“Oriental” philosophy?

Daniel, this is a very good overview of other major philosophies outside of the west, but:

“Oriental” philosophy? We seem to be continuing the great fallacy of western philosophers in clumping together all thought from the east as oriental. Ironically, Hebraism gets to join the west, most probably because of Paul, yet Orthodox Christianity has that “exotic” flavor. I can understand an empirical-rationalist putting Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism in one basket – they are predominately meta-physical; and Shintoism is just your basic Druidic shamanism with the Emperor, as high priest, offering sacrifice to the earth goddess Ameterasu (though they do have some really cool shrines - it is a blood sacrifice cult none-the-less).

Chinese philosophy, I think, warrants a whole paper on its own. Not least because it is the philosophy of a people poised to dominate the world over the next century and we need to better understand it; but also because our understanding of it is based largely on some serious miss-understandings in our divergent concepts of the “I am.”

Western philosophy is “me” centered. What is my place in the universe, ergo how can I find joy and fulfillment in my life – of course this leads to the current American instant gratification culture of “I want it now” and “my way.” I, I, me, me. I can be saved by taking the easiest road possible and to hell with everyone else. People plugged into IPods as they walk, drive, study, tuning out.

Confucius and his fellow philosophers expound a fundamentally “we” philosophy. You talk about the “herd.” But this herd is OUR family, OUR community, OUR nation. I am willing to sacrifice “me” to “our” and take the longer view which leads to the fulfillment of the goal of our family, community, and nation. This is a very powerful philosophy and you can see it played out on a small scale in the world today as Chinese rally ‘round the Olympic torch. It does NOT matter their personal views of the government or the fact that their family has been citizens of America, etc for a hundred years.

We also have a problem in interpretation. Confucius is an “Aristotelian” philosopher. On some level perhaps, but they come from whole different thought processes and to translate Chinese philosophical terms into western ideas to better grasp them, the western philosophical student is likely to miss differences in fundamental concepts.

I would like to suggest to the serious philosophy student who wants to major in the discipline and make a contribution to the world of tomorrow, take a philosophy course in Chinese philosophy with a Chinese instructor, learn the Chinese forms and their original meanings – not what you think they mean in western thought, in English or French or even Greek. That is My thought.

Me