What is Reason For?
Purpose / Key Focus
Frame reason not as self-justifying but as dependent on alignment with upstream purpose
Corresponds to Stage
Right Discernment
How It Is Ordered
This list follows a teleological and epistemic sequence. Each level presupposes the one upstream. Knowledge is not constructed from the bottom up like a pile of facts—it flows from prior commitments into structured understanding and lived expression.
Epistemic Sequence
Summary Table
| Level | Name | Description | Core Assumption (Upstream Prior) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🜂 1 | Unconditioned Source of Purpose | The ground of all intelligibility, telos and meaning. Final goal and first mover. | All knowing presupposes a given origin that is not derived. Knowing has Conscience. |
| 🜁 2 | Intrinsic Patterning | Reality is structured with discoverable order and purpose. | Meaning is embedded and embodied in things, not projected onto them. |
| 🜃 3 | Participatory Knowing | Understanding arises through engaged relationship. | Knowledge involves presence and transformation. |
| 🜄 4 | Right Discernment | Reason must align with upstream orientation. | Logic is governed by purpose and moral proportion. |
| 🧠 5 | Mental Formation | Perception is filtered through inner habits. | What we notice depends on how we have been shaped. |
| 📊 6 | Empirical Perception | Observations are always interpreted within a frame. | Data presupposes intelligibility, structure, and meaning. |
| 💬 7 | Wisdom-in-Action | Knowledge matures through lived coherence. | Truth is not static—it must be enacted to be fulfilled. |
| 🧬 8 | Inherited Formation | Thought is shaped by memory, tradition, and trust. | We interpret the world through what we have received. |
Related Topics
- 3-How Do We Come to Know? - How reason serves participatory knowing
- 5-Why Perception is Never Neutral - How reason is shaped by mental formation
- 9-How Does Thinking Go Wrong? - Common breakdowns in reasoning