Author's Preface To The 2nd Edition, Foreword By Professor I T Ramsey, Author's Preface To The 1st Edition, 1-Introduction; 2-The Religious Approach To Philosophy; 3-The Metaphysical Approach To Philosophy; 4-The Cultural Approach To Philosophy; 5-The Analytical Approach To Philosophy; 6-The Existentialist Approach To Philosophy; 7-Conclusion; Appendix 1 Knowledge And Truth, Appendix 2 A Linguistic Analysis Of The Problem Of Sense Perception, Appendix 3 About The Author, Appendix 4 Select Bibliography, Index
This monograph attempts to describe different approaches to philosophy, their situational and conceptual fields, their inter-relations and limitations. The possibility of combining them into a multi-dimensional approach is also discussed. The key notion underlying this essay is that the actual doing of philosophy must be rooted in a critical and comparative meta-philosophy.Most philosophers are so busy in establishing truths, or analyzing words and sentences, as the case may be, that they tend to neglect meta-philosophy. This leads to methodological isolationism and a polemical instead of an irenic approach to philosophical problems. The point of departure of this study is the view that the problem of the nature of philosophy and of philosophical disagreement is not a preliminary enquiry but rather the central query of twentieth century thought. The author critically examines five broad approaches to philosophy; the religious, the metaphysical, the cultural, the analytical and the existentialist. He cautions against the adoption of a mono-dimensional approach and recommends a multi-dimensional answer to this basic question. While this survey deals primarily with the philosophers of the West, the analysis and conclusions are applicable to all philosophers, Eastern or Western.
Born in 1926, Jamal Khwaja has devoted a lifetime to the challenge of understanding and living the Quran with integrity. His forefathers worked closely with Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, and with Mahatma Gandhi. Khwaja studied philosophy in India and Europe. In 1957 he was elected to the Indian Parliament. However, his engagement with power politics was short lived. In 1962 he returned to his beloved, scholarly and contemplative lifestyle at the Aligarh Muslim University. He retired as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Philosophy. He is the author of seven major books. Khwaja's work seeks to answer three inter-related questions: Firstly, What does it mean to be an authentic Muslim? Secondly, How should a believer understand and interpret the Holy Quran in the 21st century? And finally, What is the role of Islam in a pluralistic society? Anyone interested in the intersection of Islam and Modernity will find Khwaja to be a reliable guide. His work is magisterial in scope. It is full of passion but remains balanced in perspective. Khwaja believes in judiciously creative modernization rooted in the Quran and firmly opposes shallow, unprincipled imitation of the West. His mission is to stimulate serious rethinking and informed dialog between tradition and modernity in Islam. Khwaja's work is the definitive contemporary discussion regarding the collision of Islam and Modernity. Readers of his work will be in turn, informed, inspired, and intellectually liberated.
