Tracing the Discourse of Aristotle's Metaphysics of Substance in Frithjof Schuon's Religious Pluralism

Abstract

This article aims to elaborate on Frithjof Schuon’s metaphysical ideas and track the discursive traces of Aristotle’s metaphysics of Substance in them. In this regard, the authors first review how Aristotle articulated his metaphysical ideas. After that, the authors focuse on Schuon’s perennial philosophy project and identify Aristotelian ideas in it. The development of perennial philosophy cannot be separated from the discourse of religious pluralism as an attempt to understand divine reality through a metaphysical lens. This article is a library research that utilizes qualitative research methods. Through an analytical and interpretative approach, the author will elaborate Schuon’s metaphysical ideas in the light of Aristotle’s metaphysics. The study identified three significant points that demonstrate traces of Aristotle’s metaphysics in Schuon’s thought concerning the Transcendent Unity of Religion. This unity can be happened only in esoteric level (esotericism). Firstly, the Truth as the ultimate reality is considered the substantia secunda, a concept that is so universally applicable that it gives rise to other particular realities, in Schuon case, religions at the exoteric level (exotericisms). Secondly, the Unmoved Mover, which assumes the form of ultimate reality or Absolute “Being”, where human “Being” is also included in it without affecting its “Being”; "the Truth" which is at the top of the scheme is the “causa finalis”, because it is the final cause of the religion’s existence. In addition to demonstrating the interconnectedness of metaphysical concepts in Schuon’s perennial philosophy with the metaphysical framework established by Aristotle, this article further rearticulates the notion of religious pluralism and reframes it in the context of metaphysics.