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ROSMINI TODAY ROSMINI TODAY AT THE SPRINGS OF KNOWLEDGE AT At the Springs of Knowledge Blessed Antonio Rosmini 1797-1855 A Presentation of “There is no other wisdom but in God” Rosmini’s Epistemology Antonio Belsito AA Belsito I.C. 2 AT THE SPRINGS OF KNOWLEDGE WRITTEN BY ANTONIO BELSITO IC Copyright © 2016 by Rosmini Publications All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. ISBN 978-1-899093-19-9 Printed in the United States of America 1 ROSMINI TODAY AT THE SPRINGS OF KNOWLEDGE A Presentation of Rosmini’s Epistemology AA Belsito I.C. ROSMINI PUBLICATIONS 2015 CONTENT Foreword ................................................................................... 4 Headings ................................................................................... 1 Introduction .............................................................................. 8 Chapter 1: The Crisis About Truth ....................................... 15 Chapter 2: Epistemology: the Difficult Problem ................ 31 Chapter 3: Rosmini’s Epistemology .................................... 50 Chapter 4: The Idea of Being ................................................ 77 Chapter 5: The Human Subject ............................................ 96 Chapter 6: Truth and Certainty ...........................................111 Chapter 7: The Mind that Thinks the Idea of Being from Eternity ...................................... 123 Brief Biography of Blessed Antonio Rosmini ................... 132 Works of Antonio Rosmini Available in English ............. 142 Acknowledgement The author would like to thank Mark Jacques and Sr Paulette of Jesus for their help and support. HEADINGS Introduction The Big Bang ..................................................................... The “single point” of all knowledge ............................... Preliminary remarks about ideas .................................. Chapter 1: The crisis about Truth Summary ........................................................................... “What is truth?” ................................................................ Truth is relative ................................................................ Morality and Aesthetics are a matter of taste .............. No Religion is the true Religion .................................... When is a sentence meaningful? ................................... Do we have a spiritual soul? .......................................... What do we mean by “person”? ..................................... Empiricists and Rationalists ........................................... Kant’s position on the origin of ideas ........................... Rosmini’s position on the problem of the origin of ideas ................................................................................... KEYWORDS ..................................................................... Chapter 2: Epistemology, the difficult problem Summary ........................................................................... A superficial approach to the problem ......................... Have a go at solving the problem! ................................ A Priori Knowledge: a serious problem for empiricism ........................................................................ Is the problem solved? .................................................... Criticism of the empiricists’ view .................................. KEYWORDS ..................................................................... Chapter 3: Rosmini’s Epistemology Summary ........................................................................... The foundation of Rosmini’s Epistemology ................ How did Adam and Eve begin to think? ..................... 1 False theories assigning an insufficient cause of ideas: J Locke, Bishop Berkeley, J B D’Alembert, E de Condillac, D Hume, T Reid, D Stewart ..................... False theories assigning a superfluous cause of ideas: Socrates, Plato, E Kant ....................................... Chapter 4: The Idea of Being Summary ........................................................................... Fact: we think “being”, we have the idea of being ...... Fact: we cannot think of anything without the idea of being .................................................................................. What is the origin of the idea of being? ........................ The idea of being is the source of all other ideas ........ Origin of the Principles of Logic.................................... Origin of pure a priori ideas .......................................... Origin of a posteriori ideas ............................................. The discovery of the Fundamental Feeling ................. Proofs for the existence of the Fundamental Feeling . Chapter 5: The Human Subject Summary ........................................................................... Definitions of the Human Subject ................................. Science and the decline of the Spiritual ........................ The Human Soul .............................................................. The Soul is spiritual ......................................................... Chapter 6: Truth and Certainty Summary ........................................................................... What is truth? ................................................................... Scepticism is impossible ................................................. Chapter 7: The Mind that thinks the Idea of Being from eternity Summary ........................................................................... The divine origin of the Idea of Being .......................... Rosmini’s views on Creation ......................................... At the springs of knowledge: ......................................... 2 • The divine in man • Complementarity of Faith and Reason, of Science and Religion • The infinite dignity of man • The foundation of Ethics • Personhood as the pinnacle of every human being • Intelligence, Freedom, and Will • Education of the person • Intellectual Charity • Divine Grace and the new supernatural world • Grace as the touch of the Humanity of JESUS • The Trinitarian perception of God through grace • Rosmini’s Christocentric view of the Cosmos Blessed Antonio Rosmini 3 FOREWORD This is the second book of the series, “Rosmini Today” and it deals with Rosmini’s foundational work on philosophy, published in Rome in 1830, with the title, “A New Essay Concerning the Origin of Ideas”. The work, in three volumes, had an immediate success both in Italy and abroad, and many Universities and Seminaries adopted it as a textbook for their students. It is a philosophical masterpiece, and the foundation of all his subsequent writings. Rosmini is known as the philosopher of the “idea of being”, and it is no exaggeration to say that the whole of his powerful system of truth is founded on the discovery of this prodigious idea. The idea of being solves the problem of epistemology, which is the main concern of this work. It was J Locke who had argued that before committing ourselves to the production of books on philosophy or theology we should first investigate the boundaries and the limits of human wisdom, to avoid the risk of talking nonsense. Epistemology is the science which studies the origin and the status of all our ideas, to find out how secure are the foundations of our knowledge. Is our knowledge truthful? Is the human mind capable of arriving at the truth? Rene’ Descartes started his philosophy by doubting the knowledge he thought he had, subjecting it to a most thorough investigation. The result was, at first, radical scepticism, until he found what he thought was an unassailable truth, “Cogito, ergo Sum” [I think, therefore I am]. David Hume and Bishop Berkeley started their works on philosophy by making enquiries on the origin of ideas and on the status of human understanding. The former ended up with radical scepticism, the latter with Idealism which denied the existence of matter. 4 It is hugely important to produce the “right” epistemology, just as it is hugely important not to build the house on sand. Rosmini’s epistemology is the work of a genius, is solid rock on which to build a system of truth embracing all the fields of human knowledge, from metaphysics to ethics, from psychology to anthropology, from the philosophy of right to politics, from the essence of the human person to natural and supernatural theology. It was Pius VIII who, in 1829, had urged Rosmini to write books on philosophy, theology, and spirituality. This is how Rosmini remembered their meeting, many years (and many books!) later: “I still remember his loving and authoritative words: ‘It is the will of God that you write books, this is your vocation. The Church has a great need of writers, I mean, solid writers so extremely few in number. In order to influence people usefully there is no other means today but to take them by means of reason, and by this means to lead them to religion. Be assured that you will benefit your neighbour far more successfully by writing than by exercising any other work of pastoral ministry’” (Introduction to Philosophy, 1850). Rosmini was in full agreement with the Pope about the need to “take people by means of reason, and by this means to lead them to religion”. He based