Ambedkar denounced caste system for violating the respect and dignity of the individual; yet his critique of caste-ridden society also foregrounds the limits of the theory and practice of citizenship and liberal politics in India. Since membership of a caste group was not a voluntary choice, but determined by birth and hence a coercive association, the liberal view of the self as a totally unencumbered and radically free subject seemed plagued with difficulties. Though the nation state envisages a political community (...) co-extensive with one cultural community, it need not, Ambedkar argued, necessarily lead to abolition of discriminatory caste practices in civil society. To restore the cultural rights of stigmatised populations, unredeemed by the nation state, propelled Ambedkar to seek solution in B. (shrink)

B R Ambedkar’s reinterpretation of Buddhism gives us an account of action that is based on democratic politics of contest and resistance. It relies on a reading of the self as a multiple creature that exceeds the constructions of liberal autonomy. Insofar as Buddhist groups do not jeopardise or restrict their members’ capacities and opportunities to make any decision about their own lives, they do not risk violating democratic principles. But to remain socially relevant they must continue to contribute to (...) a practical impact on the social world which is so neatly intertwined with the political in present-day India. (shrink)

Recent feminist critiques of development have questioned some fundamental assumptions of feminist political theory; such critiques have also been successful in subverting long-held assumptions of conventional economic development. Viewed in the context of women’s subordination in third world countries, a redefinition of development must not only be about economic growth, but ensure a redistribution of resources, challenge the gender-based division of labour and also seek to provide for an egalitarian basis in social arrangements. Further, as this article argues, any starting (...) point for feminist critiques of development must also seek to link the end of gender oppression to multiple theories of justice – a justice not juridical but one that recognises the cultural membership of women in the community. (shrink)

A careful and wide-ranging assessment of the notion of justice in the Marxist tradition is provided by this book. Vidhu Verma demonstrates that Marx's analysis of exploitation provides a fruitful starting point to analyze current social conflicts. She examines three main themes: what she calls Marx's "critical non-juridical" concept of justice; different theories about what justice is in the context of social change; and the relevance of Marx's theory in the contemporary world in which new social movements - such (...) as the green and women's movements - have looked to forge new conceptions of justice. (shrink)

The essays study from different perspectives, the much discussed and crucial topic of social discrimination, and particularly Dalit exploitation. The work is highly interdisciplinary in nature-relevant for several subjects and disciplines such as political science, sociology, Dalit studies, minority studies, women's studies, anthropology, law, economics This work specifically sets out to explore contemporary manifestations of discrimination that persist in our society through institutions and through norms and practices that define the terms on which certain social groups continue to be excluded. (...) The contributors bring in different critical perspectives from their different disciplines. (shrink)

The article explores some of the theoretical and political issues which underpin the current conflict over the accountability of the global economic order. The article develops in five parts, starting with an initial section on the changing nature and form of globalization and ending with an account of how markets and business activities can be reframed. The focus is on the emergence of a number of cosmopolitan social standards which are embedded in human rights regimes and other international legal instruments. (...) These standards are explicated, elaborated and defended. The article argues that these standards need to be clarified further and developed in order to create the basis for global economic accountability and social justice. (shrink)

An embedded ideology of the religious-secular binary in its various forms has assumed currency in recent continental and Anglo-American political thought. This ideology highlights the difference between religion under modernization, broadly defined by the secularization thesis, and that of religious revival in a period characterized by postsecularism. It reflects the rise of new epistemologies and the dissolution of the antinomies between faith and reason characteristic of a postsecular culture. A common argument found in these writings is that enlightenment secularization, which (...) relegates the sacred to a private sphere, seems to have discovered its own parochialism as religion continues to provide…. (shrink)

The debate on equality and non-discrimination is certainly not a new one, but the way it is incorporated in that on social exclusion leads to several shifts within the discourse on social justice. The term social exclusion is multidimensional although its western use in a selective way about markets promoting equality separates it from the Indian emphasis on social justice as linked to ending discrimination of dalit groups. The concept of social exclusion is inherently problematic as it faces three major (...) challenges in India: the first relates to the historical discrimination of certain groups and their exclusion; the second is about the political economy of the excluded; and the third questions the way in which equality responses are restricted within the framework of social exclusion. (shrink)

Social Justice is a concept familiar to most Indians but one whose meaning is not always understood as it signifies a variety of government strategies designed to enhance opportunities for underprivileged groups. By tracing the trajectory of social justice from the colonial period to the present, this book examines how it informs ideas, practices and debates on discrimination and disadvantage today. After outlining the historical context for reservations for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes that began under British colonial rule, the (...) book examines the legal and moral strands of demands raised by newer groups since 1990. In addition the book shows how the development of quota policies has been significantly influenced by the nature and operation of democracy in India. It describes the recent proliferation of quota demands for reservations in higher education, private sector and for women and religious minorities in legislative assemblies. The book goes on to argue that while proliferation of demands address unequal incidence of poverty, deprivation and inequalities across social groups and communities, care has to be taken to ensure that existing justifications for quotas for discriminated groups due to caste hierarchies are not undermined. Providing a rich historical background to the subject, the book is a useful contribution to the study on the evolution of multiple conceptions of social justice in contemporary India. (shrink)

This chapter examines the historical emergence of secularism through movements, debates and legal formulations to explain specific features that the concept has acquired in the context of India. The first part examines the tensions between the theoretical narratives of Indian constitutionalism and the practices of politics that lead to the acceptance of three essential conditions of secularism: (a) the state shall have no religion; (b) there shall be no discrimination on the ground of religion; and (c) the individual shall have (...) the freedom to practice, profess and propagate religion. This is followed by the approach towards secularism found in writings of Nehru, Gandhi and Ambedkar. The diversity of religious identities and the widespread religious prejudice, identity conflict and inter-religious strife are main worries of these nationalist ideologues. The third part of this chapter focuses on the ill-defined meaning of secularism that does not accurately reflect the conceptual shifts made by the modern legal system, in which interests of many religious and cultural groups within Indian society are accommodated. The final section critically examines the claim that secularism is a state-led exercise in the following domains: rights of religious denominations, gender justice and social justice. An overview of the legal literature, including pronouncements of the judiciary, shows that secularism is also the domain of experts, bureaucrats and professionals. The history of court decisions about what constitutes a religious practice that is protected by law reveals considerable variation and arbitrariness; it raises questions of group rights in a liberal polity, the limits of cultural accommodation and the conceptions of difference left behind in the realms of family and civil society. (shrink)

This volume gathers together for the first time are all the key texts in a crucial debate in modern philosophy, centered on Leibniz's famous 1695 essay, the "New System of the Nature of Substances and their Communication," in which he introduced his strikingly original theory of metaphysics. His "system" became increasingly famous and drew him into discussion and development of these ideas, both in public and in private, with a variety of thinkers, most notably the great French philosopher Pierre Bayle. (...) Woolhouse's and Francks's new English edition gives the only full representation of this debate, and will therefore be essential reading for anyone who wishes to gain a proper understanding of Leibniz's philosophy and its intelletual context. All the texts are newly translated and extensively annotated; many appear in English for the first time. (shrink)

t. 1. Apo ton prōto skeptomeno anthrōpo mechri ton 6. aiōna M.Ch. -- t. 2. Apo ton 7. aiōna M.Ch. mechri to sēmera.

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal (...) patterns of variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the limits of (...) knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination. (shrink)

Ariès traces Western man's attitudes toward mortality from the early medieval conception of death as the familiar collective destiny of the human race to the modern tendency, so pronounced in industrial societies, to hide death as if it were an embarrassing family secret.

Capital punishment—the legally authorized killing of a criminal offender by an agent of the state for the commission of a crime—stands in special need of moral justification. This is because execution is a particularly severe punishment. Execution is different in kind from monetary and custodial penalties in an obvious way: execution causes the death of an offender. While fines and incarceration set back some of one’s interests, death eliminates the possibility of setting and pursuing ends. While fines and incarceration narrow (...) one’s routes to happiness, death eliminates its possibility. Not surprisingly, there is much debate about the moral permissibility of capital punishment. This entry maps the terrain of this debate. The first section discusses justifications of the death penalty as they appear in major theories of punishment. The second section surveys moral objections to execution that apply to most justifications. The third addresses procedural criticisms, which do not target the morality of execution so much as the justice of its implementation. (shrink)

In Seeing Things as They Are (Searle 2015), Searle developed a direct realist’s theory of perception. According to direct realism, physical objects are directly and immediately perceived. Searle claims that Berkeley’s theory of perception goes against direct realism. For Searle, Berkeley’s theory suggests that only subjective experiences (ideas) are directly and immediately perceived, not physical objects. Contrary to Searle, G. S. Pappas claims that Berkeley’s theory of perception is consistent with the view that physical objects are immediately perceivable (Pappas 1982; (...) Pappas 1987). Given the conflicting interpretations of Berkeley’s theory of perception, this paper attempts to defend Searle’s position on Berkeley’s theory of perception. It refutes Pappas’ interpretation by arguing that he is inconsistent with Berkeley’s theses of ontological phenomenalism and heterogeneity thesis. (shrink)

Purpose. To examine the existential anthropology of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski, in order to demonstrate the necessity of distinguishing the universal-spiritual, as human in human being, apart from the individual-existential in him, and to reveal the hierarchical correlation of biosocial, existential and spiritual spheres in personality. Theoretical basis. Within existential philosophy the author differentiates two separate traditions and proceeds from the insufficiency of the distinction of existential sphere, proposed by phenomenological tradition, showing the necessity of its correlation with the (...) spiritual sphere as a sphere of humanity, proposed by non-phenomenological tradition of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski. Originality. The author presents the anthropological conception of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski, in which human personality is understood as unity of individual-existential and universal-spiritual, which requires a special trans-empirical field of culture, which contains senses, images and symbols of humanity. Also, the author presents the recent developments of existential thinkers in distinguishing existential and spiritual dimensions, both not reducible to the physical and social dimensions. Conclusions. In both existential traditions, the specifically human was founded as a trans-biological and trans-social phenomenon, which appears as indefinable and non-predetermined. But in first tradition, humanity is understood as an existence, as a unique individuality, "project", variant of humanity, equivalent to other variants, and universal is understood as a community of human condition in the world. While in the second tradition, the universal is understood as spiritual. Thus, horizontal level of our private existence, as the process of movement from birth to death, is supplemented by vertical of human, universal ideals and images. Humanity appears as a task, on the way to which human being transcends beyond the limits of his individual "self" to the "super-individual", through inclusion into spiritual community, into universal culture. (shrink)

In this original work of cultural criticism, Allen S. Weiss explores the meaning of radio to the modern imagination.

The foundation of the Christian counselling movement -- Christian counselling in the UK -- The aims of Christian counselling -- Integrating psychological and biblical truth -- Sigmund Freud--the founding father of psychotherapy -- The individual psychology of Alfred Adler -- Abraham Maslow--the man with new age tendencies -- Carl Rogers--a man who believed in himself -- Albert Ellis--the aggressive atheist -- The Bible's verdict on psychological 'truth' -- The case against Larry Crabb -- Self-esteem: the secular foundation -- Self-esteem and (...) the Christian counselling movement -- Self-esteem dogma in the light of scripture. (shrink)

Critics of the computational connectionism of the last decade suggest that it shares undesirable features with earlier empiricist or associationist approaches, and with behaviourist theories of learning. To assess the accuracy of this charge the works of earlier writers are examined for the presence of such features, and brief accounts of those found are given for Herbert Spencer, William James and the learning theorists Thorndike, Pavlov and Hull. The idea that cognition depends on associative connections among large networks of neurons (...) is indeed one with precedents, although the implications of this for psychological issues have been interpreted variously — not all versions of connectionism are alike. (shrink)