Fritjof Schuon argues that modern humans, shaped by secularization and modernism, have severed their connection with the sacred, leading to individual and societal alienation and an existential crisis. He contends that human nature requires contact with the transcendent, but modernity has limited people to the material and temporary. Schuon believes that spiritual disciplines rooted in metaphysical traditions, grounded in eternal wisdom, can counter secularization's negative effects and restore humanity's spiritual journey. This study examines from a philosophical perspective how Schuon's concepts of eternal wisdom and worldliness are shaped, their effects on humans and society, and how they explain epistemological-ontological fractures of the modern world.
Substance dualism is often associated with Descartes, who defined the soul as a thinking substance identical with the mind, encompassing both theoretical thought and phenomenal consciousness (qualia). Ibn Sīnā also held that the soul (nafs) is an immaterial substance distinct from the body, but his dualism differs fundamentally from Descartes'. For Ibn Sīnā, the primary function of the immaterial soul is not phenomenal consciousness—since animals without an immaterial substance also possess sensation and consciousness—but rather universal thought and self-awareness.
Spinoza uses the terms conscientia and conscius interchangeably, whereas in traditional philosophy conscientia refers to an inner voice of moral sensitivity or conscience, involving both rational and irrational processes, while conscius means consciousness, a rational reflective mental activity. This article argues that, for Spinoza, moral sensitivity arises from reflective thought, a mental action. Where consciousness is understood as reflective activity based on relations among ideas, moral awareness emerges as a new idea in the mind from those relations. The article identifies that Spinoza develops a theory of moral consciousness rather than a theory of conscience.