Perennial Philosophy

Historical Origin

The first historical use of the term philosophia perennis has been traced to the 16th-century Vatican librarian Agostino Steuco, who authored a seminal work of that title. It has been more popularly thought to originate with the celebrated philosopher of the Enlightenment, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, who made occasional use of the term in private correspondence.

Steuco was influenced by the Renaissance Platonists Marcilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, themselves influenced by Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Hermetic philosophic currents, who made use of the closely related term prisca philosophia or philosophia priscorum—the venerable philosophy—emphasizing the continuity of the philosophic tradition from ancient quasi-mythical figures such as Hermes Trismegistus and Pythagoras through Neoplatonic philosophers such as Plotinus and Proclus. Ficino's views were also shaped by his earlier contemporary, the Byzantine Platonist Gemistus Pletho. Another earlier contemporary, the Christian cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, similarly sought to articulate a conciliation encompassing different faiths and was to bear a further, independent influence on Steuco.

Variant Uses

The fundamental intuition supported by the notion of the perennial philosophy is that of a single unified principle encompassing all things, ascertainable through a single wisdom variously known by all peoples. This precisely conforms to Steuco's understanding, in company with those who preceded him in its articulation. In its narrowest sense, it implied a conciliation between Platonism and Christian theology; more broadly conceived, it sought a vision encompassing a multitude of philosophical understandings and religious faiths.

Leibniz's engagement with the notion of the perennial philosophy was much in keeping with earlier articulations, particularly as developed in his philosophy of harmony. More recent European and American philosophers—most notably Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, and Wilbur Urban—predominantly influenced by Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, used the term perennial philosophy to alternatively indicate certain common conclusions, widely recurrent problems, or persistent polarities within the history of Western philosophy. The term was also appropriated by neoscholastics in the early 20th century, most notably the Thomist philosopher Maurice De Wulf, to designate the common and enduring patrimony of high medieval scholasticism.

The notion of a common perennial philosophy in the context of modern Western philosophy is difficult to extensively support, simply given the divergence of philosophical positions and schools to be found therein: Little conjoins idealism and nihilism or dualism and physicalism, for example. Furthermore, whereas the original use of the term philosophia perennis did not divorce wisdom from piety or philosophy from theology, its use in this latter context is almost wholly constrained to the domain of philosophical ratiocination. In particular, it has no necessary bearing on the quest for the knowledge of God, which is central to the original conception of the philosophia perennis. The use of the term by modern neoscholastics to apply solely to St. Thomas Aquinas and his school may be seen as a narrowing of its original intent, while the appropriateness of this conception in light of the differences between medieval scholastics has been largely discredited, most notably by Étienne Gilson.

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