In this paper, I shall apply the idea of ‘moral relativism’ in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. The concept of ‘moral relativism’ has been closely related to postmodernism, and in particular proponents of Aristotlian reject Nietzsche’s kind of relativism, yet the issues remained part of Nietzsche’s philosophy and prominently situated in his philosophical works. Nietzsche talks about morality

A collective understanding that traces a debate between ‘what is science?’ and ‘what is a science about?’ has an extraction to the notion of scientific knowledge. The debate undertakes the pursuit of science that hardly extravagance the dogma of pseudo-science. Scientific conjectures invoke science as an intellectual activity poured by experiences and repetition of the objects that look independent

Bad faith is commonly conceived as lying to oneself or self-deception. This folk definition is too simplistic as it undermines the rich ontological underpinnings of bad faith. While both simple self-deception and bad faith are opposed to the general phenomenon of lying (to others), for Sartre bad faith is also meant to explain both the working of consciousness and the ubiquity of pre-judicative nothingness

In the Bhagavadgītā, Kṛṣṇa’s injunction is to act without desire in many verses. Many modern scholars have criticized and tried to reinterpret Kṛṣṇa’s injunction in the Bhagavadgītā to perform action abandoning all kāma “desire.” These modern scholars have tried to re-understand Kṛṣṇa’s injunction for desireless action assuming the modern dogma that intentional action entails desire. The aim of the

The main aim of this paper is to analyse David Lewis’ version of contextualism and his solution to the Gettier problem and the lottery problem through the employment of his Rule of Relevance and Stewart Cohen’s response to these problems. Here I analyse whether Stewart Cohen’s response to David Lewis’ solutions to these problems is on the right track or not. Hence, I try to analyse some concept in

This article introduces a dilemma regarding conceptual schemes and suggests a solution. The dilemma is about whether there are conceptual schemes or not. There are good reasons for maintaining either position. There must be conceptual schemes because theory is underdetermined by evidence. And there cannot be conceptual schemes because Davidson has given an almost unassailable argument against it. I

In the original article published, the supplementary material is uploaded by mistake which has no association with the content of the article.

In this paper, I try to demonstrate a problem with two medieval European views of existence: The property view and the essence view. Adopting a style of reasoning employed by the Indian Madhyamaka philosopher Nāgārjuna, I argue that both the property view and the essence view understand the relation between an object and its existence in terms of difference: The former understands the difference as

Gandhi’s writings on the issue of Caturvarṇa, despite their apparent lacunas, dogmatic tones and seeming inconsistencies, are available to a convincing reconstruction. With this purpose in view, the first section of this paper will attempt to give an anti-foundational reading of Caturvarṇa—where varṇa is seen to be based neither on the different proportions of the three guṇas (sattva, rajas and tamas)

This article has been retracted. Please see the retraction notice for more detail: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-018-0159-5.

The paper aims at bringing out a valid comparison between the notion of intentionality portrayed in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and that of Vijňānavāda in general. One of the crucial objectives of the Husserlian phenomenology is to understand the nature of consciousness. To Husserl, Consciousness is always intentional, that is, intended or directed towards something. It constitutes the world

The problem of synthesis and reconciliation of the Ramanuja and Sirhindi is of vital significance and importance, and no serious student of comparative philosophy can deliberately neglect it. Epistemologically speaking, these two philosophers have been forced to tackle the same problem(s), and in solving them, their methods and hypotheses have been noticeably similar. The emphasis of this paper is

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

In Classical Indian philosophy, except Cārvākas all other schools unanimously recognize inference as an instrument of valid knowledge. However, the validity of an inference depends on the validity of hetu and its relation to pakṣa on the one hand and sādhya on the other. If the relation in question is dubious, the inference, which is based on it, turns out to be invalid. In Buddhist epistemology, inference

Negation has occupied a unique place in the history of ideas. Negation as opposed to truth-conditional affirmation has been very much present in Indian and Western thought from very early times. R. S. Bhatnagar of happy memory (1933–2019) in his “Many Splendoured Negation” (Bhatnagar in J Indian Counc Philos Res XXII(3):83–906, 2006) had shown many a facet that could be construed in “negation”. This

This paper is a study of Gandhi’s “Hind Swaraj” to bring out the philosophical significance of the concept of Swaraj. Gandhi has laid down his philosophy of life in this work which defines the concept of self-rule and also the concept of political and economic freedom. The Hind Swaraj is Gandhi’s manifesto for Indian freedom struggle since it lays down the principles of Satyagraha, namely Satya and

The concept of lived experience plays a significant role in the social sciences in general and in philosophy in particular. The idea of lived experience as a social reality has been philosophized and given prime importance in the phenomenological tradition of philosophy. However, the work of Alfred Schutz, one of the phenomenologists on lived experience, has not been given adequate attention by either

In the original article published, the Greek term “μυθολογίαa” for muthologia is incorrect. The correct term is “μυθολογία”.

Nowadays, essentialism has obtained various senses and its extension reaches out over many branches of study who have some immediate connection with it. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam and David Wiggins are the notable upholders of essentialism. The Essentialist movement which stemmed from the view that philosophy is a speculative study of Reality was temporarily suspended or

In his proposal for a democracy by consensus, Wiredu argued that deliberation is an activity that depends solely on the logical persuasiveness of ideas. Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze and I had objected to this view of deliberation. Bernard Matolino has responded separately to Eze and me by sticking to Wiredu’s position that deliberation is a purely rational activity. In this article, I support my earlier claim

This issue of JICPR attempts to shape our philosophical views of post covid-19 scenario of the world. The startling change due to corona virus led editor-in-chief to ask scholars of Philosophy to write about powerful new concept of philosophizing. A new phrase known as ‘new normal’ has come in vogue. This ‘new normal’ is a concept which has two components. One is survival; the other is distancing.

The Vedic notion of Ṛta is broader than the more familiar notions of dharma and karma, which have become familiar English terms. Encompassing respect for nature, veneration of the deities, and attendance on the sacred rites, Ṛta is woven throughout the Ṛg Vedic hymns. By calling greater attention to this cosmic principle, scholars can work to counteract the commercialization and individualization of

The paper deals with the notion of synthesis and transcendental ego in Kant and Husserl. It will argue that the actual difference between Kant and Husserl’s notion of transcendental ego can be understood through their conception of time. Kant accepts transcendental ego as the kind of logical necessity for synthesizing the various temporal units which provides unity to the consciousness. However, Husserl

Scientific revolution is a widely known concept. But does revolution really occur in science? Change through revolution means that present thinking does not retain anything from the past, because everything is thrown away due to the revolution. Does this pattern of change really correspond to the history of science? There is another pattern which is called evolution. This writing will show that process

This paper is an attempt to see the similarity between the Shankara’s notion of Ätman and Husserl’s Transcendental Ego. Both thinkers, Husserl and Shankara trace true knowledge to the transcendental self. The former describes the self as the embodiment of absolute knowledge that transcends the limitations of the body, the senses and the intellect. In the state of bondage and ignorance, this Transcendental

In this paper, I’ll discuss the philosophical debate that took place between Michel Foucault and his student Jacques Derrida on Rene Descartes’ doctrine of cogito. In my exposition, I shall discuss Descartes’ contributions to modern philosophy in twofold manner, namely the central and the marginal doctrines. At the centre of Cartesian modernity, there is cogito and the emergence of human subjectivity

Myth has a convoluted etymological history in terms of its origins, meanings, and functions. Throughout this essay, I explore the signification, structure, and essence of myth in terms of its source, force, form, object, and teleology derived from archaic ontology. Here, I offer a theoretic typology of myth by engaging the work of contemporary scholar, Robert A. Segal, who places fine distinctions

Kant’s theory of moral action faces a serious difficulty concerning motivation: how do commands of pure practical reason solely move human agents to perform moral actions? In his response, Kant claims that human agents perform moral actions out of a feeling of respect for the moral law. However, attempts to accommodate a feeling of respect into Kant’s rigorously rationalist ethical theory have led

Jainism is essentially a spiritual philosophy having a strong focus on the ultimate purification of the soul (ātmā). A human being usually when fails to understand things, when sorrows attack, etc., then he attributes to memorize the deva (celestial being) to seek help. Man can be guided both correctly and incorrectly by the deva and can establish a new system in a society that can be both in a positive

In the mid of nineteenth century, the hypothesis, “machine can think,” became very popular after Alan Turing’s article on “ Computing Machinery and Intelligence .” This hypothesis, “machine can think,” established the foundations of machine intelligence and claimed that machines have a mind. It has the power to compete with human beings. In the first section, I shall explore the importance of Turing

This paper intends to present a cognitive model of anuvyavasāya through causal and logical analysis of the moment examinations ( kṣaṇavicāra ), remaining consistent with the fundamental presuppositions of the Nyāya system. The Naiyāyikas hold that no cognition is self-revealing in nature. A subsequent mental perception, introspection or after-perception ( anuvyavasāya ) reveals the determinate cognition

Structural realism is the view that scientific theories give us knowledge only of the structure of the unobservable world. The view faces an influential objection that was first posed by Max Newman: if our knowledge of the unobservable world were strictly limited to its structure, our knowledge turns out to be trivial, for it amounts to nothing more than knowledge of the cardinality of the world. In

Since time immemorial, Lord Jagannātha has been regarded as the principal deity of Odisha. The land of Odisha (former Kaliṅga) was a meeting place of the Hindus, Buddhists and Jainas. The Buddhists, Jainas, Vaiṣṇavas, the worshippers of Gaṇpati and others came to Purī and found the presence of their own lord in Jagannātha. However, of all religious creeds, Buddhism played an important role in the socio-cultural

In this paper I made an attempt to discuss how the concept of alienation has been discussed in G.W.F. Hegel’s (1770–1831) social philosophy. In Hegel’s philosophy, alienation is part of the process of self-creativity and self-discovery. According to Hegel, initially our consciousness is alienated from itself. It cannot understand its own true nature. In order to realize its own true nature consciousness’s

The main purpose of this paper is to uphold the very fact that there are many ways of understanding the concept Universal and also the several issues revolving round it but then the fundamental aim must be to free the ontology of any extra pressure. Thus, the prime aim of the paper is to exhibit the different ways in which discussions relating to Universals were usually dealt with. The thrust nevertheless

Political philosophers often grapple with the issue of the legitimacy of state coercion. Aristotle, a perfectionist, opines that all men hold an objective account of the good life. As regards legitimacy, he entails that state policies are justified only when all its members comprehend the value that has been identified in accordance with the true notion of good. Aristotle argues that the state should

Bankimchandra was a stalwart in terms of his writings in the nineteenth-century Bengal. He was one of the pioneers of nationalism in India and a Hindu revivalist. Prior to the publication of his prose writings in the forms of novels, articles and essays, nationalism was not an Indian phenomenon. It had been imported from the West through English education. Such English education gave the Indians an

“Moore–Wittgenstein controversy” on the problem of certainty should be understood and studied from two perspectives—one from philosophical use of ordinary language (Moore) and the other from using ordinary language for normal linguistic exchange (Wittgenstein). To study it from one and only one perspective—either Moorean or Wittgensteinean—is narrow and biased. Looked at from the normal linguistic

The most of Tagore’s ideas expressed in his books and usual writings that draw attention by the Tagore’s scholars, a layman/woman cannot connect easily. The letters focused in this article are written in a simple language, though personal, rooted in daily experiences of Tagore himself—he shares in a very simple and lucid language. Often, the charges against Tagore’s philosophy are made that he is too

Eradicating poverty is one of the prime goals included in the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in its Post-2015 Development Agenda. Clearly, this is a mission set for the world to achieve but do humans have a moral obligation to fulfill it? In other words, is there a moral obligation on the part of the affluent of the world to help the needy poor? Drawing on the relation between

The recent scholarship on Advaita testifies that the epistemology of Advaita Vedānta is of a special sort that warrants a philosophical process of analysis and speculation in its quest for ultimate knowledge. The aim of this paper is to make a case in favour of Advaita as a philosophy than a theological enterprise and address the philosophical process required to reach the zenith of Advaita Philosophy

Martin Heidegger’s writings on modern science as well as his stray remarks on communication are important theoretical resources to understand the character and contour of, and our response to the Anthropocene epoch. John Caputo distinguishes between the early hermeneutic account of science in Heidegger’s corpus and the later deconstructive account, claiming that the former would have sufficed to fulfil

The present article consists of four parts, and the first part examines the concept of life-world from the phenomenological perspective and argues that the characteristic features of the life-world would be through inspection, analysis and description of the life as we encounter it devoid of scientific explanations. The second part of the paper develops the idea that religion finds its meaning and

The Vaiśeṣika school is an important ancient system of Indian philosophy. According to the Vaiśeṣika philosophers, cognition or jnāna is of two types—vidyā and avidyā (vidyā ca avidyā ca), and avidyā is of four types—saṃśaya (doubt), viparyaya (illusion), anadhyavasāya (non-ascertainment) and svapna (dream). Among these four kinds of avidyā, the third kind of non-veridical cognition (avidyā), named

Indian philosophy has ancient origin, but contemporary in significance. It is wide and varied, but holistic and integral in its approach. In terms of contemporary needs and aspirations, it has to be revisited and reinterpreted. It is imperative on the part of contemporary thinkers and scholars to properly understand from the original sources and put forth its true spirit without any bias and prejudices

The Buddha taught a unique and verifiable method to end suffering in sentient beings. This is the eightfold noble path. But there are 84,000 discourses in which the Buddha describes just how one may come out of suffering. Is a seeker then expected to learn all these 84,000 discourses? Is there a shorter way out for the ardent meditator? There is. There is one discourse in particular that propounds

AbstractThis paper resolves the problems raised by Israel Scheffler and Noam Chomsky against Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment. I call Scheffler’s and Chomsky’s problems as (1) the problem of inexorable ontological commitments and (2) the problem of false existential inferences. I extend their problems to a third one, which is called as the problem of extended inexorable ontological commitments

A fundamental issue in philosophy of perception is to understand the nature of experience and the relation of the experience with objects or states of affairs that is experienced. A prominent philosophical issue here is posed by the possibility of hallucinatory experiences, which are subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perception for the experiencer. The philosophical views in this matter

Moral epistemology (henceforth ME) has been spoken of as a subject matter in its own right by philosophers in the last few decades and yet the delineation of ME as a sub-discipline remains uncharted. Many eminent scholars with rich contributions have not explicitly defined the scope or demarcation of this emerging field. Drawing from their writings, the paper tries to show that philosophers working

The field of enquiry into the phenomenon of language has long been dominated by the Computational-Representational (C-R) theories of language. This seems to be the most natural and plausible state of affairs, given the revolutionary impact that the advent of computers and the emergence of information technology have had in our lives lately. Noam Chomsky’s variant has been the most influential among

AbstractThe paper, in Part 1, is devoted to discussing the underlying logic and algebra of the classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, their syntax and semantics, the reasons for their differences and the diagrammatic representations of the two. This part of the paper also demonstrates that there are several puzzling characters of microphysical phenomena by alluding to the relevant details of the

Underdetermination of theory choice claims that empirical evidence fails to provide sufficient grounds for choosing a theory over its rivals. We explore the epistemological and methodological significance of this thesis by utilising a classificatory scheme to situate three arguments that purport to establish its plausibility. Proponents of these three arguments, W.V.O Quine, John Earman, and Kyle Stanford

The mystery of consciousness is among the most important questions pondered upon, not only in philosophy but also in the cognitive science, psychology, neurobiology and other sciences. The problem of consciousness has been traditionally dealt by philosophy, but its importance in explaining mental phenomena has made it a subject matter for other sciences that emerged later. Each philosopher and scientist

Meno’s paradox raises serious challenges against most fundamental epistemological quest regarding the possibility of inquiry and discovery. In his response, Socrates proposes the theory of anamnesis and his ingenious distinction between doxa and episteme. But, he fails in his attempt to solve the paradox and some recent responses have also not succeeded in settling it, satisfactorily. We shall argue

The paper focuses on the character of the literary and contends that if, instead of accepting the legitimacy of the question “what is literature?” and trying to answer it, one were to subject the question itself to a critical scrutiny—i.e. in order to lay bare what the question presupposes about the literary—it becomes obvious that any attempt to answer the question by uncritically accepting the legitimacy

Departing from the dominant theories of Frege, Russell and Mill, Kit Fine has sketched a novel solution to Frege’s puzzle in his book Semantic Relationism. In this article, I briefly discuss the puzzle in its various forms and the attempted solutions of Frege and Russell. I then explicate the essential features of the new theory and critically appraise the mechanism suggested by Fine to solve the puzzle

Jeshion (New essays on singular thought, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010b) believes that singular thought is implemented by the tokening of mental files (MFC). She also believes that an individual’s being significant to the agent is necessary and sufficient for the agent’s having singular thought about the individual (Cognitivism). Goodman (Rev Philos Psychol 7(2):437–461, 2016a, Philos Q 66:236–260

The proponents of embodied cognition often try to present their research program as the next step in the evolution of standard cognitive science. The domain of standard cognitive science is fairly clearly circumscribed (perception, memory, attention, language, problem solving, learning). Its ontological commitments, that is, its commitments to various theoretical entities, are overt: cognition involves

In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine some of the key concepts of Jaina religion from an environmental perspective. The paper focuses on Jain’s parasparopagraho jīvānām or interconnectedness. The common concerns between Jainism and environmentalism constituted in a mutual sensitivity towards living beings, a recognition of the interconnectedness of life forms and a programme to augment

This paper illustrates how Kant’s demand for “systematicity” couches his metaphysics necessarily in a scientific idea of metaphysics. Though Kant’s take on metaphysics is induced by an urge for systematizing metaphysics along the contours of the “scientific” paradigm, this quest for systematization is, at the same time, meant as a scathing attack on, what Kant calls, “dogmatic” metaphysics. It is as