This title was first published in 2002. Knowing God presents an innovative analysis of one of the most difficult and intractable philosophical questions of the past 350 years: the problem of knowledge, and specifically knowledge of God and the transcendental principles of value. This book situates the problem within the context of current social and political struggles, as well as within the contemporary search for meaning and value. Mansueto revisits ancient debates regarding the agent intellect, intentional being, and connatural knowledge, while drawing on recent discussions in neuropsychology (Luria and Damasio), cognitive development theory (Piaget and Luria), and the sociology of knowledge or "ideological criticism" (especially Durkheim, Lukacs, and Gramsci). Including a chapter on forms of religious knowledge and concluding with a 'guide for the perplexed' intended to help overcome nihilism and despair, Knowing God reconciles epistemological and metaphysical realism with a recognition of the role of social structure in shaping knowledge.
'Knowing God is a substantial and highly significant philosophical work. It argues for the possibility of rational knowledge of the world largely from a Thomist perspective, but also drawing upon many modern insights in epistemology and the sociology of knowledge. This book is successful in both undermining postmodernist assumptions about the limitations of human knowledge, and in demonstrating the political origins and valence of those assumptions. It will interest a wide audience, not only philosophers but scholars in other fields and politically and religiously active people interested in the way the problem of knowledge affects politics and spirituality.' Colin M.Harper, University of Ulster, Ireland 'The author has provided a rich source of insights, and an even richer methodology for understanding future developments in human knowing. It is a methodology that escapes the traps of subjective idealism and postmodernist perspectivalism, while at the same time opening the human knower to the transcendent in a way that does not require the sacrifice of reason.' The Review of Metaphysics
