•  5
    From Solipsism to the Limits of Experience: A Reflection in the Light of Wittgenstein’s TLP
    Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 41 (1): 17-36. 2024.
    In this paper, we will discuss solipsism and the limits of experience in the light of Wittgenstein’s TLP. One cannot draw the limits of experience without bringing in the notion of the experiencer. That is to say, the notion of self is very relevant to the discussion on the limits of experience. Solipsism means that ‘I’ is the only reality, and what I experience is all that I could know. We will focus on solipsism from two points of view, the empirical point of view and the transcendental point …Read more
  •  21
    From posthumanism to ethics of artificial intelligence
    with Riya Manna
    AI and Society 38 (1): 185-196. 2023.
    Posthumanism is one of the well-known and significant concepts in the present day. It impacted numerous contemporary fields like philosophy, literary theories, art, and culture for the last few decades. The movement has been concentrated around the technological development of present days due to industrial advancement in society and the current proliferated daily usage of technology. Posthumanism indicated a deconstruction of our radical conception of ‘human’, and it further shifts our societal…Read more
  •  2946
    This paper discusses the philosophical issues pertaining to Kantian moral agency and artificial intelligence. Here, our objective is to offer a comprehensive analysis of Kantian ethics to elucidate the non-feasibility of Kantian machines. Meanwhile, the possibility of Kantian machines seems to contend with the genuine human Kantian agency. We argue that in machine morality, ‘duty’ should be performed with ‘freedom of will’ and ‘happiness’ because Kant narrated the human tendency of evaluating ou…Read more
  •  104
    Wittgenstein on the existence of the mind in the physical world
    Austrian Wittgenstein Society 39 181-182. 2016.
    In this paper I shall explore Wittgenstein’s view on the existence of mind. The main concern is in this paper to give a positive theory of mind which can provide a method for understanding mind as a metaphysical reality. In this context the self is presupposed by which what we call the mental phenomena including consciousness, because without the self the mind will be meaningless in this physical world. That is, this phenomenon of world itself needs a self in which mind is the part of this pheno…Read more
  •  250
    In this paper I shall explore Wittgenstein’s view on the existence of mind. The main concern is in this paper to give a positive theory of mind which can provide a method for understanding mind as a metaphysical reality. In this context the self is presupposed by which what we call the mental phenomena including consciousness, because without the self the mind will be meaningless in this physical world. That is, this phenomenon of world itself needs a self in which mind is the part of this pheno…Read more
  •  92
    The Problem Of Moral Agency In Artificial Intelligence
    with Riya Manna
    2021 IEEE Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century (21CW). 2021.
    Humans have invented intelligent machinery to enhance their rational decision-making procedure, which is why it has been named ‘augmented intelligence’. The usage of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is increasing enormously with every passing year, and it is becoming a part of our daily life. We are using this technology not only as a tool to enhance our rationality but also heightening them as the autonomous ethical agent for our future society. Norbert Wiener envisaged ‘Cybernetics’ wit…Read more
  •  266
    Early and Later Putnam on Functionalism
    Sandhan: Journal of Centre for Studies in Civilizations 5 (2): 53-64. 2005.
    In this paper, I shall review the reasons that let Putnam to propose functionalism and the reasons that subsequently led him to abandon it. I would like to discuss Putnam's views belonging to early Putnam and later Putnam. First, let us focus on early Putnam. Early Putnam tries to show the possibility of robot consciousness. As a functionalist, Putnam shows that the human being is an autonomous: that is, human mind is a computing machine. Later, he changes his position to demonstrate not just hi…Read more
  •  123
    A non-materialistic view of person
    Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 22 (2): 122-136. 2005.
    In this article, I have argued that persons are individual human beings capable of mental activities. In this sense, persons have not only physical properties, but also various forms of consciousness. I have mentioned that the relation between a person and his/her physical properties are contingent; not logical, but factual. I have also mentioned Descartes' view that a person is a combination of two separate entities- a body and a mind. Only mind is conscious; the physical properties that the pe…Read more
  •  111
    Emergence of Consciousnesses Shows the Hardness of the Hard Problem of Consciousness
    Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 23 (2): 167-181. 2006.
    I have argued that emergentism is a non-computational theory of mind, because this theory says that mind or consciousness emerges from material objects, but it will not be reduced to that matter. That is to say that the higher level of quality emerge from a lower level of existence. It emerges therefrom, and does not belong to that level, but constitutes its possessor a new order of existence with its social laws of behaviour. Thus, emergentism is an anti-reductionists' theory of the mind and ha…Read more
  •  133
    Experience and expression: The inner-outer conceptions of mental phenomena
    with Mamata Manjari Panda
    Indian Philosophical Quarterly 4 (36): 77-112. 2014.
    Expression is the central concept in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind, and our experiences are reflected in our bodily expressions or gestures, facial expressions, behaviors and linguistic expressions. It seems true that we have no access of other people’s experiences but we can know or talk about them in so far as they are the common experiences of all. This inaccessibility of other’s experiences may create a genuine thinking that one’s experiences are private and the first person present tens…Read more
  •  324
    Mind: A Connectionist Model
    Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 21 (3-4): 43-62. 2004.
    In cognitive science, there are many computational theories regarding the function of the mind; connectionism is one of them. Connectionist networks are intricate systems of simple units related to their environment. Some have thousands of units, but those with only a few units can also behave with surprising complexity and subtlety. This is because processing occurs in parallel as also interactively, in marked contrast with the serial processing to which this is accustomed. In the first section…Read more
  •  156
    A Cartesian critique of the artificial intelligence
    Philosophical Papers and Review 3 (2): 27-33. 2010.
    This paper deals with the philosophical problems concerned with research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), in particular with problems arising out of claims that AI exhibits ‘consciousness’, ‘thinking’ and other ‘inner’ processes and that they simulate human intelligence and cognitive processes in general. The argument is to show how Cartesian mind is non-mechanical. Descartes’ concept of ‘I think’ presupposes subjective experience, because it is ‘I’ who experiences the world. Likewi…Read more
  •  90
    Posthumanism is one of the well-known and significant concepts in the present day. It impacted numerous contemporary fields like philosophy, literary theories, art, and culture for the last few decades. The movement has been concentrated around the technological development of present days due to industrial advancement in society and the current proliferated daily usage of technology. Posthumanism indicated a deconstruction of our radical conception of ‘human’, and it further shifts our societal…Read more
  •  12
    Alan Turing’s Concept of Mind
    Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 37 (1): 31-50. 2020.
    In the mid of nineteenth century, the hypothesis, “machine can think,” became very popular after Alan Turing’s article on “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” This hypothesis, “machine can think,” established the foundations of machine intelligence and claimed that machines have a mind. It has the power to compete with human beings. In the first section, I shall explore the importance of Turing thesis, which has been conceptualized in the domain of machine intelligence. Turing presented a com…Read more
  •  16
    In this paper, we would like to discuss Wittgenstein’s critique of the idea that a person’s experiences are necessarily private, and these experiences can only be expressible in a private language. Taking a clue from Wittgenstein, we intend to say that the person’s experiences though private, can also be known by others. In the following sections 243 of his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues against the possibility of a private language about the subject’s inner experiences. He co…Read more
  •  8
    Consciousness is the Concomitance of Life
    with Sunkanna Velpula
    Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 36 (1): 167-181. 2019.
    The mystery of consciousness is among the most important questions pondered upon, not only in philosophy but also in the cognitive science, psychology, neurobiology and other sciences. The problem of consciousness has been traditionally dealt by philosophy, but its importance in explaining mental phenomena has made it a subject matter for other sciences that emerged later. Each philosopher and scientist has followed his own method in defining it, and arriving at a universal agreement on its defi…Read more
  •  7
    Consciousness is the Concomitance of Life
    Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 36 (1). 2019.
    he mystery of consciousness is among the most important questions pondered upon, not only in philosophy but also in the cognitive science, psychology, neurobiology and other sciences. The problem of consciousness has been traditionally dealt by philosophy, but its importance in explaining mental phenomena has made it a subject matter for other sciences that emerged later. Each philosopher and scientist has followed his own method in defining it, and arriving at a universal agreement on its defin…Read more
  •  3
    Negative Aspects of Tolerance
    Philosophy Pathways 179 (1). 2013.
  •  16
    In this paper, I would like to examine Nāgārjuna’s idea of the self and its contemporaneity interpretations in philosophy. As we know, Nāgārjuna examines the emptiness of various things in which the emptiness of the self occupies an important position in the Buddhist philosophical tradition. The main aim of this paper is to understand the meaning of emptiness to explain the nature of the self and to show how it is different from the substantial notion of self. However, Nāgārjuna’s idea of the se…Read more
  •  18
    Can Ethics Be Without Ontology? Wittgenstein and Putnam
    Philosophia 47 (4): 1215-1225. 2019.
    Putnam has given a different twist to the ethical issues in his philosophical writing on ethics. In his book on ‘Ethics Without Ontology,’ he has given the different interpretation to the ethical issues. Putnam states that there is no ‘ontology’ in ethics. For him, there is nothing wrong with ethics, rather there is something wrong with metaphysics. The ethics cannot be justified from a non-ethical standpoint of view. In this way, Putnam challenges both inflationary ontological ethics and deflat…Read more
  •  48
    The Meaning of Life in Indian Philosophy: A Contemporary Reconstruction
    Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 35 (2): 249-265. 2018.
    In this paper, I would like to discuss the meaning of life in Indian philosophy. All Indian philosophies are philosophies of life. Indian philosophy is not merely an intellectual activity but has practical application which enables men to lead an enlightened life. Any philosophy, either Indian or Western which makes no difference to human life, is not a philosophy. The human life always strives towards freedom, duty, wisdom, well-being, etc. These are the noble values in Indian philosophy that p…Read more
  •  364
    The problem of machine ethics in artificial intelligence
    AI and Society 35 (1): 103-111. 2020.
    The advent of the intelligent robot has occupied a significant position in society over the past decades and has given rise to new issues in society. As we know, the primary aim of artificial intelligence or robotic research is not only to develop advanced programs to solve our problems but also to reproduce mental qualities in machines. The critical claim of artificial intelligence advocates is that there is no distinction between mind and machines and thus they argue that there are possibiliti…Read more
  •  22
    Can naturalism explain consciousness? A critique
    AI and Society 32 (4): 563-571. 2017.
    The problem of consciousness is one of the most important problems both in cognitive science and in philosophy. There are different philosophers and different scientists who define consciousness and explain it differently. In philosophy, ‘consciousness’ does not have a definition in terms of genus and differentia or necessary and sufficient conditions. In this paper, I shall explore the very idea of machine consciousness. The machine consciousness has offered causal explanation to the ‘how’ and …Read more
  • Mind in Artificial Intelligence
    Philosophy Pathways 140. 2008.