Ways of Knowing Record Type: Review   ID: 352
Scientific and Primordial Knowing Tekippe, Terry J.
This work offers a history of Western epistemological thought with chapters devoted to Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Whitehead, and Lonegran. In each case he presents the philosopher’s views on both primordial and scientific ways of knowing. In a concluding chapter, he lists and summarizes all the ways of knowing presented in the preceding chapters. He concludes that at the present time philosophy is "in a moment of stasis, of pause" (p. 476). Therefore, in line with "Whitehead’s observation that when a movement exhausts its first initiative, it must return to the source of its founding intuitions" (p. 477), he seeks to find those intuitions, [The same is true, I would say, for individuals. And "founding intuitions," in either case, are EHEs.], considers return to the Enlightenment, but rejects it as part of the problem, not the solution. He considers a return to medieval philosophy, early Christianity, and Greek philosophy. If to Greeks, then not to Aristotle but to Plato, it would have to be to Plato rather than Aristotle; and if to Plato, then to the mythos rather than to the logas. He rejects a return to Christian roots, as Christianity seems to have played itself out, with the exception of charismatic and Pentecostal groups (i.e., those based on EHEs). He considers Eastern and Middle Eastern philosophy and religion, but rejects them because it would not be a return to our founding intuitions [unless, of course, we think not in terms of East and West but of One World]. He also considers that the West may have "exhausted all its sources of intuition, and is no longer capable of renewing itself" (p. 478). He apparently does not even consider first peoples cultures, especially Native Americans. The best he can do is to urge that philosophers "know thy knowing" and to recognize and honor both forms. There is another possibility he does not mention—the impulse of life itself in response to the call of the universe. That is how life first evolved on Earth—why should it stop now? Rather, we need to recognize it and do it.
Publisher Information:	Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1996. 513p. Ind: 493-513; Sel. bibl: 481-492

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