Epistemology and Phenomenology of Religions (Creative Insights into Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue)

This book consists of three detailed course outlines of Prof Azzopardi: on Epistemology; on Phenomenon of Religion and on Religious Language. Retaining its classic sense and open to incessant search for truth, this book tries to dialogue between Indian and Christian philosophies. This scholarly work is a major contribution to Indian philosophy and Scholastic tradition. Professor Azzopardi's passion for philosophizing is evident on every page of this book!

Prof Salvino Azzopardi SJ (1931-2006) is a Maltese philosopher, who has made India his home. Conversant both in Sanskrit and Latin, he has made an erudite attempt to bring together perennial insights from both Indian and Scholastic traditions of philosophy. He studied both at Benares Hindu University and Gregorian University. He has been a professor of philosophy at Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth for more than 30 years.

It is a great honour for me to write these few introductory paragraphs and I thank the editor wholeheartedly for the invitation. Both Salvino Azzopardi and I obtained our initial formation as Jesuits within the Maltese Province of the Society of Jesus, a province that was established for the duration of seventy years, between 1947 and 2017. We both specialized in philosophy and we both spent many years as professors, serving innumerable students from different parts of the world. Salvino however was my senior by twenty-six years. Consequently, the few times we met during vacation time were always for me moments of inspiration and appreciation. He always left me with a deep impression. I always felt that I had interacted with a person who had travelled a lot in his life, someone who had covered great distances not only in the geographical sense but also in the cultural and philosophical sense.

This book gives us a taste of this richness. It offers a selection of his written work on a particular theme related to knowledge and phenomenology. By knowledge we normally understand the grasping of truth with certainty in some particular domain. By phenomenology we normally understand the study of how things or events present themselves to us, irrespective of our prior scientific knowledge. These two technical terms have been the object of philosophical study for centuries. During these last decades, most philosophers have examined these fundamental notions with great care but restricted their study mainly to everyday objects or circumstances, concentrating their efforts on the strengths and weaknesses of the natural sciences and sidelining to some extent the religious dimension. It is however becoming increasingly obvious that one of the major driving forces of social and cultural change, for the better or for the worse, is indeed religion. It is crucial therefore that philosophers turn their attention to this dimension of human living. We need to examine with great attention questions of the following kind. What is the difference between religious knowledge and religious opinion? What justifies religious knowledge? How can different religious traditions enrich each other and help to arrive a common understanding of religious knowledge and religious experience? What is the correct role of religious language and how is it related to everyday linguistic practice and to technical scientific language?

Rev. Prof. Salvino Azzopardi SJ is one of the few professors who have impressed me most by his philosophical quest and systematic search which he did both spontaneously and joyfully. In fact, he was one of the inspirations why I myself decided to specialize on the same topic of philosophy.

As I have been teaching philosophy at Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV), Pune, I have been struck by the number of alumni who are fond of Prof. Azzopardi and his philosophical quest. There have been so many requests for his course materials, which he had prepared in the 1970's and 80's.

The various course materials he has prepared about forty years have not become dated, but rather become classic. He was totally at home both in Western philosophy and Indian thoughts. In his philosophy classes he has tried successfully to integrate the wisdom of the Indian traditions with that of the East.

He told me on one of our encounters that every summer he will spend reading and researching on one particular field of philosophy, which becomes his course material for teaching. In this course material, he has integrated vision from East and West or from Christian and Hindu traditions, without giving up his Christian roots!

He was an open-minded person in search of the truth. He enjoyed contemplating. I cannot forget the fact that he had written in large letters some of logical equations. He told me that he will just look at these equations and enjoy the beauty of them! He also enjoyed related to his colleagues and students. His classes were both popular and insightful. He had a knack for making the profound philosophical thoughts both simple and interesting, without watering it down. He showed through his life and vision how philosophy can retain its theoretical nature and can be immensely practical.

**Contents and Sample Pages**