Quotes from book
The Transfiguration of Man


Frithjof Schuon photo

“It ought to be possible to restore to the word "philosophy" its original meaning: philosophy − the "love of wisdom" − is the science of all the fundamental principles; this science operates with intuition, which "perceives," and not with reason alone, which "concludes."”

Frithjof Schuon book The Transfiguration of Man

Subjectively speaking, the essence of philosophy is certitude; for the moderns, on the contrary, the essence of philosophy is doubt: the philosopher is supposed to reason without any premise (voraussetzungsloses Denken), as if this condition were not itself a preconceived idea; this is the classical contradiction of all relativism. Everything is doubted except for doubt. The solution to the problem of knowledge − if there is a problem − could not possibly be this intellectual suicide that is the promotion of doubt; on the contrary, it lies in having recourse to a source of certitude that transcends the mental mechanism, and this source − the only one there is − is the pure Intellect, or Intelligence as such.
[2005, The Transfiguration of Man, World Wisdom, 3, 978-0-94153219-8]
Miscellaneous, Philosophy

Frithjof Schuon photo
Frithjof Schuon photo

Similar authors

Frithjof Schuon photo
Frithjof Schuon82
Swiss philosopher 1907–1998
Friedrich Dürrenmatt photo
Friedrich Dürrenmatt19
Swiss author and dramatist None
Martin Heidegger photo
Martin Heidegger69
German philosopher None
Paulo Freire photo
Paulo Freire115
educator and philosopher None
Emil M. Cioran photo
Emil M. Cioran531
Romanian philosopher and essayist None
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein228
Austrian-British philosopher None
Hans Urs Von Balthasar photo
Hans Urs Von Balthasar17
Swedish Catholic theologian None
C.G. Jung photo
C.G. Jung257
Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytic… None
Ayn Rand photo
Ayn Rand322
Russian-American novelist and philosopher None
Paul Valéry photo
Paul Valéry89
French poet, essayist, and philosopher None