Editing Seyyed Hossein Nasr (section)

===Metaphysics===
{{Main|Scientia sacra}}
For Nasr, true metaphysics – the ''scientia sacra'' –, which is the intellectual foundation of the Traditionalist School, "is the science of the Real; of the origin and the end of things; of the Absolute and in its light, the relative"{{sfn|Man and Nature |1991 |p=81}} and, as a corollary, of the degrees of existence.{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=125}} It is therefore:

{{blockquote|the knowledge by means of which man is able to distinguish between the Real and the illusory and to know things in their essence or as they are, which means ultimately to know them ''in divinis''. The knowledge of the Principle which is at once the absolute and infinite Reality is the heart of metaphysics while the distinction between levels of universal and cosmic existence, including both the macrocosm and the microcosm, are like its limbs. [...] metaphysics is the primary and fundamental science or
wisdom which [...] contains the principles of all the sciences.{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=120-121}}}}
 
True metaphysics, underlines Nasr, can only be assimilated by intellectual intuition,{{sfn|Man and Nature|1991 |p=81}}{{efn|"''Scientia sacra'' is none other than that sacred knowledge which lies at the heart of every revelation and is the center of that circle which encompasses and defines tradition. [...] the twin source of this knowledge is revelation and intellection or intellectual intuition which involves the illumination of the heart and the mind of man and the presence in him of knowledge of an immediate and direct nature which is tasted and experienced [...]. Man is able to know and this knowledge corresponds to some aspect of reality. Ultimately in fact, knowledge is knowledge of Absolute Reality and intelligence possesses this miraculous gift of being able to know that which is and all that partakes of being. [...] Man can know through intuition and revelation not because he is a thinking being who imposes the categories of his thought upon what he perceives but because knowledge is being." Nasr, ''Knowledge and the Sacred'', 1989, p.119-120.}} that is to say that it is necessarily associated with a path of spiritual realization, an approach foreign to modern philosophy, which has been instrumental in reducing the significance of metaphysics to just another mental activity.{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=120, 279}} Metaphysical knowledge stems from the true understanding of symbolism.{{sfn|Hahn|2001 |p=196-197}}