glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Philosophy (profane): Profane philosophy is ignorant not only of the value of truth and
universality in Revelation, but also of the transcendence of the pure Intellect; it entails
therefore no guarantee of truth on any level, for the quite human faculty which reason is,
insofar as it is cut off from the Absolute, is readily mistaken even on the level of the
relative. The efficacy of reasoning is essentially conditional. [SW, The Nature and
Arguments of Faith]
Philosophy / Reason: In the opinion of all profane thinkers, philosophy means to think
“freely,” as far as possible without presupposition, which precisely is impossible; on the
other hand, gnosis, or philosophy in the proper and primitive sense of the word, is to
think in accordance with the immanent Intellect and not by means of reason alone. What
favors confusion is the fact that in both cases the intelligence operates independently of
outward prescriptions, although for diametrically opposed reasons; that the rationalist if
need be draws his inspiration from a pre-existing system does not prevent him from
thinking in a way that he deems to be “free” – falsely, since true freedom coincides with
truth – likewise, mutatis mutandis: that the gnostic – in the orthodox sense of the term –
bases himself extrinsically on a given sacred Scripture or on some other gnostic cannot
prevent him from thinking in an intrinsically free manner by virtue of the freedom proper
to the immanent Truth, or proper to the Essence which by definition escapes formal
constraints. Or again: whether the gnostic “thinks” what he has “seen” with the “eye of
the heart,” or whether on the contrary he obtains his “vision” thanks to the intervention –
preliminary and provisional and in no wise efficient – of a thought which then takes on
the role of occasional cause, is a matter of indifference with regard to the truth, or with
regard to its almost supernatural springing forth in the spirit. [SVQ, Tracing the Notion of
Philosophy]
Philosophy (modern) / Wisdom (genuine): No sooner does one thinker believe he has
found the cause of phenomena than another philosopher comes forward to accuse him of
failing to find the cause of the cause, and so on ad infinitum. This shows that when
philosophy has become “art for art’s sake” it is no more than a search for the cause of the
cause of the cause, carried on in a state of utter mental deception and without the least
possibility of arriving at a conclusion; in the case of genuine wisdom, on the other hand,
one knows before hand that the complete truth can and must spring forth from any
adequate formulation like a spark from a flint, but that it will always remain
incommunicable as far as its intrinsic infinitude is concerned. To search, as do modern
thinkers and as did certain ancient writers, for completely adequate formulations capable
of satisfying all causal needs, the most artificial and the least intelligent included, is
assuredly the most contradictory and the most fruitless of occupations; the “quest” of
philosophers, therefore, has nothing in common with that of contemplatives, since its
basic principle of exhaustive verbal adequacy is opposed to any liberating finality, to any
transcending of the sphere of words. It is not to be wondered at that after centuries of
unsatisfied ratiocination – unsatisfied because in principle not capable of satisfaction –
people should have become weary of what is looked upon, rightly or wrongly, as
“abstract,” and that they should turn, alas, not to the “concrete” reality that lies within and
which the sages of old and the saints always knew, but, on the contrary, to an outward
counterfeit, at one and the same time hardening and dispersive in its effects, and totally
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