traditionalism

The article considers the mental foundations of the cultural specificity of the Eastern Christian civilization based on the cultural-historical method. The purpose of the article is to clarify the historical model which formed the mental differences between Western European and Russian cultures. It is shown that the roots of the civilizational division of Europe into Western and Eastern ones are largely determined by the special way in which “barbarian” ethnic groups were attached to the Christian and ancient traditions.

In the article we attempted to understand and solve the problem of ideologizing the tradition in its most popular form such as traditionalism. We tried to show how the emergence and spread of the ideas of traditionalism depended on the role and degree of awareness of tradition in society. The influence of tradition changed throughout the history of society.

Philosophy of Rene Guenon, despite not being known to general public and remaining understudied by academic community, is one of the most interesting intellectual events of 20th century. The attempt to classify and define the philosophy of Rene Guenon is presented in the article. In author’s point of view, it is important for scientific study of Guenon’s philosophy. For the exact definition of Guenon’s philosophy author suggests the term “philosophical esoterism”, which marks the philosophical character of Guenon’s works as its main feature and places it in the field of esoterism.