Edmund Husserl, known as the founder of the phenomenological movement, was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. A prolific scholar, he explored an enormous landscape of philosophical subjects, including philosophy of math, logic, theory of meaning, theory of consciousness and intentionality, and ontology in addition to phenomenology. This deeply insightful book traces the development of Husserl’s thought from his earliest investigations in philosophy—informed by his work as a mathematician—to his publication of _Ideas_ in 1913. Jitendra (...) N. Mohanty, an internationally renowned Husserl scholar, presents a masterful study that illuminates Husserl’s central concerns and provides a definitive assessment of the first phases of the philosopher’s career. (shrink)

In his book, The Logic of Democracy, T.L. Thor son has published a chapter entitled "Majority Rule and Minority Rights". In this paper he has pointed out a controversy which has arisen between "natural rights democrats" and "majority rule democrats." In this paper I argue that elected representatives represent the majority and their rule can be called the rule of the majority so long they can protect the rights of individuals. This is why the natural rights of man are more (...) fundamental and essential than majority rule. In conclusion, I insist that neither "natural rights" nor "majority rule" can be called the elements of democracy. If the former and the latter could have been understood as the end of democracy and the means to achieve the end, respectively, then the controversy would not have arisen. (shrink)

In this book, Professor Mohanty develops a new interpretation of the ontology and nature of Indian philosophical thinking. Using the original Sanskrit sources, he examines the concepts of consciousness and subjectivity, and the theories of meaning and truth, and explicates the concept of theoretical rationality that underlies the Indian philosophies. The author brings to bear insights from modern Western analytical and phenomenological philosophies, not with a view to instituting direct comparisons but in order to interpret Indian thinking. In doing so, (...) he highlights some very distinctive features of Indian thinking. (shrink)

‘Yata mat tata path’ means ‘every faith is a path to God’. It is such a generous religious doctrine that has admitted the truth of all religions. This doctrine emerges on the soil of India in the second half of the Nineteenth Century as a reaction against the notion that my religion is the only true religion and other religions are false. According to Sri Ramkrishna, the exponent of the dictum, such dogmatic assertions promote contemptuous attitude towards the followers of (...) other religions,which gives birth to violent strife and bloodshed on earth. All these can generally be considered as the side effects of religions. The aim of this paper is to interpret the importance of the doctrine, yata mat tata path as the antidote of the side effects of religions. The interpretation at the end explicitly exposes itself as an ecological approach to religions. By admitting the truth and spiritual achievements of all religions in spite of their ritualistic diversity, the doctrine yata mat tata path advocates for religious harmony and thus approximates ecology, which discovers interdependent co-existence of and unity in diversified biotic communities. (shrink)

Treatise, with commentary, on the basic tenets of the Nyaya school in Hindu philosophy.

The accessibility of these essays, coupled with Mohanty's consideration of lesser-known phenomenologists (Ingarden, Scheler, Hartmann, et. al.) mark this as a major updating of phenomenology for a contemporary audience.

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)

REVIEWS: This is a very helpful volume and a good addition to contemporary scholarship on the valuable and little-known Jaina contribution to philosophy. Prof.Nagin Shah has edited the book well, including clear introduction and a very complete index.

Papers presented at North Bengal University under a grant from UGC.

J.N. Mohanty is one of the most distinguished philosophers India has produced in recent years. Written mostly in the 21st century, this collection deals with the nature of consciousness and its interpretation. Starting from the concept of consciousness as an event in time, he investigates the notion of consciousness as a social phenomenon. The temporality and historicity of consciousness are also emphasized. He examines experiences from various walks of life, from religion to quantum physics, from interpretation of perception to that (...) of sacred Indian texts to demonstrate his theory. The introduction locates Mohanty's work in the larger context of philosophical discourses in the West and India. (shrink)

Franz Brentano’s thesis that the mental is characterised by a peculiar directedness towards an object or by intentionality, has been recognised, in contemporary philosophy, by a large body of philosophers of widely differing persuasions. Those who have come to terms with this phenomenon have found a place for it within their larger philosophical positions: this affects the way they understand the nature and role of intentionality. In this essay, I will distinguish four types of theories of intentionality—each of which is (...) characterized by a certain understanding of its nature and function, an understanding which derives from the overall philosophical framework within which the phenomenon of intentionality is situated. These are the naturalistic-causal, the descriptive psychological, the existential, and the transcendental-constitutive theories. I review them in that order, as representing four levels of our understanding of intentionality. For all four, Brentano’s thesis remains the “neutral” and indispensable starting point. (shrink)

The article seeks a confrontation between phenomenology - in its husserlian and existential forms - with indian philosophy, Particularly the nyaya--Vaisesika, Samkhya--Vedanta and buddhist schools. Confrontation with husserlian phenomenology is carried through under three headings: (a) methodology, (b) theory of the 'eidos' and (c) the notion of transcendental subjectivity. Despite close affinities, Indian thought is found to lack the dialectics of intention and fulfillment and the supposed temporality and historicity of transcendental subjectivity. The existential concepts of 'sorge' and 'geworfenheit' are (...) set beside the indian concepts of 'duhkha' and 'samsara', The concepts of freedom and nothingness are contrasted, The notion of 'karma' evaluated. Some major trends of modern indian thought, Especially that of k.C. Bhattacharyya, Are then set in this entire context. (shrink)

The aim of this short article is to introduce a topical text called the Daśaślokī of Ᾱdi Śaṃkara, widely known as Śaṃkara and its only available commentary the Siddhāntabindu by Madhusūdana Sarasvatī. While these two classics delineate in a nutshell the basic tenets of Advaita Vedānta philosophy and are placed with great significance in the tradition, very little work on them, particularly those based on textual study, has been done in modern scholarship. Thus, the article, without going into much detail (...) of the content of these two works and the commentaries available, gives, in brief, their introduction, in order to revisit them. (shrink)

Critical study of the commentary on Gautama's Nyāyasūtra, aphoristic work of the Nyaya school in Hindu philosophy.

Focusing on the philosophical puzzle of time and its relation with being and presence the paper explores the volatile relationalities un/tying them in shaping our conceptualisation of memory as re-turning. With such an approach the paper analyses the paradoxes that always haunt any attempt at thinking time, being and presence in their specificity as well as within their general embrace. It is through such play of the specific and general, the paper submits, that the thinking of memory and its acts (...) of re-turning comes to be conceptualised in terms of linear, teleological, homogenous understanding of continuity. Turning towards Bergson and Heidegger’s approaches to the question of time, presence and being the paper attempts to open-up the layered paradoxes that not only shape any act of turning but also the thinking of possible itself as a general category for conceptualising memory as re-turning. Bringing in the question of language and its ontological and temporal concerns, the paper thus brings in the concept of “poetics” to hint at the continuous negotiation that thinking of such interstices in language demands. It is towards such contingencies of the (un)timely, the paper submits, that any attempt at thinking memory as re-turning gestures. (shrink)

In understanding the implicative resonance of biotech applications research and development, it is necessary to apply the intricate consonance of bioethics studies like behaviourome studies in the form of mental mapping in diverse groups of society for trying to resolve moral issues such as IPR or biosafety. Social perception analysis being the subjective domain of bioethics and related biotechnological issues are the functional epitome in ensuring benevolent biotechnological entrepreneurship development. In this pursuit studies of social genomics can ascertain the positive (...) implications of functional genomics being one of the most important fragments of science of biotechnology. The development of guidelines should be culturally sensitive in the way ethical, social and legal aspects are considered. Having a map of human ideas will enable us to reflect more diversity of ideas into policy frameworks. (shrink)

In their book entitled “Democracy and the American Party System” Austin Ranney and (Willmoore Kendall have brought a charge again the pluralists that they denied the desirability of creating sovereign state and as such, according to them, they were opponents of democracy as well as of the very idea of government. The aim of this paper is to refute their charge and thereby to establish the view that the pluralists are in fact strong supporters of democracy in the real sense (...) of the term and of popular sovereignty. What did most of them was that they made an attempt to bring to light the fact that democracy, as it is being practiced almost everywhere in the world, ultimately leads to denial of popular sovereignty, the basic element of self-government. Self-government can best be realized where the people is the real sovereign neither the state nor the numerical majority. And the government formed by the representatives elected in a traditional party-based election does not therefore, mean self-government. It can at best be called the government of the majority. Majority rule does not anyway mean democracy. It may be called ‘numbersocracy’ after the proper terminology of Ranney and Kendall. Democracy, de facto, is nothing other than majority rule that is best termed by John Calhoun, the ex-vice-president of the U.S.A, as the ‘rule by numerical majority’. ‘Numerical’ majority”, says he, “is not the people”. I strongly adhere to the pluralists’ view and therefore, conclude with an insistent assertion that numerical majority rule in disguise of democracy has in fact ruled out popular sovereignty. (shrink)

Study of the concept of illusion, arising out of ignorance.

This essay introduces a collection of articles gathered under the theme of “law, science, and constitutions of life.” Together, they explore how revolutions in notions of what biological life is are eliciting correspondingly revolutionary imaginations of how life should be governed. The central theoretical contribution of the collection is to further elaborate the concept of bioconstitutionalism, which draws attention to especially consequential forms of coproduction at the law–life nexus. This introduction offers a theoretical discussion of bioconstitutionalism. It explores the constitutional (...) significance of interplay between scientific and technological power over life and a given political community’s shared imaginary of what modes of reasoning, judgment, and rule are proper and legitimate in a well-ordered state. It argues that knowing what life is for purposes of governance does not follow from scientific knowledge alone. Rather, such knowledge is refracted through culturally distinctive imaginaries that commit societies to particular understandings of what life means and what should be done to encourage its flourishing. (shrink)

The present work is the English translation of Muni Nyayavijayaji`s (A.D. 1890-1970) original Gujarati work `Jaina Darsana` which has run into twelve editions. No one has ever explained the Jaina concepts of nine `reals`, six substances, causation, spiritual attitude, spiritualness, non-violence, austerity, God, Karma, non-absolutism, relativity of commandments, etc. as interestingly and lucidly as Nyayavijayaji has done. The work reveals his stupendous scholarship, his positive approach, his non-sectarian outlook, his wisdom and competence in attempting synthesis of conflicting views, his mastery (...) of India philosophical and religious thought, his insight into the heart of religion, freshness of his interpretation of old texts, his sensitivity to all aspects of a problem, and his spiritual craving. It attempts to arouse sympathetic responses to the ethical and spiritual aspirations of man. It deals with all the main topics of Jaina metaphysics, ethics, epistemology and logic. It covers a wide variety of problems. It is a fascinating and splendid work of constructive scholarship, and an authentic source of information about Jaina philosophy and religion that will serve as a good reference book for many years to come. (shrink)

Critical study of Pramāṇaratna of Raghunātha Bhaṭṭācārya, 16th century, treatise on the epistemology of the Mimamsa school in Hindu philosophy; based on the manuscript preserved in the Manuscript Library of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta.