Philosophy

At the core of one’s epistemic identity lies the metaphysical awareness of one’s humanness, as distinct from the animal world. But, being human is a given fact, the essential identity. However, being human alone doesn’t satisfy the human longing for self-identity. Essential identity (being human) doesn’t establish existential identity (being for…). Essential identity is naked without existential identity. Existential identity is not a given, but a choice. One chooses to be what one considers is meaningful to be. What lies at the core of existential identity determines what one is and how he relates to the rest of the world. While it is not plausible to identify every instance of an infinite possibility of existentials that are assumed as individually meaningful by different individuals, we can at least attempt to identify few polarized cores, that can be distinguished from the other in the way that one distinguishes the merging colors of the rainbow. CORE 1: EXISTENTIAL FAITH In its is...

RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM AND SOCIAL ORDER A Philosophical Perspective Domenic Marbaniang, Ph.D. Paper presented at the National Seminar on Religious Fundamentalism and Social Order,  Andhra University , February 26-27, 2010. Forty four years after the publication of Harvey Cox ’s The Secular City that celebrated “the progressive secularization of the world as the logical outcome of Biblical religion” ( Newsweek ) [1] , we almost feel the bones of religious fundamentalism cracking under the pressure of secularization. At the same time, however, the Hegelian dialectic holds ground as both refuse to be crushed by either; and any compromising stance only begets another rival; to the effect, that it can be said that fundamentalism is never a phenomenon that may be extinguished. The term “fundamentalist” was first used by a Baptist journalist in 1920 as a badge of honor for those Christians who championed the cause of the Fundamentals , or set of beliefs such as the inerrancy of Scriptures...