Some musings on schools of thought for how Kavians think about their world.
Philosophy is at its most active in Camahay, where arguments between wandering scholars and thinkers are practically a typical form of entertainment. The problems considered tend to be those that lend themselves best to open formats, with arguments by analogy being common and a general explanation.
Dulshani philosophy mostly derives from the Camahayan philosopher Veyrgu, whose philosophy strongly focused on self-negation and the idea that sensory inputs are a barrier to understanding higher truths. Veyrite philosophy is also taught in schools in parts of the Heirophancy and Palictara.
Heirophantic philosophy is frequently devoted to the fundamental religious concepts of Suyr and Beyi, the force of movement and of stillness, and how one balances them and observes them. This latter question - how we know whether actions or things contribute to the cosmic balance - leads to the question of how one knows anything at all, which Heirophantic philosophers tend to approach from two main angles, the sensory knowledge and the cosmic knowledge, with the aim to bring the more immediate sensory knowledge into accordance with the cosmic knowledge in order to be able to create orderly thought and the ability to percieve truth. Most Heirophantic scholars claim, in line with Alash and his exegetist Kirpintar, that the ability to bring the two forms of knowledge together is something brought about by the cosmos' inherent need for it: that the existence of consciousness proves the cosmos' need to know and thus regulate itself. This need is most particularly expressed in the existence of the Syarami. Other schools exist however, including the work of Souish, who argued that there is no inherent force beyond the dual: that is, that Beyi and Suyr do not seek to be combined or reconciled, but rather that the understanding that this is necessary is the mark of true consciousness and the first step to true sight. Veyrites meanwhile apply Veyrgu's teachings to the problem and suggest that sensory knowledge is actually a hindrance to seeking cosmic knowledge, and that through self-denial people can be taught to see the balance.
Palictaran philosophy is devoted much more to formal logic systems.
The Oak Islander monk Phiatori was crucial to the development of post-Heirophancy philosophy in the Starlit Sea and Alasia. Phiatorine ideas take earlier Heirophantic ones about sensory and cosmic knowledge, but suggest that the ability to truly know either is ultimately illusory. Instead, Phiatorines suggest, one should seek an acceptance of not having cosmic knowledge in particular, focusing instead on building a relationship with what can be determined and reasoned from sensory knowledge, which may be illusory but can at least be tested and found to accord to consistent principles. Their focus is not, however, on empiricism and testing of physical principles, but in arguing how one can sensorily derive the reactions and beliefs of others and therefore sets of moral principles which can be held.
In Alasia, the scholar and scribe Mecteber was the founder of the School of Perfected Song. This takes the Phiatorine principle of seeking moral rectitude in the absence of cosmic knowledge, but with a much more physical and social rather than internally moral understanding of what this should entail, using Alasian harmonic and bell musical systems as the root of a structured society and arguing that because perfection of structure can be logically constructed internally, it represents the most reliable form of knowledge to be realised externally.
