Introduction: The Calling of Transformative Knowledge

Summary

The prime condition for a democratically organized public is a kind of knowledge and insight which does not yet exist.

—John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (1927, 166)

The consideration of life itself requires that the potent reality of the soul be described in its wholeness, from its more humble to its highest possibilities.

—Wilhelm Dilthey

True, an outward battle also has to be fought, but against institutions which stand in the way of spreading the light and reign of brotherhood, not against men as unbelievers, in a spirit of understanding, of knowledge, of firm will, but also of charity for ignorance and love…

—Sri Aurobindo, The Hour of God and Other Writings (1972, 326)

The Adventure and Invitation of Knowledge

In the Bible we read about a woman who is wailing in the streets and her name is Wisdom. She is weeping because despite her knocking we are not opening our doors. But in the human journey as well as in our contemporary world it is not only wisdom which is weeping. Knowledge is also weeping, as it has become imprisoned within a variety of structures of domination, commodification, illusion and isolation. But to know is not only to know of but to know with – a practice of knowing with which involves both self-knowledge and knowledge of the world (see Sunder Rajan 1988). It is a process of knowing where we hold each other's hands, look up to each other's faces and learn together. This helps us realize our primordial need for self-knowledge (“Know Thyself”), knowledge of the other and the world.