Tilénist School

The Tilénist School (Itarakoské: Tilénél ilnaru) is a major school of philosophy and ethics which was first founded by Tilén, a noble and scholar known by followers as the Sage among Men, in the third and fourth centuries of the Omé Dynasty.

Best known for its preoccupation and emphasis on ethics and political philosophy, and on the nature of virtue in humans rather than the metaphysical condition of the natural world, Tilénism is one of the Seven Excellent Schools, ranking third after the Naturalists and Arenism as the third most senior school.

Lein Dynasty
During the Lein Dynasty, Tilénism retained its status as a major current of thought, and owing to its willingness to actively engage with government, also retained quite a lot of its institutional power. In Meiron alone, during the reign of Athain, there were three private academies focusing on Tilénist teachings, with imperial acquiescence.

Among the Seven Schools, Tilénism and the related doctrine of Legalism were perhaps the most naturally dominant; the arrangement of Imperially-supported teaching and ideology also rankled with them considerably, so that they posed the most serious threat to the system of seven schools and 'broad teaching'.

Attitude towards Metaphysics
Unlike its contemporary Arenism, and the Naturalist school which preceded them, the original Tilénists bore a relatively nonchalant attitude towards the study of metaphysical concepts such as Providence and its mechanisms, and the relationship between the workings of the natural world and that of human morality.

Tilén, in his writings, couched this nonchalance in a deferential attitude, saying simply that since the Naturalists and Arenists focused much of their effort on those enquiries, the Tilénists could defer to them on such matters and focus on other concerns. Other writers among his disciples, though, are rather more forthright in their criticism, which took several forms. Some considered that since Naturalist mérünti (Providence) was ultimately ineffable and beyond change, it was therefore irrelevant to the conduct of human behaviour. Others, even more scathingly, considered metaphysical investigation - which they considered mere speculation - to be a distraction, substituting 'easy' guesses and imagery for the 'difficult' work of personal cultivation.

Whichever form these critiques took, however, the general consensus of Tilénism leans in a very humanist direction; instead of considering the interactions of nature, humanity and society, they focused on the links between humanity and society, and the consideration of what makes a good person and an ideal society.

Virtues and Society
Tilénism's focus on society goes one step farther than the Arenists, because their conception of the human ability to discern good and evil, and act accordingly, goes one step back. Instead of merely seeing society as a ground for nurturing virtue, or even as a place whose practices may hinder virtue, Tilén and his followers saw society as the crucial place where virtue is defined.

The Tilénists generally hold that good behaviour and virtue do exist, but that their source cannot be found naturally, and universally, in humans. Since he rejected the idea that there is necessarily a primal principle which determines human nature, Tilén also rejected the supposition that humans are born with either innate 'good' or innate 'evil'. Neither is learning and teaching merely a matter of 'brushing away the dust' to reveal one's innate, good nature, as the Arenists posit. From this it also follows, then, that isolation from or skepticism of sociey is not a valid path to discover virtue.

The Tilénist conception of virtue, then, is primarily rather than incidentally social. In their view, it is not a good society that makes it easier or more possible for individuals to be good as an ultimate aim; rather, the highest virtues of humanity are high because they lead to a good society, which should be the ultimate aim. Personal cultivation, to the Tilénists, is pointless without social context.

At the same time, however, the shape of this 'good society' is left uncertain in many of their expositions; Tilén himself, having travelled through the many feudal states and political arrangements of the Omé Dynasty in its early stages of political collapse, was of the view that circumstances determined a lot more of human nature, and of social expectations and forms, than any single and universal principle did.

The 'Good Person'
''There are no two lands where the rituals are the same; but there is no land where rituals are made to not be followed. 'There are no two lands where the laws are the same; but there is no country where a lawbreaker is a good person. 'There are no two lands where all that makes the good person are identical and agreed upon; but there is no land in which the striving for goodness does not exist. This is not proof that goodness is not; it is that men are different, but goodness firmly is. ''

- Tilén

A key focus and concern of the Tilénist school is ethics and morality, which is expressed in the ideal form of the 'good person'.