95 research outputs found
Animal Rights -âOne-of-Us-nessâ: From the Greek Philosophy towards a Modern Stance
Animals, the beautiful creatures of God in the Stoic and especially in Porphyryâs sense, need to be treated as rational. We
know that the Stoics ask for justice to all rational beings, but I think there is no significant proclamation from their side
that openly talks in favour of animalâs justice. They claim the rationality of animals but do not confer any right to
human beings. The later Neo-Platonist philosopher Porphyry magnificently deciphers this idea in his writing On
Abstinence from Animal Food. Aristotleâs successor Theophrastus thinks that both animals and humans are made up of
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 Theophrastusâ perspective not in the way (the technical
theory of justice) the Stoics argued. Porphyryâs 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 the animals can deal
with reasons. The paper highlights on how much we could justificatorily demand the 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 own position undertakes the empathetic ground for animals as an undeserving humanitarian way
Remnants of Words in Indian Grammar
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-Ćakti-vÄda and JÄti-Ćakti-vÄda, 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 NyaÌya and KumÄrilaâs 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 (sÌabda-vivarta-vaÌda) on these issues derived from the works of Pataná·jali and BhartrÌŁhariÌŁ, 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
Moral Education: Hegemony vs. Morality
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, Hareâs 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, Sartreâs 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 Russellâs approach takes a pertinent role. We should secure modern education from the social and stateâs 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
Language Acquisition: Seeing through Wittgenstein
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.
Wittgensteinâs model of language acquisition upholds a liaison centric appeal that stands between experience (use theory of meaning) and mentalism (mind based inner experiences). Wittgensteinâs Tractatus never demarcates the definite mental processes that entangle with the method of understanding and meaning. Wittgensteinâs âlanguage gameâ 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
The Fact/Value Dichotomy: Revisiting Putnam and Habermas
Abstract Under the influence of Hilary Putnamâs 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 Putnamâs sense that may
be possible, relying on moral realism to get rid of ârampant Platonismâ. Tracing
back to âcommunicative actionâ or the Habermasian way that puts forward the
reciprocal understanding of discourse instigates the idea of life-world as composed
of âculturally transmitted and linguistically organized stock of interpretative
patternsâ, this section looks for whether Habermasâ psychoanalysis of
prolonged discussion can accord with Putnamâs thick ethical terms or not.
The last section of the paper pitfalls Putnamâs stance to accepting Habermasâ
âdiscourse ethicsâ that centers around the context of entangling ârational
thoughtsâ to âcommunicationâ, 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 Putnamâs objective dictum towards morality that resonates the
collapse of fact/value dichotomy from a universalistic stand can successfully
evade Rortyâs naive realism (structured by linguistic representation) and
Habermasâ âsociologism about valuesâ (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
âCritical Thinking: An Approach that Synthesizes Analytic Philosophyâ
This paper concentrates on the resurrection of the journey of analytic philosophy from the perspective of âcritical thinking,â 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 âanalysisâ 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 âcritical thinkingâ and the analysis of natural language
Wittgenstein and Husserl: Context Meaning Theory
The present article concentrates on understanding the limits of language
from the realm of meaning theory as portrayed by Wittgenstein. In the
Tractatus, Wittgensteinâs 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 Wittgensteinâs later works like
Philosophical Investigations, the concept of picture theory has faded
away, and he deeply becomes more interested in the âuse theory of
meaningâ and âlanguage game.â My other attempt in this paper is to
show Husserlâs theory of meaning and try to find out its compatibility
with Wittgensteinâs thoughts. Husserl thinks that as a part of
phenomenological experience, âmeaningâ 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
Revisiting the Notion of âAnalysisâ on the Bedrock of Analytic Philosophy
In recent years, there has been a huge resurrection of interest in the idea of âanalysis,â 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
âFeminism: Confronting a Contradictionâ
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
manâs 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 âidealâ and exclusive
qualities of a woman. Even though these qualities are âidealâ 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
âQuineâs Meaning Nihilism: Revisiting Naturalism and Confirmation Method,â
The paper concentrates on an appreciation of W.V. Quineâs thought on meaning and how it escalates beyond the meaning holism and confirmation holism, thereby paving the way for a âmeaning nihilismâ and âconfirmation rejectionismâ. My effort would be to see that how could the acceptance of radical naturalism in Quineâs 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 Quineâs 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 Quineâs later work. I further argue on Quineâs position of meaning that I call, following Hilary Putnam, âmeaning nihilismâ. It seems to me that Quine had no belief like âmeaning consists inâ, or âmeaning depends onâ something. Through this argument, I would like to challenge the confirmation holism that was foisted by Fodor on Quineâs thesis. My attempt would be to scrutinize Putnamâs 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 âscience worthyâ literature
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