Hiroshige: "Ciad Sealladh de Edo"
The Idea of the perennial philosophy.
Meanwhile, there remains another objection against our conception concerning the radical antithesis between the Christian and the immanence-standpoint in philosophy, an objection which is not yet entirely refuted by our previous argument. For the question may be raised, what then is left — in the cadre of our philosophy — of the time-honoured Idea concerning the "philosophia perennis" which even modern Thomistic thought, in its relative isolation, zealously maintains?
By adopting an antithetic attitude against the entire immanence-philosophy in its evolution from Greek thought to the latest time, is not, for an authentically Christian philosophy, all connection with the historical development of philosophic thought cut off ? That is to say, does not the latter place itself outside this historical development? If this were really so, then at once the sentence of doom would be pronounced over the attempt undertaken in this work at a reformation of philosophic thought from the Christian point of view. Reformation is not creation out of nothing.
How is the Idea of the "philosophia perennis" to be understood? Philosophic thought and historical development.
But if an appeal is made to the Idea of the "philosophia perennis", one should know, what is to be understood by it. Philosophic thought as such stands in an inner relationship with historical development, postulated by our very philosophical basic Idea, and no thinker whatever can withdraw himself from this historical evolution. Our transcendental ground-Idea itself requires the recognition of the "philosophia perennis" in this sense and rejects the proud illusion that any thinker whatever, could begin as it were with a clean slate and disassociate himself from the development of an age-old process of philosophical reflection. Only let not the postulate of the "philosophia perennis" be turned against the religious ground-motive of philosophy with the intention of involving it (and not only the variable forms given to it) in historical relativity.
For he who does so, will necessarily fall into a historical relativism with respect to truth, as is encountered in DILTHEY'S philosophy of the life- and world-views or, in a still more striking manner, in the case of an OSWALD SPENGLER.
Whoever takes the pains to penetrate into the philosophic system developed in this work, will soon discover, how it is wedded to the historical development of philosophic and scientific thought with a thousand ties, so far as its immanent philosophic content is concerned, even though we can nowhere follow the immanence-philosophy.
The philosophical elaboration in this book of the basic principles of sphere-sovereignty for example would not have been possible apart from the entire preceding development of modern philosophy and of the different branches of modern science. Nevertheless, it is just with the philosophic Idea of sphere-sovereignty that we turn on principle against the Humanistic view of science. In like manner it can be said, that our transcendental critique of theoretic thought has an inner historical connection with KANT'S critique of pure reason, notwithstanding the fact that our critique was turned to a great extent against the theoretical dogmatism in KANT'S epistemology.
What is permanent, and what is subjected to the historical development of thought. The scholastic standpoint of accommodation forever condemned.
The elaboration of our philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea is thus necessarily bound to historical development. Insight into the wealth of meaning of the cosmic order may grow, even through the work of schools of thought against which our own is set in an irreconcilable antithesis. Nevertheless, the religious starting-point, and consequently the whole direction which philosophic thought acquires thereby by means of its threefold transcendental ground-Idea, remains consistent. This starting-point may no longer be abandoned by any single phase of Christian philosophic thought, if it is not to fall back into a scholastic standpoint of accommodation which has proved to be fatal to the idea of a philosophia christiana reformata.
Every serious philosophic school contributes to the development of human thought to a certain extent, and no single one can credit itself with the monopoly in this respect.
No single serious current of thought, however apostate in its starting-point, makes its appearance in the history of the world without a task of its own, by which, even in spite of itself, it must contribute to the fulfilment of the Divine plan in the unfolding of the faculties which He makes to perform their work even in His fallen creation. In the development of the basic features of our philosophy of history we shall further elaborate this point.
We cannot discuss the immanent historical meaning of God's guidance in history, until we are engaged in the philosophical analysis of the modal structure of the historical aspect. Our opinion concerning the historical task of immanence-philosophy pre-supposes indeed the acceptance of this guidance, but this acceptance involves very complicated problems for philosophical thought which we cannot yet solve at this stage of our inquiry.
We can only say, that it implies the biblical-Augustinian idea of the continuous struggle in the religious root of history between the civitas Dei and the civitas terrena. This Idea shall guide us, when we enter into the confusing labyrinth of the history of philosophic thought. It can indeed guide us, since we have gained insight into the all-controlling influence of the religious starting-points in respect to the inner development of philosophic theories.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I, pp 117 - 119)
