Koshy Tharakan

Many attempts of contemporary philosophers to reduce ‘mind’ to ‘body’ notwithstanding, where the ‘body’ is understood in the Cartesian framework, the continental philosophers in general repeatedly remind us that body has a significance that goes beyond its materiality as a bio-chemical physical substance. In “questioning body,” we wish to take up the philosophical underpinnings of the significance of body as a framework or tool to understand ‘technology’. By doing so, we are able to see the link between technology and body as more than a fortuitous relation. Relying on the writings of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Ihde, the paper attempts to show how a “sense of body,” particularly the notion of “agentive body” as distinguished from the “symbolic body,” hermeneutically evolves from the way in which it is entangled in the technological matrix

Relation of science and religion has been at the centre of many discourses in the past as well as in the recent times. Some of these were meant to refute religious claims in the light of scientific truths about the world, while others took the pain of explaining the essential compatibility between the two. The former subjects religion to the scrutiny of science while the latter reads science in religion or religion in science.Both these attempts are ill-conceived as they conflate the logic of one with the other.In what follows, we attempt to understand the nature of the interaction of these two, science and religion, from a phenomenological perspective. In order to do that, we have to look into the ‘life-world’ (Lebenswelt) that engenders science and houses religious experiences.

Most religious texts and practices warrant the exclusion of women from religious rituals and public spheres during the menstrual flow. This is seemingly at odds with the very idea of ‘Religion’ which binds the human beings with God without any gender and sexual discrimination. The present article attempts to problematize the ascription of negative values on menstruating women prevalent in both Hinduism and Christianity, two major world religions of the East and the West. After briefly stating the patriarchal values that restrict women from participating in religious rituals and shaming them during menstruation as seen from both these religions, the article highlights the alternate feminist perspectives in beliefs that positively value the menstruating bodies. Thus, the notion of profanity is revalued as sacred in these alternate religious perspectives.Drawing from the writings of Mary Douglas, we then examine the connection between the notion of purity/impurity and menstruation and argue that what makes something pure or impure depends upon the archetype the society chooses to represent itself. In itself, nothing is either pure or impure in the sense of having a value or disvalue. This argument is exemplified through a feministic-hermeneutic approach to the religious practices in two major world religions. The article concludes by uncovering the patriarchal values held by religions as the cause of menstrual taboos in religious practices and argues that the notions of purity/impurity and sacred/profane are the results of the valuations made—from a patriarchal or feministic perspective.

Recent discussions on the explanation of action are permeated with two divergent models of explanation, namely causal model and non- causal model. For causalists the notion of explanation is intimately related to that of causation. As Davidson contends, any rudimentary explanation of an event gives its cause. More sophisticated explanations may cite a relevant law in support of a singular causal claim. The non-causalists, on the other hand, hold that when we explain an action we do not ask for the cause, rather we try to understand the action in terms of its meaning. Moreover, they argue that the causal model fails to account for the conceptual priority of human agency. The aim of this paper is to show how Max Weber attempted a synthesis of the two divergent models of explanation in the realm of human actions. The first section of this paper gives an expository account of Weber’s theory of explanation. In the second section an attempt is made to interpret Weber’s thesis so as to assimilate the two divergent models of explanation.

The idea that science explains or ought to explain every phenomenon finds Cartesian dualism of mind and body to be an unsatisfactory thesis. Consequently we have a variety of materialist theories regarding mind and consciousness. In recent times, we come across many philosophers who are committed to the scientific world picture, trying to locate mind within a world that is essentially physical.The central problems these philosophers have to tackle consist of consciousness and mental causation. In what follows we discuss how Husserlian phenomenology responds to this debate.

Comparative philosophy has been subjected to much criticism in the latter half of the last century, though some of these criticisms were appropriate and justified. However, in our present cultural milieu, where traditions and culture transcend their geographical boundaries, seeping through the global network of views and ideas, it seems to be a legitimate enterprise to understand one’s own traditions and culture through the critical lens of the ‘other culture’. It is such cross-cultural understanding that paved the way towards legitimizing “human rights” as a universal discourse. So also, the discourse on “environmental ethics” has gained acceptance in a similar manner across cultures and traditions. The paper attempts at an understanding of “Indian Philosophy” as a theoretical practice by exemplifying the notion of “sādhanā” in the Yoga system of Indian Philosophy through a reading of the notion of ‘phenomenological reduction’ as espoused in the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. Thus, we reject the claim that philosophy as a pure rational activity was unique to the West as proclaimed in some Eurocentric readings. It is pertinent to recall here that the Sāṅkhya philosophy, which the Yoga system accepts as an allied school of thought was atheistic in its origin and attempted to explain the universe in terms of an evolutionary theory—the “prakṛti pariṇāma vāda”.

With the advent of Postmodernism, the recent discussions in Continental thought has called into question the philosophy of the Subject, particularly the Cartesian “cogito” and the related method of reflection. One of the important ramifications of these questioning of the reflective subject is to do with the phenomenological doctrine of intentionality of consciousness. Recently, David Carr, himself a phenomenologist, has advanced a serious objection to the phenomenological approach to social reality. In what follows, I will be attempting a defence of phenomenology against criticisms like Carr’s.