Sathish Paul sdb

Today we live in a post modern world, where our society is slowly losing sight of the eternal truth. People, especially youngsters are losing the consciousness of sin. Good virtues are hardly excercised by the current generation. The same thing which was considered as a mortal sin some years ago has today become a lifestyle. How can that be justified? Now let us limit our views only to the area of chastity. Today the human sphere has been torn asunder by a climate of lust and inpurity. What is and who is the reason for all of this.  Even for religious men and women chastity is running on a crisis. In fact every hour about 750 people all around the world commits a crime or a sin against the virtue of chastity. It’s shocking to realise that our world is taking it’s shape of another Sodom and Gammorah. What is the solution for all of this? Is a chaste life not possible in this techonological world?       Dear friends it is possible. Let us go back to the ...

He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is simple. TEACH HIM He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. SHUN HIM He who knows, but knows not that he knows, is asleep. WAKE UP HIM UP He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise. FOLLOW HIM The awareness of our knowing is very essential in life. What are we doing when we are knowing? Why is doing that knowing? What do we know when we do that? These are the questions we consider when we learn Philosophy of Knowing.

The structure of any knowing can be ordered as experience, understanding and judgment. Experience would be our empirical consciousness, understanding would be our intellectual consciousness, Judgment would be our reflective consciousness. So through this structure we arrive at an insight. Now what is insight, it is a supervening act of understanding. We begin with experience, pass on to understand and then led to make a judgment which can be affirmative or negative. This act is called “Self appropriation” An insight is emerged first by asking a question and limiting that question and considering the clue, and finally we arrive at an insight. Now to scrutinize the correctness of an insight, we have to come to a point where there is no further relevant questions.

Philosophers have often claimed that “to know is to be.”  The knower becomes what he claims to know. Naturally, this is not to be understood in a physical sense, but in the sense of intentionality. Man cannot claim to know a particular reality unless he is one with it. Any claim to the contrary revives the problem of the bridge. Thus, knowledge leads to the progressive enlargement of the knower. My knowledge increase the frontiers of my personhood. Because man knows, he is a microcosm. What are stars, galaxies, black holes?... There is no need to travel to the frontiers of the universe to find out. Ask the competent knower; he’s got it all on his fingertips!

“Objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity,” said Bernard Lonergan. How true it is!!! Because in life there is nothing objective. There is no such a thing called objectivity per se. Every idea or concept has a subjective touch. I cannot see or judge this world from an Archimedean standpoint. There is always a conceptual-linguistic framework involved. Each individual looks at the reality with his/her own perspective or stance. My understanding of the world may be far different from another person’s understanding of the world. So how then to arrive at objectivity. The ideal answer for this would be the famous dictum of the Canadian Jesuit philosopher, Bernard Lonergan: “Objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity.”

A devout follower of Socrates asked him the best way to acquire knowledge. Socrates responded by leading him to a river and plunged him beneath the surface. The man struggled to free himself, but Socrates kept his head submerged. Finally, after much effort, the man was able to break loose and emerge from the water. Socrates then asked, “When you thought you were drowning, what one thing did you want most of all?” Still gasping for breath, the man exclaimed, “I wanted air!” The philosopher wisely commented, “When you want knowledge as much as you wanted air, then you will get it!” The same is true with our DESIRE TO KNOW. Our desire to know makes life interesting and authentic.