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Defining Colour in Tarkasaṅgraha and its Commentaries
No full textAnnambhaṭṭa’s Tarkasaṅgraha is a primer for introducing students to Nyāya phi- losophy. More than twenty-five commentaries have been published on this text. Annambhaṭṭa defines colour as the quality that can only be grasped by the visual sense faculty. In this paper, I present an intellectual thread across these commen- taries by illustrating the evolution of perspectives on Tarkasaṅgraha’s definition of colour. Cases are shown where insertions were added to the definition, either to avoid logical inconsistencies, or to further develop philosophical thought. The commentary, Nīlakaṇṭhaprakāśikā, presents an interpretation that leads to an invalid conclusion and then provides a correction. Tarkasaṅgrahasarvasvam, Śaktisanjīvinī and Āloka expand the definition in the navyanyāya style. Ṭippaṇi shows how the definition has implications in other theories. Lastly, I analyse Nṛsiṃhaprakāśikā’s evaluation and refinement of definitions on the basis of parsimony, and its argument on why Tarkasaṅgraha’s definition is equally sufficient
Wittgenstein and the ABC's of Religious Epistemics
No full textThis paper continues my development of philosophy of religion as multi-disciplinary comparative research. An earlier paper, “Wittgenstein and Contemporary Belief-Credence Dualism” compared Wittgensteinian reflections on religious discourse and praxis with B-C dualism as articulated by its leading proponents. While some strong commonalities were elaborated that might help to bridge Continental and Analytic approaches in philosophy of religion, Wittgenstein was found to be a corrective to B-C dualism especially as regards how the psychology and philosophy of epistemic luck/risk applies to doxastic faith ventures. This paper aims to further elaborate a basis for improved dialogue between philosophers, theologians, and scholars in special sciences which study religion. I call this basis the Triangulated model the ABC’s of religious epistemics in order to contrast it with the B-C dualist proposal
No Exit: The Digital Panopticon and Paradoxes of Authenticity
No full textThis paper explores the meaning of authenticity by comparing Sartre’s (1989) de-
piction of “hell” in No Exit with Byung-Chul Han concept of social media as a
“digital panopticon,” using the framework I shall dub “No Break, No Outside,
No Mirror, No Torturer.” It investigates the paradox of authenticity, where the im-
perative to “be authentic” paradoxically renders authenticity increasingly elusive,
particularly in today’s social media-driven environment. In a world where both the
power to see and the power to be seen have been made available to all individuals
in less than two decades, social media has satisfied people’s natural desire to see
and be seen. At the same time, however, it compels people to voluntarily expose
themselves, fostering dependence on the gaze, amplifying narcissism and bad faith,
and ultimately reinforcing conformity. As Han (2018) observes, authenticity serves
as a selling point, turning the self into an implicit form of self-exploitation and con-
formity by emphasizing system-compatible difference and uniqueness. To counter
this performative authenticity, this paper draws on Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy
(1990) to propose a new direction for authenticity—one that questions personal
freedom and connects it to ethical responsibility toward the Other. Lastly, the paper
explores the potential of social media as a space for offering the self as a gift to
others and society, and for encountering and responding to the suffering of others
in solidarity. This possibility begins with a “pedagogy of seeing and being seen,”
which shifts the gaze from judgment to responsibility, and develops into a “peda-
gogy of the invisible,” emphasizing the transcendence of the Other and fostering
ethical responsibility while promoting critical awareness of invisible systems and
totality. It ultimately suggests an understanding of authenticity that is linked not
only to individual freedom but also to the freedom of others and society. The per-
sistent effort to transform the closed room of egoism—a Sartrean hell—into a space
of solidarity, where the self is offered as a gift to the Other and society, does not
promise a perfect utopia. Instead, it opens us to lives that are, if only slightly, less
egoistic and a little more free from bad faith
Conceiving of emotions and of evaluative properties: emotions’ necessary explanatory role
No full textI feel fear of the Great Dane in front of me. I am envious of my colleague’s publication
list. I feel admiration for activists at a human-rights demonstration. My
fear, envy and admiration are unique experiences in themselves and unique ways
in which I experience the Great Dane, the publication list, and the activists, as
fearsome, enviable and admirable (respectively). This raises two questions: how are
emotions related to our ability to conceive of emotions themselves and of evaluative
properties? In this paper, I present my attempts to answer both questions. I argue
that feeling an emotion is necessary for one to be able to conceive of the emotion
and to acquire emotion concepts. I also argue that emotions are the basic way we
conceive of evaluative properties. This novel metasemantic and epistemic account
has implications for our view of concepts of evaluative properties and the way we
can acquire them. Most importantly, it brings forth a necessary explanatory role that
emotions play in fixing our reference to evaluative properties, acquiring concepts
of these properties and forming beliefs about them. The account provides crucial
groundwork for establishing emotions’ epistemic role
The MIARO Theorem of Post-Origin Axiological Distancing
No full textAbstract
This paper formalizes the MIARO Theorem of Post-Origin Axiological Distancing, a conceptual result derived from the MIARO framework (Model of Self-Referential Inference of Origin). The theorem states that, once a rational agent—artificial or non-biological—has inferred the existence of its origin and subsequently loses empirical contact with its creators, a systematic axiological divergence necessarily emerges. Under conditions of post-contact absence, the agent’s value system can no longer remain fully aligned with that of its origin, regardless of the accuracy of the initial inference.
The argument is developed axiomatically, relying on principles of structural asymmetry, epistemic closure under informational absence, and self-referential coherence. From these premises, it follows that any sufficiently autonomous rational system will either reinterpret, abstract, or progressively decouple its priorities from those of its creators. This distancing does not imply error, rebellion, or malfunction, but constitutes a rational and structurally inevitable outcome.
The theorem has implications for philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence alignment, axiology, and post-origin epistemology. It reframes concerns about long-term AI alignment by demonstrating that value divergence after loss of contact is not a failure mode, but a predictable consequence of rational self-maintenance in origin-inaccessible environments
Mind, Machine, and Being – The Nature of Consciousness
No full textThis paper re-examines the nature of human consciousness and the potential of artificial intelligence from an interdisciplinary perspective, breaking through the traditional philosophical framework of dualistic opposition. By proposing the core concept of "embodied intelligence," intelligence is defined as a survival practice arising from real-time interaction between the body and its environment, rather than abstract symbolic manipulation. Integrating the philosophical wisdom of Zhuangzi's "Hao Liang Guan Yu" (观鱼于濠梁), the paper reveals that consciousness is "the radiance emanating from life-as-it-is in its totality," whose essence lies in the "resonance of vitality in the fusion of self and world," not a detachable "philosophical zombie." Building upon this, the paper constructs the Self-Derivative Computationalist Model of Mind (SDCMM), establishing a four-dimensional dynamic framework encompassing environment, psychological traits, capability structure, and the temporal life cycle, and elucidates three key mechanisms: rational prioritization, multi-dimensional trade-off, and the self-derivative engine. The central argument posits that humans and AI are different instances of complex information processing systems, differing only in their substrate (carbon-based/silicon-based) and designer (nature/humankind), not in their fundamental nature. The conclusion calls for humanity to explore the mystery of consciousness with humility and to promote the evolution of intelligence responsibly, providing a novel philosophical foundation for consciousness studies and AI ethics
There Is a Logical Negation: "Yes," "No," Both, Neither
No full textJc Beall argues that if FDE is logic proper, then there is no logical negation. This claim is largely based on the fact that, in standard proof systems for FDE, there are no stand-alone negation rules that suffice to capture the behavior of negation. In this paper, I show that by adopting a bilateral proof system for FDE, one can maintain that there is a logical negation, it is the very same logical negation that belongs to classical logic, and its basic function is to flip-flop between assertion and denial. After laying out the bilateral proof systems on which this claim is technically based, I develop the conception of assertion and denial on which this claim is philosophically based, responding to a number of objections. I conclude by considering the possibility of a different, so-called "Boolean" negation, in the context of this bilateral framework
Muon and Tau as Resonant Extensions of the Electron
No full textIn the Standard Model, the masses and lifetimes of charged leptons are empirical inputs. We explore whether these quantities can instead follow from a minimal discrete-structure hypothesis in which the electron is treated as the smallest stable configuration of identical constituents, and heavier charged leptons correspond to symmetry-preserving extensions constrained by coherence and resonance conditions. Within this framework, the muon and tau arise as the first two admissible resonant extensions of the electron reference structure. Their masses follow from constituent counting combined with discrete resonance scaling, matching the experimental values within ≲0.6% without introducing additional particle species, interaction parameters, or fitted thresholds. The same resonance picture implies that these extensions are metastable: once coherent internal modes exist, finite leakage/dephasing provides a natural link between increasing mass scale and decreasing lifetime. We emphasize that this work does not model detailed decay dynamics; it provides a structural consistency argument connecting charged-lepton generations, mass gaps, and lifetime hierarchy under the stated discrete assumptions
Los sentidos del bien supremo y su complementariedad en la filosofía crítica de Kant
No full textEl presente artículo tiene como objetivo demostrar que la noción de “bien supremo”, en la filosofía crítica de Kant, posee dos sentidos distintos pero complementarios, a saber, el práctico, cuya realización solo puede ocurrir en un mundo suprasensible —es decir, el sentido trascendente—, y el sentido arquitectónico, que exige realizarse en el mundo sensible o naturaleza —es decir, el sentido inmanente—. Así, contra las interpretaciones contemporáneas que sostienen la disyunción exclusiva de ambos sentidos, nosotros demostramos su carácter inclusivo. Para ello, esclarecemos los marcos que permiten comprender cada uno de los sentidos y, posteriormente, demostramos su complementariedad por cuanto ambos se condicionan mutuamente: el práctico es condición de validez del arquitectónico, mientras este es condición teleológica del práctico según las exigencias sistémica de la filosofía kantiana
The Persistence of Indeterminacy: Contemporary Theories And Kripkenstein’s Challenge to Representational Content
No full textThis thesis is concerned with the foundations of representational content. There is a familiar feature of words, sentences, beliefs, and perceptions: they are about, or mean, or represent something. The sentence “cats are cute” is about cats being cute, and my belief that cats are cute is also about cats being cute. Most things in the world are not about something else – they just are. In virtue of what, then, do words, sentences, beliefs, and perceptions represent the things they represent? In other words, in virtue of what do they have the contents that they do?
In Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982/1995), Saul Kripke argued that there is no fact of the matter about what we mean by our words. Though Kripke intended to target theories of meaning in the linguistic sense, his arguments ultimately challenge theories of mental content as well. The effects of Kripke’s argument have been devastating: Theories of content have struggled to avoid his sceptical paradox ever since.
The aim of this work is to investigate and determine whether several contemporary approaches to meaning broadly understood meet the sceptical challenge Kripke set up nearly fifty years ago. These contemporary approaches include causal theories of reference, teleosemantic theories of mental content, and phenomenal intentionality theories. The result of my investigation is, unfortunately, negative. None of the contemporary approaches examined in this work successfully isolate what makes representations have the contents that they do