Open Access
Vol. 2, No. 1 (2026)
PhD Student, Department of Philosophy, Jadavpur University / Smith College
This review essay examines Nalini Bhushan and Jay L. Garfield's new translation of Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya's Subject as Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2026), a text long regarded as philosophically significant yet notoriously difficult. It argues that the edition exceeds ordinary translation practice, functioning at once as translation, commentary, and interpretive intervention, and proposes that Bhushan and Garfield are best understood as contemporary bhāṣyakāras: active philosophical participants rather than neutral transmitters. The review discusses the editors' lexical choices, such as rendering "object" as "intentional object," and their extensive introduction, which situates the text within Bhattacharyya's engagement with Advaita Vedānta through the "bookend" works of 1925 and 1936. While affirming the sophistication of this Advaitic reading, the review questions whether it constrains the text's methodological independence, given Bhattacharyya's phenomenological idiom and his departures from traditional Advaitic vocabulary. It concludes that the edition's parallel text presentation and editorial apparatus make it the standard English entry point into Bhattacharyya's thought, restoring him to philosophical discussion beyond his usual classification as an Advaita representative alone.
DOI: 10.63752/pijcace.0201S09
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Open Access
Vol. 1, No. 2 (2026)
PhD Research Scholar, Jadavpur University, Sylff Fellowship Recipient, Former Research Fellow in South Asian Studies, Smith College.
This paper examines Pranab Kumar Sen's distinctive and comparatively lesser-known analysis of the concept of ideology, as articulated in his 1992 seminar paper "Philosophy, Science and Ideology," later included in Knowledge, Truth and Realism. While Sen is widely recognized for his contributions to debates on truth, meaning, logic, and the realism-anti-realism controversy, his reflections on ideology reveal a striking moment of intellectual courage. Against the prevailing and often populist invocations of ideology, Sen undertakes a conceptual inquiry into its very meaning. The paper focuses on one central issue Sen treats with seriousness: the relation between philosophy, science, and ideology. By identifying certain defining characteristics of ideology, such as dogmatism, closure to criticism, and resistance to self-correction, Sen argues that ideology is fundamentally incompatible with philosophy and science, both of which are essentially self-critical and epistemically open enterprises. This study reconstructs Sen's analysis of ideology without engaging the broader political-philosophical literature on the subject, as its primary concern is his conceptual framework. In doing so, it also offers a critical reflection on Sen's position, assessing its implications for understanding the normative role of philosophy in society.
DOI: 10.63752/pijcace.0102W03
37 Downloads
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