Concerning Philosophy

Illustrating what we would distinguish as the proper approach to the topic of philosophy

The intent of this article is to illustrate our approach to the topic of philosophy in its totality. By way of introduction, we see it appropriate to begin right at the word itself. The word philosophy etymologically derives from the Ancient Greek "Philo Sophia", or the "love of wisdom", which suggests that philosophy as an activity is the pursuit of Wisdom in its highest possible form. It follows that, indeed, through the ages, there have been many areas of study which have been deemed in popular discourse as particularized subsets of the pursuit of philosophy, all of which possessing entire libraries worth of discussion including proses and analyses produced over the course of thousands of years; however, many of these subsets, as we will make clear, yet not all of them, do not meet the criteria to be considered as philosophy or even as philosophical inquiry in the most proper definition of the word. Therefore, right from the outset we find it necessary, as usual, to establish the parameters of our examination, and to define certain terms related to our subject matter, in order to deliver a more comprehensible presentation.

What we define as Philosophy proper, along with true philosophical inquiry, making sure to emphasize the capital P in our usage of the word Philosophy, can be found only when the predominating civilizational worldview, or at the very least the predominating discoursive worldview and academic zeitgeist, can be characterized by what we have called Holistic Monism: this is the type of principial Universalism that distinguishes a logically anterior singularity that produces and incorporates a logically posterior multiplicity. The worldview of Holistic Monism is that by which Reality in its totality is understood primarily as a completely united singular unit from which all individuated things serially derive, and in which they participate, and it is from this process of derivation that all individuated principles are understood to have a particular function that is predetermined prior to their individuation - or, prior to their coming into existence. In other words, Holistic Monism is a worldview by which Reality as a whole is understood as a principially hierarchical ontological sequence that has its beginning in a most fundamental, Absolute, Universal, and Quintessential originating principle and procedurally progresses through degrees of increasing particularization and relativity; it is understood, therefore, that the first degree of Reality is totally Universal and Quintessential, according to the definitions we have given these words, and that each subsequent degree is incrementally less Universal and Quintessential, possessing an increasing number of relativizing properties, as the sequence proceeds. The more particularized and relative degrees are understood to possess within them more complex and composite principles and beings, all of which have their origin in an intricate network of sourcing principles that extends back through the degrees of Reality, in ascending fashion, until the ultimate Universal source is reached; likewise, the more relative degrees, and the principles and beings that inhabit them, are understood to derive their inherent value from their contingency upon and correspondence with the degrees and principles which, to them, are ontologically superior.

When this assessment characterizes the general worldview of a civilization, or, as we have said, when it, at the very least, characterizes the worldview of those in the sphere of academic discourse and, by virtue of this, of philosophical pursuit, then philosophy finds its proper definition as the occupation with knowledge of principles which correspond to the highest degrees of Reality, or, in other words, principles which correspond to the degree of Knowledge in the highest sense of the word. Philosophy, in this context, is concerned with the Absolute, the Universal, and the Quintessential; it is concerned with the elucidation of First Principles and the structure of Reality in its entirety, in an effort to simplify and make intelligible the notion of ontological propriety, or what can be referred to as the "proper way of being" for all things, both considered together as Total Universality, and considered independently as individual things. This "proper way of being", or the notion of ontological propriety, to which we refer as Praxism or the proper praxis of a given thing, relates to the aforementioned predetermined function inherently possessed by all things prior to their creation, which formulates how any particular thing or multitude of things must operate to participate properly in the grand design of Reality in its totality. Therefore, Philosophy, in its most proper sense, is concerned not only with knowledge of the highest degrees of Reality, but also with the participation of all things, according to their corresponding mode, within this highest degree; Philosophy itself, in this sense, is the proper participatory praxis of the intellectual faculty within the degree of true Knowledge, with a capital K, and, thereby, it is both the attainment of this Knowledge and the achievement of this ontological status by the individual who pursues it. It is the study of all things, and their particular integration into the design of Reality, according to their various proclivities.

This is to say that Philosophy proper is the pursuit of knowledge concerning, as we have said, Absolute, Universal, and Quintessential principles, and the relationship of all things to these principles. Therefore, with regard to Philosophy, the pursuit of any other type of knowledge must be in relation to this ultimate objective to be considered as proper; likewise, any advocatory aspect of Philosophy, if there is one at all, must be directed both towards promoting the study of these principles, and towards the proper praxis of all things, including their individual expressions and manifestations, according to these principles. In this sense, the different branches of philosophy are understood as integral, in their own way, to the total objective. To study and understand the various phenomena of lesser realities is necessary only to determine in what way these phenomena are incorporated into the wider design; this is what we understand as the relationships between a thing, its Substantial Truths, its Essential Truth, and the Quintessential Truth of all of Reality, according to the definitions we have provided elsewhere. Through proper Philosophy, the qualitative value of those things which inhabit the lesser and more relative degrees of Reality is elevated to the level of the pure principles from which those things derive, as they become stripped of the contingent properties that limit them to their respective degrees, and participate in the archetypes in which consist their true value. This can be simplified into terms we would refer to as Praxism, Archetypal Fulfillment, and the participation of the lesser being in the Quintessential Reality. Therefore, true Philosophy is objective, from the point of view of "that which is", or, in other words, the Real, and the True. Likewise, the definitions for words such as "Morality", "Goodness", "Evil", all have their roots in the notion of objective ontological propriety, which is to say that they are not at all subjective or relative in any capacity. This is the true goal and achievement of Philosophy, and the way in which we understand it.

While this remains the objective of this pursuit, philosophy retains its proper orientation. It remains the esoteric center which undergoes a process of translation and adaptation into certain exoteric traditional or religious formalisms; it remains the guiding principle for any practical endeavor: spirituality, warfare, art, science, and so forth. When this objective is absent, however, and the worldview of Holistic Monism is no longer the one with which inquiry into the nature of Reality is made, philosophy becomes, at best, study for study's sake; often times, however, it becomes a tool to be used in favor of individual and temporal agendas that have no care for true ontological propriety whatsoever. The central point of reference becomes removed from the highest principle and transposed onto principles and degrees of increasing relativity. Reality becomes understood merely as the encasement of unrelated and disconnected physical bodies which have no significance or integral relationship with each other, and all concepts regarding philosophy become relegated to a purely notional status, which is to say a subjective status. This is the point at which philosophy becomes synonymous with social studies and the investigation into the human psyche, and it is at this point where various enclosed "philosophical systems" confined to lesser realities become the replacement for the initial understanding. Here, the thing being examined is the end within itself, as opposed to its integration within an order that is beyond itself and concerned with the proper relationship between all things. At best, these systems are the purely exoteric interpretation of the aforementioned traditions and religions which were initially once the embodiments of the pursuit of Archetypal Fulfillment, however, more common are those secular philosophical systems which have their origin in one or another single person whose extravagant usage of language, analysis, and rhetoric has proven sufficient to convince people that their suggestions were a legitimate rival to true Philosophy - or indeed even a "return" to this type of philosophy - and the political and economic systems that have been elevated to the level of philosophy by the pseudo-intellectuals who perpetuate them.

In the same fashion by which in proper Philosophy the value of a lesser principle is raised when it participates in its archetypal nature, in these lesser and more relative philosophical systems the value of what in proper Philosophy is truly the highest is lowered to the level of relativity and subjectivity through its confinement to such a system and its frame of consideration. Words which, in proper Philosophy, related to eternal and principial realities become redefined to relate instead to temporal realities and ephemeral principles, and philosophy itself becomes a sterile process of sensational analysis as opposed to a direct participation in higher realities; indeed even the notion of "higher realities" becomes confined to such limitations. The notion of propriety becomes removed from the discussion entirely, and morality becomes rooted in mere psychological and even emotional conceptions; therefore, the notion of proper praxis also becomes removed, and philosophy thereby loses its active component. At this point it can be said that philosophy equates less to a "proper praxis" and more akin to a suggestion of any type of praxis whatsoever; the word "philosophy" here becomes synonymous with "worldview" or even "lifestyle", and these various "philosophies" are presented in a paradigm in which they are all valued by a metric of the lowest frame of consideration, this being the frame of individuation: the value of a philosophy is determined by how it contributes to a given individual experience as opposed to how an individual participates in the highest Universal Reality. Therefore, these philosophies have no true ontological or objective value at all, they are purely valued from the point of view of the individual.

With what has thus far been said, it is necessary now to conclude on the points we have made with a concise definition: proper Philosophy, spelled with a capital P to denote this propriety, is the intellectual pursuit of Knowledge concerning the Quintessential Truth of Reality itself, and the proper praxis of all things according to this Truth. This definition encompasses everything that has thus far been said by virtue that all things, including all principial and essential archetypes, and all substantial manifestations, are incorporated into the highest most Quintessential Truth of Reality, which is quintessential precisely because it is the most incorporative Truth possible. If Philosophy is understood as the pursuit of this most quintessential Knowledge, then we might make an even clearer distinction by use of the word Sophia to denote this Knowledge itself, and, in some cases, to use the word Wisdom as synonymous to these terms, as is very common among those in the field who share our concern for propriety.

It should be quite obvious by now that our goal with Praxism and the Praxist Society in relation to Philosophy is to place our points of reference in their proper order. Therefore, the terms we use in relation to philosophical concepts connote with their highest definitions, and those for which they were originally intended. First of all we distinguish between what we call proper Philosophy concerned with the principial domain and the highest degree of Reality, along with the adoption of a corresponding praxis, and what we might call "conventional philosophy" which is concerned with typical contemplation and study. In this regard the goal of our approach to philosophy is Archetypal Fulfillment, which should be seen as ascending the levels of Reality, as it were, and uniting with the supreme Unicity, the Monad, or God. We therefore affirm the existence of God as the ontological omnipresence, and the way in which we understand God is as the highest most incorporative reality itself, which produces and incorporates all lesser realities. In this regard, we also affirm that, because Reality derives from God, these derivations progress according to a certain formula of increasing relativity, and this design we understand to be the highest Truth of Reality itself, which, in other words, is the Quintessential Truth. We also affirm the traditional understanding of metaphysics, not simply as the study of quiddity and causality and such, but as a true intellectual domain of Reality itself in which there is no differentiation between the essence and substance of a thing; this is what we have called the Quintessential Reality, and it is in this domain that the Quintessential Truth can be said to "exist" in its own mode. Therefore our worldview is that of Holistic Monism which we have outlined earlier.

We also must stress that we aren't the first ones with these viewpoints. Our goal is not to establish anything "new", but to identify that which truly is, and understand it according to its own terms. To that end, we recommend a text on this particular subject that was central to the formation of the Praxist Society, this being Algis Uzdavinys' Philosophy As A Rite Of Rebirth, which we will cover at length in another work. This text extensively explores the definition of proper Philosophy we have outlined here. In the text, the author consistently emphasizes the link between proper Philosophy and proper praxis, stating in quotes: "... it is often very difficult to realize that an essential aspect of all ancient philosophy consists in the living praxis which faithfully follows the course of already established spiritual exercises and imitates archetypal patterns. The art of living demanded by the spiritual and material economy of the ancient theocratic state and, eventually, by philosophy, understood as 'love of wisdom', was not only a lived exercise, but, first and foremost, a lived and correctly performed sacred ritual of the great divine Mysteries, that is, the Mysteries of existence as played out by Being, Life, and Intellect themselves."; "In the ancient Near Eastern civilizations, all theologies, cosmogonies, and their related divine names were translatable. They were not absolute at the level of myth and polysemantic hermeneutics. Therefore not the question of orthodoxy, but that of orthopraxis, the correct performance of sacred rites, based on the distinction between right and wrong in human action was thought to be important." In this text the author also pays significant reference to the Perennial Philosophy, which states, as we do, that there is a principial unity among the various religions which at their center lies the pursuit of Archetypal Fulfillment according to the outline we have provided here, in such quotes as: "There is an ancient doctrine which has existed from the beginning, which has always been maintained by the wisest nations and cities and wise men” of Celsus; "There is only one truth, but different paths from different places join it, just like tributaries flowing into a perennial river" as stated by Clement of Alexandria; "At any specific time and any place one by necessity can glimpse the same truths and construct similar metaphysical doctrines, though expressed in different terms, styles, and images", as the author himself states.

It is opportune to provide a brief analysis on the history of philosophy to accompany our approach. The decline in the concern of philosophy from its initial position in the highest degree of Reality to its current multitude of positions in the numerous lesser degrees of Reality has been the general process undergone by the field of philosophy as it has developed over time. One can follow the progression quite clearly, beginning from the pursuit of a Universal Quintessential Truth and corresponding praxis, to the pursuit of this truth as it exists as a conditioned variant of itself in the mode of religious formalism, to the subsequent derivative branches of profane spiritism, psychism, psychology, science, politics, and so forth which follow; and as this progresses, their further disconnect and exclusivity also becomes quite clear: each "category", if it may be called that, considers itself superior to all others, without yet even mentioning the various systems within each category that also proclaim superiority or exclusivity. The question at this point is not that of any sort of objective propriety, but that of subjective importance - namely, which pursuit or field of inquiry is more important over the rest, which is a question that any subjective field of philosophy has no objective answer to; intellectuals of each field would simply claim that their field is the superior one - or perhaps the question is whether or not there is any relation between the fields at all.

What we call proper Philosophy corresponds to the notion of Tradition with a capital T - Tradition being the way in which the humanly principle fulfills its proper praxis - which we will also cover at length in another work. This principle of Tradition, however, is so named because it is the principle that finds its fulfillment and realization in proper traditional formalisms, which is to say the humanly activities that facilitate an access to and participation within higher realities, and the activities which translate and transpose the Quintessential Truth of Reality, and the corresponding unrefined principles of these higher degrees of Reality, into the humanly sphere. Therefore, because Philosophy proper is concerned with the intellectual identification of, and the principial alignment of all things with, the highest most Quintessential Truth, and because this Truth is the subject of every proper formal tradition, any civilization whose worldview is that of Holistic Monism, and whose activities are oriented towards the fulfillment of Praxism, or proper humanly praxis according to Tradition, intrinsically facilitates proper Philosophy by virtue that Philosophy is wholly contained and expressed in that civilization's proper traditional formalisms.

This was the case for ancient civilization. For the Ancients, what we call proper Philosophy was present in their various cosmogonic formalisms and their accompanying rites, all of which possessed a similar organization and hierarchy, and all of which presented a worldview in which the structure of Reality was understood in generally the same way. Because this was the case, what differed from civilization to civilization in the ancient world was not how Reality was understood, but simply the ways in which this understanding was expressed, and in this instance it is opportune to reference the previous quote from Uzdavinys regarding the translatability of cosmogonies, theologies, and divine names. This is to say that Philosophy was intrinsic in these societies, and it was implicitly understood, at the very least, by the priestly institutions of these civilizations and those who involved themselves in Traditional aspects of these societies, if not intuitively by every inhabitant of the civilization. In this regard, however, Philosophy was not yet an intellectual pursuit in the way of which it would currently be thought even in its proper form. While, indeed, proper Philosophy was implicit in the various traditional formalisms, it was only participated in by way of these formalisms, which is to say by way of Ritual, and philosophical concepts which it is possible now to address by precise principial identification were only understood by the symbols by which they were represented within these formalisms, and by the translation of these symbols with other symbols from other formalisms. This is to say that there was not yet any precise explication of these principles by which they were demystified and directly identified. This was a later phenomenon that occurred in the transposition of proper Traditional formalisms to civilizations whose intellectual disposition demanded a more direct approach.

It has been said that the word "philosophy" has its origins in Pythagoras, the pre-Socratic thinker of the Greek philosophical tradition. Regardless of the validity of this claim, the Greek tradition in particular marks the shift between what in prior ancient civilizations was implicit philosophy in the rituals of the various traditions that were centrifugal to a given civilization, and in Greece what became explicit philosophy as the result of the aforementioned explication. Only in Greece, at this time, could a principle be exhibited by direct assessment and contemplated in its unrestricted form. This is, of course, not to disregard the same development in the East, however only in Greece were these principles not defined by terms which carried a correspondence to any particular formal tradition, save that of Philosophy alone. It is therefore clear why Platonic philosophy in particular is by many considered the quintessence of proper Philosophy; it is the first, and remains one of the only, philosophical systems by which Universal and principial realities are expressly and directly identified, while retaining at the same time everything necessary to be a valid foundation of a proper Traditional lineage itself. It must be emphasized, however, that the Philosophy of Greece is a permutation of what, under different circumstances, would have been simply another transpositive variation of Tradition. This is to say that the disposition of Hellas was such that when contact was established between it and other Traditional ancient civilizations, there was a direct extraction of the principles themselves from the formalisms in which they were contained, which resulted in what is arguably the first worldview in which Reality is unambiguously understood. It would be safe, therefore, to claim that the origin of the field of philosophy, independent of a corresponding formal tradition, can be found in Greece. Even in the development of Greek philosophy, however, it is possible to identify the progression that occurred from the usage of symbols to identify certain principles to the direct identification of these principles themselves; such a development can be found between the water of Thales and the Nous of Plotinus.

We also must consider the fact that the Greeks did not achieve Philosophy in isolation through direct contemplation alone. The philosophers of Greece often participated in the initiatic lineages of traditions in other civilizations at the time, and expounded upon the principial wisdom contained therein. It can be said, therefore, that Greek philosophy has its origin in the numerous other traditions upon whose wisdom the Greek philosophers drew their conclusions; such is the case, for example, with Pythagoras, to whom the establishment of the word Philosophy is attributed, who is said to have been learned in Philosophy through his participation in the Egyptian tradition before transposing it to Greece and adapting it to the mode of articulation that typified Hellenic comprehension. While, indeed, the Greeks had one of the most principial and non-formalistic understandings of Reality through Philosophy, around the time of its proliferation, similar developments were made in other traditions which began identifying the same principles in the context of one or another of their particular formalisms. We must emphasize, also, that what was being identified through such mediums as Tradition and Philosophy, insofar as these mediums were the proper variants of themselves, was a Universal and Quintessential Reality. It was, therefore, the identification of that which is more incorporative from the position of that which is less incorporative, which is to say that every tradition in which proper Philosophy was found, however it may have been expressed, identified the same transcendent principles and realities. However differently Philosophy was expressed within the confines of conditioned language and formalism, the identified principial reality was the same. It was the expression of one idea through many languages, and each expression developed in its own way according to the intellectual style of the peoples by whom it was developed.

Such was the case in the ancient and Traditional world. In the eyes of the ancient philosophers, regardless of their particular formalism, every tradition possessed the same translatable fundamentals, and identified the same principles. This is to say that in the ancient world, the subject of Philosophy and philosophical inquiry remained properly situated at the highest level of Reality, and that the objective of such inquiry was to understand the integration of all things with this highest Reality from a lesser and more individuated position - which is also to say that the worldview of ancient civilizations was that of Holistic Monism. At the time of the Medieval period, however, and with the succeeding preeminence of the dogmatic and devotional traditions that eventually supplanted those of the previous type, the subject of Philosophy also underwent a similar transition; the subject was no longer the Absolute understood as such, but the Absolute understood through the mediator of the highest relative. It is possible to observe the gradual procession from one understanding to the next over the course of the Medieval period in general, which is not to discredit the Medieval philosophers and theologians whose individual comprehension remained entirely proper, but to assess a more general transformation of civilizational worldviews. As opposed to the question of a single Universal set of proper principles which may be expressed appropriately through many possible formalisms, the question became that of "proper formalism" itself - in other words, the question was not of which principles were ontologically proper, but of which formalism was ontologically proper, at the expense of all other formalisms, which is an ontological impossibility. We must reiterate, among the intellectual tiers of the various philosophical traditions at the time, the notion of principle was still adequately illuminated among the obscuring elements, but principle was now solely understood through the mediator of a dogma in most cases, and especially that of the general civilizational zeitgeist. For the most part, however, the focus remained, and the objective of Philosophy was still to distinguish the nature of Reality understood as an ontological sequence that begins with the highest Absolute.

The shift from the worldview of the ancients to that of the Medieval period marks the outset of the decline of the concern of Philosophy downwards from the highest levels of Reality; it also signifies a shift in the comprehension of Reality itself, namely, the way in which the notion of proper activity according to the design of Reality was understood, from the ancient understanding that there is one status of propriety that one may achieve through one of many paths, to a worldview by which there is understood to be only one proper path. In this period, the relationship between philosophy and the domain which it properly concerns was mediated by these various formalisms. In the ancient world Philosophy and formalism shared a supplementary relationship by which the formalism was the interpretation of a Philosophy which was understood to be otherwise ineffable; in the Medieval world, philosophy became subordinated to formalism, and was understood according to the terms of one formalism or another. The issue here is that along with the shift in the domain with which philosophy was concerned, a shift in the type of formalism that was common at the time also occurred. Where previously a formalism's most fundamental point of reference was principial, the formalisms popular at the time of the Medieval period in Europe and the Middle East in particular had as their most fundamental point of reference one or another temporal event, and, more than this, where in the ancient world the primary participatory aspect of a given formalism was the path of action, in the Medieval world this primary aspect was that of devotion. We do not draw attention to this to refute the propriety of constructing a formalism around such events, nor to refute the propriety of the path of devotion, we point this out only to note that for a truly conducive relationship between Philosophy, which is properly concerned with principial realities, and formalisms, which concern themselves with temporal realities, there cannot be any subordination of the former to the latter, in order to avoid conditioning the understanding of principial realities to a confusion of assessments regarding the invisible aspects of the temporal domain.

We must also note that in the Medieval period Philosophy still reached its proper state, however subordinated it was to formalism, by virtue that the popular formalisms of the time still properly understood the general structure of Reality as a whole, and therefore they did properly assess a certain type of principial Universalism from which it is still possible to draw a correct delineation. In this time it was also still common enough for the intellectuals of each formalism to engage in discourse surrounding the design of Reality, and the nature of this design. Indeed, there was even still a common agreement in this regard; the major shift here was in the general attitudes held with which other paths to the same type of participation in the highest degree of Reality were viewed as improper. Where in the ancient world the attitude towards other paths was integratory and inclusive insofar as the paths in question allowed for a genuine access to this highest degree, in the Medieval period, apart from certain examples, this was not the case. Therefore, while Philosophy in this period retained a certain degree of propriety and a symbolic orientation upwards, it was also repurposed in attempts to logically invalidate other proper formalisms and the paths to ontological actualization associated with them. These formalisms themselves, as a result of the fusion of the historic element which served, in large part, as the fundamental aspect of each formalism, and the philosophic element which validated the formalism, became enclosed "philosophic systems", and established themselves as dogmas on an equilateral basis. Thus, while among the intellectual elites of each formalism there still remained an understanding of their metaphysical and philosophical compatibility, this understanding was constrained by certain doctrinal incompatibilities. This was the last vestige of Philosophy in its highest and most proper form.

From the end of the Medieval period forward, the concern of the field of philosophy made another ontological shift downwards towards increasingly subjective and relativistic conceptions. Where in the Medieval period philosophy still remained concerned with ontological propriety, proper praxis, and the participation of all things within the highest degree of Reality according to its principial design, even through the lens of one or another formalism, thereafter it lost all inclination of the notion of propriety whatsoever. It became concerned procedurally less with metaphysical function and the assessment of ontological hierarchicality, and increasingly more with temporal wonders of sensationalism. As opposed to the integration of all things within an external and Universal metaphysical design of Reality, philosophy concerned itself primarily with the notion of temporality alone, which became the sole basis on which the word "objectivity" acquired its definition. The answers to questions which were so easily achieved in the ancient world through the delineation of principles from the highest to the lowest degrees of Reality became obscured by the ignorance of the objective principial degrees of Reality, and became relegated to fields of psychology, sociology, politics, ethics, and so forth, which all asserted themselves as exclusive from each other and superior to each other, where before they were each arranged according to the domain they concerned, and were united through such delineation.

We must also remark that up to the end of the Medieval period, among many other intellectual pursuits, philosophy was reserved for a predisposed and educated elite as opposed to the common individual, however, in the eras following the Medieval period, many intellectual pursuits, including that of philosophy, underwent a process of laification which provided to the plebian and the amateur to these pursuits the same verification given to those with a proficiency in them. The shift in the focus of philosophy towards sensational, psychological, and emotional domains can, therefore, be attributed, in large part, to the influx of individuals participating in philosophical discourse whose comprehension of Reality is limited to these mundane and factitious domains. Thus, following the Medieval period, philosophy no longer retained its proper definition, but became defined instead by terms related to humanistic principles, namely those of lifestyle, ethics, worldview, and ideology. In this regard, philosophy became reduced from its initial status as an eternal verity to a lesser status a type of transient theory. In the initial and proper sense, Philosophy was understood as the process of ontological deduction and the conformity of the relative to the Absolute, and human activity was assessed according to its conformity to the path of Philosophy, again, as an eternal verity; a “philosophical lifestyle” was not understood as a life of mere theorizing or opinionating, but as living according to what was understood as one’s ontological and spiritual predisposition, and orienting oneself towards a true participation in the highest degrees of Reality. This is in direct contrast to the activities of whimsical and sensational theorization, academic deliberation, and sentimental proclamation which, in the post-Medieval West, eventually came to define the word philosophy itself. It is also on this basis that the term "metaphysics" became defined less along the lines of a mathematical function that finds its satisfaction in the fulfillment of a grand ontological design, and more so as a phenomenology of the invisible domain that overlays temporal reality.

At this point we see the departure of the concern of philosophy from the subject of ontology entirely, and the relative degree of profane ephemerality becomes the new center of focus; it is for this reason that the notion of objectivity itself becomes the eternal question, in which case philosophy can no longer provide a substantial answer to any inquiry made into the nature of Reality - it becomes speculation. From this point onwards, the primary reference point for philosophical inquiry is reduced from ontological propriety to the human individual, and Reality, already understood in a lesser sense, is defined according to an experiential modality. Humanism becomes the language of philosophy, and the cornerstones of human activity - namely those of morality, ethics, justice, law - no longer refer to proper praxis as their most fundamental principle, but find their highest reference point, again, in the human individual, and become valued according to their impact on human sensations. The notions of Quintessentiality, Absolutity, and Universality in an incorporative and qualitative sense are no longer the basis of philosophical discourse, and are replaced, again, by the temporal and egoic experience of the human individual. What is lost in all this, most importantly, is the sight of the unifying principles which are situated at the commencement of the logical sequence on which temporal existence is contingent, and therefore the archetypes that necessitate the humanly aspiration to be fulfilled. Thus, the human experience itself is assessed according to the sensational value that can be extracted from any given activity, as opposed to its relationship with principial archetypes.

This is not to say that philosophy did not remain at the forefront of human activity, but a person's "philosophy" related more now to a set of beliefs or axioms than to an ontological participation in a higher reality; therefore philosophy did not retain any kind of cohesion. The initial understanding of the Absolute became splintered into a variety of understandings concerning the relative, which proclaimed, independently, to be absolute themselves. It is at this point where conflicting philosophical frameworks became the basis of discussion, and where the popularization of dogmatic philosophies first occurred. The result was a multitude of suggested philosophic systems, some of which were entirely enclosed according to their own terms, yet incomplete in their considerations of Reality, and often in principial contrast with one another, if not in outright dialectic conflict, and it is these lesser philosophical systems which would be used to create the varying zeitgeists which determine the value of historic trajectories, and the civilizational activities that must occur to remedy whatever problem a given system attempts to diagnose.

These systems trace their origins to various interpretations of the writings of a given thinker, or the ideas of a given group, often times, with an exclusivist, and at times even aggressive, dogmatic fanaticism. The popularization of one system over another was a regular occurrence in the several hundreds of years succeeding the Medieval era. The current of secularization in the West that began with Martin Luther flowed into the current of humanism that splintered into various beliefs about the nature and duties of human existence. The reduction of the reference points of philosophy from a non-human ontological position in the highest degrees of Reality to the level of the human individual became increasingly evident as time went on; the questioning of the authority of the religious structures, then of the political structures, and then of the economic structures, in favor of the individual human experience, represents this current of humanism in the broadest sense.

The period of the Enlightenment in particular marks the final decoupling of the macrocosmic and microcosmic understanding of the pursuit and the subjects related to philosophy. The question of metaphysics is applied to the humanly principle and relegated to the level of the mind, and the question of civilizational organization is answered in accordance with that which brings the individual closer not to a participation in higher and more principial realities, but to an increased sensorily pleasurable participation within the minutia of the physical reality. "Philosophy" is still the reference point and motivating factor for human activity, but it is understood according to a lesser mode, leading to a reduced standard of human obligation and civilizational structures.

Returning again to the broader scale, in place of a higher understanding, these enclosed systems became dogmas in their own right, whether their main concern was individual, sociological, psychological, political, or spiritistic, and they became elevated to the level at which true Philosophy, and the various formalisms that resulted from its pursuit, was once situated. Therefore, the dogmatic aspect of the pursuit of proper ontological praxis was replaced with that same aspect of one or another system lacking in ontological framework, and the understandings once achieved by proper philosophical pursuit were replaced with understandings achieved by the use of the same terms now employed rhetorically and emphatically in favor of lesser points of reference. This is to say that philosophically substantiated traditional formalisms became replaced by hollow notions of lifestyle and ideology, and each of these newer types of philosophies were all understood to be equally legitimate in an ontological sense, because there was no longer understood to be an objective nature to Reality on which basis these systems may be arranged. Each of these systems even still seek hegemony over the civilizational zeitgeist; the humanly pursuits: the spiritistic and psychic lifestyles, the sterile psychology of the modern age, the conclusive statements of scientific research, the indefinitude of political ideologies, all seek to dominate a cultural narrative according to their own terms and subordinate every other pursuit according to their own standard. Each of these effectively raise themselves to the level of philosophy, not in the interest of identifying the principles by which a qualitatively superior status may be reached and returning humanity to a certain dignity, but in the interest of achieving a domineering chokehold on civilizational institutions, and it is at this point that we are brought to our current situation.

We may now conclude on the points that we have made with a few remarks. In its highest and most proper sense, Philosophy must be understood as a term pertaining to activity that consists of a path leading to Wisdom, and this Wisdom must be regarded not merely as the knowledge of empirical facts, but as a higher understanding of Truth, of "that which is", and of the nature and total design of Reality itself. This requires Philosophy to constitute an infallible systematic whole which is constructed of a holistic sequence of logical verities, while at the same time it is also required to be hieratic and qualitatively transfiguring, so as to provide the capacity to identify that unfiltered and unrefined logical doctrine which is transposed and variated into the particular forms and presentations that constitute one or another tradition. Through the process of proper Philosophy one may conceive of a unitive and derivative hierarchy of being, and the transmission of principles through which that result in the existence of, and the ordinated relationships between, all things. As a personal activity, Philosophy denotes a participatory praxis of the individual in the archetypal and predesigned degrees of Reality that unite every individuation on a principial basis. It is the process of climbing the "steps" of Reality from the contingent to the non contingent, and the removal of the conditioning and limiting properties of the being, to ascertain a holistic understanding of the nature and proper function of all things, and to confer upon oneself an elevated status of true awareness.

Any departure from this, such as the series of qualitatively declining considerations made that have been inappropriately assessed as the development of philosophy, or indeed the enclosure of assertions that make up an exclusivistic system of principles, is to profane the term, and at best may be assessed as a subsidiary pursuit. This is not to say that we should advocate for the disregard of any of these subsidiary pursuits. It is necessary to make particularized inquiries into the subfields of Reality in order to achieve a higher understanding of that which constitutes Reality's broadest ontological design, and ontologically proper praxis, but these inquiries must be made with the correct attitude, and in search of the correct answers, which are things that cannot be said of philosophy today.