Basics

He says: “Doniger translates “dharma” as “religion”. Apparently, Indians should not criticize that because we know neither what the English word “religion” means nor do we know what “dharma” means because neither English nor Sanskrit is our mother tongue.” First of all I do not say or imply that Indians should not criticize the translation. I merely point out that (a) there is indeterminacy in …

The question requires deeper handling so you will forgive me for the brevity of my response but you will get some idea of where I stand. Regarding the first question as to whether we reject social science itself, I am aware that many people have made this suggestion. I am not so much hung up on the word ‘social science’ but I do believe that we need to systematically reflect on our experiences in …

I am going to ask for a clarification on a question which I find very troubling. Let me first read how you have formulated the problem from the text: Sanskrit scholars need modem social scientists. What disturbs me in anthropological fieldwork is that Sanskrit literature is made to play the role of native informer to social scientists, with the anthropologists asking themselves as they might with …

There are multiple kinds of interpretation. For instance, there is interpretation of symbols in a domain like Physics: μ (in elementary optics) is “interpreted” as the refraction index of a substance. We use a more or less analogous notion of “interpretation” in Chemistry, Mathematics and so on. In logic, we speak of “interpretation of variables” like p, q, etc. Here, it means that the letters …

Assume that you get a Ph.D student who wants to do medical research. He comes to you and tells you that he wants to find out an answer to the burning question about why people get sick. Would you be able to guide this student in answering his question or give one answer to it? Your answer would be: it depends. You would also further say to him, ‘choose a particular disease, choose a particular …

(a) Paolo Friere, a Brazilian educationalist, has spoken about such a phenomenon at length in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed. He calls it as an ‘internalisation of the oppressor by the oppressed’. Whether we use Paolo Friere’s terminology or the much later one of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, the problem is the same: both name the phenomenon without explaining it. In and of itself, not such a big problem …

Perhaps, one of the ways to test whether your search is taking you in the right direction is by seeing whether it solves a well-known paradox, or explicates it in a novel way. If after research, your hypothesis leads you to a well-known discussion in theology (but lacks the latter’s sophistication), then you could be on an uninteresting track. In certain phases of thinking, unbridled speculations …

I keep teaching my students the need to unlearn: unlearn the desire to ‘show off’ their erudition; unlearn shallowness and so on. I am more than convinced that whatever we have learnt about human beings can be formulated in a jargon-free language and in a simple manner. There is no need to appear ‘mysterious and profound’; nor is there a need for exhibiting one’s erudition or ‘critical …

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 …

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 …

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 (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 …

You say: “As far as I know, “doxastic coherence” means consistency in beliefs and that is all that is of relevance here.” It is not. Doxastic coherence is coherence between beliefs considered as opinions; its contrast set is “epistemic coherence” i.e., coherence between beliefs as knowledge claims. Further, in some senses, while there can be no coherence if there is no (logical) consistency …

You say: “there seems to be an underlying assumption that all participants in the thread seem to be making. The assumption being that all these texts have the same end goal in mind, and that this end goal is enlightenment/eudaimonia/happiness. I submit that such an assumption is unwarranted.” It is not an assumption but an explicit hypothesis, as far as I am concerned, that all the Indian …

One confuses between a definition and a hypothesis. Definitions tell us how we use a word and which objects it refers to. In the case of the term ‘religion’, a definition should merely address this referential task: which things are we referring to, when we use this word. It cannot give us any understanding of the structure or properties of religion and does not have empirical consequences (much …