What is rubbish about the ‘self’ and what not?
A few points about ‘self’ and about what I have said and have not. 1. Comment: “Say, Mr. X made 1 run, 2 runs, 3, 4, n, and a total of 50 runs.…
Read moreDoes Feynman know about his culture?
Paraphrasing Feynman: “the answers proposed like counting angels that can dance on the head of a pin are trivial.” 1. I am not in the least impressed by (in fact, I…
Read moreAd hoc explanations: why do puja to cows?
1. When we provide explanations, we should also look at their contrastive nature: why do puja to cows and not to buffalos? The problem in this case, however, is this:…
Read moreArguments vs. theories
I have discovered that there is a fundamental difference between arguments and theory-building. As a philosopher, I have come to think that one could argue almost any position, within reasonable…
Read moreBrig SK Malik’s theory of war and terrorism
What Brig SK Malik says supports my thesis about terrorism, instead of making it redundant, as one suggests. Here is how. In war, killing the enemy is considered a moral and…
Read moreReligious intolerance and terrorism
“What is the relationship between religious intolerance and the acts committed in Mumbai?” This is an empirical question at many levels. If some or another religion is used to defend…
Read moreIdeology of Crime
1. The first thing to notice is that I use the word “ideology” in a technical sense, which is both counter-intuitive and, for the time being, idiosyncratic. It is the…
Read moreThe Saint, The Criminal and The Terrorist—S.N.Balagangadhara
Increasingly, the phenomenon of terrorism has begun to occupy the media, politics, and the lives of people in different parts of the world. The more the attention, however, the less…
Read moreBhakti
Is bhakti what the bhaktas do, or are people bhaktas because they ‘follow’ (bad choice of words, but there is no other way to put it) the ‘bhakti marga’, or…
Read moreWhat exists in India, given ‘Hinduism’, ‘Buddhism’, etc. do not exist
1. The first thing is that my book is about the western culture and a specific religion, which brought the former forth. It is only indirectly about India because I interrogate the…
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