For a variety of reasons, consciousness and selfhood are beginning once again to be intensively studied in a scientific frame of reference. The notions of each which are emerging are extremely varied: in the case of selfhood, the lack of an adequate vocabulary to capture various aspects of subjectivity has led to deep confusion. The task of the first part of this article is to clear up this terminological confusion, while salvaging whatever is valuable from the contemporary discussion. The more (...) important task of the second part is to discuss the moral issues inevitably involved in any treatment, scientific or otherwise, of the modern identity. (shrink)

Critical evaluation of Śaṅkarapādabhūṣaṇam of Raghunāthasūri, presenting Advaita point of view against the Dvaita school in Hindu philosophy.

Some important ideas in Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law can be traced back to Kantian tradition, which has been very influential in Kelsen's thought, particularly in his early period. Among them we find the distinction between two radically different worlds (the world of facts and the world of norms), the normativity of legal science and the idea of validity as a binding force, based on the famous doctrine of the basic norm. These tenets and, especially, the use of a normative (...) concept of validity prove to be incompatible with Kelsen's positivistic programme of a value‐free legal science. The science of law cannot state that legal norms are obligatory or binding without trespassing the limits of Kelsen's ideal of a legal science; on the other hand, it is possible to define the concept of a legal system without resorting to the basic norm. So, if Kelsen is to be regarded as a consequent positivist, the Kantian ingredients of his theory must be rejected and the descriptive concept of validity as membership must be substituted for the normative notion of validity as a binding force. (shrink)

On the life and teachings of Śaṅkarācārya; includes history of Daivadnya Brahmans, Hindu caste in coastal region of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, and Kerala.

Nature’s Sublime provides a radical new vision of infinite nature and its deepest aesthetic dimensions as they are encountered by finite human sign users. Rather than looking to religion for healing and salvation, Nature’s Sublime argues that the arts provide a deeper relationship to the vast depths of nature.

So far am I from rejecting the use of what has been well stated by others, that I would wish that everyone said the same things about the same things and, as Socrates puts it, in the same words, and then there would be no undisputed quarrelling among men about the matters at hand.

We suggest that, far from establishing an inconsistency in the standard theory of the geometrical linear continuum, Zeno’s Paradox of Extension merely establishes an inconsistency between the standard theory of geometrical magnitude and a misguided system of length measurement. We further suggest that our resolution of Zeno’s paradox is superior to Adolf Grünbaum’s now standard resolution based on Lebesgue measure theory.

So far am I from rejecting the use of what has been well stated by others, that I would wish that everyone said the same things about the same things and, as Socrates puts it, in the same words, and then there would be no undisputed quarrelling among men about the matters at hand.

Short treatises, with commentaries, of the Advaita school in Hindu philosophy.

by D. M. Armstrong In the history of the discussion of the problem of universals, G. F. Stout has an honoured, and special. place. For the Nominalist, meaning by that term a philosopher who holds that existence of repeatables - kinds, sorts, type- and the indubitable existence of general terms, is a problem. The Nominalist's opponent, the Realist, escapes the Nominalist's difficulty by postulating universals. He then faces difficulties of his own. Is he to place these universals in a special (...) realm? Or is he to bring them down to earth: perhaps turning them into repeatable properties of particulars, and repeatable relations between universals? Whichever solution he opts for, there are well-known difficulties about how particulars stand to these universals. Under these circumstances the Nominalist may make an important con cession to the Realist, a concession which he can make without abandoning his Nominalism. He may concede that metaphysics ought to recognize that particulars have properties and are related by relations. But, he can maintain, these properties and relations are particulars, not universals. Nor, indeed, is such a position entirely closed to the Realist. A Realist about universals may, and some Realists do, accept particularized properties and relations in addition to universals. As Dr. Seargent shows at the beginning of his book. a doctrine of part icularized properties and relations has led at least a submerged existence from Plato onwards. The special, classical. (shrink)

Approaching Cassirer’s writings can be overwhelming. This is true not just because of the sheer volume of what he published, but even more so because of how varied it all is. For example, if you wa...

The book examines meditation in the context of the Indian tradition of yoga.It is written from the vantage point of Sankara s Vedanta. Sankara is well known as oneof the foremost interpreters of Hindu tradition.It reviews critically the ways in which Sankara has been approached,for,the problems involved with studying his thought.

In Reasons and Persons Parfit vacillates between two views of personal identity. Both views have unpalatable consequences. According to one view, the question, "Is person A the same as person C?" is always empty. According to the other view, this question is empty only some of the time. The first view is elegant, but it has consequences which are counterintuitive and incompatible with Parfit's later claims. The second view is commonsensical, but its only coherent version is vulnerable to an argument (...) made by Parfit, himself. (shrink)

Comprehensive study of post-Śaṅkarācārya main traditions of Vedanta in Indic philosophy.

On the life and works of Śaṅkarācārya, religious reformer and exponent of the Advaita Vedanta school in Hindu philosophy; includes an account of the institutions founded by him.

This article argues that Robert Alexy's influential theory of balancing is affected by a contradiction that makes it unfeasible as an instrument by which to explain some aspects of law and legal reasoning it aims to clarify. In particular, I will show that one of the premises of Alexy's theory of balancing is incompatible with its conclusion. Alexy's theory is based upon a sharp distinction between rules and principles. However, as my analysis will demonstrate, its conclusion implies that it is (...) impossible to distinguish between rules and principles. This is because the so‐called weight formula and the law of colliding principles (i.e., the two main notions used by Alexy to explain balancing) cancel out any difference between these two types of norms. (shrink)

Imbalance in analytical legal theory's approach to prima facie legal phenomena : re-balancing after imbalance : an incremental addition to analytical legal theory -- Legal officials, the rule of recognition, and international law -- The hierarchical view of legal system and non-state legality -- Meta-theoretical-evaluative motivations -- An inter-institutional theory -- An inter-institutional account of non-state legality -- Pathologies of legality : novel technologies and their implications for conceptions of legality : the consequences of re-socializing a descriptive-explanatory view of law.

I argue that William Craig’s defence of the moral argument is internally inconsistent. In the course of defending the moral argument, Craig criticizes non-theistic moral realism on the grounds that it posits the existence of certain logically necessary connections but fails to provide an adequate account of why such connections hold. Another component of Craig’s defence of the moral argument is an endorsement of a particular version of the divine command theory. Craig’s version of DCT posits certain logically necessary connections (...) but Craig fails to provide an adequate account of why these connections hold. Thus, Craig’s critique of non-theistic moral realism is at odds with his DCT. Since the critique and DCT are both essential elements of his defence of the moral argument, that defence is internally inconsistent. (shrink)

In his book The future of human nature, Jürgen Habermas argues against a scenario of liberal eugenics, in which parents are free to prenatally manipulate their children’s genetic constitution via germline interventions. In this paper, I draw attention to the fact that his species‐ethical line of argument is pervaded by a substantial ambiguity between an argument from actual intervention (AAI) and an argument from mere controllability (AMC). Whereas the first argument focuses on threats for the autonomy and equality of prenatally (...) modified persons, the second argument takes all human beings, whether they have been modified or not, into account. Hence, when invoking Habermas in these debates, bioethicists need to consider carefully which argument they are referring to. (shrink)

"Minimal liberalism", in Sen's strict definition, is impossible, because any 'social state', once chosen, freezes all of its components, thereby removing any prospect of further assignment of choice-making authority.

In An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, John Henry Newman articulates his fundamental philosophical orientation by giving priority to real apprehension over notional apprehension. He distinguishes between the two by saying that notional apprehension hasto do with things internal to the mind and admits of exactness and clarity whereas real apprehension has to do with things external to the mind and does not admit of the same degree of clarity and exactness. I argue that the connection between (...) “inside the mind” and “clarity and exactness” lies in the constructive activity underlying notional thinking. Real apprehension, on the other hand, involves a given apprehension of unity, mainly, the concrete unity of intelligent life, which includes but cannot be reduced to the constructive activity of notional thinking. Thus, I argue, Newman’s realism undercuts any form of modern transcendentalism and evinces a form of classical human realism. (shrink)

This paper considers the relation between the American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce and the German idealist G. W. F. Hegel . While Peirce engaged with Hegel’s thought quite extensively, his often critical comments on the latter have made it hard to see any genuine common ground between the two; recent ways of reading Hegel, however, suggest how this might be possible, where the connections between their respective metaphysical positions and views of the categories are explored here. Issues relating to their (...) epistemology and philosophies of languages are considered in a companion article. (shrink)

Kant's revolution in methodology limited metaphysics to the conditions of possible experience. Since, following Hume, analysis—the “method of discovery” in early modern physics—could no longer ground itself in sense or in God's constituting reason a new arché, “origin” and “principle,” was required, which Kant found in the synthesis of the productive imagination, the common root of sensibility and understanding. Charles Bigger argues that this imaginative “between” recapitulates the ancient Gaia myth which, as used by Plato in the Timaeus, offers a (...) way into this originary arché. Since it depends on myth and the “likely story” rather than on a self-certain apprehension of Being, this facilitates an imaginative approach to the natural sciences which, through its synthetic a priori formations, can claim to be Kantian. Bigger explores Kant's ethics as an alternative to metaphysics that holds open the prospect of a Good beyond Being—and phenomenology—whose traces nevertheless appear in original synthesis. Though wary of its reductive implications, Bigger uses Derrida's difference, a medial, feminine arché, as a way into this creative and procreative metaxu. As Emmanuel Levinas suggests, this is Plato's gap [chaos] between being and becoming, whose possibility, beyond both, lies in chora and the Good. This Open also presents the possibility for a new, yet still Kantian, understanding of the formal and material conditions for the natural sciences. (shrink)

In this paper, which is the second in a series, I continue to consider the relation between the American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce and the German idealist G. W. F. Hegel. This article focuses on their views of epistemology and inquiry, and their accounts of the relation between language and thought. As with the earlier paper, it is argued that fruitful similarities between their positions on these issues can be found.

"theaetetus" of the thesis that knowledge is sense-perception. After a brief defence of plato's handling of this thesis it is shown how the argument can, by the addition of one premiss, be rendered valid. A strong form of the 'proper objects' doctrine of perception is revealed as a crucial premiss. An implication of the argument is seen to be that perception in itself is unable to found an ordered and coherent picture of the world. A similar point, it is argued, (...) lies behind certain passages in the central books of the "republic". A tentative conclusion is that in the "theaetetus" plato retains and indeed sharpens the views about the sensible world which he expresses in the "republic". (shrink)

Nearly a decade has past since Grove gave a semantics for the AGM postulates. The semantics, called sphere semantics, provided a new perspective of the area of study, and has been widely used in the context of theory or belief change. However, the soundness proof that Grove gives in his paper contains an error. In this note, we will point this out and give two ways of repairing it.

Process and Reality, Whitehead’s magnum opus, is one of the major philosophical works of the modern world, and an extensive body of secondary literature has developed around it. Yet surely no significant philosophical book has appeared in the last two centuries in nearly so deplorable a condition as has this one, with its many hundreds of errors and with over three hundred discrepancies between the American and the English editions, which appeared in different formats with divergent paginations. The work itself (...) is highly technical and far from easy to understand, and in many passages the errors in those editions were such as to compound the difficulties. The need for a corrected edition has been keenly felt for many decades. (shrink)

This Detailed Commentary Views The Saundaryalahari Compilation Of 100 Verses In Praise Of The Devi As Advaita Vedanta Itself. The Absolute Joy Of Advaita Is Presented In A Pictorial Language, Subjectively As Ananda, And Objectively As Saundarya.

Collection of 15 works of Śaṅkarācārya; includes commentary in Malayalam.