Traditionalist School
The
Traditionalist School of thought (not to be confused with the "traditionalism" professed by some conservative Roman Catholics) (see
Traditionalist Catholic), was founded in its current form by the French
metaphysician René Guénon, although its precepts are considered to be timeless and to be found in all authentic traditions. It is also known as perennialism, the
perennial philosophy, or
Sophia Perennis. The term
Philosophia Perennis goes back to the Renaissance, while the ancient Hindu expression
Sanatana Dharma - Eternal Doctrine or Norm - has much the same signification.
The other founding figures of the Traditionalist School were the German-Swiss philosopher
Frithjof Schuon and the Ceylonese scholar
Ananda Coomaraswamy. To these were added over time such figures as
Titus Burckhardt,
Huston Smith,
Martin Lings, and
Seyyed Hossein Nasr.
The fundamental tenets of this school or philosophy may be stated as follows:
# All authentic religious traditions are true, deriving from the Primordial Tradition. Guénon's work draws extensively on
Hindu,
Taoist,
Muslim,
Judaic and
Christian sources. At first, following certain Hindu schools, he rejected
Buddhism as heretical, but Dr.
Coomaraswamy, at the instigation of Marco Pallis (a Traditionalist convert to Tibetan Buddhism) demonstrated the essential orthodoxy of Buddhism and its consistency with Vedanta. Guenon, accordingly, authorised amendments to references to Buddhism in his earlier works.# Contrary to the modern idea of "progress", and in accordance with all traditions, the world is in a state of intellectual and spiritual decline, inevitable from the very start of an historical cycle. We are at present in what the Classical West called the
Iron Age, and the Hindus
Kali Yuga.
In addition to this, the
Western world, unlike other cultures, has lost its connexion to the Primordial Tradition. This took place first in the Classical era, was rectified by Christianity, which re-introduced a modified form of the Primordial Tradition, but the severance began again at the time of the
Renaissance (this is a somewhat truncated account. The reader is referred to Guénon's
Crisis of the Modern World for a fuller one).
Traditionalists accord a high value to the intellectual activities of the pre-modern world and non-Western societies and a good deal of their work lies in the sciences of
metaphysics and
symbolism, as well as the discussion and elucidation of the various spiritual traditions. Where they venture into such realms as social criticism it is clearly from a Traditionalist perspective which turns the
Progressivist/
Evolutionist assumptions of
modernist theorists (both "
left" and "
right") and of
post-modernists alike on their heads.
An exposition of the views of this movement can be found in Seyyed Hossein Nasr's
Knowledge and the Sacred and Harry Oldmeadow's
Traditionalism.
*
Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
Knowledge and the Sacred (September 1, 1989) ISBN 0791401774
*
Harry Oldmeadow,
Kenneth Oldmeadow,
Traditionalism: Religion in the Light of the Perennial Philosophy (April 1, 2000) ISBN 9559028049
*
Books related to Traditionalism *
World Wisdom Books *
Fons Vitae Books *
A web site on the Perennialist/Traditionalist School*
Perennial philosophy*
René Guénon*
Ananda Coomaraswamy*
Frithjof Schuon*
Hierology*
Seyyed Hossein Nasr*
Study of Traditionalism
