The failure of philosophy -- A new political philosophy -- Radical democracy -- Politics of freedom -- The future of democracy -- Decentralization of power -- A Humanist approach to elections -- A new approach to political and economic problems -- Human nature and humanist practice -- Humanist politics -- Integral humanism -- The way out -- New humanism -- The principles of radical democracy.

Selected from the works of J. N. Mohanty over a forty-year period, these essays provide an intellectual biography of the man and insights into Eastern philosophy. Part I brings together various writings on problems in metaphysics, epistemology, and language, alongwith thoughtful treatments of notions such as experience, self consciousness, doubt, tradition, and modernity. Part II collects essays written during the exciting though turbulent years following India's independence, and they survey issues in social ethics, reform activities, and religion in the works (...) of Aurobindo, Gandhi, Vinobha, and Ramohan Roy. Part III comprises essays that treat the encounter between phenomenology and philosophy, between Eastern and Western philosophy, and does so through an incisive analysis of the major concerns of philosophy anywhere. The collection concludes with ruminations on the future of Indian philosophy. (shrink)

"Darshanika Cintan ke Vividha Āyāma" (Diverse dimensions of philosophical thinking), is a compilation book of various research articles in which the discursive diversity of philosophy is reflected. On the one hand, it pursues the basic problems of philosophy, such as the relevance of philosophy, the nature and justification of metaphysics, the metaphysical analysis of the nature of value, etc., while on the other hand, it Is involved in the analysis and testing of the concept of life-world, globalization and multiculturalism, environmental (...) ethics and applied ethics etc. Proper analysis and evaluation of the most important problems of Indian epistemology, for example, the idea of syntax (Vākyārtha Vicāra), Prāmanyavāda , and the issue of evidential implication (Pramānatarabhāva), has been heuristically presented. Some lively topics of contemporary Indian philosophy like Logical conclusion of Manvendra Nath Roy's materialism, Kant's influence on contemporary Indian philosophy, Post-independence Indian philosophical thinking, and the future form of Indian philosophy are included. There is a unique combination of linguistic beauty and clarity, systematic presentation, critical attitude and philosophical insight in the writings of the author duo. This is undoubtedly a valuable work which deserves to be welcomed by teachers, scholars and students of philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter summarizes research on free will. Progress has been made by discarding outmoded philosophical notions in favor of exploring how ordinary people understand and use the notion of free will. The concept of responsible autonomy captures many aspects of layperson concepts of free will, including acting on one's own (i.e., not driven by external forces), choosing, using reasons and personal values, conscious reflection, and knowing and accepting consequences and moral implications. Free will can thus be understood as form of (...) volition (action control) that evolved to enable people to live in cultural societies. Much work has shown that belief in free will (as opposed to disbelief) is associated with actions that are conducive to functioning well in culture, including helpfulness, restraint of aggression, learning via counterfactual analysis, thinking for oneself, effective job performance, and appropriate gratitude. Belief in free will increases in response to misdeeds by others, thus emphasizing the link to personal responsibility. Research on volition indicates that self-regulation, intelligent reasoning, decision making, and initiative all deplete a (common) limited energy source, akin to the folk notion of willpower and linked to the body's glucose supplies. Free will is thus not an absolute or constant property of persons but a variable, fluctuating capability—one that is nonetheless highly adaptive for individuals and society. -/- The notion that people have free will has been invoked in multiple contexts. Legally and morally, it explains why people can be held responsible for their actions. Theologically, it was used to explain why a supposedly kind and omniscient god would send most of the people he created to hell (Walker, 1964). Yet, for such an important concept, there remains wide-ranging disagreement and confusion over its existence and its nature. For example, philosophers still debate whether humans truly have free will and, if so, under what conditions human volition deserves to be considered free (Kane, 2011). In psychology, most theorists believe that humans engage in self-control, rational choice, planning, initiative, and related acts of volition. The debate is not whether these things occur but merely whether these should be called free will. -/- This chapter will provide an overview of recent psychology experiments concerned with free will. There are three main and quite distinct sets of problems, each with associated lines of research. The first is concerned with how people understand the idea of free will. The second concerns the causes and consequences of believing in free will. The third focuses on the actual volitional processes that guide human action. (shrink)

Some people believe more than others in free will, and researchers have both measured and manipulated those beliefs. Disbelief in free will has been shown to cause dishonest, selfish, aggressive, and conforming behavior, and to reduce helpfulness, learning from one’s misdeeds, thinking for oneself, recycling, expectations for occupational success, and actual quality of performance on the job. Belief in free will has been shown to have only modest or negligible correlations with other variables, indicating that it is a distinct trait. (...) Belief in free will has correlated positively with life satisfaction and finding life meaningful, with self‐efficacy and self‐control, with low levels of stress, and (though not entirely consistently) with internal locus of control. High belief in free will has been linked to a punitive attitude toward wrongdoers and lower forgiveness toward them. The belief seems to involve a sense of agency and expecting others to behave in morally responsible fashion. (shrink)

Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology features a sophisticated analysis of the ways by which social forces influence processes of technological design, production and use. While Feenberg is foremostly read as a critical theorist, this essay argues that his call to democratize technology stands on distinct phenomenological grounds. This is based on the way he illustrates the role of experience in subtending potentials for the progressive transformation of the sociotechnical sphere. Against this background, this essay identifies an important shift in (...) the way Feenberg articulates experience, from relating it to lifelong processes of learning and identity-construction (Bildung) to an emphasis on visceral immediacy (Erlebnis). This shift manifests a newfound focus on material, embodied meanings over-against linguistic ones, and results in a considerable tension between Feenberg’s appeal to experiential self-evidence and his critical position toward technology. The discussion of the two modes of experience exemplifies the current that underlies Feenberg’s work, namely the creation of traffic between ontological and ontic accounts of sociotechnical entities, practices and relations. (shrink)

Looking at discrimination, education, environment, health and crime, this volume analyses United States Supreme Court rulings on several legal issues and proposed libertarian solutions to each problem. Setting their own liberal theory of law, each chapter discusses the law at hand, what it should be, and what it would be if their political economic philosophy were the justification of the legal practice. Covering issues such as sexual harassment, religion, markets in human organs, drug prohibition and abortion, this book is a (...) timely contribution to classical liberal debate on law and economics. (shrink)

This paper investigates the new form of writing—the fragmentary project—that Friedrich Schlegel developed in response to Kant’s systematic philosophy.The fragments, I argue, are not anti-systematic; rather, they elucidate the idea that philosophy, like the modern work of art, no longer represents the unity of a closed system but a unity beyond the system. The fragmentary project is an ambitious attempt to find a form of philosophical coherence beyond the compulsion of a system. In contrast to the traditional view which regards (...) the fragment as expressing relativistic, skeptic, and at bottom, anarchic sentiments, this account views the fragment as a figure of writing that does not represent but itself enacts the movement toward greater coherence and communication. (shrink)

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In recent years, the sharing economy has attracted considerable attention, both scholarly and popular, relating to its capacity to enforce or undermine extant economic conventions. However, the process through which technological developments can effectively have this outcome of altering extant conventions on what is morally acceptable or desirable is still unclear. In this paper, we draw on the work of Boltanski and Thévenot and the notion of agencement to investigate the moral and performative dimension of controversies related to the SE. (...) The research stems from a qualitative case-based study of the controversy following Uber’s implementation in Montréal’s taxi market. We contribute to the literature on the SE through an empirical study of the moral debates entailed in the unfolding in situ of a SE device. We also add to the literature using the ‘Orders of Worth’ framework by showing how a compromise is solidified. We find that beyond discursive strategies, it is the concrete recomposition of laws, conventions, devices, persons, etc. that harmonised different definitions of the common good. Finally, we contribute to the literature on the relationship between technology, ethics, and social change by capturing the specific values that legitimise Uber, and by following their unfolding throughout a controversy. (shrink)

Fundamental science is rapidly approaching its asymptote because it has been so successful. We already have a “theory of everything, that matters to the human race.” The laws of chemistry and physics cannot be replaced. Although most scientists react to this as though it were religious blasphemy, the proof is in our record. Since the discovery of quantum mechanics, no fundamental science of any significance to other sciences has appeared—in 70 years and with, perhaps, expenditures of$ 0.5 trillion. In contrast, (...) engineering and applied sciences have taken over the fundamental role, insofar as it is their advances from electric lights to cars, to planes, to computers that affect all science and all citizens. The reductionist model of approaching reality has been discredited. The most visible arena for the victory of the new integrationist approaches is in the reemergence of integrative medicine, which includes high-tech medicine in the larger body-mind-spirit, or whole person approach. (shrink)

An account is offered of Dooyeweerd’s non-reductionist ontology. It also includes the role of religious belief in theory making, although it omits his case for why such a role is unavoidable. The ontology is a theory of the nature of (created) reality which presupposes and is regulated by belief in the God of Judeo-Christian theism. Because it takes everything in creation to be directly dependent on God, it offers an account of the natures of both natural things and artifacts which (...) avoids regarding anything in the cosmos as what all else in the cosmos depends on. (shrink)