Guénon’s early and abiding interest in mathematics, like that of Plato, Pascal, Leibnitz, and many other metaphysicians of note, runs like a scarlet thread throughout his doctrinal studies. In this late text published just five years before his death, Guénon devotes an entire volume to questions regarding the nature of limits and the infinite with respect to the calculus both as a mathematical discipline and as symbolism for the initiatic path. This book therefore extends and complements the geometrical symbolism he employs in other works, especially The Symbolism of the Cross, The Multiple States of the Being, and Symbols of Sacred Science. According to Guénon, the concept ‘infinite number’ is a contradiction in terms. Infinity is a metaphysical concept at a higher level of reality than that of quantity, where all that can be expressed is the indefinite, not the infinite. But although quantity is the only level recognized by modern science, the numbers that express it also possess qualities, their quantitative aspect being merely their outer husk. Our reliance today on a mathematics of approximation and probability only further conceals the ‘qualitative mathematics’ of the ancient world, which comes to us most directly through the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition.
Archive for the ‘Generic Perennial Philosophy’ Category
The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus, By René Guénon
Posted in Generic Perennial Philosophy, René Guénon, Science, tagged rene on March 28, 2014|
Response to Stephen Hawking’s Physics-as-Philosophy, by Wolfgang Smith
Posted in Generic Perennial Philosophy, Wolfgang Smith on February 26, 2012|
Response to Stephen Hawking’s Physics-as-Philosophy
by Wolfgang Smith
The Crisis of the Modern World, By René Guénon
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, René Guénon on June 28, 2011|
Description
It is no longer news that the Western world is in a crisis, a crisis that has spread far beyond its point of origin and become global in nature. In 1927, Reni Guinon responded to this crisis with the closest thing he ever wrote to a manifesto and ‘call-to-action’. The Crisis of the Modern World was his most direct and complete application of traditional metaphysical principles-particularly that of the ‘age of darkness’ preceding the end of the present world-to social criticism, surpassed only by The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, his magnum opus. In the present work Guinon ruthlessly exposes the ‘Western deviation’: its loss of tradition, its exaltation of action over knowledge, its rampant individualism and general social chaos. His response to these conditions was not ‘activist’, however, but purely intellectual, envisioning the coming together of Western intellectual leaders capable under favorable circumstances of returning the West to its traditional roots, most likely via the Catholic Church, or, under less favorable ones, of at least preserving the ‘seeds’ of Tradition for the time to come.
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Ye Shall Know the Truth: Christianity and the Perennial Philosophy, Edited By M. S. de Azevedo
Posted in Generic Perennial Philosophy on June 28, 2011|
Description
the relationship of Christianity—or for that matter, of any religion—to the perennial philosophy is that of one particular color to the uncolored light. The essays included in this book, therefore, envisage Christianity on the background of a perennial and universal truth. In the Rig-Veda (1.164.46), it is said that “sages call the one Reality by many names”, and a man is not debarred from understanding this truth simply because he is a Christian. St. Augustine alluded to this perennial and universal truth when he said: “That which today is called the Christian religion existed among the Ancients, and has never ceased to exist from the origin of the human race, until the time when Christ himself came, and men began to call Christian the true religion which already existed beforehand.” The perennial philosophy could be said to be perennial Platonism. Others might call it perennial Vedanta. Others again, like C. S. Lewis, might call it the Tao. The editor’s selection of contributors is very wide-ranging. From a large number of authors, of a variety of denominations, he has chosen many surprising and unique items of great relevance which one would be very unlikely to come across elsewhere. One matter of contemporary importance on which the book offers some encouraging perspectives is the question of relations between Christianity and Islam. Here too the editor has unearthed contributions which, often in unexpected ways, shed considerable light.
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Cosmos and Transcendence: Breaking Through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief, By Wolfgang Smith
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, Science, Wolfgang Smith on June 28, 2011|
Description
In the present work, Wolfgang Smith presents an insider’s critique of the scientific world-view based upon the sharp but often overlooked distinction between scientific truth and scientistic faith. With elegance and clarity he demonstrates that major tenets promulgated in the name of Science are not in fact scientific truths but rather scientistic speculations – for which there is no evidence at all. Step by step the reader is led to the astonishing realization that the specifically ‘modern’ world is based intellectually upon nothing more substantial than a syndrome of Promethean myths. But this is only half of what the book accomplishes. Its primary contribution is to recover and reaffirm the deep metaphysical and religious insights that have come down to us through the traditional wisdom. And herein lies the true worth of this remarkable treatise: having broken the grip of scientistic presuppositions, the author succeeds admirably in bringing to view great truths that had long been obscured.
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The Multiple States of the Being, By Rene Guenon
Posted in Generic Perennial Philosophy, René Guénon on June 28, 2011|
Description
This text, René Guénon’s most comprehensive work of ‘pure’ metaphysics, is written as if nothing at all is, but That which is in its own essence. And, in truth, what else is there? Being is multiple and comprises many states, both manifest and unmanifest; but the unmanifest has precedence, what is seen being effectively nothing in the face of what is not seen. To realize this is to realize the contingency of the human state and the set of its inherent possibilities; to realize the contingency of the human state is to be liberated from it; to be liberated from the human state is to assimilate the principle by which the being can be liberated from all states. This is the end of the spiritual life, and also of the human form: ‘end’ both as telos and as annihilation. And since all beings in manifestation exist equally and simultaneously in all the planes and states of the Unmanifest, to know Infinite Possibility is precisely to become what one is. Whatever else Guénon wrote, as mystagogue, hermeneut, critic of the modern world, emanated from and existed to support the realization of only This.
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The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr , Edited By L. E. Hahn, R. E. Auxier, L. W. Stone, Jr. (Library of Living Philosophers, vol. 28)
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, Seyyed Hossein Nasr on June 4, 2011|
Description
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, currently University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, is not only the first Muslim philosopher in our series, but also the first traditionalist since our volume on Martin Buber. Some mainstream philosophers are unaware that traditionalist philosophy still persists in the world, and still more would be hard pressed to say what exactly traditionalist philosophy is. This is regrettable, given the popularity and breadth of traditionalist views beyond the narrower world of Anglo-American and European academies. Professor Nasr, standing as he does at the head of a handsome group of traditionalists, boldly challenges the assumptions and values of the modem world, and of modem scientistic philosophy. Yet, this challenge has been issued forth not as a pure reaction against modernity, but as an informed engagement with modernity. Indeed, some of the most “modem” ideas, such as the movement towards religious dialogue in the discipline of religious studies, tum out on close examination to rest upon values and ideas that are traditional-ideas long understood by those who study and practice the major world traditions seriously.
Professor Nasr’s philosophical achievements are stunningly broad, spanning the globe and numerous languages. Readers unfamiliar with his writings will find this volume a serviceable introduction to his thought, and to the wider world of Islamic philosophy generally. Readers who are more familiar with Nasr and his views will find this volume a very stimulating engagement of those ideas at a high level.
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Roots of the Human Condition, By Frithjof Schuon
Posted in Frithjof Schuon, Generic Perennial Philosophy on June 4, 2011|
Description
Roots of the Human Condition: this title suggests a perspective concerned with essentiality, hence conscious of principles, archetypes, reasons for being; conscious by virtue of intellection and not ratiocination. No doubt it is worth recalling here that in metaphysics there is no empiricism: principia} knowledge cannot stem from any experience, even though experiences- scientific or other- can be the
occasional causes of the intellect’s intuitions. The sources of our transcendent intuitions are innate data, consubstantial with pure intelligence, but de facto “forgotten” since the “loss of Paradise”; thus principia} knowledge, according to Plato, is nothing other than a “recollection,” and this is a gift, most often actualized by intellectual and spiritual disciplines, Deo juvante.
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Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions, By Huston Smith
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, Huston Smith on June 4, 2011|
Description
People have a profound need to believe that the truth they perceive is rooted in the unchanging depths of the universe; for were it not, could the truth be really important? Yet how can we so believe when others see truth differently? Archaic peoples, wrapped like cocoons in their tribal beliefs, did not face this dilemma. Even civilizations on the whole have been spared it, for until recently they were largely self-contained. It is wewe moderns, we worldly wise-who experience the problem acutely.
This book addresses that problem. Twenty years before it was published in 1976, I wrote The Worlds Religions (originally titled The Religions of Man), which presented the major traditions in their individuality and variety. It took me two decades to see how they converge. The outlooks of individual men and women (the militant atheist, the pious believer, the cagey skepticY”are too varied to classify, but when they gather in collectivities-the outlooks of tribes, societies, civilizations, and at deepest level the world’s enduring religions-a pattern emerges. One finds a remarkable unity underlying the surface differences. When we look at human bodies we normally notice their external features, which differ markedly. Meanwhile the spines that support this variety are structurally much alike. It is the same with collective outlooks. Outwardly they too differ, but inwardly it is as if an “invisible geometry” has everywhere been working to shape them to a single truth.
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Paths to Transcendence: According to Shankara, Ibn Arabi & Meister Eckhart, By Reza Shah-Kazemi
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 28, 2011|
Description
Those who need extrinsic proofs of what Frithjof Schuon called the ‘transcendent unity of religions’ have been rightly dissatisfied with chrestomathies of short quotations from the sacred texts and
spiritual authorities of the great traditions. Hence the irreplaceable value of Paths to Transcendence, a meticulous and far-reaching study of three of history’s most important sages, each fi rmly rooted in the doctrines and practices of his own religion … and each in turn rising to join with his counterparts at the Divine summit of apophatic unanimity.”
—James S. Cutsinger
Paths to Transcendence is an important book in the school of
Sophia Perennis.” —Martin Lings,
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God and Work: Aspects of Art and Tradition, By Brian Keeble
Posted in Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 28, 2011|
Description
The words “God” and “ work” are seldom closely associated in the modern mind. The former denotes something remote from daily affairs, even unlikely and outmoded for a significant number of people, now that the evolutionary hypothesis has been absorbed into so many areas of thought. Work, on the other hand, concerns only what comes to hand in the expenditure of time and effort required to secure a livelihood. Is this division healthy? Is it inevitable? We spend the best part of our lives at work. Are we to conclude that during all those hours of using our mental and physical faculties there is no reason to connect our effort with possible answers to those persistent questions we have concerning our identity, place, and purpose in the world? We know that such
questions will not go away by being ignored. And we often find ourselves unable to escape the conclusion that work is somehow intimately bound up with whatever we think the deeper meaning
of life might be, even if making such connections does not take an overtly religious form.
This book is a compilation of Keeble’s insightful essays dealing with the oft-neglected relationship between God and work, spirituality and art, as well as contemplation and action. In the midst of the fast-paced modern world, it addresses the question, how can work become a form of prayer? Keeble focuses on artists and craftsmen such as poet and engraver William Blake, calligrapher Edward Johnston, sculptor Eric Gill, and key figures of the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain.
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The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times, By Rene Guenon
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, René Guénon on May 28, 2011|
Description
The Reign of Quantity gives a concise but comprehensive view of the present state of affairs in the world, as it appears from the point of view of the ‘ancient wisdom’, formerly common both to the East and to the West, but now almost entirely lost sight of. The author indicates with his fabled clarity and directness the precise nature of the modern deviation, and devotes special attention to the development of modern philosophy and science, and to the part played by them, with their accompanying notions of progress and evolution, in the formation of the industrial and democratic society which we now regard as ‘normal’. Guénon sees history as a descent from Form (or Quality) toward Matter (or Quantity); but after the Reign of Quantity-modern materialism and the ‘rise of the masses’-Guénon predicts a reign of ‘inverted quality’ just before the end of the age: the triumph of the ‘counter-initiation’, the kingdom of Antichrist. This text is considered the magnum opus among Guénon’s texts of civilizational criticism, as is Symbols of Sacred Science among his studies on symbols and cosmology, and Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta among his more purely metaphysical works.
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The Timeless Relevance of Traditional Wisdom, By Ali M. Lakhani
Posted in Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 28, 2011|
Description
More than ever, there is an urgent need to rediscover timeless and objective principles in order to confront the issues of our times. In this collection of thirty remarkable essays, Lakhani summons us to rediscover the sacred worldview of Tradition, governed by truth, virtue, and beauty, as he addresses some of the most pressing issues today, including fundamentalism, gender and sexuality, religious diversity and pluralism, faith and science, and the problem of evil.
The essays gathered here come from the pen of someone who can be referred to as a “perennialist”: thus as one who is well aware of both the difficulties of living in the modern world, and of the mercies and graces which are present in every world and in every age. Rather than allowing himself to be dispirited by the difficulties, M. A li Lakhani chooses instead to be uplifted by the mercies and to respond to the challenge of living in the modern world by imaginatively and intelligently applying traditional principles to contemporary problems. The journal he founded, Sacred Web, has now established itself as one of the foremost journals in the perennialist school of thought today. Its aim is not only to continue to make traditional principles available to seekers in the contemporary world, but also to apply those principles concretely to the complex and unprecedented issues generated by the modern, and now “postmodern”, world.
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Frithjof Schuon: Messenger of the Perennial Philosophy, By Michael Fitzgerald
Posted in Frithjof Schuon, Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 28, 2011|
Description
Offering the most comprehensive biography of Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) yet published, Fitzgerald’s work features quotations from Schuon’s articles, books, memoirs, and correspondence, combined with a wealth of reliable information from people who knew Schuon well. With over 75 color and black-and-white photos and illustrations, readers will gain valuable insights into the life and work of the foremost representative of the Perennialist or ?Traditionalist? school of comparative religious thought.
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The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Edited By William C. Chittick, Huston Smith
Posted in Generic Perennial Philosophy, Seyyed Hossein Nasr on May 28, 2011|
Description
“This valuable book distills the essence of the thought of one of the most important thinkers of our times.
For me, personally, that understates the case. No other thinker that is still alive—the qualification is important, for Seyyed Hossein Nasr would reprimand me if I ranked him with Socrates, Plato, and other historical benchmark thinkers—has influenced my thought as much as he has. And it is easy to say why. It was he who led me to the perennialists—René Guénon, A.K. Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon and others—who with a single stroke settled the dilemma that could have plagued me (by mudding my thinking) for the rest of my life. That single stroke sliced the esoteric from the exoteric—the kernels of walnuts from their shells, so to speak. Esoterically, or in their kernels, the great philosophies and religions of history are one: mystics all speak the same language. Exoterically, they differ importantly. As I am an esoteric by nature this “slice” enabled me to believe wholeheartedly in authentic religions while honoring their differences. I was at peace with the world.” —Huston Smith
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Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts, By Frithjof Schuon
Posted in Frithjof Schuon, Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 28, 2011|
Description
This collection of writings, written around the middle of the century—hence before most of our other books—differs from them in that instead of articles as such it consists of extracts from letters, notes
from our reading, and reflections arising independently of outward circumstances and organized only later in the form of chapters. Be that as it may, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts contains issues we did not address in our later books, notably on the subject of Christianity, the Vedānta, spiritual psychology, and the symbolism of colors; with regard to this psychology, it goes without saying that intrinsic morality, considered in depth, constitutes a message that can never grow old and that therefore remains urgent for man as such, the man of all times.
Thus even if our subsequent works contain a complete doctrine—the sophia perennis or, if one prefers, integral traditionalism—it seems to us that the present collection deserves to be preserved from loss for the reasons just mentioned.
Perhaps it would be worth adding that truth can never be a matter of merit, given that it belongs to no one while belonging to everyone; it is an immanent gift as well as a transcendent one. And let us also
recall—from a somewhat different point of view—that according to an ancient saying from India, “There is no right superior to that of truth.”
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The Need for a Sacred Science, By Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, Science, Seyyed Hossein Nasr on May 28, 2011|
Description:
This book deals with the meaning of a science rooted in the sacred, the metaphysical foundation of such science, its contrast to modern science and its pertinence to some of the major issues facing humanity today. In the first part, the author turns to the fundamental question of the multiplicity of sacred forms. He discusses why it is necessary in the contemporary world to treat sacred science in the context of diverse religions. He also deals with the importance of sacred science in providing a meaningful study that would remain religiously significant of religions themselves.
“This book brings together in a focused and comprehensive treatment Nasr’s ideas that have been scattered. It provides an integrated overview of the breadth and depth of Nasr’s thought.” — Yvonne Haddad, University of Massachusetts
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Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century, By Mark Sedgwick
Posted in Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 28, 2011|
Description:
The first history of Traditionalism, an important yet surprisingly little-known twentieth-century anti-modern movement. Comprising a number of often secret but sometimes very influential religious groups in the West and in the Islamic world, it affected mainstream and radical politics in Europe and the development of the field of religious studies in the United States. In the nineteenth century, at a time when progressive intellectuals had lost faith in Christianity’s ability to deliver religious and spiritual truth, the West discovered non-Western religious writings. From these beginnings grew Traditionalism, emerging from the occultist milieu of late nineteenth-century France, and fed by the widespread loss of faith in progress that followed the First World War. Working first in Paris and then in Cairo, the French writer Rene Guenon rejected modernity as a dark age, and sought to reconstruct the Perennial Philosophy– the central religious truths behind all the major world religions –largely on the basis of his reading of Hindu religious texts. A number of disenchanted intellectuals responded to Guenon’s call with attempts to put theory into practice. Some attempted without success to guide Fascism and Nazism along Traditionalist lines; others later participated in political terror in Italy. Traditionalism finally provided the ideological cement for the alliance of anti-democratic forces in post-Soviet Russia, and at the end of the twentieth century began to enter the debate in the Islamic world about the desirable relationship between Islam and modernity.
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Religion and the Order of Nature, By Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, Seyyed Hossein Nasr on May 27, 2011|
Description:
The current ecological crisis is a matter of urgent global concern, with solutions being sought on many fronts. In this book, Seyyed Hossein Nasr argues that the devastation of our world has been exacerbated, if not actually caused, by the reductionist view of nature that has been advanced by modern secular science. What is needed, he believes, is the recovery of the truth to which the great, enduring religions all attest; namely that nature is sacred. Nasr traces the historical process through which Western civilization moved away from the idea of nature as sacred and embraced a world view which sees humans as alienated from nature and nature itself as a machine to be dominated and manipulated by humans. His goal is to negate the totalitarian claims of modern science and to re-open the way to the religious view of the order of nature, developed over centuries in the cosmologies and sacred sciences of the great traditions. Each tradition, Nasr shows, has a wealth of knowledge and experience concerning the order of nature. The resuscitation of this knowledge, he argues, would allow religions all over the globe to enrich each other and cooperate to heal the wounds inflicted upon the Earth.
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Science and the Myth of Progress, Edited By Merhdad M. Zarandi, Giovanni Monastra
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, Science on May 27, 2011|
Description:
A collection of essays by scholars, philosophers, and scientists offering penetrating answers to some of the most important questions of the day.
In these days of incredible technological advances, when almost nothing seems impossible, the question of spiritual knowledge is often overlooked. In this volume, Zarandi, a research scientist at the California Institute of Technology, gathers essays by over a dozen scholars in science, theology and metaphysics that tackle issues raised by modern scientific inquiry-i.e., how much of what we think we know do we really know, and how much progress have we actually made? The contributors’ assessments differ from the common understanding of the correlation between science and spirit: while acknowledging the value and contribution science has rendered, Zarandi posits that “the contemporary belief in an endless progress tends toward an almost total rejection of spiritual wisdom’s worldviews as being naïve, outmoded and contrary to empirical evidence.” This compilation attempts to “provide access to information” that may enlighten readers who believe there is another realm to reality beyond the physical world, a realm not knowable by reason and scientific inquiry.
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Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man, By Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, Seyyed Hossein Nasr on May 27, 2011|
Description:
It is a sign of the present state of humanity that only such blatant acts
of aggression against nature as major oil spills, the burning of tropical
forests and the consequences of man’s rape of nature and his destructive technology in the form of the warming of the climate and the depleting of the ozone layer should turn the attention of modern man to the environmental crisis. It has taken the innocent eyes of dying seals to finally move hardened hearts and force human beings to think about the consequences of living on the earth as if no other creature mattered.
This work from one of the world’s leading Islamic thinkers is a spiritual tour de force which explores the relationship between the human being and nature as found in many religious traditions, particularly its Sufi dimension. The author stresses the importance of a greater awareness of the origins of both the human being and nature as a means of righting the imbalance that exists in our deepest selves and in our environment.
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Time and eternity, By Ananda Coomaraswamy
Posted in Ananda Coomaraswamy, Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 27, 2011|
Description:
The metaphysical doctrine simply contrasts time as a continuum with the ,eternity that is not in time and so cannot properly be called everlasting, but coincides with the real present or now of which temporal experience
is impossible. Here confusion only arises because for any consiousness functioning in terms of time and space, “now” succeeds “now” without interruption, and there seems to be an endless series of nows, collectively
adding up to “time”. This confusion can be eliminated if we realise that none of these nows has any duration and that, as measures, all alike are zeros,
of which a “sum” is unthinkable. It is a matter of relativity; it is “we” who move, while the Now is unmoved, and only seems to move,-much as the sun onlv seems to rise and set because the earth revolves.
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Form and Substance in the Religions, By Frithjof Schuon
Posted in Frithjof Schuon, Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 27, 2011|
Description:
The modern world is characterized by its fascination with relativity and individualism. Into this morass, the writings of Frithjof Schuon enter like a bolt of lightning that both clears the air and brings serenity in its wake. As the pre-eminent exponent of the Perennial Philosophy, Schuon restores a true sense of proportion in affirming the transcendent Real, and then draws all the consequences, spiritually and humanly, as well as aesthetically on the plane of forms. At the level of ideas, Schuon is an unsurpassable expositor of first principles. One of the reasons he is so widely acclaimed is his fluency in so many “languages of the Spirit.” Seminal chapters such as “Atma-Maya,” plus gems from the traditional worlds of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, lay to rest any doubt that the Sacred has not only the first but the final word.
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The Perennial Philosophy, By Aldous Huxley
Posted in Aldous Huxley, Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 27, 2011|
Description:
According to Huxley, the perennial philosophy is: “the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being; the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the perennial philosophy may be found among the traditional lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions” (The Perennial Philosophy, p. vii).
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Logic and Transcendence, By Frithjof Schuon
Posted in Frithjof Schuon, Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 27, 2011|
Description:
In this new edition of his most important philosophical work, Frithjof Schuon confronts the pitfalls of rationalism and relativism within modern philosophy. This new edition comprises a fully revised translation from the French original and contains an extensive Appendix with previously unpublished letters and other private writings.
“This work is a veritable hymn to the Intellect and of the Intellect. It penetrates in unparalleled fashion into the labyrinth of modern philosophical thought to unveil solutions to problems which would seem to be otherwise insoluble. In fact most often Schuon provides solutions for currently debated philosophical problems by demonstrating them to be the result of ill-posed questions. He removes the opaqueness and ambiguity of modern rationalism and irrationalism like the morning sun whose very appearance dispels the fog. This work is one of Schuon’s metaphysical masterpieces,
and one of the most important philosophical works of [the twentieth] century if philosophy be understood in its traditional sense as the love of wisdom.”
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The underlying religion: an introduction to the perennial philosophy, Edited by Martin Lings, Clinton Minnaar
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, Martin Lings on May 27, 2011|
Description:
This is 
an anthology of 25 essays by the leading exponents of the perennialist school of comparative religious thought. It aims to be the most accessible introduction yet to the perspective of the Perennial Philosophy.
The essays compiled in this anthology are intended to provide an
accessible introduction to the “traditionalist” or “perennialist” school
of comparative religious thought. This current of thought, which saw the light of day in the early twentieth century in the pioneering writings of the French metaphysician and symbologist René Guénon (1886-1951), and which was amplified by the prodigious scholarship of the Anglo-Ceylonese orientalist and art historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), received its fullest exposition in the writings of the German-Swiss metaphysician, painter, and poet, Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998).1 In the pages that follow, the reader will encounter the penetrating writings of these major authors, as well as many other prominent “perennialist” writers such as Titus Burckhardt,2 Lord Northbourne, Marco Pallis, Martin Lings (co-editor of this volume), Whitall Perry, William Stoddart, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. What we intend to offer now is a broad outline of the essential features of the perennial philosophy in the hope of providing the reader with a clear compass and sure orientation in approaching both the arrangement and the content of the essays here included.
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The Transcendent Unity of Religions, By Frithjof Schuon
Posted in Frithjof Schuon, Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy on May 27, 2011|
Description:
Schuon asserts that to transcend religious differences, we must explore the esoteric nature of the spiritual path back to the Divine Oneness at the heart of all religions.
This book is founded on a doctrine that is metaphysical in the most precise meaning of the word and cannot by any means be described as philosophical. Such a distinction may appear unwarrantable to those who are accustomed to
regard metaphysic as a branch of philosophy. but the practice of linking the two together in this manner. although it can be traced back to Aristotle and the Scholastic writers who followed him. merely shows that all philosophy suffers
from certain limitations that. even in the most favorable instances such as those just quoted exclude a completely adequate appreciation of metaphysic. In reality. the transcendent character of metaphysic makes it independent of any purely human mode of thought In order to define clearly the difference between the two modes in question. it may be said that philosophy proceeds from reason (which is a purely individual faculty). whereas metaphysic proceeds exclusively from the Intellect
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Knowledge and the Sacred, by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Posted in Fundamental Works, Generic Perennial Philosophy, Seyyed Hossein Nasr on May 27, 2011|
Description:
In the present study our aim has been in a sense the reverse of this process. It has
been to aid in the resuscitation of the sacred quality of knowledge and the revival of
the veritable intellectual tradition of theWest with the aid of the still living traditions
of the Orient where knowledge has never become divorced from the sacred. Our aim
has been to deal first of all with an aspect of the truth as such which resides in the very nature of intelligence and secondarily with the revival of the sapiential perspective in the West, without which no civilization worthy of the name can survive. If in the process we have been severely critical of many aspects of things Western, our view has not been based on disdain and hatred or a kind of ¸SoccidentalismˇT which would simply reverse the role of a certain type of orientalism that has studied the Orient with the hope of transforming its sacred patterns of life, if not totally destroying all that has characterized the Orient as such over the ages. In criticizing what from the traditional point of view is pure and simple error, we have also tried to defend the millennial tradition of the West itself and to bring to light once again that perennial wisdom, or sophia perennis, which is both perennial and universal and which is neither exclusively Eastern nor Western.
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Perennial Philosophy Library 