Digital humanism emerges from serious concerns about the way in which digitisation develops, its impact on society and on humans. While its motivation is clear and broadly accepted, it is still an emerging field that does not yet have a universally accepted definition. Also, it is not always clear how to differentiate digital humanism from other similar endeavours. In this article, we critically investigate the notion of digital humanism and present its main principles as shared by its key proponents. These (...) principles include the quest for human dignity and the ideal of a better society based on core values of the Enlightenment. The paper concludes that digital humanism is to be treated as a technical endeavour to shape digital technologies and use them for digital innovation, a political endeavour investigating power shifts triggered by digital technology, and, at the same time, as a philosophical endeavour including the quest to delineate its scope and to draw boundaries for the digital. Methodologically, digital humanism is an interdisciplinary effort to debate a broad range of digitisation shortfalls in their totality, from privacy infringements to power shifts, from human alienation to disownment. While it overlaps with a range of established fields and other movements, digital humanism reflects a new academic, engineering, and societal awareness of the challenges of digital technologies. (shrink)

Social media usage entails the interacting with online-based platforms to share the content's, connect with other people, and consuming the digital information. Visual art practitioners innovate by employing the new techniques, materials, and viewpoints to generate distinctive, contemporary artistic representations. The purpose of this investigation is to analyze the relationship among the social media use along with innovation in the visual art practices. It integrated the quantitative and qualitative methods. Initially, the sample data is gathered. The sample includes 200 visual (...) artists from diverse fields and artistic backgrounds. Data is gathered using two fundamental techniques like survey and interviews. Based on their survey responses, 20 participants were chosen to perform Semi-structured interviews. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the selected social media platforms. The research findings are quantitative outcomes like correlation analysis and regression analysis, qualitative outcomes such as key themes from interviews, the social media engagement influence on artistic practice aspects, and the social media platforms impact on types of artistic innovations. The ρ-value is less than 0.05. Instagram contributes greatly to artistic innovation by improving collaboration, audience engagement, and visibility, while social media has an overall impact on visual art practices. (shrink)

In the past few decades, there has been a growing literature on relational egalitarianism. Relational egalitarianism is a view on the nature and value of equality. In contrast to the dominant view in recent debates on equality—distributive egalitarianism, on which equality is about ensuring people have or fare the same in some respect—on the relational view, equality is a matter of the terms on which relationships are structured. But what exactly does it mean for people to relate as equals? And (...) why are relations of equality valuable? Relational egalitarians have offered quite different answers to each of these questions. In this article, I draw attention to some key issues that underlie these disagree- ments, and I offer a taxonomy of different viewpoints that have emerged in the recent literature on these matters. (shrink)

Contributed papers on Jainism doctrines, philosophy and Prakrit language.

On the life and works of Śaṅkarācārya, exponent of the Advaita school in Hindu philosophy.

Yoga American Style Turn your hand so your palm is facing towards you. Now spread your fingers wide. See the distance ...

Initiation into yoga.--Symbolism and knowledge.--The sacred marriage.--The forgotten land.--Doubts and their removal.--Past, present and future.--Superstition.--The violence of war.--Religion and philosophy.

This book presents consciousness models from Eastern and Western perspectives that accommodate current scientific research in the natural sciences and humanities, from neurological experiments through philosophical enquiries to spiritual approaches. It offers up to date research from key disciplines in consciousness studies ranging from neurology, quantum mechanics, algorithmic science, mathematics, and astrophysics to literary studies, philosophy, and (comparative) theology. The volume examines the dichotomy between Western and Eastern perceptions of consciousness – where consciousness is perceived as brain activity by Western (...) scientists, and as a divine presence by various religions, especially in the East. The essays contextualize each other and reciprocally illuminate the potential and limits of the respective approaches. The texts aim at a transdisciplinary and transcultural exchange of ideas in consciousness studies and address a readership from interested lay-readers to experts of the field. The volume is of interest to researchers of consciousness studies. (shrink)

In the last decade, formal concept analysis in a fuzzy setting has received more attention for knowledge processing tasks in various fields. The hierarchical order visualisation of generated formal concepts is a major concern for the practical application of FCA. In this process, a major issue is the huge number of formal concepts generated from ‘a large context’, and another problem is their ‘storage’ complexity. To deal with these issues a method is proposed in this paper based on Shannon entropy (...) and Huffman coding. The proposed method is illustrated using crisply generated concepts such that the changes between obtained concepts can be measured using Levenshtein distance. The analysis derived from the proposed method is illustrated with an example for FCA in a fuzzy setting. (shrink)

A word-concordance of 'The Life Divine' generated by computer.

v. 1. Role of Vedanta as universal religion -- v. 2. Role of Vedanta as science of self-reliazation.

Anti-fat sentiment is pervasive, and fat people suffer a host of harms as a result: workforce discrimination, inferior medical care, relentless teasing, and internalized shame. A significant proportion of the population endures such harms. Yet, that is not typically regarded as a serious problem. Most of us aren’t quite sure: Is it really OK to be fat? This book argues that it is. In Why It’s OK to Be Fat, Nath debunks popular narratives about weight, health, and lifestyle choices (...) that underlie the dominant cultural aversion to fatness. She argues that we should view fatness through the lens of social equality, examining the wide-ranging ways that fat individuals fail to be treated as equals. According to Nath, we ought to recognize "sizeism"—the systematic ways that our society penalizes fat individuals for their size—as a structural injustice, akin to racism, sexism, and homophobia. (shrink)

The advent of the intelligent robot has occupied a significant position in society over the past decades and has given rise to new issues in society. As we know, the primary aim of artificial intelligence or robotic research is not only to develop advanced programs to solve our problems but also to reproduce mental qualities in machines. The critical claim of artificial intelligence advocates is that there is no distinction between mind and machines and thus they argue that there are (...) possibilities for machine ethics, just as human ethics. Unlike computer ethics, which has traditionally focused on ethical issues surrounding human use of machines, AI or machine ethics is concerned with the behaviour of machines towards human users and perhaps other machines as well, and the ethicality of these interactions. The ultimate goal of machine ethics, according to the AI scientists, is to create a machine that itself follows an ideal ethical principle or a set of principles; that is to say, it is guided by this principle or these principles in decisions it makes about possible courses of action it could takea. Thus, machine ethics task of ensuring ethical behaviour of an artificial agent. Although, there are many philosophical issues related to artificial intelligence, but our attempt in this paper is to discuss, first, whether ethics is the sort of thing that can be computed. Second, if we are ascribing mind to machines, it gives rise to ethical issues regarding machines. And if we are not drawing the difference between mind and machines, we are not only redefining specifically human mind but also the society as a whole. Having a mind is, among other things, having the capacity to make voluntary decisions and actions. The notion of mind is central to our ethical thinking, and this is because the human mind is self-conscious, and this is a property that machines lack, as yet. (shrink)

This chapter examines the case for health care policies aimed at holding obese individuals responsible for their weight and for obesity-related health issues. In particular, it considers the merits of two arguments for policies that would seek to make obese individuals bear some of the higher health care costs associated with being that way. On the fairness argument, it is claimed that such policies would serve the interests of fairness by holding obese individuals to account for irresponsible lifestyle choices that (...) are linked to their higher weight and its associated health risks. On the public health promotion argument, it is claimed that adopting such policies could produce impressive public health benefits: encouraging people to make healthier lifestyle choices, reducing obesity rates, and reducing obesity-related health care spending. Both arguments face serious objections. Contrary to the fairness argument, policies aimed at holding obese individuals responsible for their weight or for related health problems would neither treat people as they deserve to be treated nor make the distribution of health care resources fairer. And contrary to the public health promotion argument, those policies would not produce better health outcomes for society at large. Indeed, they would tend to do just the opposite. Reflection on the shortcomings of those arguments reveals that their conclusion is false: society should not adopt policies aimed at holding obese individuals responsible for their weight or for obesity-related health problems. (shrink)

What bearing does living in an increasingly globalized world have upon the moral assessment of global inequality? This paper defends an account of global egalitarianism that differs from standard accounts with respect to both the content of and the justification for the imperative to reduce global inequality. According to standard accounts of global egalitarianism, the global order unjustly allows a person’s relative life prospects to track the morally arbitrary trait of where she happens to be born. After raising some worries (...) with these accounts, the author offers an alternative account of global egalitarianism, “social egalitarianism,” which locates the wrongfulness of global inequalities in their effects on social and political interaction rather than in the unfairness of their source. On this view, global inequalities wrongfully exclude the worse-off from partaking in the benefits of globalization. Consequently, social egalitarianism aims for the elimination of only those inequalities that impede such participation. (shrink)

An important debate in the current philosophy of wisdom is whether knowledge is necessary for wisdom. In this paper I argue that knowledge is necessary to explain wise actions. Towards this, firstly, I individuate two modal properties relevant for wise actions: (i) counterfactual robustness: an action performed in the actual world is wise only if it leads to or is constituted by the goals of living well in all nearby worlds; (ii) rational robustness: an action performed for the sake of (...) living well is wise only if, in all nearby worlds, when an agent has sufficient reasons to perform the action, she performs the action. Secondly, I argue that these two modal properties are best explained in terms of two central features of knowledge: (a) safety: if the agent knows that a certain action will help her successfully reach the relevant goal(s) of living well, or is constituted by those goal(s), then in all the nearby worlds, her belief that the action will help her successfully reach the goal is true; (b) stability: the agent's knowledge that the action will help her successfully reach the goal(s) of living well, or is constituted by those goals, entails that her belief that the action will help her successfully reach the goal(s), or is constituted by those goals, isn’t based on any reason that could easily have been defeated by misleading evidence. (shrink)

Posthumanism is one of the well-known and significant concepts in the present day. It impacted numerous contemporary fields like philosophy, literary theories, art, and culture for the last few decades. The movement has been concentrated around the technological development of present days due to industrial advancement in society and the current proliferated daily usage of technology. Posthumanism indicated a deconstruction of our radical conception of ‘human’, and it further shifts our societal value alignment system to a novel dimension. The majority (...) of our population is getting deeply involved in virtual reality in daily life. Sooner or later, we shall get a different conception of ‘biological human being’ through the advancement of artificial intelligence technology. If an automated artificial system could replace the human brain and repair any physical loss of our biological body, it will certainly become a journey towards immortality for scientists. However, we must analyze whether posthumanism will consider ‘hybrid human beings’ as moral agents, similar to biological humans. This is why, in the future, the relation between biological human beings and posthumans will play an active role in designing artificial moral agents. Whether the future posthumans would overpower biological humanity or both of them would work as peers to form a digital utopian society and create new dimensions of rationality is still a case of anticipation. Our aim in this paper is to critically analyze the authenticity of the posthuman cyborg as an agent, their relations with humans and the emergence of ‘AI ethics’. (shrink)

Putnam has given a different twist to the ethical issues in his philosophical writing on ethics. In his book on ‘Ethics Without Ontology,’ he has given the different interpretation to the ethical issues. Putnam states that there is no ‘ontology’ in ethics. For him, there is nothing wrong with ethics, rather there is something wrong with metaphysics. The ethics cannot be justified from a non-ethical standpoint of view. In this way, Putnam challenges both inflationary ontological ethics and deflationary ontological ethics (...) and he bids goodbye to all varieties of ontologies. This idea of ethics goes against the possibility of Vedanta, Buddhism, Aristotelian metaphysics, Platonic forms, Islam, Kantian category, Levinas’s ‘being’, and Heidegger’s ontology. He replaced ‘ethical ontology’ with that of pragmatic pluralism: the recognition that we employ in our everyday lives different kinds of discourses, discourses subject to different standards and possessing different sorts of applications that all contribute to the description of reality. Putnam is right in many of his criticisms of metaphysical ethics, but it is not clear how he can avoid the idea of absolute values, which are transcendental as proposed by Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein accepts both aspects of ethical life, i.e., transcendental and empirical. I shall try to show that we have every reason to accept Wittgenstein’s view that there is ontology in ethics. (shrink)

Fat stigma is pervasive. Being fat is widely regarded a bad thing, and fat persons suffer numerous social and material disadvantages in virtue of their weight being regarded that way. Despite the seriousness of this problem, it has received relatively little attention from analytic philosophers. In this paper, I set out to explore whether there is a reasoned basis for stigmatizing fatness, and, if so, what forms of stigmatization could be justified. I consider two lines of reasoning that might be (...) advanced to defend fat stigma. The first is broadly consequentialist. It seeks to justify stigmatizing fatness based on the public health benefits that might be produced by doing so. The second argument takes stigmatizing fatness to be a warranted response to the morally blameworthy failure to slim down exhibited by fat persons. Clarifying and assessing each of these two lines of reasoning is the main task of this paper. I argue that, upon careful examination, both these attempts to justify the stigmatization of fatness fail. (shrink)

The problem of consciousness is one of the most important problems both in cognitive science and in philosophy. There are different philosophers and different scientists who define consciousness and explain it differently. In philosophy, ‘consciousness’ does not have a definition in terms of genus and differentia or necessary and sufficient conditions. In this paper, I shall explore the very idea of machine consciousness. The machine consciousness has offered causal explanation to the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of consciousness, but they fail to (...) explain the ‘why’ of consciousness. Their explanation is based on the ground that consciousness is causally dependent on the material universe and that of all conscious phenomena can be explained by mapping the physical universe. In this regard, consciousness is basically a physical phenomenon and can be mechanically explained following the naturalistic methods of science. In other words, the mechanistic assumption is that consciousness and mind have an artificial origin and therefore have to be understood only within a mechanistic framework available in the sciences. If this is so, then this epistemological theory of consciousness is essentially committed to scientific world view that cannot avoid metaphysical implication of consciousness. At the same time, neo-Advaitins have maintained that the evolution of nature leads to the manifestation of human consciousness only because consciousness is already implicit in the material nature. Thus, the existence of consciousness in this physical world far exceeds the methods of science and needs a non-mechanical metaphysical explanation. (shrink)

On social equality, individuals ought to relate on terms of equality. An important issue concerning this theory, which has not received much attention, is its scope: which individuals ought to relate on egalitarian terms? The answer depends on the theory’s grounds: the basis upon which demands of social equality arise when they do. In this chapter, I consider how we ought to construe the scope and the grounds of social equality. I argue that underlying the considerations social egalitarians advance for (...) taking demands of social equality to arise in the context of the state are relational facts that can obtain beyond state borders. So, my argument suggests an account of the grounds of social equality, and this account provides support for the scope of social equality potentially transcending the state. (shrink)

Recent years have featured a leap in academic and public interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities and related corporate reporting. Two main themes in this literature are the exploration of management incentives to engage in and disclose this information, and of the use and value of this information to market participants. We extend the second theme by examining the interest that specific investor classes have in the use of CSR information. We rely on feminist intersectionality, which suggests that gender (...) intersects with other identities to yield different values, experiences, and opportunities that can lead to gender-based preferences for CSR information. Based upon a survey of 750 US-based retail investors, we find that female retail investors have a greater interest in the use of CSR information, relative to male retail investors. Women express greater anticipated future demand for this information than do men. Further, the magnitude of the increase from current use to anticipated future demand is greater for women than men. Age is a significant modifying factor in that the discrepancy between women of any age and older men is greater than that between women and younger men. Finally, women also exhibit greater demand for streamlining of the information flow, consistent with pressures induced by time poverty. It appears that current disclosure practices provide a less than optimal match with the needs of the information consumers that are primarily interested in using this information. This mismatch may result in a systematic disenfranchisement of female investing classes which suggests an ethical need to level the playing field. (shrink)

This book deals with the major philosophical issues in the theoretical framework of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in particular and cognitive science in general.

Kok-Chor Tan has recently defended a novel theory of egalitarian distributive justice, institutional luck egalitarianism (ILE). On this theory, it is unjust for institutions to favor some individuals over others based on matters of luck. Tan takes his theory to preserve the intuitive appeal of luck egalitarianism while avoiding what he regards as absurd implications that face other versions of luck egalitarianism. Despite the centrality of the concept of institutional influence to his theory, Tan never spells out precisely what it (...) means for an inequality to be produced by an institution. In this paper, I consider different conceptions of institutional influence that ILE might employ. It appears that however this concept is construed, ILE has serious problems. On some conceptions, the luck egalitarian character of the theory is undermined. On others, the theory gives rise to precisely the sorts of absurd implications facing other versions of luck egalitarianism that Tan takes his theory to avoid. (shrink)

In the mid of nineteenth century, the hypothesis, “machine can think,” became very popular after Alan Turing’s article on “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” This hypothesis, “machine can think,” established the foundations of machine intelligence and claimed that machines have a mind. It has the power to compete with human beings. In the first section, I shall explore the importance of Turing thesis, which has been conceptualized in the domain of machine intelligence. Turing presented a completely different view of the machine (...) itself. It addressed philosophers, rather than the mathematicians, and proclaimed that digital computers might be considered as intelligent machines. This approach was wholly new, both philosophically and technically, and started many philosophical debates which continue to this day. He proposed an imitation game, as a test, what is now referred to as a Turing test to evaluate if a machine thinks. That is to say that the main aim of machine intelligence not only constructs challenging programs to solve our day-to-day problems but also reproduce mentality in machines and claimed that all the mental qualities are ascribable to machines. What will be attempted in this paper is a critical evaluation of the arguments against the Turing test put forward by many philosophers. (shrink)

In mid-twentieth century, the hypothesis, ‘a machine can think’ became very popular after, Alan Turing’s article on ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’. This hypothesis, ‘a machine can think’ established the foundations of machine intelligence (MI), and claimed that machines have consciousness and creativity, with the power to compete with human beings. In the first section, I shall show how consciousness and creativity is conceptualized in the domain of MI. The main aim of MI is not only to construct difficult programs to (...) solve our day-to-day problems, but also to reproduce mentality in machines. It was claimed that all the mental qualities are ascribable to machines. My intention in this paper is to clarify consciousness and creativity from a subjective point of view. My claim is that consciousness and creativity cannot be fully represented in a mechanistic domain. There are subjective mental or conscious states, which can be seen in a first-person perspective of their proper understanding. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall review the reasons that let Putnam to propose functionalism and the reasons that subsequently led him to abandon it. I would like to discuss Putnam's views belonging to early Putnam and later Putnam. First, let us focus on early Putnam. Early Putnam tries to show the possibility of robot consciousness. As a functionalist, Putnam shows that the human being is an autonomous: that is, human mind is a computing machine. Later, he changes his position to (...) demonstrate not just his intellectual confidence, but also the virtue of seeing the bigger picture. Later Putnam realized this because this sort of utopianism is an illustration of what is called ‘scientism’. It is based on speculations regarding scientific possibilities. The problem is that it is completely unclear just what possibility has been envisaged when one speaks of robotic consciousness. While arguing against Turing machine, the later Putnam said that pessimism about the success of artificial intelligence (AI) in simulating human intelligence amounts to pessimism about possibility of describing the functioning of the brain. He raised the question: what connection is there between simulating intelligence and describing the brain? Even if the computer model of the brain is correct, it does not follow that AI will succeed. Simulation is just simulation, it does not mean exact replications of human mind. (shrink)

The mystery of consciousness is among the most important questions pondered upon, not only in philosophy but also in the cognitive science, psychology, neurobiology and other sciences. The problem of consciousness has been traditionally dealt by philosophy, but its importance in explaining mental phenomena has made it a subject matter for other sciences that emerged later. Each philosopher and scientist has followed his own method in defining it, and arriving at a universal agreement on its definition has become difficult. In (...) philosophy, ‘consciousness’ does not have a definition in terms of genus and differentia, or the necessary and sufficient conditions. On the one hand, idealists put all their efforts into explaining consciousness as a separate entity, without stepping away from their traditional path, because they believe that thinking, experience, and free will are not the properties of the physical entity. On the other hand, the scientific world puts its efforts into reducing consciousness to electrical and neurochemical processes of the brain because they believes that the brain works like a biologically programmed computer. Our approach to consciousness varies between these two explanations. We would like to address the problem of consciousness at two levels: cosmic and individual. The basic thesis of this paper is: everything that we know is something that we experience and everything that we experience is a form arising within consciousness. (shrink)

Using the mainstreaming of socially responsible investing as our empirical context, we show that as the divestment movement in the late twentieth century got institutionalized by being incorporated as a business strategy into more mainstream financial instruments like mutual funds, the prior meanings and categorical definition of ethical investing became ambiguous due to fuzzy boundaries, duality of virtue inherent in the portfolio targets, and exercise of discretion by portfolio managers. We find that increased heterogeneity in standards led to greater ambiguity (...) about who belongs to a category, and fund managers adopted distinct measures-based, values-based and expertise-based approaches to resolve this ambiguity. One consequence of such ambiguity is that individual self-expression, self-consciousness and agency that are central in such movements become appropriated by discretionary and meaning-making work at the institutional level. (shrink)

Some consequentialists argue that ordinary individuals are obligated to act in specific, concrete ways to address large-scale harms. For example, they argue that we should each refrain from meat-eating and avoid buying sweatshop-made clothing. The case they advance for such prescriptions can seem intuitive and compelling: by acting in those ways, a person might help prevent serious harms from being produced at little or no personal cost, and so one should act in those ways. But I argue that such reasoning (...) often relies on an overly simplistic assessment of the costs and benefits of those prescriptions, one that misconstrues or neglects important issues. Indeed, a closer look at those costs and benefits reveals just how little we often know about a number of real-world matters that bear on the expected consequences of the prescribed individual actions. Our predicament is one of radical uncertainty: we currently lack a sound basis for concluding that the relevant actions are more likely to do good than to backfire. I distinguish this empirically grounded objection from others, which are not convincing—including one based on the mere conceivability of the actions in question backfiring and another based on the supposition that such actions cannot make a difference in addressing the massive problems at issue. The upshot is that, at least for now, consequentialist arguments for many specific individual actions aimed at addressing large-scale harms are inconclusive. (shrink)

This paper deals with the philosophical problems concerned with research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), in particular with problems arising out of claims that AI exhibits ‘consciousness’, ‘thinking’ and other ‘inner’ processes and that they simulate human intelligence and cognitive processes in general. The argument is to show how Cartesian mind is non-mechanical. Descartes’ concept of ‘I think’ presupposes subjective experience, because it is ‘I’ who experiences the world. Likewise, Descartes’ notion of ‘I’ negates the notion of computationality (...) of the mind. The essence of mind is thought and the acts of thoughts are identified with the acts of consciousness. Therefore, it follows that cognitive acts are conscious acts, but not computational acts. Thus, for Descartes, one of the most important aspects of cognitive states and processes is their phenomenality, because our judgments, understanding, etc. can be defined and explained only in relation to consciousness and not in relation to computationality. We can only find computationality in machines and not in the mind, which wills, understands and judges. (shrink)

Expression is the central concept in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind, and our experiences are reflected in our bodily expressions or gestures, facial expressions, behaviors and linguistic expressions. It seems true that we have no access of other people’s experiences but we can know or talk about them in so far as they are the common experiences of all. This inaccessibility of other’s experiences may create a genuine thinking that one’s experiences are private and the first person present tense psychological utterances (...) are not descriptive at all. They are understood solely as expressive and expression is the outer concept of a mental phenomenon. In this paper, an attempt will be made on the basis of Wittgenstein’s critique of the relationship between the concepts of experience and expression we shall argue that certain uses of the dichotomy between the inner and the outer are mistakes. According to Wittgenstein, the inner is not a set of experiences which are or are not expressed by our immediate (primitive) expressions or linguistic expressions rather it is the capacity of the subject to express himself genuinely. (shrink)

In this article, I have argued that persons are individual human beings capable of mental activities. In this sense, persons have not only physical properties, but also various forms of consciousness. I have mentioned that the relation between a person and his/her physical properties are contingent; not logical, but factual. I have also mentioned Descartes' view that a person is a combination of two separate entities- a body and a mind. Only mind is conscious; the physical properties that the person (...) possesses are properties of his or her body. It is conceivable that either should exist without the other. That is to say that the mind can exist without the aid of the body. I have provided a detailed summery of Strawson's theory because it goes against William's concept of person and give an account of person , which in turn, removes many of the difficulties of the mind-body relation. Strawson concludes that a person is not identical with his/her body. Like Descartes, he gives primary to the mental attributes of a person. Thus, the concept of a person is fundamental and metaphysical. This is the main theme of this article. (shrink)

Virginia Held argues that terrorism can be justified in some instances. But unlike standard, consequentialist justifications, hers is deontological. This paper critically examines her argument. It explores how the values of fairness, responsibility, and desert can serve to justify acts of terrorism. In doing so, two interpretations of her account are considered: a responsibility-insensitive and a responsibility-sensitive interpretation. On the first, her argument collapses into a consequentialist justification. On the second, it relies on an implausible conception of responsibility. Either way, (...) her argument fails as a distinctly deontological defense of terrorism. (shrink)

I have argued that emergentism is a non-computational theory of mind, because this theory says that mind or consciousness emerges from material objects, but it will not be reduced to that matter. That is to say that the higher level of quality emerge from a lower level of existence. It emerges therefrom, and does not belong to that level, but constitutes its possessor a new order of existence with its social laws of behaviour. Thus, emergentism is an anti-reductionists' theory of (...) the mind and has established the hardness of the problem of consciousness. The physicalistic theory of mind in all its hues faces the question as to how we can account for the qualitative content of our consciousness. It cannot ultimately tell us how the subjective content of our consciousness. (shrink)

This paper outlines some flaws of the faddist social forestry movement that is currently sweeping Canada's volunteer NGOs. Typically, these include: Canadian NGOs' ignorance of tropical ecology; their inability to adequately communicate with the Third World clientel because of the socio-cultural barriers; a propensity to undertake numerous development projects and thus seek to bloat their organizations so as to claim federal government grants; and most of all, complaints of alleged racism against NGOs by Canada's ethnic minorities who are kept out (...) of the development field. Impacts on the Third World development of each of these flaws are briefly noted. The paper concludes by offering some recommendations for improving Canadian volunteer NGOs' performance in social forestry in the Third World. (shrink)

Gillian Brock's "Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account" and Darrel Moellendorf's "Global Inequality Matters" present carefully crafted accounts of the obligations we have to non-compatriots and offer practical proposals for how we might get closer to meeting these obligations.

In this paper, we will discuss solipsism and the limits of experience in the light of Wittgenstein’s TLP. One cannot draw the limits of experience without bringing in the notion of the experiencer. That is to say, the notion of self is very relevant to the discussion on the limits of experience. Solipsism means that ‘I’ is the only reality, and what I experience is all that I could know. We will focus on solipsism from two points of view, the (...) empirical point of view and the transcendental point of view. The empirical approach to solipsism makes the self as a matter of its experience. However, from the transcendental point of view, the transcendental or metaphysical self becomes the transcendental ground of our experiences. In the second section, we will discuss the relationship between solipsism and realism. Then how the self is related to the world will be discussed in the third section. For Wittgenstein, the self ‘I' is neither causally nor logically related to the world. This self is the metaphysical subject, and it is the limit of the world. In the fourth section, we will discuss the importance of the limit-self. The limit-self is not the matter or object of experience; rather, it is the ground of our world's experience. For Wittgenstein, it is not an item of the world; rather, it is the limit of the world. The limit-self cannot be described in language, and thus it is beyond our language. It is the limit of our language and also the limit of the world. Then, we will critically analyze the limit of experience, and the metaphysical self is placed on the limit of experience. This self is the non-solipsistic self. (shrink)

Using the databases created under Education Watch, a civil society initiative to monitor primary and basic education in Bangladesh, this paper explores trends, socioeconomic differentials and cost in private supplementary tutoring among primary students and its impact on learning achievement. The rate of primary school students getting access to private supplementary tutoring is increasing at two percentage points per year and reached 31% in 2005. Incidence of private tutoring was greater among boys and urban students than respective counterparts. Educated parents (...) and well‐off families were more likely to arrange supplementary tutoring for their children. A wide variation in the cost for private tutoring prevailed. The tutees spent 46% of their total private expenditure for education on supplementary tutoring. Supplementary tutoring helped students learn more than those who had no such support. Private tutors for primary school students have become a well‐accepted norm. Finally, a number of social implications are discussed. (shrink)

This chapter canvasses the debate between John Rawls and his cosmopolitan critics over the demands of economic justice that arise beyond state borders. In particular, it examines the merits of four defenses of the position Rawls advances in The Law of Peoples that justice does not call for a cross-society egalitarian distributive principle: first, that such a principle would fail to hold states responsible for their economic position; second, that because societies do not have a fundamental interest in wealth, they (...) would not favor such a principle; third, that satisfying such a principle would not be feasible; and, fourth, that appeal to Rawls's constructivist methodology can explain why the egalitarian principles he takes to be suited for the state context are not suited for the international context. The chapter concludes that upon careful examination, none of these defenses succeed in plausibly motivating Rawls's rejection of global egalitarianism. (shrink)

In this paper, I would like to discuss the meaning of life in Indian philosophy. All Indian philosophies are philosophies of life. Indian philosophy is not merely an intellectual activity but has practical application which enables men to lead an enlightened life. Any philosophy, either Indian or Western which makes no difference to human life, is not a philosophy. The human life always strives towards freedom, duty, wisdom, well-being, etc. These are the noble values in Indian philosophy that play a (...) very vital role in shaping the meaning of life. All schools of Indian philosophy give importance to individual freedom for self-realization. Every school of Indian philosophy prescribes its way of overcoming ignorance, and thereby overcoming pain, to achieve the goal of life. Thus, every human being has to look within, understand his nature, and figure out her or his way to self-realization. The way to reach this goal includes selfless love, service to others, self-control, and self-purification. Because of their practicality, each system of Indian philosophy is as new today as it was 3000 years ago. These are the ideas which we can find in Vivekananda, Gandhi, Aurobindo, and many others. All these philosophical schools/thinkers hold that philosophy and practical life are necessarily integrated. (shrink)