Methods Of Knowledge
By Swami Satprakashananda, 366 Pages, Hardcover.
The simple question, 'How do we know?' is one of the toughest problems that have confronted the human mind. 'Methods of Knowledge' presents to modern thinkers the Vedantic approach to this universal problem. It dwells on different types of knowledge from sensory experience, which man shares with the lowest living beings, up to the transcendental perception of ultimate Reality claimed by great mystics and seers of the world. The commonest of all cognitions has proved to be no less enigmatic than the rarest of them all. Modern epistemologists—the idealists, the realists and the mediators—have grappled with the former without reaching a satisfactory solution, while they have hardly recognized the latter. The present treatise includes a comprehensive and consistent treatment of both these types of experience.
Besides the interpretation of different forms of non-perceptual knowledge it gives an eleaorate explanation of illusory experience and the cognition of non-existence, to which Western epistemology has paid scant attention. True to the Advaita position, the book tackles the problems of knowledge with reference to its source, the self within, which is undeniable, although unnoticed. Though ancient, the process is ever new, being applicable in all cases of cognition. The author has tried to present the Advaita views in relation to those of other Indian and Western systems of thought. The book is suited to thinkers in general within and without the academic circle.
Swami Satprakashananda, the author of the book, was the founder of the Vedanta Society of St. Louis and worked in the United States for over three decades.
The simple question, 'How do we know?' is one of the toughest problems that have confronted the human mind. 'Methods of Knowledge' presents to modern thinkers the Vedantic approach to this universal problem. It dwells on different types of knowledge from sensory experience, which man shares with the lowest living beings, up to the transcendental perception of ultimate Reality claimed by great mystics and seers of the world. The commonest of all cognitions has proved to be no less enigmatic than the rarest of them all. Modern epistemologists—the idealists, the realists and the mediators—have grappled with the former without reaching a satisfactory solution, while they have hardly recognized the latter. The present treatise includes a comprehensive and consistent treatment of both these types of experience.
Besides the interpretation of different forms of non-perceptual knowledge it gives an eleaorate explanation of illusory experience and the cognition of non-existence, to which Western epistemology has paid scant attention. True to the Advaita position, the book tackles the problems of knowledge with reference to its source, the self within, which is undeniable, although unnoticed. Though ancient, the process is ever new, being applicable in all cases of cognition. The author has tried to present the Advaita views in relation to those of other Indian and Western systems of thought. The book is suited to thinkers in general within and without the academic circle.
Swami Satprakashananda, the author of the book, was the founder of the Vedanta Society of St. Louis and worked in the United States for over three decades.
