comparison between eastern and
western philosophy

 Eastern thinks of time in cyclical manner.
 In the east there is no dichotomy between a
way of life (religion) and a way of thinking
 (Philosophy). In the west, philosophy and
religion are separate/different.
 The east resorts or relies much on intuition and
mysticism. The west relies on logic and science.

 Source: literature, ancient Vedas and the
two epics.
 Buddhism – founded by Gautama
Siddhartha, it advocates four noble truth
and an eightfold path

 Four noble truths
◦ life is pain and suffering (dukha)
◦ the cause of the pain suffering is selfish
craving
◦ the cause of pain can be iliminated
◦ the way to wards the end of suffering is by
eightfold path

◦ right faith or belief
◦ right resold of aspiration
◦ right speech
◦ Right action
◦ right effort
◦ right thought
◦ right living
◦ right concentration

 – founded by jina. It does not accept vedie teaching.
The doctrine
 Of Jainism is discussed under four headings:
 Knowledge is relative- we can never know totality but
only a part thereof (like the story of the ten blind men
when each was givin apart of an elephant).
 Jaina cosmology regards the universe as a living
organism animated by life monards.
 Its ethics is non violence.
 Jainism is pessimistic. Every action has its karmic
color.

 - it is the least known because it is the least
attractive. It came from the root word ‘charry’
meaning to cat . its doctrine is lokayata that
only this world’loka’ exits. It is equivalent to
extreme hedonism

 1. General character of the Chinese mind
 The highest achievement of a man as a man is
to be a sage or wiseman.
 The Chinese are the this-world people. Life is
desirable
 They believe in the cycle of ups- and-downs
and the right- and – left movement of the
pendulum, the yang and ying, positive and
negative.

 Confucius (55-479 B.C.) the Latinized name of
kung Tzu or teacher Kung .
 Mencius (371-289 B.C.)Latinized name of
Meng Tzu or teacher meng.
 Lao Tzu –date of birth and death is unknown:
believed to be senior to Confucius.
 Mo Tzu (479-381B.c), the strongest critic of
Confucius.
 Chang Tzu (369-286), one of the greatest
exponents of Taoism.

1. Confucius
2. Mencius
3. Lao Tzu or Lao Tze

 Considered to be the author of Analects (Saying of
Confucius) or Lun Yun Composed of 20 book. A
book is really a chapter which always begin with
‘’The Master says…,
 Confucian thought can be summarized under six
topics.
 the gentleman or the superior man
 The gentleman acts out YI ( righteousness) and
the inferior man acts out of Li (profitability). The
gentleman is always happy. The gentleman does
not preach What he practices until he has practiced
what he preaches . The gentleman is the one who
possesses the Way (Tao).


Life
 “Not yet understanding life, how can one
understand death?”. Life is gift that must be
treasured”.
Golden Rule
 The golden Rule is a ren which is a virtue.
Book XII, 2, he says. “Do not do Unto other
what you would not like yourself “.

 Rectification of Names
One should live up to his name because a
name has its essence. Confucius says. “Let
the ruler be a ruler, the father, the father, the
son, the son “,
 Government
Sufficient food, sufficient weapons and the
confidence of the people make for Good
government. When the confidence of the
people is lost ,good government is also lost

The book of Mencius is one of the
four works considered as the
Classic.
 The other three are the The
analects, the Great Leaming and
the Doctrine of Mean.

 The original goodness of man
Mencius says that man originally good because
he has the four germs of human goodness;
Heart of compassion, heart of courtesy and
modesty, heart of right and wrong and of right
and wrong and heart of wisdom
 Love covers all
His all embracing love has the hierarchy; love for
parent (highest), love for other people and love
for things (lowest)

◦ The idea of heart
It is with heart that man thinks. “The heart has
reasons that reason itself does not Understand’’
(Blaise Pascal in ‘’Thoughts”).
◦ The Great Morale (Hao Jan Chili Chi)
Everything must be out in its rights place. Even
without doing anything (wu –wei), Tao would still
accomplish its objectives.

 Many believe that he is the author of Tao Te Ting
 Tao has not name; it is all things which defy
naming. “He who knows Tao does not speak
about it he who speaks about it does not know it”

 Islam means literally submission to God (Allah);
one of the three monotheistic religions of the
world. The other two are Judaism and Christianity.
Its origin is Prophet Muhammad (AD 571), born in
Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Muhammad dies on AD 632 and was succeeded
by series of Caliphs, the first being Abu Bakr and
Umar

 Shahada (confession of faith)- there is not other
God than Allah and Muhammad is the Prophet.
 Salat (prayer)- Muslim prays five times daily facing
the Mecca (at day break, noon, mid-night, after
sunset and early in the night.

 humanism 1. (Philosophy) the denial of any power
or moral value superior to that of humanity; the
rejection of religion in favour of a belief in the
advancement of humanity by its own efforts
 2. (Philosophy) a philosophical position that stresses
the autonomy of human reason in contradistinction to
the authority of the Church
 3. (Literary & Literary Critical Movements) (often
capital) a cultural movement of the Renaissance,
based on classical studies
 4. interest in the welfare of people
 ˈhumanist n ˌhumanˈistic adj

 The period from the late 400s through the 300s
BC represents the high point in Greek philosophy.
 The major thinkers of this period—Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle—develop the basic categories of
analysis of Western philosophy.
 Underlying all the systems invented during this
time is the belief that the special attribute of
human beings is the power to reason.

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