During comparative discourse, some scholars have ridiculed African indigenous concepts, phenomena, beliefs, and worldview in a forceful attempt to allow it to fit into western framework and to avoid the charge of irrationality. It is against this background this essay attempt to establish the basis for the rationality of discourse within the…[Read more]

This essay focuses on Patricia Churchland contribution to this interdisciplinary approach towards gaining a holistic understanding of our human nature and realities surrounding us, with specific reference to the perceived framework needed for the development of a unified theory of the mind-brain. A critical engagement with Churchland’s ideas s…[Read more]

Philip Kitcher is one of the most influential philosophers of science of the past two decades. In “The Advancement of Science (1993)”, he endeavor to probe the notions of progress and rationality in science. His position, in line with his teacher, Thomas Kuhn, was a critique of what he called ‘a legendary view of science’. Thus, he gave new int…[Read more]

This paper is a critical appraisal of Karl Marx’s theory of historical materialism and a deployment of its emphasis on economic factor in addressing Nigeria’s socio-economic situation. As we applaud Marx’s materialistic approach to history as an account that is rich enough to promote contextual understanding of past events in various part of the w…[Read more]

“Ideology” has fallen out of favor as a term of art. Terms like “equity,” “bias,” “gap,” “discourse,” “norm,” various “isms,” “consciousness,” “experience,” and “policy” tend to appear in scholarly and mainstream education dialogue when it comes to social-political practices. Yet the term is important both historically and for the present day. A…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Algunas reflexiones sobre (auto)engaño e ideología por vía de un comentario sobre el libro Ideología de Teun A. van Dijk. Los poderosos engañan. Creen tener un acceso privilegiado a la realidad, y utilizan esa perspectiva dominante (‘topsight’) para dominar. Con frecuencia para dominar engañando. Pero también se engañ…[Read more]

Friedrich Nietzsche was among the figures from the history of nineteenth-century philosophy that, perhaps surprisingly, some of the Vienna Circle’s members had presented as one of their predecessors. While, primarily for political reasons, most Anglophone figures in the history of analytic philosophy had taken a dim view of Nietzsche, the Vienna C…[Read more]

Is ethics innate to human nature? In Ethical Life Webb Keane tries to answer this question on the basis of empirical research. He attempts this through an analysis of natural and social histories—that is, the analyses of naturalistic research like “neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, developmental psychology, and biological ant…[Read more]

Catholicism: The Story of Catholic Christianity begins at the inception of the Catholic Church and deals with the election of the present Pope, and thus is contemporary yet rooted in history. Histories of religious traditions need not be unwieldy. They could be pointers to all the important references to literature on the subject. This book is a…[Read more]

chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Translation & Activism

e popular idea, especially among the young, is that religion and spirituality are things of the old age. We generally think that spirituality is a post-retirement plan; something which has to be enjoyed with the gratuity, provident fund, and pension that you get after retirement. This is not true. Spirituality is something we need when we are…[Read more]

e popular idea, especially among the young, is that religion and spirituality are things of the old age. We generally think that spirituality is a post-retirement plan; something which has to be enjoyed with the gratuity, provident fund, and pension that you get after retirement. This is not true. Spirituality is something we need when we are…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Notas, debates y comentarios con ocasión del congreso The “Holocaust Metaphor” (La ́Metáfora del Holocausto ́), en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Zaragoza (a finales de mayo de 2013). _________________________________________________________________________

English abstract: Notes, debates and comm…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: En este retropost de 2010 hablamos de Miguel de Unamuno y de su doble escepticismo, escepticismo ante la fe y ante el ateísmo. Es un libro desilusionado, San Manuel Bueno, Mártir—desilusionado con las creencias religiosas, y desilusionado con el ateísmo. Una vez perdida la ilusión en redimir a la humanidad en este o en el otro…[Read more]

This is the syllabus for an introductory course on Marx and critical theory that I taught at Binghamton University in the spring semester, 2020. It revises and expands an earlier iteration of the course that I had taught in spring, 2018, also at Binghamton University.

There must be be renewed efforts to increase respect by all political, religious, and social institutions for the modern view that political society’s primary interests are in fostering peace, justice, freedom and equality, not in advancing religion. This is the basic meaning of the separation of church and state. The obvious tension here, of c…[Read more]

These essays have been collected and adapted from my previously published
books. They have been slightly revised from the point of view of grammar, but
nothing substantial in their content has been changed. The book from which each
essay was taken is identified on the title page of the essay. The one exception is
my review of Beyond the Sea:…[Read more]

The notions I present here for consideration are, in fact, not new. In short, they are phenomenological notions. As ideas, expressed within the Western-Hellenic tradition, they have been discussed for a very long time in philosophy. They may appear “new to you” as a thinker exploring for the first time, or continuing to explore, the phi…[Read more]

In the course of my presentation of Dewart’s philosophy in this book, I shall note particular insights of two other thinkers, whose religious philosophy I accept as dehellenized in Dewart’s meaning of the term. Auguste Sabatier (1839-1901) and Paul Trudinger, (1930-) never employ the term as far as I can determine. Both Sabatier and Trudinger bas…[Read more]

This is a review of the book “Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna, Jeffrey J. Kripal, University of Chicago Press, 1995” . “Kali’s child” fell well short of a proof that Sri Ramakrishna’s mystical experiences were actually “profoundly, provocatively, scandalously erotic”. To reconstruct the autobiogr…[Read more]