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I think I'm finally wrapping up my interest and investigation in the Traditional School -- i.e. the Guenonian version of the Perennial Philosophy, which in my version of reality no single author or personage has a monopoly on defining, despite the endless protests of Rene Guenon's fanclub. I sort of discovered the Traditionalist School by accident upon joining a Facebook group by that name. I was already familiar with the concept of Sophia Perennis via the works of Aldous Huxley and Julius Evola; I had no idea about the Guenon cult however, which consists mostly of Westerners who have converted to Sufi Islam (following in the footsteps of their Guru, of course), University-educated Sufi Muslims living in the Anglosphere, and of course, native Westerners who have either converted to or have remained within the fold of the original Apostolic Christian Churches, i.e. Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
I ended up checking out (in some cases just skimming chapters, passages and sections that jumped out to me as being interesting) Guenon and a few of the other authors well-regarded by the fanclub, like F. Schuon, Huston Smith and a few others. These are obviously very intelligent scholars with an impeccable grasp of traditional metaphysical teachings. Not only extremely intelligent, but also possessing a far better understanding of pre-modern philosophy (i.e. actual philosophy) than just about the entirely of modern academia (which sadly isn't really saying much, tbh).
Brilliant metaphysical analysis aside, it's the central AIM of the Traditionalist School that really grinds my gears. Guenon himself was primarily motivated by his complete disdain for modernity and Western culture in general, which by his time in the early 20th century were one in the same,and by his time was a common trope among reactionary intellectuals. And thus, like any good modern European romanticist, he envisioned the only real solution to the modern state of degeneracy and nihilism as a full-scale retreat back into what he personally considered to be legit TRADITION; in other words, any long-established major religion that's not dead. A good ol' restoration to "tradition" was his primary AIM.
His central premise to support this AIM is the claim that there is a supposed "unity of religions" to be found among the major religious/spiritual traditions that survive to this day. They go at excruciating lengths to bolster this claim by demonstrating the similarities to be found between the metaphysical doctrines of both Eastern (Dharmic) and Western (Abrahamic) religions. Guenon and a few of the other authors make a convincing case for Advaita Vedanta (not to be confused with the Hindu tradition as a whole), the Platonic and Aristotelian embellishment of Christian theology and a Monist interpretation of Islam all to meet in one place and seemingly agree on a common metaphysical core principle. That's all fine and good, but once we delve deeper than the simple agreement that there's One Absolute source for all existence, then we run full-speed into a big wall of problems. The very vague central idea might be the same, but beyond that the major religions don't really agree on much of everything, especially when we start contrasting East from West. Of course the Traditonalist authors went to great lengths to employ a lot of sneaky semantics to pave over this problem, but the problem still exists nonetheless. I'll be following up on these problems in future entries.
I ended up checking out (in some cases just skimming chapters, passages and sections that jumped out to me as being interesting) Guenon and a few of the other authors well-regarded by the fanclub, like F. Schuon, Huston Smith and a few others. These are obviously very intelligent scholars with an impeccable grasp of traditional metaphysical teachings. Not only extremely intelligent, but also possessing a far better understanding of pre-modern philosophy (i.e. actual philosophy) than just about the entirely of modern academia (which sadly isn't really saying much, tbh).
Brilliant metaphysical analysis aside, it's the central AIM of the Traditionalist School that really grinds my gears. Guenon himself was primarily motivated by his complete disdain for modernity and Western culture in general, which by his time in the early 20th century were one in the same,and by his time was a common trope among reactionary intellectuals. And thus, like any good modern European romanticist, he envisioned the only real solution to the modern state of degeneracy and nihilism as a full-scale retreat back into what he personally considered to be legit TRADITION; in other words, any long-established major religion that's not dead. A good ol' restoration to "tradition" was his primary AIM.
His central premise to support this AIM is the claim that there is a supposed "unity of religions" to be found among the major religious/spiritual traditions that survive to this day. They go at excruciating lengths to bolster this claim by demonstrating the similarities to be found between the metaphysical doctrines of both Eastern (Dharmic) and Western (Abrahamic) religions. Guenon and a few of the other authors make a convincing case for Advaita Vedanta (not to be confused with the Hindu tradition as a whole), the Platonic and Aristotelian embellishment of Christian theology and a Monist interpretation of Islam all to meet in one place and seemingly agree on a common metaphysical core principle. That's all fine and good, but once we delve deeper than the simple agreement that there's One Absolute source for all existence, then we run full-speed into a big wall of problems. The very vague central idea might be the same, but beyond that the major religions don't really agree on much of everything, especially when we start contrasting East from West. Of course the Traditonalist authors went to great lengths to employ a lot of sneaky semantics to pave over this problem, but the problem still exists nonetheless. I'll be following up on these problems in future entries.
