Guénon frames science and philosophy as stripping value from matter

Evidence

It is obvious that a central role is played by materialism, a concept that is intended to encompass particular attitudes to the world as matter (that is, the Distinction), capitalism as a system of exchange and material greed (whether personal or collective), and love for material things and wealth, all of which form the subject of what he might have called “negative liberty.” Being inherent in this materialist system, science and philosophy contribute to a discursive stripping of value from matter, and then they are turned around to study the world as such. Progress comes to clothe all these practices with a doctrine that converts vice into virtue; and history is the application of this doctrine to the study of how people lived in the past, especially the different “Easterners.” — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 311

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Guénon’s encompassing concept of materialism: attitude to world-as-matter, capitalism, and greed, together as ‘negative liberty’.