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- Dr. Sanjit Chakraborty is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vellore Institute... moreDr. Sanjit Chakraborty is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vellore Institute of Technology -AP University and visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, India. Before that, he was a teaching faculty member at the Indian Institute of Management Indore and the Central University of Hyderabad. His philosophical venture was nourished under the guidance of Professor Hilary Putnam (Emeritus Professor, Harvard University) from 2008 to 2016. His work spans the topics of Philosophy of Mind, Language, Philosophy of Science, Ethics, and AI-Morality.
Sanjit Chakraborty’s books include Human Minds and Cultures (Springer 2024), Engaging Putnam (De Gruyter, 2022), Living without God: A Multicultural Spectrum of Atheism (Springer, 2022), The Labyrinth of Mind and World: Beyond Internalism-Externalism (Routledge, 2020), Understanding Meaning and World: A Relook on Semantic Externalism (CSP, 2016), and Pursuits of Language (upcoming).
Chakraborty has extensively published around fifty papers in much-respected peer-reviewed international and national journals like Philosophia (Springer), Sophia (Springer), Encyclopedia on Business and Professional Ethics (Springer), Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research (Springer), Argumenta, Philosophical Readings, Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, Indian Journal of Analytic Philosophy, American Philosophical Association Newsletters, Politeia, Jadavpur Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy, and Progress, Indian Philosophical Quarterly, International Journal of Applied Ethics, and so on. His works have been reviewed and cited in reputed international journals by noted scholars.
Chakraborty has been invited for talks at different renowned institutions and universities overseas, like Harvard University, Oxford University, Humboldt University, University of London, University of Dublin, Imperial College London, Institute for Visual Intelligence, New York, and several Universities and IITs, IIMs in India. Chakraborty holds the editor and referee positions in the journals Human Affairs (De Gruyter), Journal of Scholarly Publishing (University of Toronto Press), Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence (Taylor and Francis), Culture and Dialogue (Brill), Research Ethics (Sage), Sophia (Springer), and book reviewer of Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan.
Email: sanjit.chakraborty@vitap.ac.in/cogitosanjit@gmail.com
Mobile: +91 8918331243edit
This chapter critiques the notion of identity, a philosophical reaction in the Quinean sense that vindicates another significant hypothesis, which is called the “No entity without identity” theorem. Here, the identification of an entity... more
This chapter critiques the notion of identity, a philosophical reaction in the Quinean sense that vindicates another significant hypothesis, which is called the “No entity without identity” theorem. Here, the identification of an entity relies upon its identity. The first segment of this chapter revisits the following question: How do we encounter the concept of a subjective “mind”? Could we “infer” or “experience” the concept of “mind” in our daily lives? Every entity has some characteristics that prompt comparison with similar entities. Although I think that other minds have a subjective periphery and that other minds have an objective periphery lurking behind this (privileged access), we can construe the relationship in a subjective way (individual mind). In the second section of the chapter, I address a different point by considering why the idea of “other minds” causes philosophical dilemmas. Can “other minds” exist as a substance in one’s own mind? The category of human knowledge encompasses the reality of minds and other minds. The other minds remain an accompanying part of the individual mind since the expression, belief, and mental content of the individual mind merge in the linguistic expression in a split manner that we may ascribe as privileged access (subjective incorrigible knowledge) and corrigible knowledge. But I think that the relation between minds and other minds sounds especially idiosyncratic in its own identity. Despite becoming diverse, the individual mind can still be intimate by blending and attunement between the subjective and objective dichotomy.
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This thematic volume entitled Human Minds and Cultures deciphers different aspects of human minds and cultures that differ in their methodological patterns. It exhibits humanity as a universal, underlying cultural multiplicity coping with... more
This thematic volume entitled Human Minds and Cultures deciphers different aspects of human minds and cultures that differ in their methodological patterns. It exhibits humanity as a universal, underlying cultural multiplicity coping with diverse prospects of normative morality, semiotics, and socio-linguistic human affairs. Two major concerns that the thematic volume anticipates here are as follows:
First, an assessment of literature is traced back to human affairs and cultures. Literature transmits human life into artistic conventions where cultures and minds echo their intermingled alignments with the subjective and inter-subjective panorama of morality, understanding, and knowledge. The principle of “incommensurability of cultures” revives the idea of the universal comprehension of humanity, which is infused with the dimensions of moral values in Charles Taylor’s words and “accord equal respect to actually evolved cultures” (Taylor, 1994: 42). This doubtlessly seems a contentious issue. As I have written elsewhere, “Besides, the context of the abiding expansion of universal-realization of humanity needs to be linked with the dimensions of moral values, care, and philosophizing life — an art of life with numerous ecosystems” (Chakraborty, 2021b: 774).
Second, a sociocultural value is inferred from the author’s inter-subjective intention and the conscience articulated by their intellect, liberal ideas, and remarkable praxis in society. This technique is not a social artefact but a dynamic insight in which moral philosophy preserves someone and endows those thinkers with their moral parameters, freedom, and the notion of choices. The concept of humanity is surplus in creativity, and human minds intermingle with others and the world through freedom, love, and societal norms. In Keats’ sense, “soul-making” is nothing but the celestial relation between the poet and poetry, or the extended mind and nature. Minds outpace the non-naturalistic transcendental sphere by paving the way first to subjectivity and then to morality. The epistemic representation of the mind precedes an ontological explanation of the mental contents.
First, an assessment of literature is traced back to human affairs and cultures. Literature transmits human life into artistic conventions where cultures and minds echo their intermingled alignments with the subjective and inter-subjective panorama of morality, understanding, and knowledge. The principle of “incommensurability of cultures” revives the idea of the universal comprehension of humanity, which is infused with the dimensions of moral values in Charles Taylor’s words and “accord equal respect to actually evolved cultures” (Taylor, 1994: 42). This doubtlessly seems a contentious issue. As I have written elsewhere, “Besides, the context of the abiding expansion of universal-realization of humanity needs to be linked with the dimensions of moral values, care, and philosophizing life — an art of life with numerous ecosystems” (Chakraborty, 2021b: 774).
Second, a sociocultural value is inferred from the author’s inter-subjective intention and the conscience articulated by their intellect, liberal ideas, and remarkable praxis in society. This technique is not a social artefact but a dynamic insight in which moral philosophy preserves someone and endows those thinkers with their moral parameters, freedom, and the notion of choices. The concept of humanity is surplus in creativity, and human minds intermingle with others and the world through freedom, love, and societal norms. In Keats’ sense, “soul-making” is nothing but the celestial relation between the poet and poetry, or the extended mind and nature. Minds outpace the non-naturalistic transcendental sphere by paving the way first to subjectivity and then to morality. The epistemic representation of the mind precedes an ontological explanation of the mental contents.
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The nominal ground that entwines human beings and animal behaviours is unwilling to admit moral valuing as a non-human act. Just to nail it down explicitly, two clauses ramify the moral conscience of human beings as follows: a) Can... more
The nominal ground that entwines human beings and animal behaviours is unwilling to admit moral valuing as a non-human act. Just to nail it down explicitly, two clauses ramify the moral conscience of human beings as follows: a) Can nonhumans be moral beings?, b) Unconscious animal behaviours go beyond any moral judgments. My approach aims to rebuff these anthropomorphic clauses by justifying animals' moral beings and animals' moral behaviours from a metaethical stance. A meta-ethical outlook may enable an analysis of ethical and normative views through the limit of moral motives and reasoning. Animals' sense of moral motives and their apparatus of getting involved in moral acts cannot be compared with human actions. In human moral engagement, we abide by moral paradigmatic theories and their diversified attitudes that could have conceptual and linguistic use in our societal discourses. However, animals' intentional apparatus may have the propensity to choose an act following the moral consequences (care, utility, responsibility, etc.) in their life-forms.
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This book deals with the intricate issue of approaching atheism—methodologically as well as conceptually—from the perspective of cultural pluralism. What does ‘atheism’ mean in different cultural contexts? Can this term be applied... more
This book deals with the intricate issue of approaching atheism—methodologically as well as conceptually—from the perspective of cultural pluralism. What does ‘atheism’ mean in different cultural contexts? Can this term be applied appropriately to different religious discourses which conceptualize God/gods/Goddess/goddesses (and also godlessness) in hugely divergent ways? Is my ‘God’ the same as yours? If not, then how can your atheism be the same as mine? In other words, this volume raises the question: Is it not high time that we proposed a comparative study of atheism(s) alongside that of religions, rather than believing that atheism is centered in the ‘Western’ experience? Apart from answering these questions, the book highlights the much-needed focus on the philosophical negotiations between atheism, theism and agnosticism. The fine chapters collected here present pluralist negotiations with the notion of atheism and its ethical, theological, literary and scientific corollaries.
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Simon Blackburn, in Truth A Guide for the Perplexed (Blackburn 2006), deploys the relation of thought with the facts and says, 'We met the argument that theorizing involves an impossible activity of stepping outside our own skins and... more
Simon Blackburn, in Truth A Guide for the Perplexed (Blackburn 2006), deploys the relation of thought with the facts and says, 'We met the argument that theorizing involves an impossible activity of stepping outside our own skins and pretending to a 'transcendental' point of view, a standpoint from which we can survey the relationship between our thoughts and facts, without using the very forms of thought whose relation to the facts we are hoping to describe.' (Blackburn, 2006, 109). My philosophical reflections on this claim appreciate the view and turn towards the epistemic semblance in the metaphysical purview. A few challenges of the theory take up a side-effect of the 'knowing procedures' and its subsequent notion of the rigid concomitance of realism without a human face. My endeavor would be to slightly bypassing the account of objective realism and debut into the sphere of the old-fashioned query, 'what do we know about the conceptualized world where concepts steadily contaminate objects?' We may appreciative beliefs and concepts, which are human creations, as these impart to the human-experienced world where concepts are the objective features of the subject's conceptual scheme.
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Amartya Sen’s remarkable endeavour to realize the normative capability of welfare economics goes beyond the impecunious resultants of the neoclassical welfare economy. The neoclassical welfare economy decoratively bracketed values to... more
Amartya Sen’s remarkable endeavour to realize the normative capability of welfare economics goes beyond the impecunious resultants of the neoclassical welfare economy. The neoclassical welfare economy decoratively bracketed values to speculate about factual observations. This was due to the influence of logical positivists and their convictions about experimental scientific statements (primarily mathematical) and their vicinity to empirical truths and analytic statements. Sen adequately inquires “whether morality can be expressed in the form of choice between preference patterns rather than between actions” (Sen, 1997a, 78).
“A new phase classical theory” in economics from the hands of Sen and some others put forth two pivotal issues in a unified manner:
a. Mathematical models of an economy.
b. Ethical reflection on the subject of welfare economy–a value-laden enterprise in Sen’s literature.
In general, welfarists and utilitarians affirm that moral values are anchored in individual agency and involve mental metric utilities (pleasure, happiness, pain etc.). This focus, first of all, results in a disadvantage, as it undermines freedom in terms of achievement. Secondly, it pays no heed to achievement reasonably giving more importance to those who are incapable of reflecting on any one of those mental metrics. Besides, Sen argues that equality of opportunity does not accord with the equality of freedom, and its reason is rooted in the scope of the incongruity of human beings and the diversified meanings of efficiency. Developing a general methodological approach to revisit the notion of inequality concerned by exploring a particular substantive stand that Sen aims to underscore involves examining how social arrangements work to define freedom, capabilities, and welfare to ensure comparisons and assessments of quality of life.
“A new phase classical theory” in economics from the hands of Sen and some others put forth two pivotal issues in a unified manner:
a. Mathematical models of an economy.
b. Ethical reflection on the subject of welfare economy–a value-laden enterprise in Sen’s literature.
In general, welfarists and utilitarians affirm that moral values are anchored in individual agency and involve mental metric utilities (pleasure, happiness, pain etc.). This focus, first of all, results in a disadvantage, as it undermines freedom in terms of achievement. Secondly, it pays no heed to achievement reasonably giving more importance to those who are incapable of reflecting on any one of those mental metrics. Besides, Sen argues that equality of opportunity does not accord with the equality of freedom, and its reason is rooted in the scope of the incongruity of human beings and the diversified meanings of efficiency. Developing a general methodological approach to revisit the notion of inequality concerned by exploring a particular substantive stand that Sen aims to underscore involves examining how social arrangements work to define freedom, capabilities, and welfare to ensure comparisons and assessments of quality of life.
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Uniformity in human actions and attitudes incumbent with the ceteris paribus clause of folk psychology lucidly transits moral thoughts into the domain of subject versus object-centric explorations. In Zettel, Wittgenstein argues,... more
Uniformity in human actions and attitudes incumbent with the ceteris paribus clause of folk psychology lucidly transits moral thoughts into the domain of subject versus object-centric explorations. In Zettel, Wittgenstein argues, “Concepts with fixed limits would demand uniformity of behaviour, but where I am certain, someone else is uncertain. And that is the fact of nature.” (Wittgenstein 2007, 68). Reflecting on the moral principle of “ethical giving” revives a novel stance in modern moral philosophy. An “ethical giving” is a moral position that looks at giving from the context of harmonizing the changing demands of situations with normative ethical principles. Despite giving more prominence to the query of intuition, the chapter brings up the justification of normative moral principles pertaining to their applications and purports. Human activities
aimed at decision-making goals conducted by the moral compass are nothing but the sanction of certain ethical norms and rules. In this context, two principles, the normative aspect and the perspective aspect, need to be expounded in parallel.
aimed at decision-making goals conducted by the moral compass are nothing but the sanction of certain ethical norms and rules. In this context, two principles, the normative aspect and the perspective aspect, need to be expounded in parallel.
Research Interests: Ethics and Applied Ethics
Under the influence of Hilary Putnam’s 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... more
Under the influence of Hilary Putnam’s 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 Putnam’s sense that may be possible, relying on moral realism to get rid of ‘rampant Platonism’. Tracing back to ‘communicative action’ or the Habermasian way that puts forward the reciprocal understanding of discourse instigates the idea of life-world as composed of ‘culturally transmitted and linguistically organized stock of interpretative patterns’, this section looks for whether Habermas’ psychoanalysis of prolonged discussion can accord with Putnam’s thick ethical terms or not. The last section of the paper pitfalls Putnam’s stance to accepting Habermas’ ‘discourse ethics’ that centers around the context of entangling ‘rational thoughts’ to ‘communication’, but he introduces the idea of fallibilism in a rat...
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A collective understanding that traces a debate between ‘what is science?’ and ‘what is a science about?’ has an extraction to the notion of scientific knowledge. The debate undertakes the pursuit of science that hardly extravagance the... more
A collective understanding that traces a debate between ‘what is science?’ and ‘what is a science about?’ has an extraction to the notion of scientific knowledge. The debate undertakes the pursuit of science that hardly extravagance the dogma of pseudo-science. Scientific conjectures invoke science as an intellectual activity poured by experiences and repetition of the objects that look independent of any idealist views (believes in the consensus of mind-dependence reality). The realistic machinery employs in an empiricist exposition of the objective phenomenon by synchronizing the general method to make observational predictions that cover all the phenomena of the particular entity without any exception. The formation of science encloses several epistemological purviews and a succession of conjectures cum refutation that a newer theorem could reinstate. My attempt is to advocate a holistic plea of scientific conjectures that outruns the restricted regulation of experience or testab...
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Uniformity in human actions and attitudes incumbent with the ceteris paribus clause of folk psychology lucidly transits moral thoughts into the domain of subject versus object-centric explorations. In Zettel, Wittgenstein argues,... more
Uniformity in human actions and attitudes incumbent with the ceteris paribus clause of folk psychology lucidly transits moral thoughts into the domain of subject versus object-centric explorations. In Zettel, Wittgenstein argues, “Concepts with fixed limits would demand uniformity of behaviour, but where I am certain, someone else is uncertain. And that is the fact of nature.” (Wittgenstein 2007, 68). Reflecting on the moral principle of “ethical giving” revives a novel stance in modern moral philosophy. An “ethical giving” is a moral position that looks at giving from the context of harmonizing the changing demands of situations with normative ethical principles. Despite giving more prominence to the query of intuition, the chapter brings up the justification of normative moral principles pertaining to their applications and purports. Human activities aimed at decision-making goals conducted by the moral compass are nothing but the sanction of certain ethical norms and rules. In this context, two principles, the normative aspect and the perspective aspect need to be expounded in parallel.
The perspective-based principle seeks practical guides to action, whereas the normative aspect principle looks for the concrete moral justification behind it. Normatively based moral decisions hinge on the probabilities and interests of agents that can sometimes lead towards a better choice. Thomas Nagel’s thought sounds more appealing, since his idea of practical conflict bends towards “...conflict between values which are incomparable for reasons apart from uncertainty about the facts.” (Nagel 2013, 128). Positions on moral personality and equality of justice collide with the conception of verities of the agents’ reason that cogitate a minimal aspect on the morally significant properties (range properties), which can hardly be possessed by all human beings equally. This argument sounds reasonable in light of Singer’s thought of “the principle of equal consideration of interests.” (Singer 2003, 21–22)
The concern of this section is deliberative about how an agent could balance the demand of moral situations and the spirit of the moral principle devoid of being close to the relative truth. The conception of the moral decision remains capricious in line with the agent’s mood, time, and situation. The germane queries are:
(a)
How could one get the simpliciter of moral balance in “ethical giving” or offering help to the poor, orphans, and so on, who need helps from the agents and society?
(b)
Can we find any universalized principle in defense of ethical giving?
The perspective-based principle seeks practical guides to action, whereas the normative aspect principle looks for the concrete moral justification behind it. Normatively based moral decisions hinge on the probabilities and interests of agents that can sometimes lead towards a better choice. Thomas Nagel’s thought sounds more appealing, since his idea of practical conflict bends towards “...conflict between values which are incomparable for reasons apart from uncertainty about the facts.” (Nagel 2013, 128). Positions on moral personality and equality of justice collide with the conception of verities of the agents’ reason that cogitate a minimal aspect on the morally significant properties (range properties), which can hardly be possessed by all human beings equally. This argument sounds reasonable in light of Singer’s thought of “the principle of equal consideration of interests.” (Singer 2003, 21–22)
The concern of this section is deliberative about how an agent could balance the demand of moral situations and the spirit of the moral principle devoid of being close to the relative truth. The conception of the moral decision remains capricious in line with the agent’s mood, time, and situation. The germane queries are:
(a)
How could one get the simpliciter of moral balance in “ethical giving” or offering help to the poor, orphans, and so on, who need helps from the agents and society?
(b)
Can we find any universalized principle in defense of ethical giving?
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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-śakti-vāda and Jāti-śakti-vāda, the two contender doctrines. The... more
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-śakti-vāda and Jāti-śakti-vāda, 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 Nyāya and Kumārila’s 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 (śabda-vivarta-vāda) on these issues derived from the works of Patan᷈jali and Bhartṛharị, 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.
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Morality and Humanoid Robots: Revisiting Different Ethical Theories by Dr. Sanjit Chakraborty, Visiting Faculty, IIM Indore
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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, Hare’s tune for... more
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, Hare’s 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, Sartre’s 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 Russell’s approach takes a pertinent role. We should secure modern education from the social and state’s 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.
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The present article concentrates on understanding the limits of language from the realm of meaning theory as portrayed by Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein’s picture theory provides a glimpse of reality by indicating that a... more
The present article concentrates on understanding the limits of language from the realm of meaning theory as portrayed by Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein’s 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 Wittgenstein’s later works like Philosophical Investigations, the concept of picture theory has faded away, and he deeply becomes more interested in the ‘use theory of meaning’ and ‘language game.’ My other attempt in this paper is to show Husserl’s theory of meaning and try to find out its compatibility with Wittgenstein’s thoughts. Husserl thinks that as a part of phenomenological experience, ‘meaning’ 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 ...
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The paper concentrates on the most pressing question of Indian philosophy: What is the exact connotation of a word or what sort of entity helps us to identify the meaning of a word? The paper focuses on the clash between Realism (Nya-ya)... more
The paper concentrates on the most pressing question of Indian philosophy: What is the exact connotation of a word or what sort of entity helps us to identify the meaning of a word? The paper focuses on the clash between Realism (Nya-ya) and Apohava-da (Buddhist) regarding the debate whether the meaning of a word is particular/ universal or both. The paper asserts that though Naiya-yikas and M1 ma-m· sakas challenged Buddhist Apohava-da, yet they realized that it is difficult to establish an opinion in support of a word that conceptually denotes a negative meaning first.
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Critical thinking is a term that is more close to philosophy. Like philosophy, critical thinking is also a journey of human life, which makes the process of human activity more disciplined and intellectually responsible. A person guided... more
Critical thinking is a term that is more close to philosophy. Like philosophy, critical thinking is also a journey of human life, which makes the process of human activity more disciplined and intellectually responsible. A person guided by reason and reflective thoughts can attain an intelligent decision. Now, one can ask that „what is called critical thinking?‟ and „how does it hold the hand of philosophy (especially in analytic philosophy that I am focusing here now)?‟
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The paper concentrates how could the acceptance of radical naturalism in Quine’s theory of meaning escorts Quine to ponder the naturalized epistemology. W.V. Quine was fascinated about the evidential acquisition of scientific knowledge,... more
The paper concentrates how could the acceptance of radical naturalism in Quine’s theory of meaning escorts Quine to ponder the naturalized epistemology. W.V. Quine was fascinated about the evidential acquisition of scientific knowledge, and language as a vehicle of knowledge takes a significant role in his regimented naturalistic theory that is anchored in the scientific framework. My point is that there is an interesting shift from epistemology to language (semantic externalism). The rejection of the mentalist approach on meaning vindicates external that somehow pave the way for ‘semantic holism’, a thesis where the meaning of a sentence is defined in turns to the totality of nodes and paths of its semantic networks where the meaning of linguistic units depend upon the meaning of the entire language. I would like to relook on Quine’s heart throbbing claim about the co-extensiveness of the sentential relation and the evidential relation that point towards an affirmation of meaning h...
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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... more
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. Wittgenstein’s model of language acquisition upholds a liaison centric appeal that stands between experience (use theory of meaning) and mentalism (mind based inner experiences). Wittgenstein’s Tractatus never demarcates the definite mental processes that entangle with the method of understanding and meaning. Wittgenstein’s ‘language game’ 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.
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This paper attempts to revisit how ‘acquaintance’ could bring about belief and how belief becomes knowledge in our language system due to the credential undertaking of truth, justification, evidence, and causal or conceptual preservation.... more
This paper attempts to revisit how ‘acquaintance’ could bring about belief and how belief becomes knowledge in our language system due to the credential undertaking of truth, justification, evidence, and causal or conceptual preservation. My quest in this paper is to interrogate belief and the cessation of belief (I call this the ‘death of belief’) from the perspective of the doxastic approach of externalism and internalism in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. I will attempt to make sense of the nominal appeal (an approach that conserves the process of continuing belief through evidence and conceptualization) to both of these ideas in a sophisticated manner. The linguistic form of using words seems allied to the context sensitivity of the speakers involved in social practices. A tripartite structure pivots the model of linguistic belief, where minds are causally entrenched in a world that stimulates conceptual or internal states, representing how objectivity works. The entanglements of concepts with pictures hinge on conceptual prerequisites to impact the world.
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This paper discusses Kant’s prospect of ‘hope’ that entangles with interrelated epistemic terms like belief, faith, knowledge, etc. The first part of the paper illustrates the boundary of knowing in the light of a Platonic analysis to... more
This paper discusses Kant’s prospect of ‘hope’ that entangles with interrelated epistemic terms like belief, faith, knowledge, etc. The first part of the paper illustrates the boundary of knowing in the light of a Platonic analysis to highlight the distinction between empiricism and rationalism. Kant’s notion of ‘transcendent metaphysical knowledge’, a path-breaking way to look at the metaphysical thought, can fit with the regulative principle that seems favourable to the experience-centric knowledge. The second part of the paper defines ‘hope’ as an interwoven part of belief, besides ‘hope’ as a component of ‘happiness’ can persuade the future behaviours of the individuals. Revisiting Kant’s three categorizations of hopes (eschatological hope, political hope, and hope for the kingdom of ends), the paper traces out Kant’s good will as a ‘hope’ and his conception of humanity.
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This fictionalized script (fictional dialogue between Coronavirus and the Philosopher) traces the contours of the conversation that seeks to fathom the crisis unleashed by the outbreak and global spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19... more
This fictionalized script (fictional dialogue between Coronavirus and the Philosopher) traces the contours of the conversation that seeks to fathom the crisis unleashed by the outbreak and global spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19 pandemic) and the ensuing anxieties created in our current social living. The scenario of deepened isolation of the self from the other (social distancing and 'stay-at-home' or various lockdowns) is considered, and it is proposed (by the philosopher, I presume) that isolation, while an unavoidable requirement, does not mean it is some mental lassitude but rather may be seen as an enthusiastic concern toward recovering physical and mental wellbeing of the larger communities concerned to control the possible avenues of transmission of the contagion. The conversation meanders around the issue of quarantine, its attraction or otherwise, and who benefits from this restriction, its effects on one's mental constitution, etc. Philosophers have been known to isolate themselves in other contexts and situations (Yajñvalkya and the Buddha withdrawing to the forest; the Jain mendicants crossing "the ford"; the Stoics withdrawing from society, Nietzsche's retreating regularly to the sanatorium; Heidegger to the Black Forrest; Kant's unsocial sociability and Wittgenstein living lonesome lives, etc.) give us a taste of what is to come in the dialogue to resist the calamity of the coronavirus and its grim effects that engulf the entire humanity.
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A collective understanding that traces a debate between 'what is science?' and 'what is a science about?' has an extraction to the notion of scientific knowledge. The debate undertakes the pursuit of science that hardly extravagance the... more
A collective understanding that traces a debate between 'what is science?' and 'what is a science about?' has an extraction to the notion of scientific knowledge. The debate undertakes the pursuit of science that hardly extravagance the dogma of pseudo-science. Scientific conjectures invoke science as an intellectual activity poured by experiences and repetition of the objects that look independent of any idealist views (believes in the consensus of mind-dependence reality). The realistic machinery employs in an empiricist exposition of the objective phenomenon by synchronizing the general method to make observational predictions that cover all the phenomena of the particular entity without any exception. The formation of science encloses several epistemological purviews and a succession of conjectures cum refutation that a newer theorem could reinstate. My attempt is to advocate a holistic plea of scientific conjectures that outruns the restricted regulation of experience or testable hypothesis to render the validity of a chain of logical reasoning (deductive or inductive) of basic scientific statements. The milieu of scientific intensification integrates speculation that loads efficiency towards a new experimental dimension where the reality is not itself objective or observers relative; in fact the observed phenomenon divulges in the constructive progression of preferred methods of falsifiability and uncertainty.
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This book puts forward a harmonious analysis of similarities and differences between two concepts—human minds and cultures—and strives for a multicultural spectrum of philosophical explorations that could assist them in pondering the... more
This book puts forward a harmonious analysis of similarities and differences between two concepts—human minds and cultures—and strives for a multicultural spectrum of philosophical explorations that could assist them in pondering the striking pursuit of envisaging human minds and cultures as an essential appraisal of philosophy and the social sciences. The book hinges on a theoretical understanding of the indispensable liaison between the dichotomy of minds and objectivity residing in semantic-ontological conjectures.
The ethnographic sense of cultures confines the scope of cultural scientism, an evolutionary paradigm on the functionalist turn, where one could enthral the cultural phenomenon from the contentment of the conflict of scientific quandaries. Hence, cultural relativism concedes that cultures have some descriptive contents, like customs, beliefs, moral codes, other minds, etc., that are followed by an individual or a group of people. However, the notion of societalsemiotics embarks on the ‘semiotic conception of culture’ that deploys modernity and values centred on ethical conjectures.
Human Minds and Cultures conspicuously attune the cultural edifice of moral minds and cope with the enduring prospects of ethics, genders, laws, and socio-political affairs. Essential reading for anyone with a sparkling interest in human minds and cultures.
The ethnographic sense of cultures confines the scope of cultural scientism, an evolutionary paradigm on the functionalist turn, where one could enthral the cultural phenomenon from the contentment of the conflict of scientific quandaries. Hence, cultural relativism concedes that cultures have some descriptive contents, like customs, beliefs, moral codes, other minds, etc., that are followed by an individual or a group of people. However, the notion of societalsemiotics embarks on the ‘semiotic conception of culture’ that deploys modernity and values centred on ethical conjectures.
Human Minds and Cultures conspicuously attune the cultural edifice of moral minds and cope with the enduring prospects of ethics, genders, laws, and socio-political affairs. Essential reading for anyone with a sparkling interest in human minds and cultures.
Research Interests:
Hilary Whitehall Putnam was one of the leading philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. As student of Rudolph Carnap's and Hans Reichenbach's, he went on to become not only a major figure in North American analytic philosophy,... more
Hilary Whitehall Putnam was one of the leading philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. As student of Rudolph Carnap's and Hans Reichenbach's, he went on to become not only a major figure in North American analytic philosophy, who made significant contributions to the philosphy of mind, language, mathematics, and physics but also to the disciplines of logic, number theory, and computer science. He passed away on March 13, 2016. The present volume is a memorial to his extraordinary intellectual contributions, honoring his contributions as a philosopher, a thinker, and a public intellectual. It features essays by an international team of leading philosophers, covering all aspects of Hilary Putnam's philosophy from his work in ethics and the history of philosophy to his contributions to the philosophy of science, logic, and mathematics. Each essay is an original contribution.
Author information
James Conant, Univ. of Chicago/Univ. of Leipzig, USA/Germany; Sanjit Chakraborty, IISER Kolkata, India.
Web-link: https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110769210/html?lang=en
Author information
James Conant, Univ. of Chicago/Univ. of Leipzig, USA/Germany; Sanjit Chakraborty, IISER Kolkata, India.
Web-link: https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110769210/html?lang=en
Research Interests:
This book deals with the intricate issue of approaching atheism—methodologically as well as conceptually—from the perspective of cultural pluralism. What does ‘atheism’ mean in different cultural contexts? Can this term be applied... more
This book deals with the intricate issue of approaching atheism—methodologically as well as conceptually—from the perspective of cultural pluralism. What does ‘atheism’ mean in different cultural contexts? Can this term be applied appropriately to different religious discourses which conceptualize God/gods/Goddess/goddesses (and also godlessness) in hugely divergent ways? Is my ‘God’ the same as yours? If not, then how can your atheism be the same as mine? In other words, this volume raises the question: Is it not high time that we proposed a comparative study of atheism(s) alongside that of religions, rather than believing that atheism is centered in the ‘Western’ experience? Apart from answering these questions, the book highlights the much-needed focus on the philosophical negotiations between atheism, theism and agnosticism. The fine chapters collected here present pluralist negotiations with the notion of atheism and its ethical, theological, literary and scientific corollaries.
Research Interests:
This book carries forward the discourse on the mind’s engagement with the world. It reviews the semantic and metaphysical debates around internalism and externalism, the location of content, and the indeterminacy of meaning in language.... more
This book carries forward the discourse on the mind’s engagement with the world. It reviews the semantic and metaphysical debates around internalism and externalism, the location of content, and the indeterminacy of meaning in language.
The volume analyses the writings of Jackson, Chomsky, Putnam, Quine, Bilgrami and others, to reconcile opposing theories of language and the mind. It ventures into Cartesian ontology and Fregean semantics to understand how mental content becomes world-oriented in our linguistic communication. Further, the author explores the liaison between the mind and the world from the phenomenological perspective, particularly, Husserl’s linguistic turn and Heidegger’s intersubjective entreaty for Dasein. The book conceives thought as a biological and socio-linguistic product which engages with the mind-world question through the conceptual and causal apparatuses of language.
A major intervention in the field of philosophy of language, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers interested in philosophy, phenomenology, epistemology, and metaphysics.
Reviews:
‘Since Descartes the relationship between mind and world has been the central problem of philosophy. There have been many attempts to soften or undercut the dualist picture that sees our public and linguistic behaviour as no more than an indication of a hidden, interior world of consciousness. None have commanded general assent, but in this ambitious and learned book, The Labyrinth of Mind and World: Beyond Internalism-Externalism, Sanjit Chakraborty reviews many of these attempts, and weaves a careful and rich tapestry taking insights from many of the most important writers in both the phenomenological and the analytic traditions. To do so is a major achievement, that will provide a landmark for all future work on the issue.’
—Simon Blackburn, Emeritus Professor, University of Cambridge
‘In this book Chakraborty takes a unique approach to matters of intentionality, one which attempts to combine the phenomenological method with insights from externalist philosophy of language. This will be of interest to those interested in the nature of mental representation.’
—Sanford Goldberg, Professor of Philosophy, Northwestern University
The volume analyses the writings of Jackson, Chomsky, Putnam, Quine, Bilgrami and others, to reconcile opposing theories of language and the mind. It ventures into Cartesian ontology and Fregean semantics to understand how mental content becomes world-oriented in our linguistic communication. Further, the author explores the liaison between the mind and the world from the phenomenological perspective, particularly, Husserl’s linguistic turn and Heidegger’s intersubjective entreaty for Dasein. The book conceives thought as a biological and socio-linguistic product which engages with the mind-world question through the conceptual and causal apparatuses of language.
A major intervention in the field of philosophy of language, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers interested in philosophy, phenomenology, epistemology, and metaphysics.
Reviews:
‘Since Descartes the relationship between mind and world has been the central problem of philosophy. There have been many attempts to soften or undercut the dualist picture that sees our public and linguistic behaviour as no more than an indication of a hidden, interior world of consciousness. None have commanded general assent, but in this ambitious and learned book, The Labyrinth of Mind and World: Beyond Internalism-Externalism, Sanjit Chakraborty reviews many of these attempts, and weaves a careful and rich tapestry taking insights from many of the most important writers in both the phenomenological and the analytic traditions. To do so is a major achievement, that will provide a landmark for all future work on the issue.’
—Simon Blackburn, Emeritus Professor, University of Cambridge
‘In this book Chakraborty takes a unique approach to matters of intentionality, one which attempts to combine the phenomenological method with insights from externalist philosophy of language. This will be of interest to those interested in the nature of mental representation.’
—Sanford Goldberg, Professor of Philosophy, Northwestern University