Festschrift in honor of S.A. Shaida; contributed research papers.

Chiefly on Desire and libearion by Vaddera Chandidas, b. 1938.

Identifying the limitations in earlier attempts for comparing Euro-American philosophy with Indian, the paper distinguishes its approach and makes a case for an alternative approach. This consists of bending the Euro-American philosophy, without breaking it, for use in India. Following the discussion of major and minor literatures by Deleuze and Guattari in the context of Kafka in Europe, the paper shows the variance between its claims in the context of minor literature and the reality. In this context, it establishes a (...) close relation between modernity and art and literature in Europe, where the latter is sought to reclaim what is rejected by the modern. Modernity rejected the premodern as embodying non-reason. Without abandoning this relation between minor and major, it seeks to show its relevance in India through Indian National Movement and M. K. Gandhi. This paper, thus, discusses an instance where alien is a better ground for growth and relevance than the origin. (shrink)

This book brings to bear critical perspectives on the major Indian academic philosophers' discussions on the West, modernity, colonialism, classical Indian philosophy, and modern Western philosophy. Through a discussion of the works and influence of philosophers it establishes the strengths and limitations of philosophy as practised in India.

With special reference to modern period.

This book deals with a re-reading of the question and concept of modernity in Indian social theory and its application to understand contemporary Indian society and texts. It examines the work of several past and contemporary thinkers as well as issues like nationalism, secularism, notions of majority and minority, and lived Dalit experiences.

This book elucidates the debate between Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi, V.D. Savarkar and Gandhi, and Sri Aurobindo and Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya. It also compares and contrasts for the first time, scholars like Sudhir Kakar and Tapan Raychaudhuri. The debates in classical, colonial and contemporary Indian philosophy are specifically reported. A discussion on Indian state, civil society, religion and politics is presented. Moreover, the association between science and spiritualism is explained.

This volume evaluates the life, thoughts, and works of the renowned nineteenth-century philosopher and social reformer Swami Vivekananda. Bringing together essays from varied disciplines, the work engages with such issues related to Vivekananda as the extent of his impact on society; Vivekananda's relationship with his mentor- Ramakrishna Parmahamsa; practice of Vedanta, revivalism, secularism and fundamentalism; his views on women; and science.

This volume explores the relevance of classical texts and thought-systems alongside contemporary philosophical consciousness. It also evaluates the absences in contemporary thought patterns and the new epistemes relevant to the Indian subcontinent. The book discusses the present lack of original philosophical discourse in the context of South Asia, especially India. Raghuramaraju investigates the reasons for the decline of traditional philosophical schools and Sanskritic studies in the subcontinent.

_In his carefully argued book Swami Vivekananda's Vedantic Cosmopolitanism (2022), Swami Medhananda claims that Vivekananda is a cosmopolitan Vedantic philosopher. In this review, I discuss issues that pertain to this claim and the evidence provided in their support. _.

Ramchandra Gandhi, famous for his rich and varied interests, left behind a large corpus of writings, both philosophical and non-philosophical. Introducing the readers to the creative Indian philosopher, this volume highlights the principal thrust of his works, critically locates them within the larger political, philosophical, literary and socio-cultural context, and accounts for his lasting influence. For the first time, essays on Ramchandra Gandhi’s earlier works and later writings have been brought together to take stock of his contribution to contemporary Indian (...) thought as a whole. Written by philosophers as well as those belonging to literature and the social sciences, the essays record his experimental ventures both in form and content, and shed light on key themes in language, communication, religion, aesthetics, spirituality, consciousness, self, knowledge, politics, ethics, and non-violence. The book will appeal to those in philosophy, political science, history, sociology, literature, and Gandhian studies. (shrink)

This reader presents contesting positions of renowned scholars on issues critical for understanding Gandhi as a thinker and a historical phenomenon. It examines Gandhi's views on issues like tradition, modernity, nation, women and caste together with his relationship with Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Ramchandra Gandhi, famous for his rich and varied interests, left behind a large corpus of writings, both philosophical and non-philosophical. Introducing the readers to the creative Indian philosopher, this volume highlights the principal thrust of his works, critically locates them within the larger political, philosophical, literary and socio-cultural context, and accounts for his lasting influence. For the first time, essays on Ramchandra Gandhi’s earlier works and later writings have been brought together to take stock of his contribution to contemporary Indian (...) thought as a whole. Written by philosophers as well as those belonging to literature and the social sciences, the essays record his experimental ventures both in form and content, and shed light on key themes in language, communication, religion, aesthetics, spirituality, consciousness, self, knowledge, politics, ethics, and non-violence. The book will appeal to those in philosophy, political science, history, sociology, literature, and Gandhian studies. (shrink)

In the context of discussing Deleuze's account of Bergson's idea of non-being, this paper brings into discussion different versions of non-being as available in Indian philosophy. These versions are drawn both from classical Indian philosophy including Vedas and Upanishads and modern Indian philosophy such as Vaddera Chandidas. The paper discusses Deleuze's analysis of Bergson on the relation between non-being and negation. While Bergson rightly traces the roots of non-being to negation, he, however, rendered it to intuition. Extending Bergson's diagnosis of (...) negation as the basis of non-being, the paper goes on to show, using Chandidas's work Desire and Liberation: The Fundamentals of Cosmicontology, how negation in the form of pre-existence and post-existence that negate existence is made possible by permanence. Pre- and post-existence are permanent; in contrast, existence is rendered impermanent and changing. The paper concludes, using the insights from Chandidas, by exposing this conspiracy of metaphysics that renders the real existence as fleeing and impermanent in contrast to the non-being that is projected by the intellect as real. (shrink)

Put together to honour one of the most influential philosophers in recent times, Mrinal Miri, this book brings together articles on philosophy, politics, literature and society, and updates the status of enquiry in each of these fields. In his philosophical writings, Miri has broken the stranglehold that early training has on academics and written on a range of themes and areas, including analytical philosophy, political philosophy, tribal identity, ethics and, more recently, an abiding engagement with the ideas of Gandhi. The (...) articles in this volume mirror some of Miri’s concerns and philosophical interests, but go beyond the format of a festschrift, as they seek to enhance and restate themes in moral philosophy, ethics, questions of identity, Gandhi’s philosophy, and offer a fresh perspective on themes such as secularism, religion and politics. (shrink)

Put together to honour one of the most influential philosophers in recent times, Mrinal Miri, this book brings together articles on philosophy, politics, literature and society, and updates the status of enquiry in each of these fields. In his philosophical writings, Miri has broken the stranglehold that early training has on academics and written on a range of themes and areas, including analytical philosophy, political philosophy, tribal identity, ethics and, more recently, an abiding engagement with the ideas of Gandhi. The (...) articles in this volume mirror some of Miri’s concerns and philosophical interests, but go beyond the format of a festschrift, as they seek to enhance and restate themes in moral philosophy, ethics, questions of identity, Gandhi’s philosophy, and offer a fresh perspective on themes such as secularism, religion and politics. (shrink)

Does cross-cultural philosophy stand in need of a hermeneutical expansion? In engaging with this question, the symposium focuses upon methodological issues salient to cross-cultural inquiry. Douglas L. Berger lays out the ground for the debate by arguing for a methodological approach, which is able to rectify the discipline’s colonial legacies and bridge the hermeneutical distance with its objects of study. From their own perspectives, Hans-Georg Moeller, Paul Roth and A. Raghuramaraju analyze whether such a processual and hermeneutically-sensitive approach can (...) indeed open up new hermeneutic horizons. Their responses shed light upon cross-cultural philosophy’s continued embedment in Euroamerican professional philosophy and how the locality of its knowledge-seeking endeavors may indeed have repercussions on attempts to bridge temporal and spatial distances. (shrink)

The Bengali Swami Vivekananda is probably best known for his years of travels and lecturing as an Indian missionary to the United States and Europe, beginning with his address in 1893 to the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He also founded, in 1897 in Calcutta, the Ramakrishna Mission, a Vedantic religious society named after his guru, an illiterate village priest who, his followers believed, had had ecstatic divine visions. Vivekananda's interests and life reflected important currents in the development of (...) modern India: religious reform and revival, anticolonial nationalism, and the intellectual and... (shrink)

The Problem of Perception offers two arguments against direct realism--one concerning illusion, and one concerning hallucination--that no current theory of ...

In this paper I examine Grace A. de Laguna’s theory of universals in its historical context and in relation to contemporary debates in analytic metaphysics. I explain the central features of her theory, arguing that her theory should be classified as a form of immanent realism and as a powers ontology. I then show in what ways her theory affords a theory of modality in terms of potentialities and discuss some of its consequences along the way.

A. H. Louie's More Than Life Itself is an exploratory journey in relational biology, a study of life in terms of the organization of entailment relations in living systems. This book represents a synergy of the mathematical theories of categories, lattices, and modelling, and the result is a synthetic biology that provides a characterization of life. Biology extends physics. Life is not a specialization of mechanism, but an expansive generalization of it. Organisms and machines share some common features, but organisms (...) are not machines. Life is defined by a relational closure that places it beyond the reach of physicochemical and mechanistic dogma, outside the reductionistic universe, and into the realm of impredicativity. Function dictates structure. Complexity brings forth living beings. (shrink)

This book argues for the use of nonideal theory in social ontology. The central claim is that a paradigm shift is underway in contemporary social ontology, from ideal to nonideal, and that this shift should be fully followed through. To develop and defend this central claim, the first step is to show that the key questions and central dividing lines within contemporary social ontology can be fruitfully reconstructed as a clash between two worlds, referred to as ideal and nonideal social (...) ontology. Ideal social ontology is characterized by consensus and cooperation, while nonideal social ontology is characterized by conflict and contestation. The second step is to show that, when taken together, objections to the standard model of ideal social ontology (the dominant version of ideal social ontology) imply that this model needs to be given up in favor of nonideal social ontology. In other words, we should look to nonideal rather than ideal social ontology for core concepts. The third step is to offer a positive account, called the power view, of nonideal social ontology. This account places the concept of social power at the core of a general theory of the social world and replaces the flat and narrow conception of power in ideal social ontology with a richer and more extensive conception. In addition, it rectifies a shortcoming in nonideal social ontology by attending to class, which has been notably and oddly overlooked in the literature. (shrink)

This companion is a cutting-edge primer to critical forms of the posthumanities and the feminist posthumanities, aimed at students and researchers who want to catch up with the recent theoretical developments in various fields in the humanities, such as new media studies, gender studies, cultural studies, science and technology studies, human animal studies, postcolonial critique, philosophy and environmental humanities. It contains a collection of nineteen new and original short chapters introducing influential concepts, ideas and approaches that have shaped and developed (...) new materialism, inhuman theory, critical posthumanism, feminist materialism, and posthuman philosophy. A resource for students and teachers, this comprehensive volume brings together established international scholars and emerging theorists, for timely and astute definitions of a moving target – posthuman humanities and feminist posthumanities. (shrink)

I. Ókor -- II. A középkor és a reneszánsz -- III. Az újkor.

La admirable riqueza cultural y artística del Renacimiento esconde una desoladora miseria y aquella "edad de la abundancia" contrasta con una inmensa pobreza. Lejos de ser una broma o una pesadilla, la celebrada Utopía de Tomás Moro fue antes que nada un desafío insoslayable, pues proponía que ninguna sociedad merece tal nombre si tolera la miseria de un solo pobre. Rico y pobre explora la cuestión en ese libro de 1516 y en otros del escritor londinense para concluir con un (...) esbozo de su vida a la luz de la pobreza como virtud indispensable y libertadora. He aquí un hombre afortunado que no fue indiferente ante el infortunio de tantos y que vio en la humanitas la virtud por excelencia que lleva a una constante atención y cuidado del prójimo. Inspirado por un cambio de actitud en su época, así como por su fe cristiana y la mejor tradición estoica, mostró una robusta preocupación sobre el tema subrayando el valor social que debe tener toda riqueza, tanto a nivel estatal como individual, destacando la grave obligación cívica de los ricos y la necesidad que tienen todos, ricos y pobres, de empeñarse en la práctica de cierto desprendimiento y generosidad si no quieren mermar su propia humanidad y fallecer en su avaricia. La percepción de la miseria había cambiado de tal manera que su remedio ya no podía estar en una u otra limosna en plazas e iglesias, sino en la acción bien pensada y perentoria de todo gobierno que se tenga por justo. Sir Tomás Moro, privilegiado desde la cuna y seguro en su trabajo profesional, vio la pobreza de tantos como un desastre social, pero uno que, al mismo tiempo, debería llevar a todo ser humano a ver en el desprendimiento y generosidad una excelencia o virtud que alumbra la "otra" libertad, y tan íntima y valiosa que en su caso brilló aun en la prisión y ante el horror de una muerte injusta y atroz." -- Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Articles on the life and works of Āraja Ālī Mātubbara, 1901-1986, Muslim philosopher and author from Bangladesh.

Commentary on the Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa, aphoristic work on Vedanta philosophy.