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To me, this is one of the most interesting differentiations between western philosophy and eastern philosophy. Western philosophy tries to get around the langu

by ysavir 3y ago

To me, this is one of the most interesting differentiations between western philosophy and eastern philosophy. Western philosophy tries to get around the language problems by writing thick volumes with excruciating detail and pedantry to help their idea get across as accurately as possible. Eastern philosophy tries to get around the language problems with allusion and metaphor, leaning on the reader/listeners own experiences as foundation and trying to help them extrapolate from those experiences. It's a fascinating contrast to me. I can't say with any certainty which delivers better, but I lean towards the eastern approach.

jhanschoo 3y ago
My experience reading ancient Greek philosophy has been indeed that many philosophers use allusion and metaphor and are focused on leading a good life.
- ysavir 3y ago
  Yeah, the ancients Greeks are a mix. Plato in particular finds a way to do both well. But then with Aristotle we have the foundation of writing to excess. Documentation instead of communication.
CitizenKane 3y ago
To be fair, it's far easier in written Chinese[1] to have allusion and metaphor because of the multifaceted nature of meaning in the characters. For instance, 行 (pronounced xing or haeng in Mandarin) has an absolute laundry list[2] of meanings even though originally it meant an intersection of roads. It's also possible (but to my knowledge less common) to play with the actual character shapes to induce other meanings, or to use replacement characters that are direct (or close) homophones to construct a play on words. The example that immediately pops to mind is the use of "river crabs" (河蟹 or héxiè) to replace "harmonized" (和谐 or héxié) in order to evade censorship. I'd honestly be willing to say that there is no real accurate translation of the Dao de Jing into English. Ancient Chinese commentators (including Confucius) note the difficulty of understanding the Dao de Jing, and they could read and speak the language! Not to say that it's impossible, but it's just extremely difficult to replicate. I look at it as being akin to translating Shakespeare into Mandarin. Even English speakers struggle with Shakespeare and when translated it loses the lyricism and a lot of the underlying meaning. [1] Noting here that when speaking the context will generally make it less ambiguous. Additionally, Mandarin and ancient Chinese at the time of Lao Zi share very little in common phonetically. [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censorship_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censor...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pjlegato 3y ago
This is a common stereotype, but wholly inaccurate on both sides. We in the West are coming out of a long cultural period several centuries where that sort of analytic, rational style has been particularly popular, so it's easy to mistakenly assume that it is representative of the entirety of Western philosophy. It's not. Likewise, we in the west are in a period when certain specific Eastern philosophies, notably Buddhism and Taoism, have become widely known and popular for the first time in the West. It's easy to mistakenly assume that they are representative of the entirety of Eastern philosophy. They're not. Western philosophy has a deep and broad mystical and esoteric tradition that routinely does what you describe as an essentially "eastern" practice. More recently, postmodernism discards all that analytic precision in favor of vague impressionistic primacy for one's personal experience, and has become by far the dominant philosophy in many parts of the west. Postmodernism was (according to its progenitor Martin Heidegger, who was incidentally a Nazi) explicitly and profoundly influenced by Taoism. Eastern philosophy, on the other hand, has its own well-developed "excruciating pedantic detail" traditions such as Legalism[1] (among others) that routinely do what you describe as an essentially "western" practice. They have been profoundly influential in Asian thought, yet they are not currently popular in the West, so we just don't think about them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy)
- morelisp 3y ago
  I want to upvote this for its good points about the relationship between Eastern thought and "Eastern thought" in the "West", but man, what is this? > Postmodernism was (according to its progenitor Martin Heidegger...) explicitly and profoundly influenced by Taoism. - Heidegger as the "progenitor of postmodernism" is... contentious, at best. - Even if he was, he never defined "postmodernism" himself; mostly his critics associated him with it. - As far as I know he never explicitly said any particular program was influenced by Taoism (although he definitely was). I would even say this is a specific case of what you're criticizing, as that influence came from his dialogue with the Kyoto school, a syncretic form of Buddhism that itself (IMO somewhat tenuously) claimed it represented also Taoism.
  - 3y ago

by ysavir 3y ago

jhanschoo 3y ago

My experience reading ancient Greek philosophy has been indeed that many philosophers use allusion and metaphor and are focused on leading a good life.

ysavir 3y ago
Yeah, the ancients Greeks are a mix. Plato in particular finds a way to do both well. But then with Aristotle we have the foundation of writing to excess. Documentation instead of communication.

CitizenKane 3y ago

To be fair, it's far easier in written Chinese[1] to have allusion and metaphor because of the multifaceted nature of meaning in the characters. For instance, 行 (pronounced xing or haeng in Mandarin) has an absolute laundry list[2] of meanings even though originally it meant an intersection of roads. It's also possible (but to my knowledge less common) to play with the actual character shapes to induce other meanings, or to use replacement characters that are direct (or close) homophones to construct a play on words. The example that immediately pops to mind is the use of "river crabs" (河蟹 or héxiè) to replace "harmonized" (和谐 or héxié) in order to evade censorship. I'd honestly be willing to say that there is no real accurate translation of the Dao de Jing into English. Ancient Chinese commentators (including Confucius) note the difficulty of understanding the Dao de Jing, and they could read and speak the language! Not to say that it's impossible, but it's just extremely difficult to replicate. I look at it as being akin to translating Shakespeare into Mandarin. Even English speakers struggle with Shakespeare and when translated it loses the lyricism and a lot of the underlying meaning. [1] Noting here that when speaking the context will generally make it less ambiguous. Additionally, Mandarin and ancient Chinese at the time of Lao Zi share very little in common phonetically. [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censorship_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censor...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

pjlegato 3y ago

This is a common stereotype, but wholly inaccurate on both sides. We in the West are coming out of a long cultural period several centuries where that sort of analytic, rational style has been particularly popular, so it's easy to mistakenly assume that it is representative of the entirety of Western philosophy. It's not. Likewise, we in the west are in a period when certain specific Eastern philosophies, notably Buddhism and Taoism, have become widely known and popular for the first time in the West. It's easy to mistakenly assume that they are representative of the entirety of Eastern philosophy. They're not. Western philosophy has a deep and broad mystical and esoteric tradition that routinely does what you describe as an essentially "eastern" practice. More recently, postmodernism discards all that analytic precision in favor of vague impressionistic primacy for one's personal experience, and has become by far the dominant philosophy in many parts of the west. Postmodernism was (according to its progenitor Martin Heidegger, who was incidentally a Nazi) explicitly and profoundly influenced by Taoism. Eastern philosophy, on the other hand, has its own well-developed "excruciating pedantic detail" traditions such as Legalism[1] (among others) that routinely do what you describe as an essentially "western" practice. They have been profoundly influential in Asian thought, yet they are not currently popular in the West, so we just don't think about them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy)

morelisp 3y ago
I want to upvote this for its good points about the relationship between Eastern thought and "Eastern thought" in the "West", but man, what is this? > Postmodernism was (according to its progenitor Martin Heidegger...) explicitly and profoundly influenced by Taoism. - Heidegger as the "progenitor of postmodernism" is... contentious, at best. - Even if he was, he never defined "postmodernism" himself; mostly his critics associated him with it. - As far as I know he never explicitly said any particular program was influenced by Taoism (although he definitely was). I would even say this is a specific case of what you're criticizing, as that influence came from his dialogue with the Kyoto school, a syncretic form of Buddhism that itself (IMO somewhat tenuously) claimed it represented also Taoism.
- 3y ago