AboutMaciej St. Zięba Expertise I can answer questions concerning Eastern (Oriental) philosophies and philosophers (Indian, Tibetan, Indonesian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese: Hinduist, Buddhist, Confucianist, Taoist and other; alas not Islamic or Jewish) - both in terms of notions and facts (history of their development). I can write in English, French, Esperanto, Polish and Russian, German, Dutch and Norwegian. I can also understand questions in Spanish and Italian.
Experience I have been teaching Indian and Chinese philosophies since 1987 and in 2000 I started a project on Oriental philosophies within the scope of the Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Powszechna Encyklopedia Filozofii) published in Polish by SITA-PL (7 volumes, A-Pan, published 2000-2006, containing ca. 300 entries in Eastern philosophies, written by a team of a dozen of Polish scholars).
Organizations The Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), Poland, History of Philosophy Department
Publications Several publications in Polish; in English: The Origin of the World according to Rigveda (Montreal 1996), Contributions to the History of the Buddhist Classifications of Dharmas: Pancavastuka of Vasumitra (Bulletin, Polish Institute and Library, Montreal 1997)
Education/Credentials philosophy (KUL, Lublin, 1976-81); M.A. in history of Indian philosophy (KUL, 1981); Ph.D. in history of Indian philosophy (KUL, 1989); other studies: Indian and Chinese philosophies (Institut Catholique, Paris, 1985-6); Tibetan language (INALCO, Paris, 1985-6); Chinese language (McGill University, Montreal, 1995-7)
Question what is the importance o significance of logic for religious studies ?
Answer Dear Hera,
In order to answer your question one has first to answer the question "What is logic?". Logic is the science of reasoning, the master of correct thought. If your don't use logic you couldn't probably even know that if there is a rain and you go outside without an umbrella or a raincoat you'll get wet.
You see - logic is important for every domain of life. The more for such a domain that is called "a study". If you study something you need to use your brains in order to understand. You have to be critical about not accepting false information as true, about not making too quick generalisations (based on false analogies), about not arriving at too broad or too narrow conclusions, or even at contradictory ones, about naming things correctly (using proper definitions) etc. etc. You need to know how to weight other peoples' evidences, how to judge their reasoning, how to filter out which conclusion from certain data is a false one, and which conclusions form a set of true conclusions, how to analyse information, which methods would arrive at a useful result within a given area of study and which would not. That's all what logic is about. Remember that symbolic (or mathematical)logic is but a subset of logic in general.
Otherwise, while not using logic, while studying religions (especially when studying those that are uncommon to you) you may quickly arrive at some unfounded stereotypes or (when studying that one which is your own religion) - at blind faith.
