Balagangadhara

I was expecting you to show me where the reasoning I formulated goes wrong , but you do not do so. The analogy you draw, I am afraid, does not quite do the job you want it to. One can easily hold the following two beliefs (your example) without any fear of contradiction: (a) There is only one way to Bombay (this is it) and (b) There are many ways to Bombay (this is one of them). The ‘how’ of it …

This article on Sulekha says: ut there can be no doubt that for the past thousand years at least the caste system has been a great nightmare for the majority of our people and continues to be a great bane of hindu society as well as hinduism today. When you write this article on the caste system, I do want you very much to make clear where your certainty regarding the nature of the caste system …

Firstly, you want to know whether there is anything intrinsically wrong with performing idol worship the way it is with robbery. Let us assume that we agree we know what robbery is and that it is intrinsically wrong. We need to make these assumptions because (a) in all probability, the robbers do not see anything intrinsically wrong in the act of robbing; (b) even then, some of us might not be …

To help you think through the problem you “whether Christians can get enlightened”, try using this analogy. Something, let us call it ‘daffodil’, fascinates us. Let us also assume that a great deal of concern and interest is expressed about it. Consider two scenarios now, each of which testifies to our fascination. The first scenario is this. There is versification (call it ‘poetry’) and …

Original. [ Appeared in Christendom en filosofie : opstellen over wijsbegeerte, wereldbeeld en wetenschappen van het antieke christendom over Nietzsche tot fundamentalisme vandaag. p.51-82] In this article, we would like to reflect upon the contemporary relevance of the encounter between ancient Roman culture and Early Christianity. There is a reason for choosing this theme. Today, a few heathen …

This post will use an imagery as its organising thread, which tracks the search for enlightenment in terms of notions known to us from our secondary and higher education. If we consider the search for happiness in these terms, then the ideas expressed there could be reformulated thus: as human beings, almost all of us would like to be literates or would like to have a primary education. This is …

Here is the question: How would one translate the word ‘God’ into, say, Sanskrit? Now, the answer has to satisfy certain conditions because the question also meets certain conditions. Let me say very clearly what all these are, so that the playground and the rules are transparent and favour no one party in the dispute. I propose we accept the best theory of meaning that exists in the market place. …

This one begins to reflect about the principle of charity in relationship to the current US President, Donald Trump (from now on, Trump). As you might know, the principle of charity has been formulated in different ways by different people. (Even the first page of a google search of the word ‘principle of charity’ allows you to access many of these documents quickly.) This post will stick strictly …

Why understanding bullshit is important? Three reasons: (a) there is a very frequent use of the word ‘bullshit’ (mostly in my posts); (b) bullshit has been tied directly to truth in the literature on the subject, (c) far more important is the fact that it is much more connected to knowledge than has so far been acknowledged. In this post, the focus is on the third reason. I First, an …

Actually, there are two questions that need to be distinguished from each other. There is, firstly, the question about the nature of ‘Eastern’ Christianity. If it is muted in its proselytizing drive in all cultures the same way and if it is ’tolerant’ in exactly the same way in all cultures, it makes sense to ask the question whether (a) different factors in all these cultures have brought about …

To begin with, it is a matter of scholarly consensus among Classicists and philosophers that the concept of “Will” was absent from Greek thought and that St. Augustine was the first to develop it. Aristotle, for instance, had the notion of practical cognition and not ‘will’. “Akrasia” can only be loosely translated as “weakness of the will” simply because we do not quite know how to translate it …

Let us assume that the Church Fathers (or the Apostles or whoever else) planned to introduce an eschatological doctrine and some mode of worship. (Let us further assume that their reasoning or their strategy was something analogous to your impressions: their intention was to induce a sense of urgency and guilt.) Our problem is not to explain their possible motives but to explain the success of …

Speaking about the ‘use’ or the ‘results and effects’ of theories has a very venerable ancestry in the western philosophy. It is called “pragmatism”, if the ’truth’ is coupled to the ‘uses’ and ‘results and effects’; it becomes “instrumentalism”, if the notion of truth is dispensed with. So, it might be useful if you were to familiarize with their arguments. (There is nothing specifically …

“Causality” is not a notion in physics but comes from philosophy. Perhaps, you have forgotten that there existed (and exist) generations of scientists and philosophers of science who deny that “causality” has anything to do with sciences. Some argue this by suggesting that scientific theories do not describe the structure of the world but are merely useful instruments in prediction and control. …

The Ancient Romans spoke of ‘Peoples’ and ‘Nations’. They saw traditions making a group into a people and distinguishing people (and, sometimes, ‘nations’) from each other. Different peoples (distinguished from each other on the basis of ancestral traditions) could live together in a nation and a nation itself could host multiple peoples and traditions. Consequently, they did not see Christians as …

The Ancient (and modern) philosophers make the distinction between beliefs that are merely opinions of individuals and beliefs that are knowledge claims. Today, when modern philosophers speak of ‘doxastic coherence’ about the Greek thinkers, they do not merely mean that there should be a coherence in beliefs but also that Ancient philosophers have not produced knowledge but merely express …

Imagine I ‘hypothesize’ that I will win the lottery. If I buy a ticket and do not win, clearly my ‘hypothesis’ is ‘falsified’. Is it, therefore, scientific? Such silly hypotheses are dime a dozen. Do you think Popper was worried about this? How to falsify my hypothesis. The answer is very simple: the way scientific theories can be falsified. I spell out some consequences of my hypothesis in …

About the relationship between scientific knowledge and enlightenment: If every human being can become enlightened (at any time, place or culture), it logically follows that some or another hypothesis about the world cannot be a requirement to become enlightened. People were enlightened (in the past) without possessing knowledge that humankind has today; one can become enlightened without being a …

Christianity (to some extent Judaism), presented an idea, unknown to the world in which it grew, namely the Pagan world of Rome. The idea was that human beings are creatures of God and that they belonged to His domain. He was the dominus or the Lord of the domain. As a result, human beings should not be arrogant, but must be humble instead. (As the ‘Book of Job’ in the Old Testament makes it …

If the ‘I’ cannot be individuated or described, then there is no possible distinction between the ‘I’ and ‘the Brahman’. They are different names for ‘self-awareness’ which pick out the differential access that individuals have to ‘self-awareness’. Hence, the curious distinction that some Indian traditions make. On the one hand, the ‘I’ is alleged to be identical with the ‘Brahman’; on the other, …