Krishnachandra's re-articulation of Kant's transcendental system challenges Kant's conceptualization of 'apperceptive self' conceived as a logical function which is as well the precondition of all our knowledge claims. In Kant's framework, though this "unity of consciousness" is projected as a principle, which undertakes a foundational role as 'apperceptive I', it is capacitated with merely a logical function. Krishnachandra disagrees with Kant's reduction of function of the "self" to a logical process. This reduction would render knowledge of the "self" to be (...) an inferential knowledge, thus making this derivation analogous to the proofs of the transcendental conditions of understanding and sensibility through the logical process of deductions. Krishnachandra's question is: whether this equation established between logical function of 'apperception' and the "self" will suffice to establish the "certitude" of knowledge claims. This is the first task Krishnachandra addresses in his work, Studies in Kant which is elucidated in the following section of this paper. Further, we will see how Krishnachandra’s exploration into the dynamics of this problem leads him to alternatively foreground the "unity", which is much sought by Kantian scholars, between the theoretical and the practical domains of Reason. (shrink)

New class of therapies, including bipolar therapies (BPT) and paradoxical unipolar therapies (PUT) were firstly proposed in relation to a clinical insight and to some results of biological investigations, then they gave rise to mathematical modeling which brought a justification of these therapies, at least from a theoretical point of view. After recalling the mathematical model for the regulation of agonistic antagonistic couples, and reporting the fundamental types of control simulation by means of it, we point out the validity of (...) therapeutical applications inferred from this model. These therapy modalities, including BPT and PUT, now concern the following diseases: astrocytomas, epilepsia and trials on multiple sclerosis. Even if such attempts are in their early stage, noticeably for the last case where biological changes have mainly been studied, it seems that a large span of treatments is open to BPT and PUT. Improvement of these techniques in the future depends, in our opinion, on a parallel working on the dynamics of the mathematical model and the dynamics, perceived by clinical insight and confirmed by biological investigations, of the body reactions to such strategies. Justification of BPT and PUT was given, by resorting to the notion of pathological homeostasis which, too often, intervenes in order to nullify the effects of unilateral (not paradoxical) therapies. This research has elicited some therapies which use two agents with antagonistic effects or only an agent with effects similar to the agent already in excess in the body - in both cases at nearly physiological doses. (shrink)

The mainstream approach to the understanding of pain continues to be governed by the biomedical paradigm and the dualistic Cartesian ontology. This Volume brings together essays of scholars of literature, philosophy and history on the many enigmatic shades of pain-experience, mostly from an anti-Cartesian perspective of cultural ontology by scholars of literature, philosophy and history. A section of the essays is devoted to the socio-political dimensions of pain in the Indian context. The book offers a critical perspective on the reductive (...) conceptions of pain and argue that non-substance ontology or cultural ontology supports a more humane and authentic understanding of pain. The general ontological features of the self in pain and culturally imbued dimensions of pain-experience are, thus, brought together in a rare blend in this Volume. The essays dwell on the importance of understanding what cultural, social and political forces outside our control do to our pain-experience. They show why such understanding is necessary, both to humanely deal with pain, and to rectify erroneous approaches to pain-experience. They also explore the thoroughly ambivalent spaces between pain and pleasure, and the cathartic and productive dimensions of pain. The essays in this Volume investigate pain-experiences through the fresh lenses of history, gender, ethics, politics, death, illness, self-loss, torture, shame, dispossession and denial. (shrink)

2020 marks 100 years of women’s suffrage in the U.S. Considering this anniversary and the Christian presumption in favor of democracy, this essay invites readers to honor all those who worked for women’s suffrage in two specific ways. First, it invites them to tell the whole truth about the movement, both its many moments of grace and its moral failures. Second, it encourages readers to make the connection between this ambiguous legacy and ongoing forms of voter suppression in the U.S. (...) and then to celebrate suffrage by finishing the fight for it. (shrink)

This paper illustrates how Kant’s demand for “systematicity” couches his metaphysics necessarily in a scientific idea of metaphysics. Though Kant’s take on metaphysics is induced by an urge for systematizing metaphysics along the contours of the “scientific” paradigm, this quest for systematization is, at the same time, meant as a scathing attack on, what Kant calls, “dogmatic” metaphysics. It is as an antidote to such “dogmatic” metaphysics that Kant articulates his transcendental metaphysics primarily as a “critical” and “scientific” enterprise. In (...) this background, this paper takes a closer look at the methodological moves that are involved in making his case, in order to track the steps involved in the body of argument that constitute Kant’s critical metaphysics. The focus of the paper is to delineate the contingent and necessary methodological moves that come to define Kant’s championing for scientific metaphysics. Consequently, the paper will seek to illuminate the “incongruous” ground upon which Kant’s idea of “critical” metaphysics itself stands with respect to the distinction he makes between the actuality and the possibility of metaphysics. (shrink)