- Dec 27, 2015
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I am reading or recently read two books - "Fifty Major Philosophers" and "Fifty Eastern Thinkers" by Diane Collinson, Kathryn Plant (& Robert Wilkinson for the Eastern Thinkers Book).
I didn't quite finish the philosophers book, and I'm almost finished the Eastern Thinkers text. They're both library books, so I haven't got them on my shelves to review at leisure.
But I've read most of them.
The major philosophers were all Western philosophers (and all male) ranging from the ancient Greeks up to modern times. The Eastern thinkers book dealt with seven national or religious groupings - Islamic, Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, Korean and Japanese, with Zoroastrianism getting it's own chapter.
To understand these philosophers or thinkers in depth, I'd need to read their own writings and not just read about them. I don't have the time, or the training, but I could read some of their writings, in an abridged form perhaps, and possibly learn something about meditation for reasons of my own.
I have made a few observations -
1. The philosophers were all men of their time.
2. They were all male (not denigrating females, who for most of history weren't given a chance to study philosophy even if they were so inclined).
3. The western philosophers reflected the developments of their time - Greek thinking, Patristic apologetics, Medieval theology, the Renaissance and Reformation, the age of reason and scepticism, the rise of science, social issues eg. Marxism in an industrialised age, existentialism in a world come of age and so on.
4. The Eastern thinkers always had a spiritual and / or ethical basis. Obviously the Moslems complied with the demands of the Koran, but I was surprised by the reverence their earlier philosophers paid to Aristotle.
5. A common thread through the Indian, Chinese, Korean, Tibetan and Japanese thinkers was Buddhism in its various forms, along with Hinduism in India, and Confucian and Daoist beliefs in Chinese history.
One thing that intrigued me in the Hindu and Buddhist lines of thought was the sense of "voidness" which seemed to be a common experience of their "masters" when it came to metaphysics. I mention this as my old pastor once said he thought a "proof of God" would be resolved somehow by the use of "zero", which is of course the negation of everything. I suppose you could say it would be a mathematical term for "voidness".
Whether this happens or not remains to be seen, but I think Christian philosophers could do worse than to take a look at some Buddhist thinking if they were interested in trying to develop a "Proof of God", particularly Zen Buddhism.
I didn't quite finish the philosophers book, and I'm almost finished the Eastern Thinkers text. They're both library books, so I haven't got them on my shelves to review at leisure.
But I've read most of them.
The major philosophers were all Western philosophers (and all male) ranging from the ancient Greeks up to modern times. The Eastern thinkers book dealt with seven national or religious groupings - Islamic, Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, Korean and Japanese, with Zoroastrianism getting it's own chapter.
To understand these philosophers or thinkers in depth, I'd need to read their own writings and not just read about them. I don't have the time, or the training, but I could read some of their writings, in an abridged form perhaps, and possibly learn something about meditation for reasons of my own.
I have made a few observations -
1. The philosophers were all men of their time.
2. They were all male (not denigrating females, who for most of history weren't given a chance to study philosophy even if they were so inclined).
3. The western philosophers reflected the developments of their time - Greek thinking, Patristic apologetics, Medieval theology, the Renaissance and Reformation, the age of reason and scepticism, the rise of science, social issues eg. Marxism in an industrialised age, existentialism in a world come of age and so on.
4. The Eastern thinkers always had a spiritual and / or ethical basis. Obviously the Moslems complied with the demands of the Koran, but I was surprised by the reverence their earlier philosophers paid to Aristotle.
5. A common thread through the Indian, Chinese, Korean, Tibetan and Japanese thinkers was Buddhism in its various forms, along with Hinduism in India, and Confucian and Daoist beliefs in Chinese history.
One thing that intrigued me in the Hindu and Buddhist lines of thought was the sense of "voidness" which seemed to be a common experience of their "masters" when it came to metaphysics. I mention this as my old pastor once said he thought a "proof of God" would be resolved somehow by the use of "zero", which is of course the negation of everything. I suppose you could say it would be a mathematical term for "voidness".
Whether this happens or not remains to be seen, but I think Christian philosophers could do worse than to take a look at some Buddhist thinking if they were interested in trying to develop a "Proof of God", particularly Zen Buddhism.
