Language: English Pages: 348 Foreword It may not be possible to state Swami Vivekananda s concept of knowledge in terms of Western epistemology. Since the first use of the word epistemology by J. F. Ferrier in his Institutes of Metaphysics (1854) all discussions on the theory of knowledge have dealt with knowledge in relation to metaphysics, logic and psychology. And such discussions have been very largely influenced by the epistemology of Kant. Actually the expression theory of knowledge is an English equivalent of the German word erkennistheorie used by the German Kantian K. L. Reinhold in a German work on the subject published in 179. Since then Western epistemology has been dominated by the Kantian view that the theory of knowledge must precede the theory of Being or Reality. Swami Vivekananda knew this and yet he never made that theory a major philosophical concern. In Indian philosophy knowledge is vital as it is the means of salvation and therefore its nature hash to be understood. But the Indian mind is more concerned with ignorance which has to be dispelled and it was believed that when ignorance is dispelled knowledge will dawn upon a pure soul. Although there was a strong philosophical tradition concerned with questions of perception, inference, and testimony as instruments of knowledge, Vivekananda gave his mind to the moral side of the pursuit of knowledge as a means of moksa or release. Still Vivekananda did have a theory of knowledge and in presenting it he firmly rejected the Kantian idea of reason as its only source. Kant says that the thing-in-itself is unknown and unknowable. Vivekananda affirms that Kant says this because he thinks reason is the only instrument of knowledge. While speaking on mans quest for the Absolute in his Raja- Yoga Vivekananda says: Kant has proved beyond all doubt that we cannot penetrate the tremendous dead wall called reason. But that