Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar
1891-1956 · Liberation · Renowned
Born untouchable, Ambedkar took doctorates abroad and came home a jurist to write the constitution of independent India. Drawing on liberalism and Dewey's pragmatism, he spent his life attacking caste as the sickness at the center of Hinduism, and in 1956, weeks before his death, he led a mass conversion out of that religion and into a Buddhism he had rebuilt as rational and social.
Signature
The position Ambedkar is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Order
- leans Horizontal
- Law
- Social Contract / Legal Positivism
Positions on the 12 axes the sources answer
- Society
- mildly between Collectivism and Individualism (56 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Identity
- leans Changing (71 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- mildly leans Constructed (36 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (84 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Immanence (28 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Polity
- leans Liberalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- mildly leans Means (66 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly between Pacifism and Militarism (46 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- strongly leans Bondage (0 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (28 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (72 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
8 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Ambedkar refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy / Federal Republic
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom / Justice
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Pragmatic Test
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Non-Self
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Economy
- State Socialism
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Social Contract / Legal Positivism
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Annihilation / Agnostic
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- No-Self
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Class / Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?