Erudition
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…
Read moreHow would one translate the word ‘God’ into, say, Sanskrit?
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…
Read moreBullshit: True Sentences and Trivialization of Knowledge
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…
Read moreHumility is a despicable vice
1. 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…
Read moreTwo kinds of research in social sciences
There is, on the one hand, the intellectual tradition of expressing opinions and points of view. Here, as it suits thoughtful minds, one tries to express ideas carefully and in…
Read moreWhy Insider/Outsider game is sterile?—S.N.Balagangadhara
1. The first point is the difficulty involved in specifying what the “real meaning of an experience” consists of. Asking an insider would not help us here: the insider may…
Read moreDenying Experience: Do Hindus ‘worship’? Do they do Pooja to phallus (linga)?
Someone, let’s say her name is Wendy Doniger, comes along and sniggers ‘when you worship the lingam, you worship a phallus’. I do not identify Wendy’s statement as an ‘ad…
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