We discuss how academically-based interdisciplinary teams can address the extreme challenges of the world’s poorest by increasing access to the basic necessities of life. The essay’s first part illustrates the evolving commitment of research universities to develop ethical solutions for populations whose survival is at risk and whose quality of life is deeply impaired. The second part proposes a rationale for university responsibility to solve the problems of impoverished populations at a geographical remove. It also presents a framework for integrating (...) science, engineering and ethics in the efforts of multidisciplinary teams dedicated to this task. The essay’s third part illustrates the efforts of Howard University researchers to join forces with African university colleagues in fleshing out a model for sustainable and ethical global development. (shrink)

Supercommentary on Dīdhiti of Raghunātha Śiromaṇi, commentary on Vyādhikaraṇa section of Tattvacintāmaṇi, basic work on Navya-Nyaya philosophy by Gaṅgeśa, 13th cent.

Supercommentary on Dīdhiti of Raghunātha Śiromaṇi, commentary on Vyādhikaraṇa section of Tattvacintāmaṇī by Gaṅgeśa, 13th cent. basic work on Navya-Nyaya philosophy.

Neo-Nyaya treatise on verbal testimony presenting semantic approaches to Sanskrit case and suffix by Gadādhārabhaṭṭācārya, 17th/18th century; includes Tattvabodhinī Hindi commentary.

Neo-Nyaya treatise on verbal testimony presenting semantic approaches to Sanskrit case and suffix by Gadādharabhaṭṭācārya, 17th/18th cent.; includes Sunandā Hindi commentary.

Supercommentary on the inference (anumāna) part of Raghunātha Śiromaṇi's Tattvacintāmaṇidīdhiti, 16th century commentary on Gaṅgésa's Tattvacintāmaṇi, 13th century basic work of the neo-Nyaya school in Hindu philosophy.

Given the possibilities of synthetic biology, weapons of mass destruction and global climate change, humans may achieve the capacity globally to alter life. This crisis calls for an ethics that furnishes effective motives to take global action necessary for survival. We propose a research program for understanding why ethical principles change across time and culture. We also propose provisional motives and methods for reaching global consensus on engineering field ethics. Current interdisciplinary research in ethics, psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary theory grounds (...) these proposals. Experimental ethics, the application of scientific principles to ethical studies, provides a model for developing policies to advance solutions. A growing literature proposes evolutionary explanations for moral development. Connecting these approaches necessitates an experimental or scientific ethics that deliberately examines theories of morality for reliability. To illustrate how such an approach works, we cover three areas. The first section analyzes cross-cultural ethical systems in light of evolutionary theory. While such research is in its early stages, its assumptions entail consequences for engineering education. The second section discusses Howard University and University of Puerto Rico/Mayagüez (UPRM) courses that bring ethicists together with scientists and engineers to unite ethical theory and practice. We include a syllabus for engineering and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) ethics courses and a checklist model for translating educational theory and practice into community action. The model is based on aviation, medicine and engineering practice. The third and concluding section illustrates Howard University and UPRM efforts to translate engineering educational theory into community action. Multidisciplinary teams of engineering students and instructors take their expertise from the classroom to global communities to examine further the ethicality of prospective technologies and the decision-making processes that lead to them. (shrink)

While the declared global “refugee crisis” has received considerable scholarly attention, little of it has focused on the intersecting dynamics of oppression, discrimination, violence, and subjugation. Introducing the special issue, this article defines feminist “intersectionality” as a research framework and a no-borders activist orientation in transnational and anti-national solidarity with people displaced by war, capitalism, and reproductive heteronormativity, encountering militarized nation-state borders. Our introduction surveys work in migration studies that engages with intersectionality as an analytic and offers a synopsis of (...) the articles in the special issue. As a whole, the special issue seeks to make an intersectional feminist intervention in research produced about (forced) migration. (shrink)

Even though there is an ineluctable abyss between Analytic and Continental Philosophy, it is not hard to argue that in his later works Ludwig Wittgenstein draws a closer philosophical attitude to the latter in terms of that the notions developed by him, such as language-games, family resemblances, meaning-in-use or rule-following, apart from his earlier nomological approach to language, leave room for various understandings and uncertainty in language. In the present work, my primary task is to concentrate on the close relationship (...) between the Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblances and Gadamer’s idea of the fusion of horizons. But both philosophers, coincide in criticizing the authority of the Cartesian subject and private language and in allowing different understandings and uncertainty in language. Starting from this point of view, the linguistic turn, I will turn my remarks on the question how we learn color concepts since the structure of these concepts radically differs from the words that are able to subject to ostensive definitions. This last section will also offer a hermeneutical reading of Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblances. (shrink)

Study of Dīdhitiprakāśikā of Gadhādharabhaṭṭācārya, 17th/18th cent., commentary on Pramāṇyavāda, portion of Tattvacintāmaṇi of Gaṅgeśa, dealing with the concept of authenticity of proofs).

En el 51 aniversario de la publicación de Verdad y método de Hans-Georg Gadamer, este ensayo abordará la articulación entre el proyecto hermenéutico ―inicialmente formulado como una investigación que tiene como objetivo repensar el fenómeno de la com-prensión en la medida en que se refiere a toda nuestra experiencia vital― y su caracterización como filosofía práctica en las categorías de la pluralidad, el diálogo y la responsabilidad. En otras palabras, vamos a mostrar cómo Gada-mer, en el contexto de nuestros (...) tiempos tecnológicos y bajo una influencia fenomenológica, define la hermenéutica como la “praxis” de la comprensión del otro. Este “praxis” debe ser concebida a la vez como un “aprendizaje de humildad”, capaz de ayudarnos a construir “un mundo razonablemente ordenado y comprensible, donde estamos obligados a vivir”. Para ello nos concentraremos en la rehabilitación de Gadamer de algunos temas de la filosofía griega que le permiten formular su concepto de “praxis” en oposición a su significado moderno, así como a la cultura de expertos de la sociedad contemporánea.At the 51st anniversary of the publication of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and method, this paper will approach the articulating thread between the hermeneutical project—initially formulated as an investigation that aims to rethink the phenomenon of understanding in as much as it concerns to all our vital experience—and its characterization as practical philosophy under the categories of plurality, dialogue and responsibility. In other words, we will show how Gadamer, in the context of ours technological times and under a phenomenological influence, defines hermeneutics as the “praxis” of understanding the other. This “praxis” must be conceived at the same time as a “learning of humility”, capable of helping us to construct “a reasonably ordered and comprehensible world where we are bound to live”. To this extend we will concentrate ourselves in Gadamer’s rehabilitation of some topics of Greek philosophy, that will allow him formulate his concept of “praxis” in opposition to its modern meaning as well as to the expert culture of contemporary society. (shrink)

Comparative study of the Māthurī of Mathurānātha Tarkavāgīśa, 1600-1675 and Gādādharī of Gadārabhaṭṭacārya, 17th/18th cent., classical commentaries on Tattvacintāmaṇi of Gaṅgeśa, 13th cent.

Exhaustive Gujarati supercommentary on Gūḍhārthatattvāloka of Dharmadatta Jhā, 1860-1918, commentary on Vyutpattivāda of Gadādharabhaṭṭācārya, 17th century-18th century, on Nyaya philosophy.

La teología del magisterio y del primado ha expe-rimentado en el postconcilio un notable desarrollo, no siempre conocido por quienes prestan un servicio pastoral en la Iglesia, ni por la gran mayoría de los cató-licos y de la sociedad civil. Como fruto de tal desconocimiento, se dan por buenas informaciones ses-gadas e interpretaciones erróneas que, a veces, son determinantes, por ejemplo, en el abandono la fe católica o, lo que todavía es más frecuente, en el arrinconamiento del magisterio eclesial. Urge (...) clarifi-car la función del magisterio y del primado en la vida cristiana por-que es mucho lo que está en juego, empezando por la “conversión” del papado y la reforma de la curia vaticana que el papa Francisco ha propuesto como objetivos prioritarios de su ponti-ficado.P. (shrink)