scholarly journals Bimal K. Matilal's Philosophy: Language, Realism, Dharma, and Ineffability

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-259
Author(s):  
Purushottama Bilimoria
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Realistic View ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
Epistemological Realism

The article considers the theoretical and practical consequences of the so-called "soft" version of epistemological realism in Bimal K. Matilal's philosophical project. The author offers an analytical view on Matilal's philosophy, which helps to understand it in a broader prospective, comparing his arguments on perception and objectivity with contemporary arguments in Western analytical philosophy; in fact, it is possible to view Matilal not only as the proponent of revised Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika approach, but also as the follower of realistic view on language, following L. Wittgenstein, W. Quine, H. Putnam and M. Dummett. Despite the fact that such interpretation may sound diverse or multivocal, it nevertheless helps to better understand both lineages of argumentation: the critical review of the impossibility of private language can be compared in both Western and Indian philosophical discourses, which leads into the domain of social epistemology. The second part of the article discusses the ethical arguments on the vulnerability of moral virtues, and the place of Dharma as a term in moral philosophy. Poetical and metaphorical language appears to be a fruitful strategy to discover the ineffable - and also via negativa and catuṣkoṭi - which is shown by Matilal on the example of the unacceptability of lying. The ethical ineffability and its interconnection with Matilal's commentaries on practical wisdom play the crucial part in the interpretations of Dharmaśāstra texts.

Practical Wisdom and Honesty

2021 ◽  
pp. 113-133
Author(s):  
Christian B. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Motivational States ◽  
Common Observation

The previous chapter focused on the motivational side of the virtue of honesty. But moral virtues are normally understood to consist of more than just motivational states. Virtuous thoughts of various kinds, for instance, play a role, and honesty is no exception. Here is another common observation about moral virtues: they are connected in some way to practical wisdom. This has long been held by Aristotelian approaches in particular, and it is important to clarify what relationship, if any, practical wisdom bears to honesty. Hence the goal of this chapter is to explore the role of virtuous thoughts and practical wisdom with respect to the virtue of honesty.

scholarly journals Aristotle and Ricœur on Practical Reason

Humanitas ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 151-167
Author(s):  
Gonçalo Marcelo
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Worth Living ◽  
Nichomachean Ethics ◽  
Life Worth Living

This paper analyzes the Aristotelian notion of phronesis, such as it appears in Book VI of the Nichomachean Ethics, detailing what sort of model to grasp practical reason it entails: a practical wisdom. Setting it against the backdrop of a reflection on the prevalent uses and meanings of reason today, and the consequence these views have for a depiction of selfhood and human action, the paper shows how, amid the contemporary revival of Aristotelian practical philosophy, Paul Ricœur updates this phronetic model in Oneself as Another. The paper discusses the implications of such a thick account of selfhood and human action, such as it being a potential key to overcome some difficulties caused by Kantian moral philosophy, while it also calls, with and beyond Ricœur, for a refinement of the phronetic model by taking into account not only its thick intersubjective grounding but also the limits to rationality and the need to take the plurality of life forms that can count as being examples of a ‘life worth living’ (a good life).

2. The moral virtues

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-38
Author(s):  
Craig A. Boyd ◽  
Kevin Timpe
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Cardinal Virtues ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Fight Or Flight

This chapter discusses the four cardinal virtues. Aristotle describes prudence, or practical wisdom, as ‘right reasoning about what is to be done’. He considered it as the most important of the cardinal virtues since it has all human activity under its purview. Justice is the second most important virtue and involves ‘giving to others what they deserve’. The final two moral virtues are fortitude and temperance. Fortitude, or courage, concerns one’s ‘fight or flight’ emotions. It helps one to do the ‘difficult thing’ that one struggles to face. And temperance, or self-control, helps one to moderate one’s desires for food, drink, and sex.

Practical wisdom in managerial decision making

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 637-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domènec Melé
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Managerial Decision ◽  
Managerial Decision Making ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Means And Ends ◽  
Human Good

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to present the necessity for practical wisdom in the managerial decision making process and its role in such a process. The paper seeks to contrast the position with two conventional approaches based on maximizing and satisficing behaviors respectively.Design/methodology/approachFollowing Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas it is argued that a correct decision should consider an “integral rationality” which includes not only “instrumental rationality” but also “practical rationality”. The latter permits the evaluation of both means and ends from the perspective of human good. Practical wisdom helps the decision maker to determine how a decision will contribute to the human good in each particular situation.FindingsMaximizing and satisficing behaviors are based on the facts‐values dichotomy, which separates business and ethics and presents a rationalistic and incomplete view of the reality. The alternative presented here sees the decision as a whole, and this is a more comprehensive understanding of the reality. Ethics is better integrated into the decision making process, since it is an intrinsic part of such a process, not an extrinsic addition.Practical implicationsEvery decision has an ethical dimension, which should be considered by managers for making good decisions. Practical wisdom is essential in perceiving such a dimension and in making sound moral judgments in the making of decisions. Managers do not need only skills for making correct decisions, but practical wisdom and moral virtues, too.Originality/valueThe approach presented in the paper defeats the conventional but narrow views of managerial decision making based on maximizing behavior or on satisficing behavior and introduces the categories of good and evil as the main driver for managerial decision making.

Self-Interest and Virtue

1997 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 226-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neera K. Badhwar
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Self Interest

The Aristotelian view that the moral virtues–the virtues of character informed by practical wisdom–are essential to an individual's happiness, and are thus in an individual's self-interest, has been little discussed outside of purely scholarly contexts. With a few exceptions, contemporary philosophers have tended to be suspicious of Aristotle's claims about human nature and the nature of rationality and happiness (eudaimonia). But recent scholarship has offered an interpretation of the basic elements of Aristotle's views of human nature and happiness, and of reason and virtue, that brings them more into line with common-sense thinking and with contemporary philosophical and empirical psychology. This makes it fruitful to reexamine the question of the role of virtue in self-interest.

scholarly journals The Relative Role of the Intellectual and Moral Virtues in Sustainable Management Decisions: The Case of Practical Wisdom and Justice

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natàlia Cugueró-Escofet ◽  
Josep M. Rosanas
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Relative Role ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Wise Person ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Ideal

We analyze the status of virtues in management by going in some depth into the two main virtues, justice and practical wisdom. We next study how ethics requires that all virtues should be present under the ideal concept of a ‘unity of virtues’ for a completely wise person and discuss the practical limitations of this concept. Then, we draw a framework for decision making depending on whether the decision maker possesses justice and practical wisdom or lacks one of them and then discuss which one is better to have. We conclude that justice is more important, as it is about setting objectives and prioritizing, whereas practical wisdom is about attaining these objectives, once listed, in a rationally wise and contextual way. Hence, we conclude that objectives (justice) must come first, because this makes it more likely that, in the end, practical wisdom is developed, and thus we end up having the two virtues.

scholarly journals Practical Wisdom for Sustainable Management and Knowledge Sharing

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 4173
Author(s):  
Natàlia Cugueró-Escofet ◽  
Josep M. Rosanas
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Management ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Transfer Pricing ◽  
Management Control ◽  
Management Decisions ◽  
Managerial Decision ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Balanced Scorecards

Practical wisdom (“phronēsis”) is an Aristotelian concept that has been incorporated into management research to a considerable extent in the last 20–30 years. This paper attempts to show how practical wisdom is necessary as a type of situational knowledge that is required for most management decisions to be sustainable. We start reviewing the types of knowledge necessary in decision-making, and we emphasize “practical wisdom” as the kind of knowledge that is particular and subjective, is acquired through practice, and is transmitted by example. We relate the concept of practical wisdom with the Hayek concept of knowledge of time and place, the Polanyi concept of tacit knowledge, and Nonaka’s knowledge management. We conclude that in most management decisions, phronēsis is required and, thus, is necessary to increase sustainability in terms of effectively sharing knowledge and acquiring virtues to improve managerial decision-making. Not considering phronēsis has bad implications for management as it can lead to unsustainable and poor decisions, for instance, in main areas of management control such as pricing policies, budgeting, balanced scorecards, transfer pricing, and goal setting. Along with the intellectual virtue of practical wisdom we conclude that moral virtues, specifically justice, should be the complement that guides organizational objectives.

‘THE AFTERMATH EXPERIENCED BEFORE’: AESCHYLEAN UNTIMELINESS AND IRIS MURDOCH'S DEFENCE OF ART

Ramus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-247
Author(s):  
Mathura Umachandran
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Prose Fiction ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Writing ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The One ◽  
Ancient Philosopher

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Iris Murdoch (1919–99). She has been celebrated as one of Britain's most important postwar writers with twenty-six prose fiction novels to her name. Murdoch was also an ancient philosopher who was primarily interested in issues of moral philosophy. Pinning down her place in the Anglo-American analytic tradition of philosophy, however, is not a straightforward task. On the one hand she cut a conventional figure, holding a tutorial fellowship at St Anne's College, Oxford, from 1948 to 1963. On the other hand, her philosophical writing increasingly departed from the coordinates of analytical philosophy. As Martha Nussbaum notes in her deeply ambivalent review of Murdoch's The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists, Murdoch is ‘a novelist whose best work is deeply philosophical, a philosopher who has stressed…the special role that beauty can play in motivating us to know the good, …a Platonist believer in human perfectability, and an artist.’ Nussbaum points us towards understanding two key elements in Murdoch's thought: her commitment to Plato and the manner in which Murdoch's activity as philosopher and novelist should be considered as interdependent.

The Women Are Up to Something

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J.B. Lipscomb
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Free World ◽  
Naturalistic Ethics ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Style Of Thought ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
Mary Midgley

This book tells two intertwined stories, centered on twentieth-century moral philosophers Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, and Iris Murdoch. The first is the story of four friends who came up to Oxford together just before WWII. It is the story of their lives, loves, and intellectual preoccupations; it is a story about women trying to find a place in a man’s world of academic philosophy. The second story is about these friends’ shared philosophical project and their unintentional creation of a school of thought that challenged the dominant way of doing ethics. That dominant school of thought envisioned the world as empty, value-free matter, on which humans impose meaning. This outlook treated statements such as “this is good” as mere expressions of feeling or preference, reflecting no objective standards. It emphasized human freedom and demanded an unflinching recognition of the value-free world. The four friends diagnosed this moral philosophy as an impoverishing intellectual fad. This style of thought, they believed, obscured the realities of human nature and left people without the resources to make difficult moral choices or to confront evil. As an alternative, the women proposed a naturalistic ethics, reviving a line of thought running through Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, and enriched by modern biologists like Jane Goodall and Charles Darwin. The women proposed that there are, in fact, moral truths, based in facts about the distinctive nature of the human animal and what that animal needs to thrive.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document