The paper concentrates on an appreciation of W.V. Quine’s thought on meaning and how it escalates beyond the meaning holism and confirmation holism, thereby paving the way for a ‘meaning nihilism’ and ‘confirmation rejectionism’. My effort would be to see that how could the acceptance of radical naturalism in Quine’s theory of meaning escorts him to the indeterminacy thesis of meaning. There is an interesting shift from epistemology to language as Quine considers that a person who is aware of linguistic (...) trick can be the master of referential language. Another important question is that how could Quine’s radical translation thesis reduce into semantic indeterminacy that is a consequence of his confirmation method. I think that the notion and the analysis of meaning became hopelessly vague in Quine’s later work. I further argue on Quine’s position of meaning that I call, following Hilary Putnam, ‘meaning nihilism’. It seems to me that Quine had no belief like ‘meaning consists in’, or ‘meaning depends on’ something. Through this argument, I would like to challenge the confirmation holism that was foisted by Fodor on Quine’s thesis. My attempt would be to scrutinize Putnam’s point of view that Quine was neither a confirmation holist nor a meaning holist. I think that both Putnam and Quine denied the concept of constitutive connection of meaning as a second grade notion not only from the realm of semantic, but also from the perspective of epistemology. So, linguistic meaning cannot be formed by any sample of its uses. For Quine, the concept of meaning in metaphysics is heuristic and need not be taken seriously in any ‘science worthy’ literature. (shrink)

Under the influence of Hilary Putnam’s collapse of the fact/value dichotomy, a resurging approach that challenges the movements of American pragmatism and discourse ethics, I tease out in the first section of my paper the demand for the warranted assertibility hypothesis in Putnam’s sense that may be possible, relying on moral realism to get rid of ‘rampant Platonism’. Tracing back to ‘communicative action’ or the Habermasian way that puts forward the reciprocal understanding of discourse instigates the idea of life-world as (...) composed of ‘culturally transmitted and linguistically organized stock of interpretative patterns’, this section looks for whether Habermas’ psychoanalysis of prolonged discussion can accord with Putnam’s thick ethical terms or not. The last section of the paper pitfalls Putnam’s stance to accepting Habermas’ ‘discourse ethics’ that centers around the context of entangling ‘rational thoughts’ to ‘communication’, but he introduces the idea of fallibilism in a rational query that also attacks the Habermasian metaphysical idea of the validity of ethical statements that goes towards the truth. My next attempt is to see whether Putnam’s objective dictum towards morality that resonates the collapse of fact/value dichotomy from a universalistic stand can successfully evade Rorty’s naive realism and Habermas’ ‘sociologism about values’ respectively. This sort of claim insists on a universalizable pattern of culture-relative value. I consider that the idea of a fact/value dichotomy engages with the inextricable entanglement between the normative and descriptive content, besides the epistemic values having exclusively intertwined with the structure of factual discourse that intends towards collapsing the fact/value dichotomy, a subjective universalizability predilection. (shrink)

We provide a methodology for the creation of ontological partitions in biomedicine and we test the methodology via an application to the phenomenon of blood pressure. An ontology of blood pressure must do justice to the complex networks of intersecting pathways in the organism by which blood pressure is regulated. To this end it must deal not only with the anatomical structures and physiological processes involved in such regulation but also with the relations between these at different levels of granularity. (...) For this purpose our ontology offers a variety of distinct partitions � of substances, processes and functions � and integrates these together within a single framework via transitive networks of part-whole and dependence relations among the entities in each of these categories. The paper concludes with a comparison of this methodology with the approaches of GOTM, KEGG, DIP and BIND and provides an outline of how the methodology is currently being applied in the field of biomedical database integration. (shrink)

QAnon is beginning to gain attention in scholarly circles, but these sources often disagree about how to categorize the movement. This amounts to the meta-dispute between those who view QAnon primarily as a religious “cult,” and those who grant it greater credibility as a political populist movement. Using quantitative and qualitative methods we test the proposition that QAnon could be a mix of both. Results from both analyses suggest that QAnon is best understood primarily as a political populist movement, but (...) one that utilizes religious rhetoric. The findings thus highlight the asymmetric nature of the conflation of religion and politics in the contemporary American civil sphere. (shrink)

The fundamental building block of the loop quantum gravity (LQG) is the spin network which is used to quantize the physical space-time in the LQG. Recently, the novel quantum spin is proposed using the basic concepts of the spin network. This perspective redefines the notion of the quantum spin and also introduces the novel definition of the reduced Planck constant. The implication of this perspective is not only limited to the quantum gravity; but also found in the quantum mechanics. Using (...) this perspective, we also propose the quantization of the mind-stuff. Similarity between the physical space-time and the space-time of the mind-stuff provides novel notions to study the space-time scientifically as well philosophically. The comparison between the physical- space-time and the space-time of the mind-stuff is also studied. (shrink)

The concept of morality underpins the moral responsibility that not only depends on the outward practices (or ‘output,’ in the case of humanoid robots) of the agents but on the internal attitudes (‘input’) that rational and responsible intentioned beings generate. The primary question that has initiated the extensive debate, i.e., ‘Can humanoid robots be moral?’, stems from the normative outlook where morality includes human conscience and socio-linguistic background. This paper advances the thesis that the conceptions of morality and creativity interplay (...) with linguistic human beings instead of non-linguistic humanoid robots, as humanoid robots are indeed docile automata that cannot be responsible for their actions. To eradicate human ethics in order to make way for humanoid robot ethics highlights the moral actions and adequacy that hinges the myth of creative agency and self-dependency, which a humanoid robot can scarcely express. (shrink)

The concept of morality underpins the moral responsibility that not only depends on the outward practices (or ‘output’, in the case of humanoid robots) of the agents but on the internal attitudes (‘input’) that rational and responsible intentioned beings generate. The primary question that has initiated extensive debate, i.e. ‘Can humanoid robots be moral?’, stems from the normative outlook where morality includes human conscience and socio-linguistic background. This paper advances the thesis that the conceptions of morality and creativity interplay with (...) linguistic human beings instead of non-linguistic humanoid robots, as humanoid robots are indeed docile automata that cannot be responsible for their actions. To eradicate human ethics in order to make way for humanoid robot ethics highlights the moral actions and adequacy that hinges the myth of creative agency and self-dependency, which a humanoid robot can scarcely express. (shrink)

The concept of morality underpins the moral responsibility that not only depends on the outward practices (or ‘output’, in the case of humanoid robots) of the agents but on the internal attitudes (‘input’) that rational and responsible intentioned beings generate. The primary question that has initiated extensive debate, i.e. ‘Can humanoid robots be moral?’, stems from the normative outlook where morality includes human conscience and socio-linguistic background. This paper advances the thesis that the conceptions of morality and creativity interplay with (...) linguistic human beings instead of non-linguistic humanoid robots, as humanoid robots are indeed docile automata that cannot be responsible for their actions. To eradicate human ethics in order to make way for humanoid robot ethics highlights the moral actions and adequacy that hinges the myth of creative agency and self-dependency, which a humanoid robot can scarcely express. -/- . (shrink)

Abstract Under the influence of Hilary Putnam’s collapse of the fact/value dichotomy, a resurging approach that challenges the movements of American pragmatism and discourse ethics, I tease out in the first section of my paper the demand for the warranted assertibility hypothesis in Putnam’s sense that may be possible, relying on moral realism to get rid of ‘rampant Platonism’. Tracing back to ‘communicative action’ or the Habermasian way that puts forward the reciprocal understanding of discourse instigates the idea of life-world (...) as composed of ‘culturally transmitted and linguistically organized stock of interpretative patterns’, this section looks for whether Habermas’ psychoanalysis of prolonged discussion can accord with Putnam’s thick ethical terms or not. The last section of the paper pitfalls Putnam’s stance to accepting Habermas’ ‘discourse ethics’ that centers around the context of entangling ‘rational thoughts’ to ‘communication’, but he introduces the idea of fallibilism in a rational query that also attacks the Habermasian metaphysical idea of the validity of ethical statements that goes towards the truth. My next attempt is to see whether Putnam’s objective dictum towards morality that resonates the collapse of fact/value dichotomy from a universalistic stand can successfully evade Rorty’s naive realism (structured by linguistic representation) and Habermas’ ‘sociologism about values’ (a kind of minimalist ethics depending on solidarity) respectively. This sort of claim insists on a universalizable pattern of culture-relative value. I consider that the idea of a fact/value dichotomy engages with the inextricable entanglement between the normative and descriptive content, besides the epistemic values having exclusively intertwined with the structure of factual discourse that intends towards collapsing the fact/value dichotomy, a subjective universalizability predilection. (shrink)

The nominal ground that entwines human beings and animal behaviours is unwilling to admit moral valuing as a non-human act. Just to nail it down explicitly, two clauses ramify the moral conscience of human beings as follows: a) Can non-humans be moral beings?, b) Unconscious animal behaviours go beyond any moral judgments. My approach aims to rebuff these anthropomorphic clauses by justifying animals’ moral beings and animals’ moral behaviours from a meta-ethical stance. A meta-ethical outlook may enable an analysis of (...) ethical and normative views through the limit of moral motives and reasoning. Animals’ sense of moral motives and their apparatus of getting involved in moral acts cannot be compared with human actions. In human moral engagement, we abide by moral paradigmatic theories and their diversified attitudes that could have conceptual and linguistic use in our societal discourses. However, animals’ intentional apparatus may have the propensity to choose an act following the moral consequences (care, utility, responsibility, etc.) in their life-forms. (shrink)

This paper aims to exemplify the language acquisition model by tracing back to the Socratic model of language learning procedure that sets down inborn knowledge, a kind of implicit knowledge that becomes explicit in our language. Jotting down the claims in Meno, Plato triggers a representationalist outline basing on the deductive reasoning, where the conclusion follows from the premises (inborn knowledge) rather than experience. This revolution comes from the pen of Noam Chomsky, who amends the empiricist position on the creativity (...) of language by pinning down it with the innateness hypothesis. However, Chomsky never rejects the external world or the linguistic stipulation that relies on the objective reality. Wittgenstein’s model of language acquisition upholds a liaison centric appeal that stands between experience (use theory of meaning) and mentalism (mind based inner experiences). Wittgenstein’s Tractatus never demarcates the definite mental processes that entangle with the method of understanding and meaning. Wittgenstein’s ‘language game’ takes care of the model of language acquisition in a paradigmatic way. The way portrait language as the form of life and the process of language acquisition is nothing but a language game that relies on the activity of men. (shrink)

Arguments attempting to debunk moral beliefs, by showing they are unjustified, have tended to be global, targeting all moral beliefs or a large set of them. Popular debunking arguments point to various factors purportedly influencing moral beliefs, from evolutionary pressures, to automatic and emotionally-driven processes, to framing effects. We show that these sweeping arguments face a debunker’s dilemma: either the relevant factor is not a main basis for belief or it does not render the relevant beliefs unjustified. Empirical debunking arguments (...) in ethics can avoid this predicament, but only if they are refocused on highly selective classes of moral belief. Experimental data can combine with familiar consistency reasoning to reveal that like cases are not being treated alike. Selective debunking arguments are unlikely to yield sweeping sceptical conclusions, but they can lead to rational moral change. (shrink)

The paper concentrates on the most pressing question of Indian philosophy: what is the exact connotation of a word or what sort of entity helps us to identify the meaning of a word? The paper focuses on the clash between Realism (Nyāya) and Apoha vāda (Buddhist) regarding the debate whether the meaning of a word is particular/universal or both. The paper asserts that though Naiyāyikas and Mīmāṁsakas challenged against Buddhist Apoha vāda, yet they realized that to establish an opinion in (...) support of a word that conceptually denotes a negative meaning first would be a very difficult task. (shrink)

Can reasoning improve moral judgments and lead to moral progress? Pessimistic answers to this question are often based on caricatures of reasoning, weak scientific evidence, and flawed interpretations of solid evidence. In support of optimism, we discuss three forms of moral reasoning (principle reasoning, consistency reasoning, and social proof) that can spur progressive changes in attitudes and behavior on a variety of issues, such as charitable giving, gay rights, and meat consumption. We conclude that moral reasoning, particularly when embedded in (...) social networks with mutual trust and respect, is integral to moral progress. (shrink)

This paper discusses Kant’s prospect of ‘hope’ that entangles with interrelated epistemic terms like belief, faith, knowledge, etc. The first part of the paper illustrates the boundary of knowing in the light of a Platonic analysis to highlight the distinction between empiricism and rationalism. Kant’s notion of ‘transcendent metaphysical knowledge’, a path-breaking way to look at the metaphysical thought, can fit with the regulative principle that seems favoruable to the experience-centric knowledge. The second part of the paper defines ‘hope’ as (...) an interwoven part of belief, besides ‘hope’ as a component of ‘happiness' can persuade the future behaviours of the individuals. Revisiting Kant’s three categorizations of hopes (eschatological hope, political hope, and hope for the kingdom of ends), the paper traces out Kant’s good will as a ‘hope’ and his conception of humanity. (shrink)

It is widely understood that protein functions can be exhaustively described in terms of no single parameter, whether this be amino acid sequence or the three-dimensional structure of the underlying protein molecule. This means that a number of different attributes must be used to create an ontology of protein functions. Certainly much of the required information is already stored in databases such as Swiss-Prot, Protein Data Bank, SCOP and MIPS. But the latter have been developed for different purposes and the (...) separate data-structures which they employ are not conducive to the needed data integration. When we attempt to classify the entities in the domain of proteins, we find ourselves faced with a number of cross-cutting principles of classification. Our question here is: how can we bring together these separate taxonomies in order to describe protein functions? Our proposed answer is: via a careful top-level ontological analysis of the relevant principles of classification, combined with a new framework for the simultaneous manipulation of classifications constructed for different purposes. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn, in Truth A Guide for the Perplexed (Blackburn 2006), deploys the relation of thought with the facts and says, ‘We met the argument that theorizing involves an impossible activity of stepping outside our own skins and pretending to a ‘transcendental’ point of view, a standpoint from which we can survey the relationship between our thoughts and facts, without using the very forms of thought whose relation to the facts we are hoping to describe.’ (Blackburn, 2006, 109). My philosophical (...) reflections on this claim appreciate the view and turn towards the epistemic semblance in the metaphysical purview. A few challenges of the theory take up a side-effect of the ‘knowing procedures’ and its subsequent notion of the rigid concomitance of realism without a human face. My endeavor would be to slightly bypass the account of objective realism and debut into the sphere of the old-fashioned query, ‘what do we know about the conceptualized world where concepts steadily contaminate objects?’ We may appreciative beliefs and concepts, which are human creations, as these impart to the human-experienced world where concepts are the objective features of the subject’s conceptual scheme. (shrink)

The paper inculcates the path of modern education by implementing cum ensuing the form and content of moral education from the stances of prescriptivist R. M Hare and existentialist Sartre. In the first part of the paper, Hare’s tune for language-centric moral concepts and its prescriptive plus universalistic application for society enhance an outlook for moral education where learners should be taught to apply morality from a prescriptive sense, not by memorizing it in a descriptive manner. Besides, Sartre’s existentialist appeal (...) delineates moral education as a free choice of a learner where any institutional hegemony becomes trivial. The second part of the paper focuses on the content of moral education. What sort of moral laws make the content of moral education justifiable? Here Russell’s approach takes a pertinent role. We should secure modern education from the social and state’s anarchism. A way out that I depict in the last section of the paper stresses on moral education that evades itself from the repression of the pedagogue or rigid principles. Modern education should quest for why and liberal neutrality not by following the rigid rules obediently. Moral education teaches children about their own rights and the rights of the other in a beneficial manner. (shrink)

The Unified Medical Language System and the Gene Ontology are among the most widely used terminology resources in the biomedical domain. However, when we evaluate them in the light of simple principles for wellconstructed ontologies we find a number of characteristic inadequacies. Employing the theory of granular partitions, a new approach to the understanding of ontologies and of the relationships ontologies bear to instances in reality, we provide an application of this theory in relation to an example drawn from the (...) context of the pathophysiology of hypertension. This exercise is designed to demonstrate how, by taking ontological principles into account we can create more realistic biomedical ontologies which will also bring advantages in terms of efficiency and robustness of associated software applications. (shrink)

The present article concentrates on understanding the limits of language from the realm of meaning theory as portrayed by Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein’s picture theory provides a glimpse of reality by indicating that a picture could be true or false from the perspective of reality. He talks about an internal limitation of language rather than an external limitation of language. In Wittgenstein’s later works like Philosophical Investigations, the concept of picture theory has faded away, and he deeply becomes more (...) interested in the ‘use theory of meaning’ and ‘language game.’ My other attempt in this paper is to show Husserl’s theory of meaning and try to find out its compatibility with Wittgenstein’s thoughts. Husserl thinks that as a part of phenomenological experience, ‘meaning’ should be an act character that Wittgenstein rejected as an appeal of inner experience. Like Mohanty, I also attempt to show the Husserlian idea of meaning as an essence that is related to the meaning rather than linguistics. Both the giants are talking about description of language from different levels. My effort would be to illustrate how these two giant thinkers proclaim their meaning theories in such a way that leads to a well-known internalism versus externalism debate in the philosophy of mind and language. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a huge resurrection of interest in the idea of ‘analysis,’ encompassing on analytic philosophy. As with any major philosophical movement, it is futile to define or classify any precision of what makes someone an analytic thinker. However, drawing on the startling works by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Dummett and Putnam I clear up some strands, portended by the observation that language is the sole medium of analytic philosophy, so the main focus of analytic philosophy is (...) to understand the structure of language, thought, and meaning. Analytic philosophy pursues a critical analysis on the interface between word and world interrelation in terms of natural language guided by analysis, reasons, clarity and reflective thoughts. In this paper, I will reflect on what this means and why analytic philosophy deserves an initial importance. (shrink)

An important part of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is its Semantic Network, consisting of 134 Semantic Types connected to each other by edges formed by one or more of 54 distinct Relation Types. This Network is however for many purposes overcomplex, and various groups have thus made attempts at simplification. Here we take this work further by simplifying the relations which involve the three Semantic Types – Diagnostic Procedure, Laboratory Procedure and Therapeutic or Preventive Procedure. We define operators (...) which can be used to generate terms instantiating types from this selected set when applied to terms designating certain other Semantic Types, including almost all the terms specifying clinical tasks. Usage of such operators thus provides a useful and economical way of specifying clinical tasks. The operators allow us to define a mapping between those types within the UMLS which do not represent clinical tasks and those which do. This mapping then provides a basis for an ontology of clinical tasks that can be used in the formulation of computer-interpretable clinical guideline models. (shrink)

This paper in an elementary level expresses the inevitable relation between the word and meaning from the prominent Indian philosophical trends by giving stress on Vyakti-śakti-vāda and Jāti-śakti-vāda, the two contender doctrines. The first one puts emphasis on the semantic value of a predicate whereas the latter draws attention to the generic uses of nouns. The second part of the writing underpins Navya Nyāya and Kumārila’s positions on the word-meaning reliance and the debate initiate when we look back to the (...) question whether the word-meaning relation sounds conventional or eternal. I propose a position (śabda-vivarta-vāda) on these issues derived from the works of Patan᷈jali and Bhartṛharị, two grammarians of classical Indian tradition. They defend eternal verbum as the material cause of the word and objects. This doctrine advocates uniforism by giving up bifurcation between the word and the world. (shrink)

This paper, unveiling the visionary short-sightedness of animal protection, argues for a just vision towards animals in India. Critically analysing the wide range of animal protections in India, the paper finds that in spite of such protections, animals continue to suffer out of unfair and unjust treatments in the country. Considering visionary short-sightedness as the reason behind these unfair and unjust treatments, the paper argues that ensuring the rights of non-human animals to basic capabilities is a fundamental and just vision (...) towards delivering ethical and just actions towards animals. For this, the paper grounds itself on the theoretical foundation of the capabilities approach and makes some policy-level recommendations to protect animals in India. (shrink)

The contemporary debate centering round the circumference of feminist discourse has of late been very potent in addressing the issues of certain prejudiced notions in our existing patriarchal structure. This paper is an attempt to show the ongoing paradox existing in the world of feminism which has thoroughly critiqued the patriarchal culture and has naturalized sexual identities, thereby glorifying man’s supremacy and dominion. The patriarchal culture lionized the ideals of brevity, courageousness, and intellect and thought of these as the only (...) special possessions of man in society. The qualities of being submissive, kind and caring in nature is considered to be “ideal” and exclusive qualities of a woman. Even though these qualities are “ideal” to women, they are discarded from being considered as universal in nature and are thought of as insignificant in the mainstream societal structure. These qualities are treated as inferior, and exclusively womanly and hence cannot make their stand in the conventional patriarchal social order. For this reason a dilemmatic situation arises here. My effort is to show that this dilemma cannot be exposed in the sense of gender specific human qualities. (shrink)

This book puts forward a harmonious analysis of similarities and differences between two concepts—human minds and cultures—and strives for a multicultural spectrum of philosophical explorations that could assist them in pondering the striking pursuit of envisaging human minds and cultures as an essential appraisal of philosophy and the social sciences. The book hinges on a theoretical understanding of the indispensable liaison between the dichotomy of minds and objectivity residing in semantic-ontological conjectures. -/- The ethnographic sense of cultures confines the scope (...) of cultural scientism, an evolutionary paradigm on the functionalist turn, where one could enthral the cultural phenomenon from the contentment of the conflict of scientific quandaries. Hence, cultural relativism concedes that cultures have some descriptive contents, like customs, beliefs, moral codes, other minds, etc., that are followed by an individual or a group of people. However, the notion of societal semiotics embarks on the ‘semiotic conception of culture’ that deploys modernity and values centred on ethical conjectures. -/- Human Minds and Cultures conspicuously attune the cultural edifice of moral minds and cope with the enduring prospects of ethics, genders, laws, and socio-political affairs. Essential reading for anyone with a sparkling interest in human minds and cultures. (shrink)

This paper explores three important interrelated themes in Putnam’s philosophy: language, meaning, and the context-sensitivity of “truth-evaluable content.” It shows how Putnam’s own version of semantic externalism is able to steer a middle course between an internalism about meaning that requires a “language of thought” (or “mentalese”) and a mind-independent realism about meaning that requires Platonic objects (or other such “abstract entities”), while doing justice to how ascriptions of meaning are causally related to the objective world. The following account is (...) able to allow for the primacy of language over thought while ensuring that the content of thought is partially fixed by the external world. The emphasis in Putnam’s later writings on the “context sensitivity” of meaning are often construed as marking a major departure from his earlier thought. It is here argued that such an interpretation involves a misunderstanding both of the commitments of Putnam’s original form of semantic externalism and of the implications of the version of context sensitivity he embraces. (shrink)

Uniformity in human actions and attitudes incumbent with the ceteris paribus clause of folk psychology lucidly transits moral thoughts into the domain of subject versus object-centric explorations. In Zettel, Wittgenstein argues, “Concepts with fixed limits would demand uniformity of behaviour, but where I am certain, someone else is uncertain. And that is the fact of nature.” (Wittgenstein 2007, 68). Reflecting on the moral principle of “ethical giving” revives a novel stance in modern moral philosophy. An “ethical giving” is a moral (...) position that looks at giving from the context of harmonizing the changing demands of situations with normative ethical principles. Despite giving more prominence to the query of intuition, the chapter brings up the justification of normative moral principles pertaining to their applications and purports. Human activities aimed at decision-making goals conducted by the moral compass are nothing but the sanction of certain ethical norms and rules. In this context, two principles, the normative aspect and the perspective aspect need to be expounded in parallel. (shrink)

Animals, the beautiful creatures of God in the Stoic and especially in Porphyry’s sense, need to be treated as rational. We know that the Stoics ask for justice for all rational beings, but there is no significant proclamation from their side that openly talks in favour of animal justice. They claim the rationality of animals but do not confer any rights to human beings. The later Neo-Platonist philosopher Porphyry magnificently deciphers this idea in his writing On Abstinence from Animal Food. (...) Aristotle’s successor Theophrastus thinks that both animals and humans are made up of the same tissues, and like a human, animals also have the same way of perception, reasoning and appetites. My next effort would be to decipher how Porphyry illustrates Theophrastus’ perspective not in the way (the technical theory of justice) the Stoics argued. Porphyry’s stance seems more humanistic that looks for the pertinent reasons for treating animal rights from the contention of justice that Aristotle, in his early writings, defied since animals can deal with reasons. The paper highlights how much we could justificatorily demand empathetic concern for animals from the outlook of the mentioned Greek thinkers and the modern animal rights thinkers as quasi-right of animals, even if my position undertakes the empathetic ground for animals in an undeserving humanitarian way. (shrink)

This paper concentrates on the resurrection of the journey of analytic philosophy from the perspective of ‘critical thinking,’ a tool of proper thought and understanding. To define an era of philosophy as analytic seems indeed a difficult attempt. However, my attempt would be to look up a few positions from the monumental thoughts of Frege, Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Quine, and Putnam on their ‘analysis’ minded outlooks that developed in different ways based on logic, scientific spirit, conceptual, language etc. Analytic philosophers (...) intend to intertwine between word and world in terms of mind and language guided by critical analysis that I think remarkably encompassed by clarity, truth, analysis, accuracy, and open-mindedness. My attempt would be to resurrect the philosophical development of analytic philosophy in different periods that were enormously nourished by the idea of ‘critical thinking’ and the analysis of natural language. (shrink)

In this article I would like to discuss the concept of a priori mainly focusing on Kant’s Copernican revolution. How is metaphysics at all possible and how a priority takes place in Kantian metaphysics are the questions that I have addressed in the first part of my article. In this context, I have explained analytic, synthetic distinction from epistemological, metaphysical and semantical perspectives and I want to show how the concept of a priori and other associated notions are derived from (...) this different perspective. I end my discussion with an account of some fundamental objections raised by Quine and Kripke against Kantian analysis. Quine mainly wants to deny the traditional analytic and synthetic distinction. Besides, Kripke is trying to show that it is not true that the traditional account of the intimate relation between a priori and necessary proposition must be true, i.e., it is mistaken that a priori proposition must be necessary, it may be contingent. I would like to analyse and explain a few obstacles of Quine and Kripke following Putnam’s (externalist approach) and Quassim Cassam’s (non-empirical approach on a priority) line of different arguments. (shrink)

A collective understanding that traces a debate between ‘what is science?’ and ‘what is a science about?’ has an extraction to the notion of scientific knowledge. The debate undertakes the pursuit of science that hardly extravagance the dogma of pseudo-science. Scientific conjectures invoke science as an intellectual activity poured by experiences and repetition of the objects that look independent of any idealist views (believes in the consensus of mind-dependence reality). The realistic machinery employs in an empiricist exposition of the objective (...) phenomenon by synchronizing the general method to make observational predictions that cover all the phenomena of the particular entity without any exception. The formation of science encloses several epistemological purviews and a succession of conjectures cum refutation that a newer theorem could reinstate. My attempt is to advocate a holistic plea of scientific conjectures that outruns the restricted regulation of experience or testable hypothesis to render the validity of a chain of logical reasoning (deductive or inductive) of basic scientific statements. The milieu of scientific intensification integrates speculation that loads efficiency towards a new experimental dimension where the reality is not itself objective or observers relative; in fact the observed phenomenon divulges in the constructive progression of preferred methods of falsifiability and uncertainty. (shrink)

Amartya Sen’s remarkable endeavour to realize the normative capability of welfare economics goes beyond the impecunious resultants of the neoclassical welfare economy. The neoclassical welfare economy decoratively bracketed values to speculate about factual observations. This was due to the influence of logical positivists and their convictions about experimental scientific statements (primarily mathematical) and their vicinity to empirical truths and analytic statements. Sen adequately inquires “whether morality can be expressed in the form of choice between preference patterns rather than between actions” (...) (Sen, 1997a, 78). “A new phase classical theory” in economics from the hands of Sen and some others put forth two pivotal issues in a unified manner: a. Mathematical models of an economy. b. Ethical reflection on the subject of welfare economy–a value-laden enterprise in Sen’s literature. -/- In general, welfarists and utilitarians affirm that moral values are anchored in individual agency and involve mental metric utilities (pleasure, happiness, pain etc.). This focus, first of all, results in a disadvantage, as it undermines freedom in terms of achievement. Secondly, it pays no heed to achievement reasonably giving more importance to those who are incapable of reflecting on any one of those mental metrics. Besides, Sen argues that equality of opportunity does not accord with the equality of freedom, and its reason is rooted in the scope of the incongruity of human beings and the diversified meanings of efficiency. Developing a general methodological approach to revisit the notion of inequality concerned by exploring a particular substantive stand that Sen aims to underscore involves examining how social arrangements work to define freedom, capabilities, and welfare to ensure comparisons and assessments of quality of life. (shrink)

Uniformity in human actions and attitudes incumbent with the ceteris paribus clause of folk psychology lucidly transits moral thoughts into the domain of subject versus object-centric explorations. In Zettel, Wittgenstein argues, “Concepts with fixed limits would demand uniformity of behaviour, but where I am certain, someone else is uncertain. And that is the fact of nature.” (Wittgenstein 2007, 68). Reflecting on the moral principle of “ethical giving” revives a novel stance in modern moral philosophy. An “ethical giving” is a moral (...) position that looks at giving from the context of harmonizing the changing demands of situations with normative ethical principles. Despite giving more prominence to the query of intuition, the chapter brings up the justification of normative moral principles pertaining to their applications and purports. Human activities aimed at decision-making goals conducted by the moral compass are nothing but the sanction of certain ethical norms and rules. In this context, two principles, the normative aspect and the perspective aspect need to be expounded in parallel. The perspective-based principle seeks practical guides to action, whereas the normative aspect principle looks for the concrete moral justification behind it. Normatively based moral decisions hinge on the probabilities and interests of agents that can sometimes lead towards a better choice. Thomas Nagel’s thought sounds more appealing, since his idea of practical conflict bends towards “...conflict between values which are incomparable for reasons apart from uncertainty about the facts.” (Nagel 2013, 128). Positions on moral personality and equality of justice collide with the conception of verities of the agents’ reason that cogitate a minimal aspect on the morally significant properties (range properties), which can hardly be possessed by all human beings equally. This argument sounds reasonable in light of Singer’s thought of “the principle of equal consideration of interests.” (Singer 2003, 21–22) The concern of this section is deliberative about how an agent could balance the demand of moral situations and the spirit of the moral principle devoid of being close to the relative truth. The conception of the moral decision remains capricious in line with the agent’s mood, time, and situation. The germane queries are: (a) How could one get the simpliciter of moral balance in “ethical giving” or offering help to the poor, orphans, and so on, who need helps from the agents and society? (b) Can we find any universalized principle in defense of ethical giving? (shrink)

1. Over the last 50 years or so, and especially over the last few decades, the U.S. and many other societies have undergone a large, rapid, and broad decline in anti-gay attitudes. The magnitude, s...

A collective understanding that traces a debate between 'what is science?’ and ‘what is a science about?’ has an extraction to the notion of scientific knowledge. The debate undertakes the pursuit of science that hardly extravagance the dogma of pseudo-science. Scientific conjectures invoke science as an intellectual activity poured by experiences and repetition of the objects that look independent of any idealist views (believes in the consensus of mind-dependence reality). The realistic machinery employs in an empiricist exposition of the objective (...) phenomenon by synchronizing the general method to make observational predictions that cover all the phenomena of the particular entity without any exception. The formation of science encloses several epistemological purviews and a succession of conjectures cum refutation that a newer theorem could reinstate. My attempt is to advocate a holistic plea of scientific conjectures that outruns the restricted regulation of experience or testable hypothesis to render the validity of a chain of logical reasoning (deductive or inductive) of basic scientific statements. The milieu of scientific intensification integrates speculation that loads efficiency towards a new experimental dimension where the reality is not itself objective or observers relative; in fact the observed phenomenon divulges in the constructive progression of preferred methods of falsifiability and uncertainty. (shrink)

The present article concentrates on understanding the limits of language from the realm of meaning theory as portrayed by Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein’s picture theory provides a glimpse of reality by indicating that a picture could be true or false from the perspective of reality. He talks about an internal limitation of language rather than an external limitation of language. In Wittgenstein’s later works like Philosophical Investigations, the concept of picture theory has faded away, and he deeply becomes more (...) interested in the ‘use theory of meaning’ and ‘language game.’ My other attempt in this paper is to show Husserl’s theory of meaning and try to find out its compatibility with Wittgenstein’s thoughts. Husserl thinks that as a part of phenomenological experience, ‘meaning’ should be an act character that Wittgenstein rejected as an appeal of inner experience. Like Mohanty, I also attempt to show the Husserlian idea of meaning as an essence that is related to the meaning rather than linguistics. Both the giants are talking about description of language from different levels. My effort would be to illustrate how these two giant thinkers proclaim their meaning theories in such a way that leads to a well-known internalism versus externalism debate in the philosophy of mind and language. (shrink)

The paper concentrates on an appreciation of W.V. Quine’s thought on meaning and how it escalates beyond the meaning holism and confirmation holism, thereby paving the way for a ‘meaning nihilism’ and ‘confirmation rejectionism’. My effort would be to see that how could the acceptance of radical naturalism in Quine’s theory of meaning escorts him to the indeterminacy thesis of meaning. There is an interesting shift from epistemology to language as Quine considers that a person who is aware of linguistic (...) trick can be the master of referential language. Another important question is that how could Quine’s radical translation thesis reduce into semantic indeterminacy that is a consequence of his confirmation methord. Even I think that the notion and the analysis of meaning became hopelessly vague in Quine’s later work. I further argue on Quine’s position of meaning that I call, following Hilary Putnam, ‘meaning nihilism’. It seems to me that Quine had no belief like ‘meaning consists in’, or ‘meaning depends on’ something. Through this argument, I would like to challenge the confirmation holism that was foisted by Fodor on Quine’s thesis. My attempt would be to scrutinize Putnam’s point of view that Quine was neither a confirmation holist nor a meaning holist. I think that both Putnam and Quine denied the concept of constitutive connection of meaning as a second grade notion not only from the realm of semantic, but also from the perspective of epistemology. So, linguistic meaning cannot be formed by any sample of its uses. For Quine, the concept of meaning in metaphysics is heuristic and need not be taken seriously in any ‘science worthy’ literature. (shrink)

In one of his earliest dialogues, the Soliloquia, Augustine identifies the liberal arts (disciplinae) with truth (veritas), and employs this somewhat puzzling identification as a premise in his infamous proof of the immortality of the soul (Sol. 2.24). In this paper, I examine Augustine’s argument for this peculiar identification. Augustine maintains both (1) that the constituent propositions of the liberal arts are true, and (2) that the liberal art of dialectic (disciplina disputandi) is the “truth through which all disciplines are (...) true” (Sol. 2.21). I argue that Augustine identifies the liberal arts with truth because (1) the constituent propositions of the liberal arts are learned, and (2) dialectic’s structure is essential to the liberal arts. I further suggest that the subject matter of each liberal art reflects a distinct segment of intelligible reality, that is, the realm of the intelligible Forms. (shrink)

The paper concentrates on how the acceptance of radical naturalism in Quine’s theory of meaning escorts Quine to ponder the naturalized epistemology. W.V. Quine was fascinated by the evidential acquisition of scientific knowledge, and language as a vehicle of knowledge plays a significant role in his regimented naturalistic theory anchored in the scientific framework. My point is that there is an interesting shift from epistemology to language (semantic externalism). The rejection of the mentalist approach on meaning vindicates external that somehow (...) pave the way for ‘semantic holism’, a thesis where the meaning of a sentence is defined in turns to the totality of nodes and paths of its semantic networks where the meaning of linguistic units depend upon the meaning of the entire language. I would like to relook on Quine’s heart-throbbing claim about the co-extensiveness of the sentential relation and the evidential relation that point towards an affirmation of meaning holism and semantic externalism. Besides, the knowledge of acquaintance that relinquishes the singular thought from the account of psychological consideration and self-knowledge hypothesis copes up with the testimonial and warrant knowledge entangling by the claims of social knowledge as anticipated by Alvin Goldman. My conclusion would be nearer to the stance of semantic externalism inculcated by the social knowledge (in an epistemic sense) and semantic holism. (shrink)

An explicit formal-ontological representation of entities existing at multiple levels of granularity is an urgent requirement for biomedical information processing. We discuss some fundamental principles which can form a basis for such a representation. We also comment on some of the implicit treatments of granularity in currently available ontologies and terminologies (GO, FMA, SNOMED CT).

This chapter discusses contemporary scientific research on the role of reason and emotion in moral judgment. The literature suggests that moral judgment is influenced by both reasoning and emotion separately, but there is also emerging evidence of the interaction between the two. While there are clear implications for the rationalism-sentimentalism debate, we conclude that important questions remain open about how central emotion is to moral judgment. We also suggest ways in which moral philosophy is not only guided by empirical research (...) but continues to guide it. (shrink)

A Better Ape covers the evolution of morality from the birth of our ape family through the evolution of human species and all the way up to the development of modern societies. In this summary, we highlight several main elements of this account: the co-evolution of morality with intelligence and complex sociality; the role of social institutions and religious morality in the cultural evolution of behaviorally modern humans in prehistory; the increasing complexity of the moral mind through biological evolution in (...) apes, gene-culture co-evolution in various human species, cultural evolution in Homo sapiens, and rational-cultural evolution in recent centuries; and, finally, a cultural evolutionary model of progressive and regressive moral change on which a key factor driving moral progress is social and democratic integration. (shrink)

How can we make moral progress on factory farming? Part of the answer lies in human moral psychology. Meat consumption remains high, despite increased awareness of its negative impact on animal welfare. Weakness of will is part of the explanation: acceptance of the ethical arguments doesn’t always motivate changes in dietary habits. However, we draw on scientific evidence to argue that many consumers aren’t fully convinced that they morally ought to reduce their meat consumption. We then identify two key psychological (...) mechanisms—motivated reasoning and social proof—that lead people to resist the ethical reasons. Finally, we show how to harness these psychological mechanisms to encourage reductions in meat consumption. A central lesson for moral progress generally is that durable social change requires socially-embedded reasoning. (shrink)

Darshana, in the sense of true philosophical knowledge, Darshana is first quoted in the Vaiśesika Sūtra (first century CE) to mean the perfect vision of everything. Etymologically, Darshana evolves from the Sanskr̥ti term Drś, that is, vision. The contemporary use of the term Darshana finds its new dimension in the writings of Haribhardra (eighteenth century CE), who considers different philosophical schools in the cord of Darshana in his text Ṣad-darśana-samuccaya. Later, eminent Vedāntin Mādhava in fourteenth century CE popularized and expatiated (...) the meaning of Darshana in Sarvadarśana Saṅgraha. The purport of the term Darshana is embedded in the notion of Indianness that caters to an influential uniqueness in Hinduism, Jainism (Samyak Darshana or liberation consists in right vision) and Mahayana Buddhism (Nagarjuna’s dictum tattva-darśana, i.e., the true reality, and Vasubandhu’s use of Darshana marga, i.e., the conduit of seeing). -/- The conception of the word guru in Indian cultures goes back to the Upanishadic era, especially in the Mundakopanishad, where Brahma (the creator of the world) taught the Brahma Vidya (the foundation of all knowledge or the speculative discussion about ultimate reality) to his eldest son, Atharvan. Later, Artharvan transmitted the Brahma Vidya to Angiras, who shared the absolute knowledge with Satyavaha, a successor of Sage Bharadwaja. Satyavaha narrated to Bharadwaja, who finally imparted the knowledge (both the higher and lower levels) to Angiras. One could find a significance herein using the Upanishadic term paraparam (Mundakopanishad, 1.2). The term not only indicates that the foundation of all knowledge has two different folds – para (transcendent) and apar (mundane) – but also that the term paraparam tinges on the transmission progression of the knowledge from guru (enlightened master) to his shisya (dedicated disciple). The proper way of learning Brahma Vidya depends on the gurupasadana; the only guru can condescend to expose wisdom to the devoted disciples. (shrink)