Antonio Rosmini: Introduction to His Life and Teaching
Preface
To introduce a person's life and teaching is to invite others to experience and share the wonder of an existence not their own. The extent of the invitation is never easy to decide. In the case of Rosmini, I have become ever more aware, while writing this introduction, of a figure of immense intellectual and spiritual stature, but almost unknown outside Italian-speaking circles, who consistently unveils a profoundly satisfying meaning to so many aspects of reality.
His immense output, his untiring application to his studies, his extensive correspondence, the care of his religious Institute and above all his dedication to the interior life cry out, even in a summary introduction, for fuller and more systematic illumination than I could hope to bring to the matter here. I have, therefore, contented myself with presenting Rosmini's basic tenets, and setting them out in a way which I hope will enable everyone to find something of interest in his work.
Each section of the introduction to his teaching points to conclusions reached by Rosmini in a particular field of study, and contains some indication of how he arrived at those conclusions. To this extent, individual sections can be read as separate units. Taken together, the sections support and corroborate one another while providing an overall picture of Rosmini's contribution to the history of his time and to the development of thought. But calling attention to part or whole of Rosmini's work is my only justification for this tentative effort to introduce him and make him better known.
Denis Cleary