It feels like the author has missed the point of philosophy entirely. If some Chinese philosophical paper is very good, it should be evaluated on its merits and folded in to an appropriate course for that topic. Philosophers believe at least, that they are doing work more along the lines of mathematics than underwater dance (that is, searching for truth). Nobody would ever dream of arguing against eurocentrism in num…
I think there are a number of things going on here: I think much of what the article is dancing around the entire time is that most philosophers/philosophy departments do not think this other philosophy is good/worth teaching. Philosophy departments do not teach the Bible, they do not teach Ayn Rand. Both have some barely tangential relation to philosophy but are not particularly deep so as to even be worth reading a…
No, the authors acknowledge this counterargument, but they do not offer a substantial refutation of it. They try to confuse their readers by equating a historical examination of philosophy with philosophy itself. id=whatshisface is correctly addressing how this argument applies to philosophy.
History of philosophy is a major part of all philosophy programs, and the list of topics that are discussed in the non-history topics are those that were discussed by the old European philosophers.
> History of philosophy is a major part of all philosophy programs
Right or wrong, modern philosophers at top universities would claim that they teach history of philosophy for the same modest reason that physicists learn about Newton: so they can get some context about how various ideas developed and the reason for conventions. Analytical philosophers generally resist about having to teach history of philosophy.
> the list of topics that are discussed in the non-history topics are those that were discussed by the old European philosophers.
What topics discussed by non-European philosophers do you think are neglected?
Yes it's hard to imagine there isn't bias in topic selection, but then this needs to be addressed by convincing modern researchers that whatever non-European ideas are better on their merits, not by studying modern non-European philosophy as a separate topic.
Childish article. Should the Confucians also be forced to read plato? Philosophy (itself a greek word) is being taught as a certain tradition that builds upon its past. People from all races have contributed, but it will always remain a western-born tradition. To say that other disciplines should be included uncritically is childish. I realize the authors may be frustrated that their subfields don't gain more tractio…
I highly doubt that philosophy and thinking logically is a western-born tradition. What is Confucianism if not a philosophy? Or is this rhetoric implying that philosophy is inherently exclusive to western cultures?
Having gone through an undergraduate philosophy major and taken many classes on non-western thought, all offered by other departments, I strongly support the article's position. To have a class called "Ethics" that covers only the historical Western positions deprives students of the majority of the world's thinking on the topic. What many of the comments here are missing by trying to separate "history of thought" fr…
Wouldn't that be called Anthropology?
They share some areas of focus but philosophy also overlaps with history, religion, literature, and logic. All ideas are human ideas and it is important to understand the historical and cultural assumptions that are baked into those ideas if you are going to really engage with them.
This push toward "multicultural" philosophy feels oddly out of place in a time when most philosophy departments are moving/have moved firmly toward logic, philosophy of science, and/or cognitive science. At my undergrad university, the philosophy department, in terms of courses taught and faculty research, was basically a cognitive science department in all but name. I know there are other programs that lean similarl…
Both India and China have extremely rich philosophical logic traditions, along with extremely well developed philosophies of mind and epistemology. Attributing philosophy of mind as "western" is the problem the article is speaking to--our Philosophy departments are so ignorant of thousands of years of work that they often duplicate already solved problems or ignore perspective changing constructs. If people are actua…
Most of those thousands of years of work are not even remotely based on the scientific method. Such work is of historical relevance, and not much else.
This push toward "multicultural" philosophy feels oddly out of place in a time when most philosophy departments are moving/have moved firmly toward logic, philosophy of science, and/or cognitive science. At my undergrad university, the philosophy department, in terms of courses taught and faculty research, was basically a cognitive science department in all but name. I know there are other programs that lean similarl…
Both India and China have extremely rich philosophical logic traditions, along with extremely well developed philosophies of mind and epistemology. Attributing philosophy of mind as "western" is the problem the article is speaking to--our Philosophy departments are so ignorant of thousands of years of work that they often duplicate already solved problems or ignore perspective changing constructs. If people are actua…
What do you think prevents people from engaging is modern philosophy-of-mind research by building on Nagarjuna or Candrakirti?
So by this logic are we also removing Augustine, Aquinus, Decartes, Kant and the dozens of other canonical western philosophers whose arguments were substantially religious in nature? I suppose we could, but this leaves a pretty thin curriculum.
The big difference is the method. The people you cite made arguments based on premises and those arguments taken together (to their belief) were consistent. When people attacked the arguments and premises, they defended them. When the arguments or premises were eventually found to be indefensible, they were abandoned. Their premises, when based on religious texts, were bad - but the very method that they championed i…
> Augustine, Aquinus
> nuggets of so-called wisdom presented without argument
I think P-1 is half right in that Augustine and Aquinas are similar to the Eastern philosophy described by P.
These great catholic philosophers were of a scholastic [0] tradition, relying on syllogistic reasoning alone - deriving from certain axioms similar to the "nuggets" of eastern wisdom.
I don't think it's necessarily fair to lump Descartes and Kant into this category as they were far more of the inductive tradition. The former was writing at a time when to write about such a thing could be considered heresy, so he had to work around some of these "axioms". The latter wasn't so much religious as informed by his cultural context.
It feels like the author has missed the point of philosophy entirely. If some Chinese philosophical paper is very good, it should be evaluated on its merits and folded in to an appropriate course for that topic. Philosophers believe at least, that they are doing work more along the lines of mathematics than underwater dance (that is, searching for truth). Nobody would ever dream of arguing against eurocentrism in num…
When you study undergraduate philosophy you aren't instantly bombarded with the current state-of-the-art in philosophical thought. On the contrary you spend a lot of time studying the musings of ancient philosophical ideas that have since been improved upon.
Should we stop teaching Aristotle and Plato now because many of their ideas have been vastly improved upon? Of course not, because teaching about those philosophers has pedagogical value.
Philosophy is much more about building and de-constructing rational arguments than it is about learning some particular set of facts from some particular philosopher. As such it doesn't matter whether western philosophy is "more correct" than non-western philosophy: it still offers arguments from different perspectives that can be used as a basis for practising philosophy.
Sounds like we're confusing philosophy as investigation with philosophy as a way of living.
I'm curious, how so? I've always considered the investigation with philosophy worthless without it as a way of living. Is distinguishing between the two useful?
I've only taken three philosophy classes in college so I'm by no means an expert. However, the distinction I see between philosophy as a study and philosophy as a way of life is that the latter is a consumer version of the previous. In philosophical discipline, we talk about the nature of things. For example, "what does it mean to be virtuous", "what is the fundamental mechanics behind what is good and bad", "how do we logically conclude that we exist", "can logic be trusted". While these discussions might seem frivolous and too-up-in-the-air, these are essential questions. Laws are a derivitive of philosophy. Today's understanding of human rights started from Immanuel Kant. The power dynamic between the state, private sector, and th people is explored by Foucault. Aristotle talks about what is the nature of the good life. Our current laws and society is heavily influenced by John Stuart Mil. On the other hand, philosophy as a way of life is like a bumper sticker. It's like saying "we should be kind to others to have a good life", or "do what makes you happy". These can be derived from philosophical texts but are stupidlfyingly simplified. If these philosopher could say what they wanted to say in a sentence, instead of writing a long book about it, they would have done so. So I think while philosophy as a way of life is very practical (since people don't have to really investigate it and just believe it), it is to some extent a dumbed down version, that lacks the backbone of hard philosophy (because it lacks the proof and arguments behind such ideas). The purpose of philosophy is not to give someone a lifestyle or life advice like a self-help book, it is to arrive at fundamental truth as hard as 16+26=42. Now whether that it is successful is a hard question to answer. But life style and life advice is a derivitive of the truth. That's the distinction.
There is an interesting conundrum here actually. So-called 'Western Philosophy' through most of its history has been largely concerned with the discovery of (perhaps just the discussion of) so-called 'transcendental' or 'absolute' truth -- truths that by definition are supposed to transcend culture. From a certain perspective, this is just a bias of this particular tradition of philosophy. However, to call it anything else but 'philosophy' -- say 'western philosophy' -- would be to, in an important sense, admit defeat.
To respect diversity, I think you really do have to respect each tradition as distinct. I think mixing different philosophical traditions would end up failing to respect any of them. It'd be like having a dinner party meant to celebrate cultural diversity but throwing all the chinese, indian, and thai food together with burgers and ketchup and calling it 'diverse'. Western philosophy is it's own thing, as are other traditions. It doesn't need to let everyone in to respect them -- perhaps the contrary.
Also I really don't like the way this article ends: “The Fates lead those who come willingly, and drag those who do not.”. The tone is threatening and has no place in a discussion of this nature.