In this thread I will go through Guénon's magnum opus 'The Reign of Quantity & The Signs of the Times' chapter by chapter. I will try to present the main points of any particular chapter in a condenced form, and offer my own commentary on the thoughts presented. I will try to present each chapter at least once a month, perhaps quicker if I find time. i welcome anyone to comment on the contents of a particular chapter and also to my own commentaries.
In this beginning post I present the contents and chapters of the book.
Contents and chapters:
1: Quality and Quantity
2: Materia Signata Quantitate
3: Measure and Manifestation
4: Spatial Quantity and Qualified Space
5: The Qualitative Determinations of Time
6: The Principle of Individuation
7: Uniformity Against Unity
8: Ancient Crafts and Modern Industry
9: The Twofold Significance of Anonymity
10: The Illusion of Statistics
11: Unity and 'Simplicity'
12: The Hatred of Secrecy
13: The Postulates of Rationalism
14: Mechanism and Materialism
15: The Illusion of 'Ordinary Life'
16: The Degeneration of Coinage
17: The Solidification of the World
18: Scientific Mythology and Popularization
19: The Limits of History and Geography
20: From Sphere to Cube
21: Cain and Abel
22: The Significance of Metallurgy
23: Time Changed into Space
24: Towards Dissolution
25: The Fissures in the Great Wall
26: Shamanism and Sorcery
27: Psychic Residues
28: The Successive Stages in Anti-Traditional Action
29: Deviation and Subversion
30: The Inversion of Symbols
31: Tradition and Traditionalism
32: Neo-Spiritualism
33: Contemporary Intuitionism
34: The Misdeeds of Psychoanalysis
35: The Confusion of the Psychic and the Spiritual
36: Pseudo-Initiation
37: The Deceptiveness of 'Prophecies'
38: From Anti-Tradition to Counter-Tradition
39: The Great Parody; or Spirituality Inverted
40: The End of a World
René Guénon: The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times - Commentary
René Guénon: The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times - Commentary
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Re: René Guénon: The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times - Commentary
So, a short update on this project. I will try to start working first with the introduction, and if I have abilities to focus properly, I'll try to provide a summary of the introduction within next week.
Re: René Guénon: The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times - Commentary
And if by any chance someone here has glanced or read the particular book of Guénon, I don't mind if he or she will bring his opnion in the discussion in the mean time. I can say kindly that if one follows this commenatry and briefing of Guénon's opus, I wholeheartedly recommend buying the book or reading it online, even if by glancing here or there and offering their own comments on the particular subject. It would enliven this discussion dumbfoundly.
Re: René Guénon: The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times - Commentary
Introduction
At first Guénon makes a point that his Crisis of the Modern World was confirmed by the quick overtake of events - the two world wars - eventhough he dealt the issue of the destruction of western civilization from a disinterested point of view without any considerations with immediate actuality. He then makes a point that it is not enough to present only a barren critique of the modern world and the ideology of progress, and it is not enough to denounce the errors of modernity, but to examine and try to explain them. Guénon explains that even disorder and chaos have their place in the more profound order of things, and in the end they give way to that universal order, no matter how desperate things may seem when looked from the point of view of current state of things, and it is to this universal, human and cosmic order that we will be compelled to integrate ourselves voluntarily or involuntarily. Then he makes a point that even though the modern world is a monstrosity when taken as itself, it still corresponds exactly with the conditions of the Kali Yuga that the Hindu Tradition has explained thousands of years ago, and conditions couldn''t really be otherwise. He explains that in order to understand our position in the Manvantara it is important to be as wholly as possible detached from the current mentality; he mentions especially the scientific - we should perhaps say scientistic - view of the world and the tendency to bring everything down to an exclusively quantitative point of view (which is precisely one of the reasons for the name of his opus). He makes a point that the manvantaric descent is a gradual movement away from the Principle and the principal order of things, where evert qualitative distinction gradually loses its character, although the lowest point can never be truly reached, since it is at the lowest point that the cycle turns the other way, the lowest point being like an inverted reflection of the highest point. He brings forward the theological view of "satan as the ape of God" when discussing this inverted order, and says it explains the most darkest enigmas of the modern world. He also says that these things cannot be understood by the common men and the mass of humanity, but it is only for those who in some form or another are endowed with the task of preparing the germs of the future cycle, and it is to these people Guénon writes, and not to the majority who live the reign of quantity unconsciously. After that he rants over the incomprehension of the modern people and marks the difference between traditional and profane science, from which out of the latter only inverted analogies to the state of things can be deciphered; for Guénon profane science and its mentality is the equivalent of being a prisoner in Plato's cave. He then makes some remarks about symbolism, and bashes the westerners for their incomprehension of the mentality of the East, and also makes a point that an easterner can never become a westerner otherwise but losing his characteristics that makes him a man of the East, and this equals modernization. He makes a point about West being the birthplace of modernity, and it is important from a symbolic point of view, west being the place where the sun sets. In the end of the introduction Guénon makes the point that truth is necessarily coherent, but never systematic as the modern philosophical schools and modern philosophers are so ready to imagine; and this is why the truth of Tradition can be verified from all the different possible angles and applications. He also makes a critic of modern individualism which corresponds to him to the modern spirit, and he makes an analogy with "atomism" and its false unity. In the very end of the introduction Guénon presents the cyclic down drift as proceeding from the point of closest to unity and tending toward multiplicity, corresponding these with Aristotelian essence and substance, and making a point that both of them are beyond the manifested world itself. The present book is for Guénon the place to present the viewpoint of traditional science and its correspondences with human civilization in its different modes of being.
At first Guénon makes a point that his Crisis of the Modern World was confirmed by the quick overtake of events - the two world wars - eventhough he dealt the issue of the destruction of western civilization from a disinterested point of view without any considerations with immediate actuality. He then makes a point that it is not enough to present only a barren critique of the modern world and the ideology of progress, and it is not enough to denounce the errors of modernity, but to examine and try to explain them. Guénon explains that even disorder and chaos have their place in the more profound order of things, and in the end they give way to that universal order, no matter how desperate things may seem when looked from the point of view of current state of things, and it is to this universal, human and cosmic order that we will be compelled to integrate ourselves voluntarily or involuntarily. Then he makes a point that even though the modern world is a monstrosity when taken as itself, it still corresponds exactly with the conditions of the Kali Yuga that the Hindu Tradition has explained thousands of years ago, and conditions couldn''t really be otherwise. He explains that in order to understand our position in the Manvantara it is important to be as wholly as possible detached from the current mentality; he mentions especially the scientific - we should perhaps say scientistic - view of the world and the tendency to bring everything down to an exclusively quantitative point of view (which is precisely one of the reasons for the name of his opus). He makes a point that the manvantaric descent is a gradual movement away from the Principle and the principal order of things, where evert qualitative distinction gradually loses its character, although the lowest point can never be truly reached, since it is at the lowest point that the cycle turns the other way, the lowest point being like an inverted reflection of the highest point. He brings forward the theological view of "satan as the ape of God" when discussing this inverted order, and says it explains the most darkest enigmas of the modern world. He also says that these things cannot be understood by the common men and the mass of humanity, but it is only for those who in some form or another are endowed with the task of preparing the germs of the future cycle, and it is to these people Guénon writes, and not to the majority who live the reign of quantity unconsciously. After that he rants over the incomprehension of the modern people and marks the difference between traditional and profane science, from which out of the latter only inverted analogies to the state of things can be deciphered; for Guénon profane science and its mentality is the equivalent of being a prisoner in Plato's cave. He then makes some remarks about symbolism, and bashes the westerners for their incomprehension of the mentality of the East, and also makes a point that an easterner can never become a westerner otherwise but losing his characteristics that makes him a man of the East, and this equals modernization. He makes a point about West being the birthplace of modernity, and it is important from a symbolic point of view, west being the place where the sun sets. In the end of the introduction Guénon makes the point that truth is necessarily coherent, but never systematic as the modern philosophical schools and modern philosophers are so ready to imagine; and this is why the truth of Tradition can be verified from all the different possible angles and applications. He also makes a critic of modern individualism which corresponds to him to the modern spirit, and he makes an analogy with "atomism" and its false unity. In the very end of the introduction Guénon presents the cyclic down drift as proceeding from the point of closest to unity and tending toward multiplicity, corresponding these with Aristotelian essence and substance, and making a point that both of them are beyond the manifested world itself. The present book is for Guénon the place to present the viewpoint of traditional science and its correspondences with human civilization in its different modes of being.
Re: René Guénon: The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times - Commentary
Then a very short commentary to the introduction, although I have not much to say. I think when speaking of the scientistic mentality Guénon is quite right, yet I believe Guénon understood the subject of science as a whole not that well as his other preoccupations, or he simply didn't pay his attention to those "inverted analogies" that greatly because of his different dharma. It is quite clear when Guénon refers to "satan as the ape of God" - it is remarkable that he writes satan without a big first letter here - he means what SoA would roughly call the "dark face". For Guénon 'Satanism' was that of the "traditional kind" also, and I think he would be amazed by the conceptions of SoA; this "traditional satanism" was for Guénon a process of counter-initiation that can be explained simply by saying that a human subject attempts vainly to become "yang" in relation to the First Principle / God (being an inverted reflection of Satan's Pride), whereas the normal and upwards path is in the recognition of man's dependence on this Principle - being yin in relation to God - and rising towards the essential pole of manifestation and beyond into the angelic worlds. I think this short explanation regarding the expression of "satan as the ape of God" can be understood better. I am still today not sure whether Guénon truly believed into the Devil concretely, although he remarks often to these things and to the counter-initiation here and there. He spoke of Satan quite dualistically, I think, in the end, which is funny, since he adhered to non-dual advaitic vedantism as the most complete metaphysics.
Re: René Guénon: The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times - Commentary
Here is also one bit of that ancient commentary regarding the Kali Yuga, which is mentioned by Guénon as the current state of things. Here one can also find Evola's conceptions of modern correspondences with the Vishnu Puranic prophecy.
http://www.juliusevola.net/excerpts/On_ ... k_Age.html
http://www.juliusevola.net/excerpts/On_ ... k_Age.html
Re: René Guénon: The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times - Commentary
I believe no one will be offended by these many posts in a row if I put also the Wiki link to Guénon's metaphysical school which he adhered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta
And here is a link to the PDF of Reign: https://monoskop.org/images/4/48/Gu%C3% ... s_2001.pdf
And here is a link to the PDF of Reign: https://monoskop.org/images/4/48/Gu%C3% ... s_2001.pdf