Numerical identity is the non-relational sameness of an object to itself. It is concerned with understanding how entities undergo change and maintain their identity. In substance metaphysics, an entity is considered a substance with an essence and such an essence is the source of its power. However, such a framework fails to explain the sense in which an entity is still the entity it was, amidst changes. Those who claim that essence is unaffected by existence are faced with challenge of (...) exploring the epistemic access to such an essence, which is questionable at best. Process metaphysics is a strong candidate for a theory that can ontologically explain regularity and change without appeal to essence. Process and its interactions is the main category. Every process is an emergent organization of constitutive interactions and is individuated on the basis of its interactive powers, that is, the ways in which it interacts with the world around it. Interactions are situated adaptation to changes. In this way, changes are crucial within process metaphysics and are included in the starting point of its investigation. What seems to the naked eyes as one-ness/singularity is a complex process where an organization of interactions is emerging from moment to moment by continually adapting to the changes around and within it. The question of numerical identity over time becomes valid only within substance metaphysics which has no space to accommodate change, due to its allegiance to essence. (shrink)

This book disentangles two terms that were conflated in the initial Anglo-American appropriation of French theory: deconstruction and poststructuralism. Focusing on Sartre, Derrida, Foucault, and Baudrillard (but also considering Levinas, Blanchot, de Man, and others), it traces the turn from a deconstruction inflected by phenomenology to a poststructuralism formed by the rejection of models based on consciousness in favor of ones based on language and structure. The book provides a wide-ranging and complex genealogy of French theory from the 1940s onward, (...) placing particular emphasis on the largely neglected early work of the theorists involved and on deconstruction’s continuing relevance. The author argues that deconstruction is a form of radical, antiscientific modernity: an interdisciplinary reconfiguration of philosophy as it confronted the positivism of the human sciences in the 1960s. By contrast, poststructuralism is a type of postmodern theory inflected by changes in technology and the mode of information. Inasmuch as poststructuralism is founded upon its “constitutive loss” of phenomenology (in Judith Butler’s phrase), the author is also concerned with the ways phenomenology (particularly Sartre’s forgotten but seminal Being and Nothingness) is remembered, repeated in different ways, and never quite worked through in its theoretical successors. Thus the book also exemplifies a way of reading intellectual history that is not only concerned with the transmission of concepts, but also with the processes of transference, mourning, and disavowal that inform the relationships between bodies of thought. (shrink)

Bortolotti’s Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs defends the view that delusions are beliefs on a continuum with other beliefs. A different view is that delusions are more like illusions, that is, they arise from faulty perception. This view, which is not targeted by the book, makes it easier to explain why delusions are so alien and disabling but needs to appeal to forensic aspects of functioning.

Providing medical care and planning for a procedure such as amputation may have different cultural contexts, based on patients’ country, comfort, and contract with their physician. These contexts may create complexities for physicians as they interact with patients and caregiving relatives. Issues such as the personal choices of a caregiving relative may appear to unduly influence the decisions behind complex healthcare choices. We consider several possible scenarios in the background of the complex case presented in “Family Loyalty as a Cultural (...) Obstacle to Good Care: The Case of Mrs. Indira,” in this issue of JCE. (shrink)

This book seeks to provide an introductory outline of the history and theory of knowledge production, notwithstanding the vastness of the subject. It is a brief history of intellectual formation or history of ideas. One can see it as a textbook of historical epistemology, which in spatio-temporal terms historicises knowledge production and contextualises methodological development. It addresses the historical process of the social constitution of knowledge, that is, the social history of the making of knowledge.

Discipline based approach to knowledge and specialization goes back to the classical Graeco-Roman times. It was Isaac Newton’s Principia, which represented academic perfection of Renaissance inquiry, criticism, creativity and theorization. Principia set the epochal model of knowledge and led to the making of the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. August Comte heralded an era of Positivism in academic research and prepared the ground for the making of disciplines. As new knowledge accrued over centuries, specialization got diversified at (...) the expense of holistic understanding. Academics of disciplinary specialization sought to resolve the problem through multidisciplinary research. Inherently discipline centric, it got further distanced from social reality. Interdisciplinary approach began as a movement through convergence research aiming to restore holistic comprehension and draw knowledge closer to social reality. It is production of knowledge beyond disciplines and across their interfaces enabling research output to be regenerative, non-conventional and resolution oriented. (shrink)

Due to the complexity and versatility of network security alarm data, a cloud-based network security data extraction method is proposed to address the inability to effectively understand the network security situation. The information properties of the situation are generated by creating a set of spatial characteristics classification of network security knowledge, which is then used to analyze and optimize the processing of hybrid network security situation information using cloud computing technology and co-filtering technology. Knowledge and information about the security situation (...) of a hybrid network has been analyzed using cloud computing strategy. The simulation results show that a cyber security crash occurs in window 20, after which the protection index drops to window 500. The increase in the security index of 500 windows is consistent with the effectiveness of the concept of this document method, indicating that this document method can sense changes in the network security situation. Starting from the first attacked window, the defense index began to decrease. In order to simulate the added network defense, the network security events in the 295th time window were reduced in the original data, and the defense index increased significantly in the corresponding time period, which is consistent with the method perception results, which further verifies the effectiveness and reliability of this method on the network security event perception. This method provides high-precision knowledge of network security situations and improves the security and stability of cloud-based networks. (shrink)

Extensive empirical work has examined ethical perceptions of different occupational groups in marketing. Additionally, researchers have explored ethical apperceptions of industrial customers and retail consumers. Minimal effort, though, has been directed at investigating differences in ethical perceptions between buyers and sellers, notwithstanding considerable theoretical arguments for doing so. This paper reports the results of a study that focused on differences between retail customers’ and retail salespeople’s perceptions of questionable buying and selling behaviors. Findings indicate that the two groups differ in (...) some respect depending on which group is engaging in the questionable conduct. Managerial and future research implications are provided. (shrink)

All theories of world creation, whether scientific, philosophical, or religious, can readily acknowledge the fact that humans have primarily evolved to engage with nature, the individual self, fellow human beings, society, and other naturalistic aspect of existence. Nevertheless, several novel challenges ascend when the human mind engages with technology, media, machines, and related concepts such as—ChatGPT, artificial intelligence, and to name a few. For that reason, we need philosophy and critical assessment of the uncovered essence of advanced technologies, media and (...) machines and our way of life concerning them. In other words, protectively assessing their impact requires a thorough examination of ethical and existential concerns, including technology’s implications for freedom, AI’s evolving role, the essence of human being, and the unexamined transformative societal changes that follow. Building upon the premise that these phenomena share a common thread despite their apparent disparities, our interdisciplinary pursuit draws inspiration from philosophical luminaries such as Luciano Floridi, Karamjit S. Gill, David Kaplan, Aldous Huxley, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and Gandhi. Through philosophical insights, we explore the essence of technology and its broad effects, with a focus on its impact on human freedom and essence in both public and private domains. (shrink)

BackgroundConventionally, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) aims to focalize the current reaching the target region-of-interest (ROI). The focality can be quantified by the dose-target-determination-index (DTDI). Despite having a uniform tDCS setup, some individuals receive focal stimulation (high DTDI) while others show reduced focality (“non-focal”). The volume of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), gray matter (GM), and white matter (WM) underlying each ROI govern the tDCS current distribution inside the brain, thereby regulating focality.AimTo determine the regional volume parameters that differentiate the focal and (...) non-focal groups.MethodsT1-weighted images of the brain from 300 age-sex matched adults were divided into three equal groups- (a) Young (20 ≤ × < 40 years), (b) Middle (40 ≤ × < 60 years), and (c) Older (60 ≤ × < 80 years). For each group, inter and intra-hemispheric montages with electrodes at (1) F3 and right supraorbital region (F3-RSO), and (2) CP5 and Cz (CP5-Cz) were simulated, targeting the left- Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC) and -Inferior Parietal Lobule (IPL), respectively. Both montages were simulated for two current doses (1 and 2 mA). For each individual head simulated for a tDCS configuration (montage and dose), the current density at each region-of-interest (ROI) and their DTDI were calculated. The individuals were categorized into two groups- (1) Focal (DTDI ≥ 0.75), and (2) Non-focal (DTDI < 0.75). The regional volume of CSF, GM, and WM of all the ROIs was determined. For each tDCS configuration and ROI, three 3-way analysis of variance was performed considering- (i) GM, (ii) WM, and (iii) CSF as the dependent variable (DV). The age group, sex, and focality group were the between-subject factors. For a given ROI, if any of the 3 DV’s showed a significant main effect or interaction involving the focality group, then that ROI was classified as a “focal ROI.”ResultsRegional CSF was the principal determinant of focality. For interhemispheric F3-RSO montage, interaction effect (p < 0.05) of age and focality was observed at Left Caudate Nucleus, with the focal group exhibiting higher CSF volume. The CSF volume of focal ROI correlated positively (r ∼ 0.16, p < 0.05) with the current density at the target ROI (DLPFC). For intrahemispheric CP5-Cz montage, a significant (p < 0.05) main effect was observed at the left pre- and post-central gyrus, with the focal group showing lower CSF volume. The CSF volume correlated negatively (r ∼ –0.16, p < 0.05) with current density at left IPL. The results were consistent for both current doses.ConclusionThe CSF channels the flow of tDCS current between electrodes with focal ROIs acting like reservoirs of current. The position of focal ROI in the channel determines the stimulation intensity at the target ROI. For focal stimulation in interhemispheric F3-RSO, the proximity of focal ROI reserves the current density at the target ROI (DLPFC). In contrast, for intrahemispheric montage (CP5-Cz), the far-end location of focal ROI reduces the current density at the target (IPL). (shrink)

This is a collection of three studies of both retrospective and prospective significance for the author s preoccupation with the philosophical problems arising out of the transcendentalist orientation. The aim of the present work is to focus on the notion of the paradoxical alliance of unity and difference of the transcendentalist ego and the human subject. To think this notion through in terms of its implications and consequences and to rethink the nature and method of philosophy, its relation to language (...) and to the sciences, is what the author means by the humanization of transcendental philosophy.The first study addresses the genesis of the problematic of humanization in Husserl s phenomenology of the life-world; the second seeks to understand the presuppositions and consequences of Heidegger s transformation of phenomenology into fundamental ontology; and the third takes up the themes explored by Husserl and Heidegger as they enter into Merleau-Ponty s thought. In the Epilogue, the author seeks to balance the logocentrism of phenomenology with the biocentrism of a philosophy of life.The late R. Sundara Rajan was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Poona, Pune, Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and Senior Fellow at the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi, India. (shrink)

Most of the large-scale violence in the world will continue to occur within societies rather than between or among states. Yet the international community still has not developed the ethical-legal consensus or the institutions required to manage this terrible problem.

The core of the work is a lengthy hermeneutically-oriented discussion of political judgment, which projects the notion of political competence as a language mediated capacity of human subjects to recognize the common good by way of discourse. This discursive conception of the political which is mediated on the one hand by a relationship to the moral and on the other to the conception which can be contrasted with the modern paradigm of politics as the episteme of power relations. The earlier (...) chapters build up to this contrast of the classical and the contemporary paradigms and stake out a claim for the primacy of the political in the classical mould. The work is a return to the classical idea of the political by way of a long detour via the theory of judgment, the Kuhnian theory of paradigms, Ricoeur's theory of textual hermeneutics and rhetorical theory. Ranging from discussions of sociological and political theory to philosophy of language and philosophical logic, the work seeks to connect the Aristotelian-Kautilyan conception of the political to contemporary debates in the metatheory of the social sciences. (shrink)

The article reports findings of a study conducted to explore the cognitive moral logics used for considering software piracy as ethical or unethical. Since the objective was to elicit the moral logics from the respondents, semi-structured in-depth interviews of 38 software professionals of India were conducted. The content of the interviews was analyzed using the grounded theory framework which does not begin with constructs and their interlinkages and then seek proof instead it begins with an area of study and allows (...) them to emerge from that area of study. Given the objective of exploring moral logics, grounded theory seemed an appropriate choice. Results revealed that 21 respondents considered software piracy unethical whereas 17 did not. Though economic reasons formed the most fundamental logic in both the cases, an overall analysis revealed that the respondents mostly used moral justification (neutralization) for not considering software piracy unethical whereas those considering it unethical used normative (principled) logics. The interconnections among logics are analyzed and results are discussed along with the limitations of the study. (shrink)

Electronegativity is an important physico-chemical concept to study the chemical structure and reactivity. Although, the conundrum related to measurement of electronegativity still persists. In view of this fact, a simple yet rigorous scale of electronegativity, invoking an inverse relationship with atomic nucleophilicity index, has been proposed for 103 elements of the periodic table. The computed data follows periodicity distinctly satisfying all the sine qua non of a standard scale of electronegativity. Further, electronegativity values display a sound similarity with the standard (...) electronegativity scales validating the suitability of the proposed model. Molecular electronegativities of some polyatomic molecules have also been calculated using the proposed scale of electronegativity.Graphic. (shrink)

The rapid advancement of algorithmic trading has demonstrated the success of AI automation, as well as gaps in our understanding of the implications of this technology proliferation. We explore ethical issues in the context of autonomous trading agents, both to address problems in this domain and as a case study for regulating autonomous agents more generally. We argue that increasingly competent trading agents will be capable of initiative at wider levels, necessitating clarification of ethical and legal boundaries, and corresponding development (...) of norms and enforcement capability. (shrink)

A remarkable but little commented on feature of the various discourses on India circulating today is the near total absence of its metaphysical heritage as a source of illumination into our contemporary condition. On the few occasions that this heritage is explicitly invoked, it is either as a subsidiary aspect of some purportedly larger concept such as religion, civilization, history, tradition etc., or as a set of quaint speculations fit for study as a tertiary branch of history of philosophy or (...) religion but with little claim to political relevance. But is this neglect as innocent as it appears? Or might it be that the metaphysical heritage confronts us with the disavowed -- indeed the unthinkable that lurks behind our current obsessions: progress and development; modernity and tradition; faith and secularism; history and myth; fundamentalism and tolerance? The central claim of this book is that the metaphysical heritage has an autonomy and dignity of its own not subsumable under any other concept whatsoever; and that furthermore, our national self-understanding and its place in the current system of global knowledge are founded on a wholesale effacing of this heritage. The collective contention of the papers in this volume is that a full and proper understanding of our ever lengthening catalogue of social afflictions and pathologies demands that we squarely confront the consequences of this fateful evasion, no matter how unsettling it might be to our vaunted notions about ourselves. Only in and out of such a self-encounter can we hope to break out of our thralldom to the currently hegemonic vision of humanitys future -- a vision that is already bankrupt in every respect, but which nonetheless seems able to reproduce itself without end. (shrink)

Does humanity have a moral obligation toward the estimated millions of individuals who will be displaced from their homes over the course of this century primarily due to sea-level rise as the earth's climate warms? What form should these actions take?

The paper discusses anumāna and its variety in general from the point of view of inferential cognition for the sake of oneself as well as for the sake of others; i.e. svārthānumāna and parārthānumāna as given in the Buddhist tradition of logic, especially with parārthānumāna, its nature and role. The paper argues that the Buddhist intent of division of anumāna into svārthānumāna and parārthānumāna was to bring Buddha-vacanas under the category of parārthānumāna and to save them from being classified under (...) śabda pramāṇa. It contends that such a division was not just an epistemological demand, but had a deeper philosophical significance in the Buddhist conceptual framework. Such a division is, therefore, intended to reject the role of śabda as an extra causal means or pramāṇa. The paper identifies the logical commitment in Buddhist tradition as hetu-centric commitment as it differs from the Nyāya tradition of vyāpti-centric one. (shrink)

Honor killings are graceless and ferocious murders by chauvinists with an antediluvian mind. These are categorized separately because these killings are committed for the prime reason of satisfying the ego of the people whom the victim trusts and always looks up to for support and protection. It is for this sole reason that honor killings demand strict and stern punishment, not only for the person who committed the murder but also for any person who contributed or was party to the (...) act. A positive change can occur with stricter legislation and changes in the ethos of the society we live in today. (shrink)

In metaphysics, fundamentality is a central theme involving debates on the nature of existents, as wholes. These debates are largely object-oriented in their standpoint and engage with composites or wholes through the mereological notion of compositionality. The ontological significance of the parts overrides that of wholes since the existence and identity of the latter are dependent on that of the former. Broadly, the candidates for fundamental entities are considered to be elementary particles of modern physics (since they appear to play (...) the role of ultimate parts to all phenomena). The paper intends to show the inadequacy of the object-oriented notion of conditionality by pointing out that the parts and wholes possess varying conditions of existence. By alleging that only the parts are ontologically significant is to conflate such conditions and neglect the spectrum of conditions which exist in our world. A proposal for a revised notion of compositionality in terms of structural relatedness is also put forward. (shrink)

Package downsizing is a practice where the package content is reduced without changing the package or the price of the product. In a market that is defined by ‘hyper-competition,’ package downsizing is often practiced by marketers to effect an invisible price increase for their products. Although marketers may maintain that providing, the legally required, quantity indication on the package is adequate for customers to make logical and informed choices, research indicates that consumers often do not consult quantity indications on packages (...) but use alternative methods (e.g., visual impressions of the package size, total package price, or previous purchase experience) to judge product quantity and to calculate product value. As a subtle means, package downsizing therefore has the potential to mislead customers in the buying process due to an unfavorable balance of information within the dyad. This could give rise to serious moral and ethical consideration. In this paper, we examined various issues related to package downsizing, such as why sellers resort to this type of practice, consumer vulnerability to package downsizing, as well as the extent of protection offered to consumers by the existing laws and regulations with respect to product packaging. Finally, we examined the ethics of package downsizing using the existing legal, moral, and professional ethical standards as well as the principle of equivalence. Our analysis indicates that package downsizing, as it is practiced by the marketers and sellers today, is unethical as far as the consumers are concerned. (shrink)

The preoccupation with the nation that marks much postcolonial writing, especially the Anglophone novel in India following the appearance of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, has been widely remarked. In this essay I am interested in tracing how this interest in the nation-thematic has persisted into—or changed in the course of-the first decade of the new century in the fiction that has appeared since the 1980s, in response to both socio-political developments as well as changing literary trends.

Automobility, or the myriad institutions that foster car culture, has rarely if ever been put under the lens of liberal political theory, even though driving is one of the most common and widely accepted features of daily life in modern societies. When its implied promise of guaranteeing both freedom and equality is examined more closely, however, it appears that the ethical implications of driving may be darker than initially supposed. Automobility may indeed be in violation of both the Kantian categorical (...) imperative and Gewirth’s principle of generic consistency, even though there has thus far been remarkably little ethical analysis to reveal these possibilities. It is conceivable that liberal political theory has turned a blind eye to automobility precisely because the latter has naturalized us into accepting what Roberto Unger has called a routine of “false necessity,” so that driving is now virtually imperceptible as a social fact worthy of critical analysis. (shrink)

Consciousness has been the bone of contention for philosophers throughout centuries. Indian philosophy largely adopted lived experience as the starting point for its explorations of consciousness. For this reason, from the very beginning, experience was an integral way of grasping consciousness, whose validity as a tool was considered self-evident. Thus, in Indian philosophy, the question was not to move from the brain to mind but to understand experience of an individual and how such an experience is determined through mental structures (...) (and secondarily, the preoccupation with the brain and its relation to the mind). In contrast, cognitive science (the study of mind and cognition through 1 interdisciplinary methods, with emphasis on computational methods) found its debates soaked in discussion which primarily involved the brain and mind. Experience was not considered a primary source of information and its validity had to be established to consider it a source of information of mind. With the rise of physicalism and realization that mental states are correlative to brain states, the body was virtually neglected from involvement in understanding the mind and the attempts to reduce mind to the brain were rampant. The inability to explain subjective experience of an individual through neuroscientific findings alone has urged philosophers to explore other ways of understanding the ontology of mind. Over the last few years, embodied cognition and enactive approach have brought back the body as a central participant in this debate, providing fertile grounds to explain the relation of brain, body and mind. This paper proposes that we understand the brain as a complex system from which the mind emerges. This emergence is marked by the development of novel property of self-consciousness in human beings. The mind is a process which is embedded throughout the body and thus, the body acts as an actualizing medium for the individual. Thus, the brain is a necessary condition for the mind to be while the mind is embedded throughout the body. The brain and mind are in reciprocal causal relationship with one another, as is the body and environment with one another. In this paper, embodied cognition is understood through principles of Merleau Ponty's idea of embodiment, than through Andy Clark and Francis Varela's alone. (shrink)

According to Novalis the "encyclopedization" of a field occurs when it is not just fitted into a larger architectonic of knowledge, but also reconfigures this whole. This paper begins with Hegel's encyclopedic ambitions and Schellin's parallel—if less systematic—project in his 1803/4 lectures on the method of academic study. It takes up Schelling's First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature, so as to look at the encyclopedic effects of the life sciences on a philosophy that has inevitably become (...) interdisciplinary by trying to organize or at least interrelate all knowledge that matters in an “encyclopedia of the philosophical sciences”: an interdisciplinarity that makes Idealism a first version of "Theory." More specifically, it focuses on the concept of "evolution" in Schelling's First Outline: a word that did not have its current, Darwinian meaning, and that therefore allows us to think about more than one model of development, and more than one developmental paradigm for knowledge. In this text Schelling experiments with a model in which Nature evolves from the lower to the higher through a series of graduated stages, but he also explores a number of resistances to it. Given that the Stufenfolge provides the prototype for the evolutionary histories that both Schelling and Hegel project in other domains, I conclude by taking up the consequences of these resistances for one such area: namely aesthetics as discussed by Hegel. (shrink)

The Saga of Dharmapuri by O.V. Vijayan is a dystopian fantasy set in the imaginary country of Dharmapuri, which could be a depiction of India or any other newly independent country in the post-colonial era. Mikhail Bakhtin in his treatise Rabelais and his World justifies the use of Grotesque Realism, a literary trope that allows the author to move away from the conventions of propriety and decency to convey messages that are real and powerful nevertheless. Usually exaggeration and hyperbole are (...) key elements of this style. Through the centuries, literature has often been a medium through which contemporary concerns have been transmitted. This paper argues that O.V. Vijayan uses Grotesque Realism in his novel to depict the political, social and economic condition of India of the 1970s- specifically a country that was under emergency. Like all dystopian fables, The Saga of Dharmapuri has been prophetic in anticipating some of the social issues that we face even today. The paper aims at examining how Vijayan uses explicit language and scatological and sexual imagery so as to achieve this sense of realism within his novel. (shrink)