About the Author

D. P. CHATTOPADHYAYA, M.A. LL.B., Ph.D. (Calcutta and London School of Economics), D. Litt. (Honoris Causa) studied and researched on law, philosophy and history, and taught at various universities in India, Asia, Europe and USA from 1954 to 1994. Founder Chairman of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research (1981–1990) and President-cum-Chairman of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla (1984–1991), Chattopadhyaya is currently the Project Director of the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture (PHISPC) and Chairman of the Centre for Studies in Civilizations (CSC). Among his thirty-six publications, of which he has authored eighteen and edited or co-edited eighteen, are Individuals and Societies (1967); Individuals and Worlds (1976); Sri Aurobindo and Karl Marx (1988); Anthropology and Historiography of Science (1990); Induction, Probability and Skepticism (1991); Sociology, Ideology and Utopia (1997); Societies, Cultures and Ideologies (2000); Interdisciplinary Studies in Science, Society, Value and Civilizational Dialogue (2002); Philosophy of Science, Phenomenology and Other Essays (2003); Philosophical Consciousness and Scientific Knowledge: Conceptual Linkages and Civilizational Background (2004); Self, Society and Science: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives (2004); Religion, Philosophy and Science (2006) and Aesthetic Theories and Forms in Indian Tradition (2008). He has also held high public offices, namely, of Union cabinet minister and state governor. He is a Life Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a Member of the International Institute of Philosophy, Paris. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1998 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2009 by the Government of India.