Read common philosophy for ten years

Huizi BTFO lmao

>Far eastern philosophy doesn't even have a proper concept of epistemology for God's sake.

Plato doesn't either, not by contemporary standards.

The deeper significance of social life itself can emerge only when we rise beyond it and understand the contexts within which it is contained. The further we open up those boundaries, the more integrated into the grand scheme of things we become. This requires cultivating an attitude of disinterested breadth of mind, or ‘objectivity,’ not as understood by empirical science, but more like the distancing of concern recommended by the Stoics or the sort of perspectivism advocated by Nietzsche. To do this we must open up our imaginations and venture beyond the confines of our everyday concerns. Only then are we able to refocus our attention, or rather relax the focus of our attention, so that the significance of our place in the grander scheme of things can emerge. As humans strive to approximate the all-inclusive impartiality of the cosmos, we cultivate distance from human concerns. “People like this ride the clouds and mist, straddle the sun and moon, and wander beyond the four seas. Even life and death cannot perturb them, much less the ends of benefit and harm”

Our individuality is at most that of a focus within a field or context that cannot be encompassed all at once, but the focus has no identity apart from its function within the field as a whole. Moreover, there is not just one field but many simultaneous fields, overlapping, interconnected, and nested within greater contexts. The food I am enjoying satisfies my hunger; this gives me energy to continue my work; my work provides a livelihood; the food itself was produced in a context of agriculture, shipped in a context of transportation systems; my work has its place within the functioning of an institution, which itself has a role in a larger social context. But this entire realm of embedded social significances is itself situated within the immense and inexhaustible context of the natural world.

On an existential level, when we recognize the extent to which our lives are molded by social constructs, we become able to free ourselves from a type of emotional entanglement that disturbs our tranquility. The social ambitions that motivate us—money, wealth, power, privilege—lose their grip, become less influential. Other possibilities for a flourishing life may emerge, not determined by manipulative action and its attendant desires. With the diminishing of the hold of desires and conceptual constructs, one’s mode of engagement with the world will be more accommodating, allowing events to happen without attachment to the outcome. Thus, the lessening of artifice goes hand in hand with the cultivation of a sort of indifference toward worldly success and failure.

No, but the idea of Logos and Truth have been a core part of western philosophy since the Greeks. It's central to our entire culture.

shut the fuck up JBP you goddamn hack

Socrates would demolish these fucking sophists in a raw dog debate.

Socrates' language games would, in the taoists, find no place to pierce, who freely admit the inadequacy of language in expressing truths.
The very first line in the Tao Te Ching says
>The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
>The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
Not that the Taoists would fare any better in a debate, of course. Chinese and Classical thought is too fundamentally different, any debate would consist of both sides arguing past each other.

what's the best Tao Te Ching translation?

You know nothing, white man.

Even your famed Socrates admitted that.

Reminds me of someone

>The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
>makes truth claim before establishing truth
Did they not see the paradoxical nature of this? Even if you don't think it's paradoxical, what's his justification for those two claims? If I say "Nah, that's bullshit.", what's his defence? That it just "feels" right?

dat logocentrism

Socrates was a sophist. Just the most skilled one

During the Spring and Autumn period of Ancient China (as in, when all the stuff that westerners read was written), formal debates were common and incredibly ruthless

So what? Even Chinese thinkers agree with me. Only western hipsters seem to think the far east produced philosophy. It gets real ridiculous when they start claiming it's superior to western philosophy. Check out OuYang Min, or this essay/paper:

lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/538453/5/Carine_deFoort2001.pdf

>Spring and Autumn period of Ancient China (as in, when all the stuff that westerners read was written)
Zhuang Zhou lived during the Warring States period.

>>makes truth claim before establishing truth
are you so dumb that you need to be told the definition of truth before you can understand what it means?
>what's his justification for those two claims?
It's based on Chinese philosophical understandings of language.
>This claim that the analysis of language can provide a consistent guide for action is precisely what the Daoists targeted in their objections and the main focus of their philosophical skepticism. What is surprising is that Daoist skeptics like Zhuangzi do not reject the Mohists’ basic view that the world is populated by various kinds of objects with real similarities and differences. They agree, moreover, in their basic understanding of how objects undergo different forms of transformation in time; the Mohists even give us distinct terms to convey these differences. The difference is that, in Zhuangzi’s view, no matter how much analysis we undertake, or how finely we discriminate, our language will never secure enough traction in reality to provide us with a constant guide for action.

>people agree with me so I must be right
epic argument bro

>epic argument bro
Sorry, didn't know you were so dumb to not know what truth was without definition. Guess it's impossible for me to communicate that idea using language. Let's just go our separate ways and be no better off or closer to the truth like good little eastern philosophers.

The eastern concept of truth and language is very similiar to Pre-socratic thought.

In the end it turns out the pre-socratics and easterns were right.

>consisting of vague statements
They're only vague if you are unfamiliar with the core tenets and vocabulary.
Generally they valued experience over rhetoric. i.e.: It's difficult to understand texts on meditation if you have never meditated in your life.

It's only paradoxical if you're autistic

Are you retarded?
Everyone knows what is meant by truth, just as everyone knows what is meant by existence. Nothing is gained by attempting to define it.
What people disagree on and what can be defined is what counts as being true, or how can we distinguish between what is and is not true, not what truth itself is.

>make a claim that normal human language is inherently contradictory and can't perfectly convey truth
>"th-that contradicts the arbitrary rules of normal language! thus you're wrong"
wow, "rational people" talking about Eastern philosophy amuses me

I completely disagree with everything you said.

I didn't say I disagreed with his statement, I said I disagreed with his lack of argument for his statement. Reading comprehension, my dude.

>I completely disagree with everything you said.
Let's see you provide a definition of truth, then.

The text attempts to speak of a certain experience or way of experiencing things. If you want rational argumentation to support that the presumed speaker of the text has had this experience, you're thinking in the wrong category.

>trying to explain feelings/experience to an autistic

No, that's what I'm saying. Defining truth is very difficult, that's why I disagree with you saying "everyone knows what is meant by truth".

That's one of the major differences between east and west. The west speaks of both feelings and rationality and tries to meld them, while the east lacks the ability for the latter in its philosophy. Again, that's why new age hippies are drawn to it, they are turned off by the idea of rational arguments. That's also why eastern philosophy is so vague, it would collapse if it had to try and define and defend its positions. Western philosophy also deals with experience, but its viewpoints have been tempered in the flames of rigorous argument.

>Decides that the Greek τριήρης means "steamship"
>Golly gee, these Greeks really had a terrible understanding of steamships!
Anglo understanding here, ladies and gentlemen.

Traditional chinese "philosophy" is closer to the function that western philosophy serves, in that it's less of a practice than philosophies/religions that have emerged from India, but it's still not quite "philosophy" like we do in the West. Western philosophy is like a game you play with your mind, you deconstruct and rationalize things until you come up with a consistent worldview, a set of beliefs that make sense logically. Eastern philosophy is more about actively shaping your patterns of thought to change your outlook on everything. Taoism less so than buddhism but you get the idea

That's an unfair representation of what I'm saying, and I think you know it.

My point is: maybe it's not that they're doing philosophy poorly, but that we don't have a name for what it is that they're doing.

the debate at samye monastery between the indian and Chinese Buddhist traditions.

>imagine two eastern philosophers having a debate to settle who of them is correct.

What does it mean to be "correct?"

Well by simply asking the question you are implicitly answering it. Whether or not it's a good answer is left as an exercise to the reader.

That's probably true. I think I can more easily appreciate the value of what they're doing if I let go of the assumption that they're trying to do philosophy (which in itself ironically reinforces the importance of definitions), but then I must say that I see little value of trying to meld the eastern and western tradition, or to even speak of an eastern and western tradition. They're not the same thing, in that case. Pretty good point, user.

>Well by simply asking the question you are implicitly answering it

I asked you to explain what it means to be "correct." That does not answer the question.

But you're expecting me to provide you with an answer which you will then perform a value judgement on to gauge its correctness and accuracy in answering your question. You've already implicitly defined an idea of correctness by asking the question in the first place. If you disagree with me, feel free to tell me why I'm inCORRECT.

If not, my answer to your question is: catfish. Which is a pretty _______ answer to that question when you lack that concept.

So yes, I did answer the question, you just failed to spot it.

>But you're expecting me to provide you with an answer which you will then perform a value judgement on to gauge its correctness and accuracy in answering your question

I never said I would do that. You said "imagine two eastern philosophers having a debate to settle who of them is correct." I found this impossible to do, because I don't know what it means to be "correct." And you keep refusing to answer the question.

I think his point is that schools of thought that (obviously) don't match the classical Greek term "philosophy", don't deserve the more colloquial use of the term.

The Eastern thinkers never had a Socrates. That doesn't devalue everything they did.

Yes, eso-nuts are drawn to Eastern shit. But I think you'll find that pretty much all of them have no fucking clew what they are talking about.
The amount of time I've had to explain to """"spiritual Buddhists lmao"""" that "reincarnation" in Buddhism is decisively NOT rebirth is staggering. Or that "Nirvana" has absolutely nothing to do with some kind of otherworldly paradise.

Eastern thought is like any other thought. You need to get used to the language and implied premises. And it's obviously more work than delving into philosophies that have impregnated your own culture.
And I think it's a pity that so many more serious readers seems to completely disregard it after skimming, just because they hear hippies using some of the terms as buzzwords.

*"it doesn't mean they don't deserve"
Sorry. I'm tired af

>Defining truth is very difficult
Yes, because language is inadequate at expressing such basic ideas as "truth", "existence", or "being", not because we don't understand what truth is. These concepts are so fundamental to our very capacity for thought and understanding that it's as impossible for us to not understand them as it is for us to properly define them.
The best way that I've found to explain the differences between Chinese and Western philosophy is as "way-seeking" (chinese) vs "truth seeking" (western)
>One such assumption within Western philosophy is that philosophy is a propositional discipline that aims at the establishment of true doctrines. But such a conception of philosophy has not been dominant in all philosophical traditions. In the Chinese tradition, the notion of philosophy as aiming at the establishment of true doctrines (a Truth-seeking paradign) has historically been superseded by the notion of philosophy as a way of life (a Way-seeking paradigm).
>Truth-seeking traditions ask questions with what-priority, while way-seeking traditions ask questions with how-priority.
If accurate, it would explain, among other things, why the Chinese don't distinguish religion from philosophy as strongly as Westerners do.

>If accurate, it would explain, among other things, why the Chinese don't distinguish religion from philosophy as strongly as Westerners do.
I'd agree with it insofar that Eastern thinkers tend to be more practically oriented. When they notice something about the human condition, they bounce off of that and tell you what this means for us.
i.e.: The lack of objective truth or knowledge is implied in a lot of the thinking. So instead of finding a way to cheat the system, they rolled with it and tried to find ways to navigate the world authentically in spite of this.

But I still think comparisons can and should be made. i.e.: A prof at my uni has some classes, comparing Dogen's Shobogenzo (some serious shit btw, highly recommend getting into this) with thinkers like Husserl or Heidegger.
There's a bunch of what we might call phenomenology in Eastern thought. But what you might call "practical phenomenology", as some of our have envisioned from time to time.
And Schopi's interest in Eastern philosophy was not just musing, I believe.

This, only Californians think eastern philosophy is good in any way,fucking hippies.

>Actually linking an essay by Defoort

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