Philosophia perennis

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The term Philosophia perennis ( Latin , “everlasting or eternal philosophy ”) or Philosophia perennis et universalis describes the idea that certain philosophical insights are preserved (perennial) across times and cultures. This should include statements (for example in the form of principles) that express eternal, immutable and universally valid truths about reality, especially people , nature and spirit (or God). Representatives of Philosophia perennis consider such statements to be possible in principle and sometimes try to formulate them in a contemporary way themselves. The basic assumption of the Philosophia perennis is that the truth itself is eternal and unchangeable, because the opposite is unthinkable: "If there is no (eternal) truth, it is true (forever), that there is no (eternal) truth." . There are differences between different directions in the view in which one can obtain these truths. In modern philosophical historiography, the term is mostly only used by a few Neuthomists and Christian philosophers , but otherwise it has largely come under criticism.

history

The Italian bishop Augustinus Steuchus , a representative of Christian Platonism, coined the term in his book De perenni philosophia libri X (Lyon, 1540): “Just as there is one origin of all things, so must there always be one and the same for all people Science of this origin have given: This is what reason and the documents of many peoples and doctrines tell us ”. According to Steuco, philosophy was entrusted by God to Adam in its perfect form and has since been handed down through the centuries - not without losses. With this, Steuco continues a typical Renaissance motif that we find in Marsilio Ficino's Prisca theologia and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola .

The current meaning of the term was particularly shaped by Leibniz . Leibniz laments the narrow-mindedness of those who are “only followers of today's philosophy”: Even among the ancients, “gold” is often hidden under the “dirt”. According to Leibniz, at all times the peoples had a certain idea of ​​the eternal and universal laws of spirit and nature, as he himself tried to show in his analysis of the Chinese philosophy of Confucianism . Leibniz identifies this knowledge with natural theology in the scholastic sense, that is, the foundations of the Christian faith that can be recognized by reason: God and souls are thus his primary objects. Leibniz combines the Renaissance idea of ​​a Philosophia perennis with the idea of ​​philosophical progress: It was important to him to give the truths already known from the ancients a contemporary expression.

Philosophia perennis is also understood as natural theology in the neo-scholasticism of the Catholic Church in the late 19th and 20th centuries. For them the “eternal basic truths” were already fully described by Thomas Aquinas in the synthesis of the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, the Christian doctrine of revelation and the doctrine of the Logos .

The Philosophia perennis between philosophy, religion and mysticism

For many Christian philosophers, however, the Philosophia perennis was and is more of a general thematic framework. Since the 19th century, attempts have often been made in anthropology and comparative religious studies to discover similarities between cultures and religions and to reconstruct general basic assumptions. According to Hans Meyer (1884–1966), Philosophia perennis should be developed through organic growth in a social and intellectual discourse. For Aldous Huxley , Philosophia perennis is the “converging religious wisdom of all cultures”.

Interest in esoteric knowledge in the second half of the 20th century helped some popular authors understand "Philosophia perennis" in the sense of a somewhat esoteric or mystical wisdom. Representatives of a Philosophia perennis partially accept traditional teachings such as the doctrine of emanation . This can be found, for example, with some rationalist authors, including Leibniz. Numerous modern philosophical orientations and assumptions, for example in empirical currents, seem to contradict such theories. Even the mere attempt to determine “eternal truths” across the cultural and temporal differences of religious and philosophical traditions is often viewed critically. Representatives of the Philosophia perennis such as Johannes Baptist Lotz and Walter Brugger hold u. a. on the other hand, that a denial of eternal truths leads to a relativism or subjectivism , which cannot be a plausible position.

The American author Ken Wilber has summarized "the seven most important correspondences of the perpetual philosophy of all time, of the vast majority of cultures, spiritual teachings, philosophers and countries" as follows:

  1. The spiritual SPIRIT ( God , the highest Reality, the Absolute Being, the Source, the One , Brahman, Dharmakaya, Kether, Tao, Allah, Shiva, Jahweh , Aton, Manitu ...) exists.
  2. He must be sought within.
  3. Most of us do not recognize this SPIRIT because we live in a world of sin , separation and duality, in a state of pleasure and illusion.
  4. There is a way out of sin and illusion, a path to liberation.
  5. If we follow this path to the end, we will find rebirth or enlightenment, a direct experience of the Spirit within, a final liberation.
  6. This final deliverance means the end of sin and suffering.
  7. It leads to compassionate and compassionate action for all living beings.

The French sociologist Frédéric Lenoir takes up the idea in his book The Soul of the World: From the Wisdom of Religions and integrates it into a story of 7 wise men who bring together 7 principles of a perennial philosophy or spirituality for the survival of humanity.

criticism

The thesis that the same content will continue to exist across times, paradigms, and cultures is mostly seen today as hermeneutically and historically untenable. However, this view was historically powerful and to this extent, i.e. as a historical construct, is a well-defined subject of research for most historians. In the matter it is mostly found problematic that for some proponents of a Philosophia perennis criteria such as age and coherence of philosophical content outweigh the criterion of well-foundedness. In addition, certain content-related specifications are now largely implausible or at least highly controversial, including teleological framework theses and the structure of reality itself in an order according to Aristotelian metaphysics . For similar reasons, Nicolai Hartmann did not focus on content, but on problems. Gottlieb Söhngen ( Joseph Ratzinger's teacher and at the time the authoritative authority on Catholic philosophical-theological foundations) , for example, expresses the shift from neo-Scholastic narrowing to a contemporary adaptation of the problem relation as follows:

“Should the talk of a Philosophia perennis mean that a certain 'status' is to be perpetuated in the history of philosophy, e. For example, the Aristotelian world of thought of Thomas Aquinas, philosophical work turns into digging up grave pyramids in a burial city and into a kind of tomb maintenance and ancestral memory. The ideal of a Philosophia perennis, however, retains its right meaning as a regulative idea, not as a constitutive principle […]. Those who know how to read the history of philosophy in terms of the history of problems do not hide their permanent content in the changing problem definitions and problem solutions; but what remains is something eternal, which comes to life in a never-ending historical development and an abundance of conflicting and encountering problem and thinker figures ”.

literature

  • Paul Häberlin : Philosophia Perennis. A summary . Berlin-Göttingen-Heidelberg 1952.
  • Jürgen Mittelstraß : Art. Philosophia Perennis , in: Enzyklopädie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie , Vol. 3, p. 130.
  • Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann , Philosophia perennis. Historical outlines of occidental spirituality in antiquity, the Middle Ages and early modern times. Frankfurt a. M. 1998.
  • Helmut Schneider: Art. Philosophia Perennis , in: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , B. 7, S. 898ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Latin : "Si veritas non est, verum est, veritatem non esse." ( Bonaventura : Das Sechstagewerk = Collationes in hexaemeron: Latin and German . Ed .: Wilhelm Nyssen . No. 4.1 . Kösel, Munich 1979, ISBN 978-3-534-26977-8 . )
  2. ↑ “Ut unum est omnium rerum principium, sic unam atque eandem de eo scientiam semper apud omnes fuisse ratio multarumque gentium ac literarum monimenta testantur”: Agostino Steuco, De perenni philosophia libri X , Lyon 1540, 1.
  3. ^ Charles B. Schmitt , "Perennial philosophy. From Agostino Steuco to Leibniz ”. Journal of the history of ideas 27: 505-532 (1966).
  4. ^ GW Leibniz, Letter to Des Bosses , December 24, 1707 ( Gerhardt II, 344).
  5. ↑ Rita Widmaier, “Leibniz 'natural theology and a' certain 'Philosophia perennis”; dies., “Natural theology and Philosophia perennis. Leibniz 'interpretation of ancient and modern Chinese philosophy in Niccolò Longobardi's treatise SJ ”. In: Wenchao Li , “For our happiness or the happiness of others”. Lectures of the Xth International Leibniz Congress Hanover, 18.-23. July 2016, 6 vol., Hildesheim 2016/17, vol. II, 581–596 / VI, 781–806.
  6. ↑ Herman Jan de Vleeschauwer , “Perennis quaedam philosophia. Exégèse et antécédents d'un texte leibnizien ”, in: Files of the International Leibniz Congress, Hanover, November 14-19 , 1966, Vol. 1, Metaphysics - Monaden Theory , Wiesbaden 1968 ( Studia Leibnitiana Supplementa ), 102–122.
  7. ↑ Nicolai Hartmann , The Philosophical Thought and Its History
  8. ↑ Hans Meyer, Das Wesen der Philosophie , 1936
  9. ↑ Aldous Huxley, The perennial Philosophy , 1945, German Die Ewige Philosophie , Munich: Series Piper 1987.
  10. ↑ For example Ken Wilber, Das Wahre, Schöne, Gute S. 54ff.
  11. ↑ Ken Wilber: Courage and Grace , p. 101
  12. ↑ Frédéric Lenoir: The soul of the world: from the wisdom of religions . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-423-26012-1 .
  13. ↑ For example Heinrich M. Schmidinger : Philosophia perennis . In: Lexicon for Theology and Church . 4th edition. tape 8 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, Sp. 248 f .
  14. ↑ Gottlieb Söhngen , Philosophical Exercise in Theology, Recognition - Knowledge - Faith, Freiburg-Munich: Alber 2nd ed. 1964 (1st A. 1955), 40f. Likewise, the unity in theology: collected treatises, essays, lectures, Munich: Zink, 12th ed. 1952