Stanley L. Jaki

In writing A Mind's Matter, one of this generation's finest philosophers looks back at his own scholarship and the intellectual framework that produced it -- not least his staunch belief in the crucial role of religious convictions in academic thought.

Stanley Jaki's explosive productivity canvasses a wide range of relevant topics, most notably the history of science, and has earned him such signal honors as the Gifford lectureship and the Templeton Prize. A Hungarian by birth, Jaki has since 1950 lived in the United States, where one's religion is supposed to be a strictly private affair. yet as a Catholic priest of the Benedictine Order, Jaki has never made secret his dislike of the "rule" that expects one to eliminate religious factors from the so-called academic equation. To his mind those factors matter very much indeed.

In this powerful intellectual autobiography, Jaki reflects on the course of his thinking, asking in what sense the religious factors he holds dear can also promote scholarship, particularly in the sensitive field of science and religion. The answer is set forth in a combination of topical and chronological meditations that will be of great value to anyone pursuing academic work today.

Stanley L. Jaki is Distinguished University Professor at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. The author of forty-one books, including Newman's Challenge, The Savior of Science, and Praying the Psalms, he is the recipient of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize for 1970 and the Templeton Prize for 1987.