This book examines the centrality of ideas such as satya (truth), ahimsa (non-violence), humility, and respect for understanding moral life in the complex milieu of human existence. It provides a comprehensive view of how Gandhian ideas have both a temporal and spatial universality significantly different from Western modern philosophy's universality claims. The chapters represent different styles of philosophy but with a common purpose, offering insights into how the global debates on religion, morality, and politics are assessed from Gandhi's point of (...) view. Written in language accessible to general readers with an interest in Gandhian thinking, the book will appeal to academics and philosophers. (shrink)

Contributed papers presented at an international conference held during July 16-22, 1997 in Shimla.

In this collection of essays written over thirty years, Miri, drawing on both Western and Indian traditions, provides fresh insight into some fundamental philosophical concerns--morality, modernity, individual and group identity, rationality, and violence in politics.

The western philosophical tradition has been abidingly occupied with the duality of the mind and the body. The soul is substantially the same as the mind for this tradition. In the Indian tradition, however, there is no duality between the mind and the body. The mind is an organ of the body, and I-consciousness is nothing but the ego which is a construct of the mind. For Gandhi, the human body is central to the articulation of the moral life. Concepts (...) like brahmacharya, sacrifice, fearlessness, moral purity would not make sense if the body was not crucially involved in imagining the life of morality. Action is firmly in the domain of the body. The soul is atman and is not involved in action at all. Moral authority derives from Truth conceived as God. Modern politics is deeply involved in the ideality (future) of political action, and, as such, cannot extricate itself from the notion of the instrumentality of the ethical. Gandhi is firmly opposed to this idea, and many of his criticisms of modern civility follow from this. (shrink)

The influence of Christianity on Western moral philosophy is unmistakable. The enlightenment certainly made a difference. But Reason replaced God, morality retained its universality and became secular. The dharma tradition is firmly grounded in practical reality, and while universality has a place in it, its focus is on particularity and contextual specificity. Gandhi was firmly rooted in the Indian tradition and derived his inspiration primarily from the Gita. Some of the central Gandhian ideas on morality are: truth, ahimsa, satyagraha, sacrifice, (...) and the virtues free of any instrumentality. Gandhi also believed that animals are a significant part of the domain of morality. Although animals may not perhaps have language, they certainly have an inner life which makes them unmistakably the proper subject of moral attention. (shrink)

Liberal politics relegates religion to the sphere of the private. The public world is secular. “Privacy”, however, cannot imply “private to a person”; it must mean “private to a community”. Religion must be public at least within the community. Spiritual experience, part of most religions, though private in an acceptable sense, is something that takes place within the trappings of a religious culture, sustained by the religious community. The only criterion of the authenticity of a spiritual experience is its moral (...) manifestation. Gandhi’s “Truth is God”, taken with the seriousness that he intended, yields interesting consequences about (i) the concept of truth and truthfulness, (ii) the distinction between religion and religious culture, and (iii) “equality” of all religions and, most importantly, religious conversion. Religious conversion, as Gandhi believed, is neither necessary nor possible. (shrink)

The book consists of six chapters—three by Bindu Puri and the other three by me. Our styles are different—the result perhaps of the different kinds of training we had received as students. But our interests coincide and frequently our arguments: Puri’s arguments clothed in the rich narrative style where the philosophy unmistakably shines through and mine somewhat skeletally just philosophical.

The book brings philosophical considerations to bear upon our understanding of the concept of education and concepts related to it. It seeks to answer questions such as: is education a unitary concept, or is it a cluster of concepts which are more or less related to one another? Are there values which are constitutive of the practice of education? Is moral education an independent variety of education, or is it necessary internal to all educational practice?

This book provides an analytical understanding of some of Tagore’s most contested and celebrated works and ideas. It reflects on his critique of nationalism, aesthetic worldview, and the idea of ‘surplus in man’ underlying his life and works. It discusses the creative notion of surplus that stands not for ‘profit’ or ‘value’, but for celebrating human beings’ continuous quest for reaching out beyond one’s limits. It highlights, among other themes, how the idea of being ‘Indian’ involves stages of evolution through (...) a complex matrix of ideals, values and actions—cultural, historical, literary and ideological. Examining the notion of the ‘universal’, contemporary scholars come together in this volume to show how ‘surplus in man’ is generated over the life of concrete particulars through creativity. The work brings forth a social scientific account of Tagore’s thoughts and critically reconstructs many of his epochal ideas. Lucid in analysis and bolstered with historical reflection, this book will be a major intervention in understanding Tagore’s works and its relevance for the contemporary human and social sciences. It will interest scholars and researchers of philosophy, literature and cultural studies. (shrink)

The anthology Dharma: The Categorial ImperativeThe choice of using ‘the categorial imperative’ over the standard ‘the categorical imperative’ has not been supported with reason in the anthology, notwithstanding its mentioning of Kant. consists of a brief introduction and 18 essays which were presented in an international conference of the same title in 1997, with the purpose to provide an alternative interpretation of the concept ‘dharma’ while taking into view the influence of Western notion of religion and treating it as an (...) epistemological , and not as a moral, concept. Here, dharma has been understood as a category, as an intellectual exercise, for ‘viewing’ Indian reality.The fundamental question is this: what constitutes the concept of dharma in the context of our changing forms of life? I.e., What aspects of dharma upon which Western influence are to be noted? Some aspects of the constitutive elements of dharma, as identified by the contributors of .. (shrink)

This essay is one more attempt of understanding the non-dual philosophical position of Abhinavagupta viz-a-viz the problem of reflection. Since when my first essay on ‘Abhinavagupta on Reflection’ appeared in JIP, I have once again focused on the non-dual Śaiva theory of reflection (_pratibimbavāda_) (3.1-65) as discussed by Abhinavagupta (_fl.c._ 975-1025 CE) in the _Tantrāloka_ and his commentator Jayaratha (_fl.c._ 1225-1275 CE). The present attempt is to understand their philosophical position in the context of Nyāya realism where a reflection is (...) simply caused by an erroneous apprehension of an entity. For Naiyāyikas, according to both Abhinavagupta and Jayaratha, a reflection (_pratibimba_) does not have a real existence at all. There are only two ways of looking at a reflection: it can either simply be an original image (_bimba_) or an illusion (_bhrānti_). There is no scope for any third entity apart from something being an error or a non-error. In contrast to this, establishing a Śaiva theory of reflection, Abhinavagupta is corroborating a valid ontological status for the seemingly illusory objects of perception or imagined objects, such as, to use Abhinavagupta’s own language, ‘an elephant with five trunks and four tusks who is running in the sky’. In other words, he is pleading for the valid cognition of objects which are otherwise deemed to be an error or external to consciousness. While Abhinavagupta’s system has generally been referred to as ‘idealism’, I argue that by establishing the dynamism of reflective awareness that is deemed to be absolutely real, his system should be referred to as ‘dynamic realism’ i.e., the ‘dynamism’ that is common to both ‘real’ and ‘ideal’. This is why he uses the metaphor _consciousness-as-mirror_ (_ciddarpaṇa_) in establishing a non-erroneous ontological status for otherwise illusive idea of reflection. (shrink)

The goal of the current study was to examine novice researchers’ views about online ethics education and to identify the instructional design components that may foster ethical practice. Applying the mixed methods approach, data were collected via a survey and semi-structured interviews among M.Sc. and Ph.D. students in science and engineering. The findings point to the need for rethinking the way conventional online ethics courses are developed and delivered; encouraging students to build confidence in learning from distance, engaging them in (...) online active and interactive experiences, and providing them with personalized support and adaptive guidance. The novice researchers identified the synergistic integration of collaborative, case-based, and contextual learning, as the instructional design components that may foster not only ethical knowledge but also ethical practice in a fully online course. (shrink)

We spend our lives protecting an elusive self - but does the self actually exist? Drawing on literature from Western philosophy, neuroscience and Buddhism (interpreted), the author argues that there is no self. The self - as unified owner and thinker of thoughts - is an illusion created by two tiers. A tier of naturally unified consciousness (notably absent in standard bundle-theory accounts) merges with a tier of desire-driven thoughts and emotions to yield the impression of a self. So while (...) the self, if real, would think up the thoughts, the thoughts, in reality, think up the self. (shrink)

Each well-known proposed solution to the mind-body problem encounters an impasse. These take the form of an explanatory gap, such as the one between mental and physical, or between micro-subjects and macro-subject. The dialectical pressure to bridge these gaps is generating positions in which consciousness is becoming increasingly foundational. The most recent of these, cosmopsychism, typically casts the entire cosmos as a perspectival subject whose mind grounds those of more limited subjects like ourselves. I review the dialectic from materialism and (...) dualism through to panpsychism, suggesting that explanatory gaps in the latter stem from assuming foundational consciousness to be perspectival. Its renunciation may yield the notion of an aperspectival, universal, “non-dual” consciousness that grounds all manifestation and is unstructured by subject, object or any differentia. Not only is such consciousness suggestive of a natural successor to cosmopsychism, but it has also been reported to be the direct experience of mystics who claim to have transcended the individual perspective. Their purported insight — that our aperspectival conscious nature is identical to the ground of all being — has been termed “the Perennial Philosophy”. Believing this Perennial Philosophy to offer the most promising way forward in the mind-body problem, I construct from it the foundations of a metaphysical system that I call “Perennial Idealism”. This attempts to account for manifestation in terms of dispositional, imagery-bound subjects. I then address an age-old “Parmenidean” conundrum that I refer to as “the problem of the one and the many”: How can an undifferentiated substratum ground differentia without the ground itself differentiating? The proposed solution takes its cue from mystico-philosophical writings in the Advaita Vedānta tradition, known as the ajāta doctrine. (shrink)

The growing trend of shifting from classroom to distance learning in ethics education programs raises the need to examine ways for adapting best instructional practices to online modes. To address this need, the current study was set to apply a social constructivist approach to an online course in research ethics and to examine its effect on the learning outcomes of science and engineering graduate students. The study applied a pre-test post-test quasi-experimental research design within a framework of a mixed-methods approach. (...) The study compared the learning outcomes of students who participated in a social constructivist online course with those who studied in a conventional online course. The data were collected via questionnaires and interviews. The findings indicated that both the conventional and the social constructivist online learners gained knowledge of facts and regulations. Yet, the social constructivist learners were more successful in demonstrating knowledge of practices that are used to establish research ethics, and in understanding the importance of conducting research in a responsible manner. The social constructivist online learners were also more successful in demonstrating awareness of ethical dilemmas, by identifying ethical dilemmas and providing solutions to ethical problems. (shrink)

In the celebrated tantric manual, the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta and his commentator Jayaratha establish a non-dual Śaiva theory of reflection using the key metaphors of light and reflective awareness. This paper attempts to explain the philosophical problem of reflection from the standpoint of these non-dual Śaivas. It also evaluates the problem in its hermeneutical context, analysing multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. Is the metaphor of reflection only a way of explaining the particular currents of the Śaiva phenomenology represented by the (...) concepts of prakāśa and vimarśa? What philosophical problem does Abhinavagupta seek to solve by complicating the category of reflection and giving it a quasi-paradoxical status? Why does he use the model of the subtle elements to explain the theory of reflection? What does the ‘untaintedness of the mirror of consciousness’ mean for his system? These questions form the focus of this paper. (shrink)

In the celebrated tantric manual, the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta and his commentator Jayaratha establish a non-dual Śaiva theory of reflection using the key metaphors of light and reflective awareness. This paper attempts to explain the philosophical problem of reflection from the standpoint of these non-dual Śaivas. It also evaluates the problem in its hermeneutical context, analysing multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. Is the metaphor of reflection only a way of explaining the particular currents of the Śaiva phenomenology represented by the (...) concepts of prakāśa and vimarśa? What philosophical problem does Abhinavagupta seek to solve by complicating the category of reflection and giving it a quasi-paradoxical status? Why does he use the model of the subtle elements to explain the theory of reflection? What does the ‘untaintedness of the mirror of consciousness’ mean for his system? These questions form the focus of this paper. (shrink)

Panpsychism is viewed by its advocates as resolving the main sticking points for materialism and dualism. While sympathetic to this approach, I locate two prevalent assumptions within modern panpsychism which I think are problematic: first, that fundamental consciousness belongs to a perspectival subject and second, that the physical world, despite being backed by conscious subject, is observer-independent. I re-introduce an argument I’d made elsewhere against the first assumption: that it lies behind the well-known combination and decombination problems. I then propose (...) a new argument against the second assumption: that it leads to an equally pernicious difficulty I call the “Inner-Outer Gap Problem.” The variant of panpsychism I continue to develop and defend, Perennial Idealism, avoids these assumptions and their problems, allowing real progress on the mind-body problem. Perennial Idealism is a type of panpsychist idealism rather than panpsychist materialism. (shrink)

G.E. Moore alludes to a notion of consciousness that is diaphanous, elusive to attention, yet detectable. Such a notion, I suggest, approximates what Bina Gupta has called `witness-consciousness'--in particular, the aspect of mode-neutral awareness with intrinsic phenomenal character. This paper offers a detailed definition and defence of the appearance and reality of witness-consciousness. While I claim that witness- consciousness captures the essence of subjectivity, and so must be accounted for in the `hard problem' of consciousness, it is not to be (...) confused with the more commonly defended notion of `for-me-ness'. (shrink)

In the celebrated tantric manual, the Tantrāloka, Abhinavagupta and his commentator Jayaratha establish a non-dual Śaiva theory of reflection using the key metaphors of light and reflective awareness. This paper attempts to explain the philosophical problem of reflection from the standpoint of these non-dual Śaivas. It also evaluates the problem in its hermeneutical context, analysing multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. Is the metaphor of reflection only a way of explaining the particular currents of the Śaiva phenomenology represented by the (...) concepts of prakāśa and vimarśa? What philosophical problem does Abhinavagupta seek to solve by complicating the category of reflection and giving it a quasi-paradoxical status? Why does he use the model of the subtle elements to explain the theory of reflection? What does the ‘untaintedness of the mirror of consciousness’ mean for his system? These questions form the focus of this paper. (shrink)

Imagine a character, Mary Analogue, who has a complete theoretical knowledge of her subject matter: the illusory nature of self. Suppose that when presenting her paper on no self at a conference she suffers stage-fright – a reaction that implies she is under an illusion of the very self whose existence she denies. Might there be something defective about her knowledge of no self? The Buddhist tradition would claim that Mary Analogue, despite her theoretical omniscience, lacks deep ‘insight knowledge’ into (...) the reality of no self. The only way for her to gain insight, and thereby improve her epistemic status, would be to divest her mind of the self-illusion. In this paper, I offer an analysis of what could be epistemically involved in the process of acquiring such insight knowledge whereby one becomes, in Buddhist parlance, ‘awakened’. (shrink)

Islamic philosophy; early works to 1800.

This paper presents an approach for monitoring exercises of hand rehabilitation for post stroke patients. The developed solution uses a leap motion controller as hand-tracking device and embeds a supervised machine learning. The K-nearest neighbor methodology is adopted for automatically characterizing the physiotherapist or helper hand movement resulting a unique movement pattern that constitutes the basis of the rehabilitation process. In the second stage, an evaluation of the patients rehabilitation exercises results is compared to the movement pattern of the patient (...) and results are presented, saved and statistically analyzed. Physicians and physiotherapists monitor and assess patients’ rehabilitation improvements through a web application, furthermore, offer medical assisted rehabilitation processes through low cost technology, which can be easily exploited at home. Recorded tracked motion data and results can be used for further medical study and evaluating rehabilitation trends according to patient’s rehabilitation practice and improvement. (shrink)

There has been a surge of interest over cases where a subject sincerely endorses P while displaying discordant strains of not-P in her behaviour and emotion. Cases like this are telling because they bear directly upon conditions under which belief should be ascribed. Are beliefs to be aligned with what we sincerely endorse or with what we do and feel? If belief doesn’t explain the discordant strains, what does? T.S. Gendler has recently attempted to explain all the discordances by introducing (...) a controversial new cognitive category—associative clusters called ‘alief’. Others think that belief explains all the discordancy cases, while others argue that in-between belief does the trick, and so on. Most advocates of the different positions, indeed, assume that their favoured analysis will explain the whole range of discordancy cases. This paper defends what I call the ‘contextual view’, where I argue that overturning this assumption of uniformity leads to more nuanced account of belief-ascription. On the contextual view, which analysis applies to which case depends on the discordancy case at hand. Perhaps a height-phobic stepping on a glass platform deserves different treatment to a hesitant stepper. I ground the contextual view in a biologically functional account of the alief/belief distinction, which construes alief as a real cognitive category but without the explanatory reach Gendler gives it. This functional distinction yields a principled strategy for determining the correct application of analysis to discordancy case. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays by Dr. Seyed Javad Miri as he attempts to expand the sociological canon by exploring the works of Dr. Ali Shariati, an Iranian sociologist.

Indian Perspectives on Consciousness, Language and Self by Marco Ferrante explores theories of consciousness by examining the non-dual philosophy of Recognition mainly represented by the two philosophers Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta, and also carefully concludes that the trajectory of their ideas have compelling influence from Bhartṛhari and his commentator Helārāja. No philosophy ever evolves and develops in a void. No philosophical tradition or theory functions in oblivion. In the history of philosophy in South Asia, this is also true of the traditions (...) that have staunchly stood up and rigorously argued for the ubiquity of consciousness. The dynamism of... (shrink)