E.F. Schumacher’s “A Guide for the Perplexed” offers a compelling critique of scientific materialism and its inadequacy in understanding humanity and the natural world. Written in 1977, the book remains relevant today, providing a framework for navigating the complexities of modern existence. Schumacher begins with St. Augustine’s assertion that “there is no reason for men to philosophize except to achieve happiness.” This sets the stage for an exploration of fundamental questions about purpose and meaning, questions that, according to Schumacher, only philosophy can truly address.
The Hierarchy of Being
Schumacher challenges the Cartesian worldview, emphasizing the importance of spiritual aspiration. He quotes St. Thomas Aquinas: “Nobody strives to achieve something unless he is already familiar with it.” This highlights the inherent human desire for transcendence and connection to something greater than oneself.
The book’s central premise revolves around the hierarchical structure of existence. Schumacher posits that understanding the interconnectedness of all things requires recognizing distinct levels of being. Progressing through these levels is essential for grasping profound truths.
Our task is to see the world in its entirety. Traditionally, the world is divided into four kingdoms:
- Mineral – Matter
- Plant – Life
- Animal – Consciousness
- Human – Self-awareness
It is beyond our power to bestow life upon inanimate matter, consciousness upon living matter, or self-awareness upon conscious beings. Living beings organize and utilize inanimate matter. Conscious beings can use life, and self-aware beings can use consciousness.
The ancient perspective originates with God and views the chain of being as a progressive departure from the center, with increasing speed and gradual loss of qualities. Modern views, heavily influenced by evolutionary theory, tend to begin with inanimate matter and consider humans as the final link in the chain, endowed with the widest range of useful qualities.
Humans represent the highest level of evolution. They are not only capable of thought but also aware of their own thinking. Consciousness and perception are, in a sense, withdrawn upon themselves. There is not only a conscious being but a being capable of being conscious of its consciousness; not only a thinker but a thinker with the ability to observe and examine his own thought.
From Passivity to Activity: The Journey to Wholeness
Schumacher introduces a second key argument: the progression from passivity to activity, from object to subject, towards unity and wholeness. However, even in the seemingly sovereign and independent human, there remains a significant degree of passivity. Despite being a subject, humans often remain an object in many respects—dependent, conditioned, and tossed about by events.
Unity and wholeness are characteristic of conscious beings. Plants, while living organisms, possess such weak inner-unity that parts of the plant can be cut off and continue to live as separate entities. In contrast, animals are highly integrated, and no part of their biological system can survive on its own. However, even the highest animal achieves only a modest level of rationality and consistency, with weak memory and extremely vague cognitive faculties.
The higher the level of being, the wider, richer, and more magnificent the world becomes. Additionally, the higher the level of being, the more a person’s present moment expands. An expansion toward an eternal now.
Humans, too, can be divided into four layers: the physical body, the celestial body, the spiritual body, and the soul or spirit.
To truly become human, we must transcend mere existence.
The Importance of Participation in Knowing
Following the discussion of the fourfold classification and the ascent of being, Schumacher presents a third argument: to truly know something, we must become a part of it. Only then can we attain a level of competence. To know, it is not enough to merely see and observe; it is necessary to feel and be within. “Seeing, they do not see; hearing, they do not hear; and they do not understand,” as stated in the Gospel of Matthew.
For the hearts of these people are hardened, and they cannot perceive with their hearts. Contact with higher levels of being can only be made through the heart. For someone immersed in the materialistic scientism of the modern age, it is impossible to understand what this means.
The faith of the agnostic is perhaps the most irrational of all because, unless it is a camouflage, it is a decision to consider matters of importance as unimportant.
On page 61, there is a quote from Mevlana: “Rumi, the greatest Sufi poet of Iran, speaks of the 70-layered eye of the heart, of which the two visible eyes are the weakest.” We must close our sensory eyes and open our brighter eyes of understanding.
Therefore, the great truth of competence affirms that nothing can be perceived without a suitable organ of perception, and nothing can be understood without a suitable organ of understanding. For the comprehension of the material level, a person’s primary instruments are his five senses; the issue is to be able to go beyond this.
The higher the level of being, the less fixed and more plastic its nature becomes. “With God, all things are possible,” Matthew 19:26.
The Crisis of Modernity: Wealth in Means, Poverty in Purpose
The unfortunate result of the last 300 years is that Western man is rich in means but poor in purpose. His hierarchy of knowledge is disrupted; his will is paralyzed because he has lost the ground upon which to place a hierarchy of values. What are the highest values of the West?
Hierarchy—a force of comprehension and encompassing from above downward. Perception—unless the analogous structure of intellectual powers, the faculties of the human senses, possesses an organ or instrument with which we can receive what is presented to us, we cannot recognize that experience—the great truth of competence.
The aim is to reach inner knowledge. For this, the most important and first step is to capture self-knowledge.
A German theology book from the 14th century writes: To know oneself fully is above all arts. Because it is the highest art. If you know yourself well, you are better and more worthy before God than knowing the course of the heavens and all the planets and stars, all the knowledge of plants, all the structures and temperaments of all people, all the natures of all animals, and possessing all the mastery of those in the heavens and on earth in such matters.
.. The ancient Greek philosopher also says: They do not know themselves, so they do not understand the nature of their inner world. If a person has one type of knowledge as much as another and harbors the essence of God and all the wisdom and power of the world in the form of a seed within himself, and cannot say that he does not possess the truth that is within him, he is only unskilled in seeking it successfully.
.. Aziz Ibni Muhammet Enes Efe from the Islamic world says: Amin Ali Radiyallahu Anh asked Hazrat Muhammad what he should do to not waste his time, and the Messenger replied: “Learn to know yourself.”
Knowing others is intelligent; knowing yourself is enlightened—this is a Chinese proverb.
Even though the modern world produces more psychological theory and literature than any previous era, it still knows very little about all this. As it is said, psychology is sometimes called the new science, which is very wrong; psychology is perhaps the oldest of the sciences and, unfortunately, the most forgotten in terms of its original characteristics.
Psychology should primarily work on the idea of a path that sees normal people as capable and even destined to become super-normal and guides them, not on issues that will bring people to a normal state.
We often lose ourselves; we get absorbed in a task, and hours pass, but a real consciousness does not form there. A state called istiğrak is expressed there, but it is wrong; what happens there is mechanization, moving as if programmed, a repulsive state of sleep. The main issue is to be able to reawaken during that flow.
Religion is essentially the reconnection of man with reality. Let’s look at the origin of the concept: RE – LEGIO.
Humans are distinguished from other beings by their power of self-awareness; the address is the heart.
Everyone naturally has a great curiosity about what they look like, how they appear, and what impression they leave on others. But perhaps mercifully, very special mirrors of the story do not exist on earth. The shocks they would give could be more than we could handle. Understanding that we are truly very flawed always hurts, and we have many mechanisms to protect ourselves from this disclosure. In this respect, our natural curiosity does not take us very far in the third realm, and we very easily turn to investigating the affairs of others rather than our own mistakes.
Pragmatism is a philosophy that argues that the only valid idea of truth is its success. The pragmatist advises: it is not rational to say that an idea is successful when it is true; you should say that an idea is true if it is successful.
The Perils of Quantifying the Unquantifiable
The great psychiatrist Karl Stern: An entity that prefers love to hate, justice to injustice, writes poetry like Dante, composes music like Mozart, and paints like Leonardo—such a view is undoubtedly a crazy idea given biological determinism and the existence of chance—Cosmogenesis. I use the word “crazy” not in the sense of slang profanity, but in the technical sense of mental illness. In fact, such a view has many common points with certain aspects of schizophrenic thought.
We live in an age of the dominance of quantity. Everything can be converted into quantity. St. Thomas Aquinas: “There is a need for justice and also for mercy in the lives of societies. Justice without mercy is cruelty, and mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution.”
If art primarily aims to affect our emotions, we can call it entertainment; if it is aimed at affecting our will, we can call it propaganda.
Capax Universi…
The first task of humankind is to learn from society and tradition and to find its temporary happiness in instructions it will receive from outside.
The second task is to internalize the knowledge it has acquired, to touch it, to classify and sort it, to take the good and put it away, and to throw away the bad.
The third task is a task that it cannot undertake without achieving the first two, and for which it needs the best help it can probably find: to die before dying. It is to overcome his loves and hates, all his egocentric preoccupations.
In conclusion, “A Guide for the Perplexed” provides a timeless framework for understanding the human condition and navigating the complexities of the modern world. Schumacher’s emphasis on the hierarchy of being, the importance of inner knowledge, and the dangers of a purely materialistic worldview offers a powerful antidote to the confusion and alienation that plague contemporary society. By embracing these principles, individuals can embark on a journey towards greater self-awareness, purpose, and ultimately, happiness.
