Articles on the life and work of Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950, philosopher and thinker from India, and his views on Ramakrishna, 1836-1886, Hindu saint, and his life.

In theories which contribute to the understanding of uncertainty in entrepreneurial action, scholars have traditionally attributed a negative connotation to uncertainty. This paper seeks to posit an understanding of uncertainty derived from Greek and Indian philosophy, where action of the human agent is not deterred by uncertainty, and rather, occurs despite uncertainty. This idea may be beneficial in making future entrepreneurs less apprehensive about uncertainty, by helping them locate the lessons from philosophy. I look at existing ideas that explore uncertainty (...) in entrepreneurial motivation, and present a multidisciplinary approach which sees uncertainty as a force that increases intent of action, rather than deterring it by drawing on the understanding of consequence and action in Aristotelean thought and Hindu philosophy, and extend the concepts of tuche and karma to posit a theoretical position which sees uncertainty as a factor that encourages entrepreneurial action and motivation. The understanding of uncertainty in management literature has been approached primarily from two disciplinary positions - economics and organisational theory. In economics, the classical understanding of uncertainty which commenced with Frank Knight’s Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (1921), was largely abandoned in later years for a more quantifiable approach of calculating risk. Uncertainty, characteristically nebulous and difficult to grapple with, is unquantifiable. It is defined, in fact, by Knight, as something which cannot be predicted and quantified. Thus, in academics, where almost all disciplines try to make sense of the way the world works, uncertainty has always been a problematic concept. (shrink)

This article expands on existing models of analyzing business ethics of monetization in video games using the concept of categorical imperatives, as posited by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. A model is advanced to analyze and evaluate the business logics of video game monetization using a Kantian framework, which falls in the deontological category of normative ethics. Using two categorical imperatives, existing models of game monetization are divided into ethical or unethical, and presented using the case example of Star Wars: Battlefront (...) II. This analysis aims to provide video game developers and businesses with ethical guidelines for game monetization which may also be profitable for them in the long term. Within the framework of video game monetization, a deontological analysis is relevant due to the fact that the game developer is engaged in a continuous role of making the game more playable/payable. This article applies Kantian business ethics to the context of a new sector, that of video game businesses, and thereby presents a broader ethical perspective to video game developers, which will help them monetize games in an ethical manner which is also profitable in the long run. (shrink)

Vampires are portrayed opposite to humans, depicted as the dichotomy between predator and prey. Being ever so near to their prey, vampires develop a proclivity for imbibing or emulating characteristics that are considered to be in the sole charge of humans. This text employed is The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas. The article will analyse Edward Weyland as a post-human symbol, positing himself as an ever-evolving entity that is both human as well as a threshold to gauge humanity of (...) the other characters involved. The article underlines the ways in which Giorgio Agamben’s concept of Anthropological Machine and Katherine Hayles’s concept of Technogenesis will be used to examine Weyland and other characters as being participants in mutual evolution, tacitly affecting each other through performative actions. The article will inspect the term ‘human’ as more than just a reified concept, as a term that is constantly in flux and how bio-politics is immanent to the very concept of human. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the growing reliance on discourses of autochthony in nationalisms throughout the world. Native-ness is increasingly being made a key criterion for claiming national sovereignty over territory, as well as the more amorphous – but no less consequential – claim to national membership. By examining the crucial colonial genealogy of autochthonous discursive practices, I argue that claims to autochthony are metaphysical and, as such, deeply depoliticizing of the exclusions they produce. Drawing upon historical studies showing how (...) imperial-states deployed autocthonous discourses to divide those they categorized as Natives and Migrants from one another in an effort to maintain their imperial rule, I show the continuities of such practices in the Postcolonial New World Order of nation-states. Despite their rhetoric, I argue that contemporary, nationalist discourses of autochthonies have not – and cannot – succeed in realizing decolonization, precisely because of their reliance on modes of political, economic, and social exclusion based on the separation of people categorized as either Native-Nationals or as Migrants. The material force of ideas of Native-Nationalism, because they are premised on territorial sovereignty and not on the end of practices of expropriation and exploitation across the planet, are part of the worldwide relations of ruling and not threats to it. (shrink)

v. 1. Opponents' position (Pūrvapakṣa) -- v. 2. Pramā-lakṣaṇa-siddhānta.

Study of inference in Nyāyamañjarī of Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, fl. 850-910, work on Nyaya philosophy.

The Human-Animal Boundary shifts the traditional anthropocentric focus of philosophy and literature by combining the question "what is human?" with the question "what is animal?" The objective is to expand the imaginative scope of human-animal relationships by combining perspectives from different disciplines, traditions, and cultural backgrounds.

In business ethics literature, the figure of Machiavelli is often taken as a representation of that which is dark, sinister and negative—a source of inspiration for undesirable and unethical actions. In this research, we examine the evaluation of Niccolò Machiavelli’s thought in extant studies, and posit that Machiavelli’s works consist of ideas that may appear contradictory, which, coupled with historically contextualized close reading of his texts have more to offer. In this theoretical investigation, we construct new conceptual categories of a (...) leader’s decision-making rubric and attempt to provide a structured framework that will allow us to specify the boundary conditions under which the apparent contrary views may be accommodated, by undertaking a close reading of Machiavelli’s texts. Our work contributes to business ethics literature in at least three ways. First, we present a holistic assessment of the research area that applies the tenets of Machiavelli’s writings to business ethics, management, and organizational studies, and delineate the dominant themes. We outline and substantiate the informal research networks, thought structures, and “invisible colleges” that form the intellectual framework of this research area through a bibliometric analysis and literature review. Second, we present a contextualized close reading of Machiavelli’s major treatises. Third, we reimagine the critical landscape of business ethics literature, specifically pertaining to Machiavelli’s oeuvre by shifting the single-minded focus from _The Prince_, by including _The Discourses_, which, as we show, has new and unprecedented implications for business ethics. In light of this, the parameters for ethical action by business leaders can be redrawn according to a Machiavellian schema. This marks a radical departure from the long-standing association between Machiavelli’s tenets and the absence of ethics, instead proposing a more positive and affirmative relationship between Machiavelli and business ethics. Specifically, while pointing out that the existing ethical frameworks foisted on Machiavelli’s texts do not do justice to the political philosopher’s worldview, which are complex insights into ideas of leadership, we urge researchers to incorporate the thoughts offered in this research in future investigations. (shrink)

In 1971, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter introduced his study of Nietzsche as an investigation into the history of modern nihilism in which “contradiction” forms the central thread of the argument. For Müller-Lauter, the interpretive task is not to demonstrate the overall coherence or incoherence of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but to examine Nietzsche’s “philosophy of contradiction.” Against those such as Karl Jaspers, Karl Löwith and Martin Heidegger, Müller-Lauter argued that contradiction is the foundation of Nietzsche’s thought, and not a problem to be corrected or (...) cast aside for exegetical or political purposes. For Müller-Lauter, contradiction qua incompatibility (not just mere opposition) holds a key to Nietzsche’s affective vision of philosophy. Beginning with the relationship between will to power and eternal recurrence, in this paper I examine aspects of Müller-Lauter’s account of Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction specifically in relation to the counter-interpretations offered by two other German commentators of Nietzsche, Leo Strauss and Karl Löwith, in order to confirm Müller-Lauter’s suggestion that contradiction is indeed an operative engine of Nietzsche’s thought. Indeed contradiction is a key Nietzschean theme and an important dynamic of becoming which enables the subject to be revealed as a “multiplicity” ( BGE §12) and as a “fiction” (KSA 12:9[91]). Following Müller-Lauter’s assertion that for Nietzsche the problem of nihilism is fundamentally synonymous with the struggle of contradiction experienced by will to power, this paper interprets Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction in terms of subjective, bodily life (rather than in terms of logical incoherences or ontological inconsistencies). Against the backdrop of nihilism, the “self” (and its related place holder the “subject”), I will argue, becomes the psycho-physiological battlespace for the struggle and articulation of “contradiction” in Nietzsche’s thought. (shrink)

The War on Terror is an ambiguous term that has been used to circumvent the international laws of warfare. Instead of moving toward peace by way of limited warfare, and instead of preserving the independence of war and peace, War on Terror advances by masking itself in a fog of peace; it proliferates by overlapping the logic of “war-time” and “peace-time” operations. The fog of peace—as it shall herein be called—is a condition wherein the uncertainty qua “fog” of war,2 along (...) with its militarized logic, overlaps with and eventually replaces civilian peace-time-and-spaces. The War on Terror is thus not a limiting of war by way of the conventional modern mechanisms of international law and diplomacy; it is a continuation of war by other means, including the use covert, often black-boxed methods of information-capture and surveillance. Globally, states are expanding the powers of intelligence organs and deploying covert mass surveillance programs in the name of counter-terrorism. In this manner, counter-terrorism policies become instruments enabling states to become predatory, especially in relation to civilians. Under the banner of fighting terrorism, peace-time has unwittingly become colonized by the logic of war. (shrink)

Following Nietzsche’s call for a philosopher-physician and his own use of the bodily language of health and illness as tools to diagnose the ailments of the body politic, this book offers a reconstruction of the concept of political physiology in Nietzsche’s thought, bridging gaps between Anglo-American, German and French schools of interpretation.

This study investigates the value of sharing. The primary data are the parent–child discourses regarding the value of sharing. The discourses are subsequently subjected to discourse analyses. The study also involves a semi-structured interview with the same parents who were a part of the discursive study as well. The data of the interview were subjected to thematic analyses. The aim of conducting the interview was to validate the discursive findings. The study provides exemplary discourses highlighting the issues of sacrifice and (...) reciprocity in sharing. (shrink)

This paper advances the argument that Foucault's notion of 'bodily inscription' can be found in more rudimentary form in the Nietzschean notion of 'bodily descent'- the path qua pathology of 'going under' first outlined by Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The argument is set within context of the ongoing debate in Foucault studies about whether a non-discursive dimension of the body can be posited or whether the body is always already and inevitably discursive. Following Judith Butler's assessment that there is (...) in Foucault's work the presence of a body outside of signification, the present paper argues that Foucaultian bodily inscription is akin to Nietzschean bodily descent: both are predicated on and depend upon the occluded presence of an inherently 'indecent' or 'undisciplined' body, one that disrupts the discursive economy of subjectivization (assujettissement). Through the detailed reading of an exemplary tale by Franz Kafka ('In the Penal Colony'), we attempt to describe the structural axes or disciplinary matrix that descends and is imposed upon 'undisciplined' or 'indecent' bodies, revealing in so doing the 'indecent' body subject to this descent, the body 'crossed over' and 'crossed out' - 'double crossed' - by these axes, by this matrix. We suggest that it is at the crossroads or the crossing of these axes, precisely at the point where the indecent and untidy body is 'inscribed' and 'disciplined', that Foucault, like Nietzsche, locates a point that points beyond the structure, beyond axial and axiomatic binaries, to a body of inherent possibilities, affective virtualities, and spirited resistance. (shrink)

In this essay we offer an interpretation of Alain Badiou’s theorisation of Paul the Apostle as a “universal singularity.” Our aim is to explore the extent to which Badiou’s articulation of political subjectivity provides a radically different locus and topos for the “political”—one that is rooted not in a concept of the abstract individual but rather in the material and generative process of individuation (“subjectivation”). Following Badiou, we explore the implications of the ontological shiftthat Paul represents—the shift from an external (...) “body politic” (that of the polis, political crew or community) to an internal “body politic” (based on complicitous bodies, embodiments, incarnations—here a ‘body politic’ complicitous with the Christ-event). In this respect, Badiou’s reading of Paul establishes “the political” as “the subjective” precisely in the sense that the locus of the political is the complicitous subject as such rather than an externalised abstraction such as “thestate.” Paulitics manifests itself in and as this subject subjected to the event—the “militant subject” that embodies and endures its “process,” its “truth procedure.”. (shrink)

This book brings together a group of scholars from around the world who view psychology as the science of human ways of being. Being refers to the process of existing - through construction of the human world - here, rather than to an ontological state. This collection includes work that has the goal to establish the newly developed area of cultural psychology as the science of specifically human ways of existence. It comes as a next step after the "behaviorist turn" (...) that has dominated psychology over most of the 20th century, and like its successor in the form of "cognitivism", kept psychology away from addressing issues of specifically human ways of relating with their worlds. Such linking takes place through intentional human actions: through the creation of complex tools for living, entertainment, and work. Human beings construct tools to make other tools. Human beings invent religious systems, notions of economic rationality and legal systems; they enter into aesthetic enjoyment of various aspects of life in art, music, and literature; they have the capability of inventing national identities that can be summoned to legitimate one's killing of one's neighbors, or being killed oneself. The contributions to this volume focus on the central goal of demonstrating that psychology as a science needs to start from the phenomena of higher psychological functions, and then look at how their lower counterparts are re-organized from above. That kind of investigation is inevitably interdisciplinary - it links psychology with anthropology, philosophy, sociology, history, and developmental biology. Various contributions to this volume are based on the work of Lev Vygotsky, George Herbert Mead, Henri Bergson, and on traditions of Ganzheitspsychologie and Gestalt psychology. Psychology as the Science of Human Being is a valuable resource to psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, biologists, and anthropologists alike. (shrink)

Self-determination is a central concept for political philosophers. For example, many have appealed to this concept to defend a right of states to restrict immigration. Because it is deeply embedded in our political structures, the principle possesses a kind of default authority and does not usually call for an elaborate defense. In this paper, I will argue that genealogical studies by Adom Getachew, Radhika Mongia, Nandita Sharma, and others help to challenge this default authority. Their counter-histories show that the (...) principle was used to justify, strengthen, and adapt imperial rule in the twentieth century. In particular, the idea that controlling a population's composition through regulating immigration is an essential aspect of self-determination emerged as a response to White anxieties about the migration of negatively racialized groups. Genealogies have not been adequately appreciated as a critical tool within the mainstream of political philosophy. I show that these genealogies have a critical role to play because they unsettle our uncritical attachment to the structures of the nation-state system and raise serious questions about the meaning and emancipatory force of the principle of self-determination. (shrink)