistence of the photographic – the highly aesthetic self-portrait as mugshot – foregrounds face as interface, as one that questions presence through the insistence of a representational apparatus. (shrink)
Proper utilization of antenatal and postnatal care services plays an important role in reducing the maternal mortality ratio and infant mortality rate. This paper assesses the utilization of health care services during pregnancy, delivery and post-delivery among rural women in Uttar Pradesh and examines its determinants. Data from a baseline survey of UP Community Mobilization project was utilized. A cross-sectional sample of currently married women who delivered a baby 15 months prior to the survey was included. Information was collected from (...) 2208 women spread over five districts of UP. Information on socio-demography characteristics, utilization of antenatal care, delivery and postnatal care services was collected. To examine the determinants of utilization of maternal health services, the variables included were three ANC visits, institutional delivery and PNC within 42 days of delivery. Separate multilevel random intercept logistic regressions were used to account for clustering at a block and gram panchayat level after adjusting for covariates. Eighty-three percent of women had any ANC. Of them, 61% reported three or more ANC visits. Although 68% of women delivered in a health facility, 29% stayed for at least 48 h. Any PNC within 42 days after delivery was reported by 26% of women. In the adjusted analysis, women with increasing number of contacts with the health worker during the antenatal period, women exposed to mass-media and non-marginalized women were more likely to have at least three ANC visits during pregnancy. Non-marginalized women and women with at least three ANC visits were more likely than their counterparts to deliver in an institution. Contacts with health worker during pregnancy, marginalization, at least three ANC visits and institutional delivery were the strong determinants for utilization of PNC services. Self-help group membership had no association with the utilization of maternal health services. Utilization of maternal health services was low. Contact with the health worker and marginalization emerged as important factors for utilization of services. Although not associated with the utilization, SHGs can be used for delivering health care messages within and beyond the group. (shrink)
_Education as Mutual Translation_ examines Hindu Vedantist and Yoruba philosophical concepts of self and mutuality with others, in a contemporary higher art education context. It suggests that resilient, original voices emerge more successfully from awareness of social interactions, than from individualism.
In these comments I briefly discuss three aspects of the empiricist account of the epistemic role of experience that Anil Gupta develops in his Empiricism and Experience. First, I discuss the motivations Gupta offers for the claim that the given in experience should be regarded as reliable. Second, I discuss two different ways of conceiving of the epistemic significance of the phenomenology of experience. And third, I discuss whether Gupta's account is able to deliver the anti-skeptical results (...) he intends it to. I close by suggesting that, once fully fleshed out, Gupta's account is best understood in terms of the fusion of certain core ideas within both the empiricist and the rationalist traditions. (shrink)
Consumers of software often face an acquisition-mode decision, namely whether to purchase or pirate that software. In terms of consumer welfare, consumers who pirate software may stand in opposition to those who purchase it. Marketers also face a decision whether to attempt to thwart that piracy or to ignore, if not encourage it as an aid to their softwares diffusion, and policymakers face the decision whether to adopt interventionist policies, which are government-centric, or laissez faire policies, which are marketer-centric. Here (...) in order to assess the decision-making of all three of these stakeholders, we focus on the consumers point-of-view as central and examine it by considering on a comparative basis the ethical dimension versus other dimensions, including economic, legal, and other salient consumer behavior considerations. Based on a survey of 689 software consumers conducted over the Internet, the results indicate that ethics as a factor is embedded in a multidimensional set of determinant factors influencing software piracy, including attitudes, legal aspects, social support, perceptions of economic loss and age. Policy and research implications, based on these findings, are provided. (shrink)
Spirituality in the workplace is gaining recognition and value among researchers, academicians, and business professionals. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of spirituality in the workplace on job satisfaction by measuring four dimensions of spirituality in the workplace: meaningful work, sense of community, organizational values, and compassion. The impact of each dimension on job satisfaction is hypothesized. A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 100 payroll employees in private insurance companies in Punjab. A correlation (...) analysis showed a positive relationship between all the dimensions of spirituality in the workplace and job satisfaction. A regression analysis revealed that although all the dimensions of spirituality in the workplace are important, organizational values and a sense of community are the most important in terms of the job satisfaction level of employees. This work will help insurance companies to better understand the concept of spirituality in the workplace and its importance. Insurance companies can improve their functioning by encouraging employee spirituality in the workplace. (shrink)
Gupta's book [9] contains a theory of modal logic that is closely related to my modal language ML v [2], and his theory is used to treat some interesting philosophical problems. Hence, it is natural for me to review this valuable book and to concentrate on its logics, the more so as its use has already been spoken of and appreciated by Kapitan [10], although I cannot but share his appreciation.
I discuss in this paper a criticism of modal logic due to Donald Davidson and John Wallace. They have claimed that, to quote Wallace, “modal predicate calculus does not provide a reasonable standpoint from which to interpret a language” (1970, p. 147). The aim of this paper is to present and evaluate their argument for this claim.
The organic-rich, silty Woodford Shale in west-central Oklahoma is a prolific resource play producing gas and liquid hydrocarbons. We calibrated seismic attributes and prestack inversion using well logs and core information within a seismic geomorphologic framework to define the overall basin architecture, major stratigraphic changes, and related variations in lithologies. Core measurements of elastic moduli and total organic content indicated that the Woodford Shale can be broken into three elastic petrotypes important to well completion and hydrocarbon enrichment. Upscaling these measurements (...) facilitates regional mapping of petrotypes from prestack seismic inversion of surface data. Seismic attributes highlight rugged topography of the basin floor of the Paleo Woodford Sea, which controls the lateral and vertical distribution of different lithofacies containing variable quantity of TOC as well as quartz, which controls brittleness. Depressions on the basin floor contain TOC-lean cherty lithofacies alternating with TOC-rich lithofacies, resulting in brittle-ductile rock couplets. In contrast, basin floor highs are characterized by overall TOC-rich ductile lithofacies. Seismic attributes illuminate complex post-Woodford tectonic deformation. The Woodford Shale is known to be naturally fractured on outcrop. Image log analysis in other shale plays showed a good correlation between such tectonic features and natural fractures. These features need to be correlated with well trajectories and production data to determine which hypothesized “fracture sets,” if any, improve well performance. (shrink)
The paper examines the ethical conception of the most well-known and much discussed Hindu text, the "Bhagavad Gītā", in the context of the Western distinction between duty ethics and virtue ethics. Most of the materials published on the "Gītā" make much of its conception of duty; however, there is no systematic investigation of the notion of virtue in the "Gītā". The paper begins with a discussion of the fundamental characteristics of virtue ethics, before undertaking a discussion of the conceptions of (...) duty and virtue in the "Gītā". The paper clearly demonstrates that (1) both duty and virtue coexist in the "Gītā", and (2) the "Gītā" accords virtue an important place. (shrink)
Since the late 1900s the business world has been under increasing pressure to demonstrate responsible social behaviour and the pressure continues to grow. Today, the role of business in society is on the Boardroom agenda and at stake are corporate reputation, innovation, competitiveness and growth. It is a clarion call, that either, the CEO and the Board manage it or someone else will manage it for them. As we know that we cannot solve our problems with the same level of (...) thinking that created them; therefore it is imperative that we look beyond the 20th century’s scientism and materialism dominated worldly ways for solutions. In view of the above, I believe that the ‘Indian Philosophy of Consciousness’ which focuses on practicing “better-worldliness” rather than “worldliness” and has developed over the past 4000 years has the potential to help business. Better worldliness is ‘a disposition towards life that is based on a Dharmic way of conduct; a conduct with compassion and forbearance for fellow man, no matter what the nationality, or the colour of the skin, religion or caste.’ Society expects similar compassion and forbearance from business. (shrink)