Cart
Free US shipping over $10
Proud to be B-Corp

Way Toward Wisdom, The Benedict M. Ashley

Way Toward Wisdom, The By Benedict M. Ashley

Way Toward Wisdom, The by Benedict M. Ashley


$62.19
Condition - New
Only 2 left

Way Toward Wisdom, The Summary

Way Toward Wisdom, The: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics by Benedict M. Ashley

Once thought to be the task of metaphysics, the synthesis of knowledge has been discounted by many philosophers today. Benedict Ashley, a leading Thomistic scholar, argues that it remains a valid and intellectually fruitful pursuit by situating metaphysics as an endeavor that must cross disciplinary and cultural boundaries.

Working from a realist Thomistic epistemology, Ashley asserts that we must begin our search for wisdom in the natural sciences; only then, he believes, can we ensure that our claims about immaterial and invisible things are rooted in reliable experience of the material. Any attempt to share wisdom, he insists, must derive from a context that is both interdisciplinary and intercultural.

Ashley offers an ambitious analysis and synthesis of major historical contributions to the unification of knowledge, including non-Western traditions. Beginning with the question Metaphysics: Nonsense or Wisdom? Ashley moves from a critical examination of the foundations of modern science to quantum physics and the Big Bang; from Aristotle's theory of being and change, through Aquinas's five ways, to a critical analysis of modern and postmodern thought. Ashley is able to interweave the approaches of the great philosophers by demonstrating their contributions to philosophical thought in a concrete, specific manner. In the process, he accounts for a contemporary culture overwhelmed by the fragmentation of data and thirsting for an utterly transcendent yet personal God. The capstone of a remarkable career, The Way Toward Wisdom will be welcomed by students in philosophy and theology.

Way Toward Wisdom, The Reviews

Ashley's book is a recapitulation of a lifelong effort to reach a comprehensive understanding of reality. It displays a high level of scholarship, offers a voyage through the philosophical disciplines and takes into account the metaphysical orientation of the great religious traditions of mankind. -The Review of Metaphysics


This is an impressive, well-researched book, of great value. It offers the wider philosophical community a point of entrance, by a proponent of a certain type of Thomism, into a domain that all philosophers think they already understand. The result is the creation of a 'big picture' of human knowledge. -Mark Johnson, Marquette University


In The Way toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics . . . Father Ashley explains why only metaphysics has a legitimate claim to being the university's unifying academic discipline. Without it, universities have no 'way toward wisdom'. . . . Father Ashley's book is a gift, a patient exposition of human wisdom, proceeding from the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition. -The British Columbia Catholic


In summarizing and synthesizing the best of Neothomism and the range of developments of modern scientific and cultural studies, Ashley's work brings to a close the late modern involvement of Thomism as 'Neothomism' by opening the way to a postmodern era for philosophy and intellectual culture as a whole, an era within which we may expect to see yet another epoch of Thomistic development . . . -American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

About Benedict M. Ashley

Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., (1915 - 2013) was emeritus professor of moral theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology, St. Louis. Among his publications are Health Care Ethics, with Kevin O'Rourke, O.P., Justice in the Church, Truth in Love, and Theologies of the Body.

Additional information

NLS9780268020354
9780268020354
0268020353
Way Toward Wisdom, The: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics by Benedict M. Ashley
New
Paperback
University of Notre Dame Press
2009-08-15
640
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a new book - be the first to read this copy. With untouched pages and a perfect binding, your brand new copy is ready to be opened for the first time

Customer Reviews - Way Toward Wisdom, The