A rise in the number of moral individuals in a group can hurt the morality of the group’s collective action. In this paper, we characterize strategic environments and models of morality where this is true solely because, after all, individual morals are private information.

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)

In his award-winning book _The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl: A Historical Development_, J. N. Mohanty charted Husserl's philosophical development from the young man's earliest studies—informed by his work as a mathematician—to the publication of his _Ideas_ in 1913. In this welcome new volume, the author takes up the final decades of Husserl's life, addressing the work of his Freiburg period, from 1916 until his death in 1938. As in his earlier work, Mohanty here offers close readings of Husserl's (...) main texts accompanied by accurate summaries, informative commentaries, and original analyses. This book, along with its companion volume, completes the most up-to-date, well-informed, and comprehensive account ever written on Husserl's phenomenological philosophy and its development. (shrink)

The problems of internationalism often look different and require different solutions depending on one’s particular cultural standpoint. Contemporary Indian philosophers find that their philosophical efforts have long been too much oriented to the West, and that what Indian philosophy now needs is less international influence and more rootedness in their own rich tradition. This is needed for a more balanced international dialogue. The goal of internationalism in philosophy is not to bring into being a world‐philosophy, but a global conversation on (...) philosophical problems that is not inhibited by differing approaches. (shrink)

Agrarian environments have to be comprehended as being part of a biophysical and social environment that includes the urban and the nonurban, the arable and the nonarable, and other areas that are integrally linked to the world of agriculture and environment and their allied socioeconomic relations. This article examines the responses of rice biotechnologists located in selected Indian public agricultural institutes under the aegis of the State Agricultural University and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research on questions such as “How (...) is GM (genetically modified) technology perceived by rice biotechnologists and under what limiting conditions is it being pursued in rice biotechnology research? Is there a consensus among rice biotechnologists over the application of GM technology? What are the complexities of the GM policy? and What are the implications of intellectual property rights on GM-based research and how scientists are responding to such institutional norms?”. (shrink)

This book primarily tries to bring out the analogy between the conceptual and methodological discourses on the theme of the other. The term 'Other' here refers to the oppressed sections of the society. It may be dalits, women, indigenous or ethnic communities. Since we are living in a multicultural and multilingual society, we should share our views with others on a platform where issues of the marginalized people are addressed by different scholars following different methods and techniques. Though there are (...) various policies and plans for the welfare of the downtrodden, hardly any change can be seen at the micro-level structure of the society. There are studies which highlighted the problems and ethos of the downtrodden sections, but a majority of those studies neglected the marginalized groups. Hence, we felt the need to highlight the issues and concerns of these groups in a wider context and started thinking on the theme 'Ethnographic Discourse of the Other: Conceptual and Methodological Issues'. This volume attempts to discuss and theorize the pragmatic concepts and issues related to the marginalized groups in contemporary societies in South Asia. This book is interdisciplinary in nature and will be useful to scholars and students of Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics, Social Work, Culture Studies, Gender Studies and Philosophy. It is widely applicable to all sections of the oppressed socially, economically, culturally, academically, politically and other wise. (shrink)

Les étudiants sourds et malentendants (ÉSM) représentent une catégorie de personnes dont les besoins éducatifs spécifiques sont restés sans réponse dans le système éducatif indien. Cette étude, basée sur un travail de terrain, a été menée à l’Anushruti Académie pour les sourds (AAS), une école pour les étudiants ÉSM située dans la ville de Roorkee en Inde. Elle repose sur l’observation de ces enfants dans les salles de classe et des entretiens approfondis avec leurs professeurs afin de cerner leurs positions (...) à l’égard des grands débats sur l’éducation des élèves ÉSM. Les questions de la langue et l’acquisition du langage parlé, les méthodes d’enseignement, la relation dialectique des élèves à la technologie et leur confrontation avec la stigmatisation sont utilisés afin de cerner les expériences vécues des élèves. L’étude souligne la nécessité d’utiliser un langage unificateur qui intègre le contenu usuel du développement académique. Cela renforcera l’accès des étudiants aux différentes disciplines académiques et leur permettra de d’aller au-delà des niveaux élémentaires de réussite scolaire. (shrink)

Renowned philosopher J. N. Mohanty examines the range of Indian philosophy from the Sutra period through the 17th century Navya Nyaya. Instead of concentrating on the different systems, he focuses on the major concepts and problems dealt with in Indian philosophy. The book includes discussions of Indian ethics and social philosophy, as well as of Indian law and aesthetics.

In this book, Mohanty develops a new interpretation of the nature of Indian philsophical thinking. Using the original Sanskrit sources, he examines the concepts of consciousness and subjectivity, theories of language and logic, and meaning and truth, and explicates the concept of theoretical rationality which underlies the Indian philosophies. Mohanty brings to bear insights from modern western analytical and phenomenological philosophies, not so much for comparative purposes, but rather to interpret Indian thinking and to highlight its distinctive features.

The paper addresses three main issues drawing on Husserl’s writings on logic. First, what gives the logical objects their objective status, given the fact that these are intimately connected with human mental processes? Second, if logical objects are objective then how is logical knowledge at all possible? The answer to this question leads to a transcendental foundation of formal logic. Third, how do the principles of logic apply to the real world? This question can be addressed by positing a formal (...) ontology. Against Russell and Whitehead, it has been pointed out that even if logical implication does not in any way depend on human mind, inference is definitely mind-dependent. But this thesis does not necessarily lead to psychologism, as has been pointed out by contemporary Indian logicians. Indian theories of inference deal with the question of truth and falsity but lack a formal ontology. Both pure logic and modern physics claim to be independent of human existence. This claim becomes evident in the conversation between Heisenberg and Tagore. Husserl had distinguished between logical grammar and logic of consequences. The notions of truth and falsity are relevant only in the context of logic of consequences. However, none of the well-known theories of truth, correspondence, coherence or pragmatic theory is free from defects. Following in the footprints of the Advaita Vedantins, it has been maintained that falsity is more fundamental than truth. In the process of cognitive history, a proposition is taken to be true, unless its falsity is proven. Hence the conclusion: since Philosophy is search for the truth, all Philosophy—infinitely—is a gradual rejection of all claims to truth and finally, destroys itself. (shrink)

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.

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)

We draw on the phenomenon of caste-based discrimination in India and signaling theory to assess whether microfinance credit scores improve the odds of female micropreneurs from a lower caste receiving loans and whether visible business characteristics further improve the odds of receiving microfinance loans. In a sample of 3,144 female microfinance loan applicants at a female-focused microloan enterprise in India, females from a lower caste, relative to those from a higher caste, have lower odds of receiving loans when their credit (...) scores are below the mean. However, when females from a lower caste have credit scores higher than the mean, the odds of receiving a loan increase. The practical effect of size is small but meaningful. Loan applicants from a lower caste with a visible signal of business ability do not improve their chances of receiving a loan relative to those from a higher caste. (shrink)

This work throws light on this and clarifies the concepts, and clarifies the amazingly complicated simple question: Is pramanya svatah or paratah? This is one of those question: Is pramanya svatah or paratah?

Feminist Geneaologies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures provides a feminist anaylsis of the questions of sexual and gender politics, economic and cultural marginality, and anti-racist and anti-colonial practices both in the "West" and in the "Third World." This collection, edited by Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, charts the underlying theoretical perspectives and organization practices of the different varieties of feminism that take on questions of colonialism, imperialism, and the repressive rule of colonial, post-colonial and advanced capitalist nation-states. It provides (...) a comparative, relational, historically grounded conception of feminist praxis that differs markedly from the liberal pluralist, multicultural understanding that sheapes some of the dominant version of Euro-American feminism. As a whole, the collection poses a unique challenge to the naturalization of gender based in the experiences, histories and practices of Euro-American women. (shrink)