Stations on the Journey of Inquiry: Formative Writings of David B. Burrell 1962-72

In this collection Stations on the Journey of Inquiry David Burrell launches a revolutionary reinterpretation of how any inquiry proceeds boldly critiquing presumptuous theories of knowledge language and ethics. While his later publications Analogy and Philosophical Language (1973) and Aquinas: God and Action (1979) elucidate Aquinass linguistic theology these early writings show what often escapes articulation: how one comes to understanding and takes a judgment. Although Aquinas serves as an axial figure for Burrells expansive corpus of scholarship spanning more than fifty years this selection of essays presents other positions and counterpositions to whom his own philosophical theology is beholden: Plato Aristotle Cajetan Kant Peirce Moore Wittgenstein Sellars Weiss Ross McInerny and Lonergan. With renewed interest in philosophy of language by postmodern thinkers as well as in the wake of Mulhalls Stanton Lectures on Wittgenstein and Grammatical Thomism the publication of these formative writings proves timely for the academy at large. Burrell invites us to reconsider not only the way in which we conduct an inquiry but what it is we take language to be and how we take responsibility for what we say. A long-overdue gathering of David Burrells early work this collection invites us to engage and learn from one of the most probing erudite and generous minds working in the borderlands between philosophy and theology for the past half-century. Consistently detaining wide-ranging and refreshingly eclectic Burrells essays are a timely reminder of the deep and fertile kinship between philosophy and theology. A true gift to people working in either field Mary Ragans fine edition is prefaced by intellectual testimonials by three of Burrells most eminent colleagues. --Thomas Pfau Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of English Professor & Chair of Germanic Languages & Literatures Duke Divinity School David B. Burrell CSC Theodore Hesburgh Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Theology taught at the University of Notre Dame from 1964 to 2007. In addition to authoring more than 150 scholarly articles his many books include Analogy and Philosophical Language (1973) Aquinas: God and Action (1979) Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina Maimonides Aquinas (1986) Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions (1993) and Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology (2011). He presently serves the Congregation of Holy Cross in Bangladesh.