Scientific and Primordial Knowing

This book is an investigation into the Western philosophical tradition to determine the balance struck between the knowing of science, and a more personal, intuitive, preconceptual or primordial knowing. The Greeks made a once-and-for-all breakthrough into a scientific mode of thought, utilizing techniques of definition, syllogism, logic and a precise notion of science. In the Greek ideal of science, the medieval attempt to make theology the queen of the sciences, and modern triumph of the physical sciences, such scientific knowing has held the primacy in ancient, medieval and modern thought throughout the Western philosophical tradition. But that does not exhaust the story of human knowing. Personal knowing, artistic knowing, religious knowing, and the more intuitive modes of Eastern thought are all authentic and know more than they can say. At a time when Enlightenment rationalism and even science is coming under increased questioning, this is a timely survey of the forgotten resources of the Western tradition.

Terry J. Tekippe is Professor of Theology at the Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. He is also the author of Lonergen and Thomas on the Will (UPA, 1993).