Some Encounters in 'World Philosophy'

Three Phases of Comparative Philosophy 🔗

Comparative philosophy as a self-conscious academic project has existed for the good part of a 150 years now. Ralph Weber and Arindam Chakrabarti place present comparative philosophy in its third phase¹, ‘a critical conjuncture between universalism and localism’, after its first two phases, universalism and localism. How is this critical conjuncture different from the former stages? How can we understand historical encounters of world philosophy in light of these stages?

In the same essay, Weber and Chakrabarti introduce the four-fold relation of comparison. Comparison has at least four-relata–P (the person/context comparing), A & B (subjects of comparison) and F (the respect in which they are compared). So, for example, Hegel’s dismissive and mistaken comparison is explained as Hegel (P) compares Western, Indian and Chinese philosophies (A, B and C) with respect to the “center of philosophical attention” (F). This relation gives a barebones framework for interpreting different tendencies of comparative work.

Comparative philosophy began in the phase of universalism with the project of many comparativists being to justify the possibility of and demonstrate the existence of a non-Western philosophy. Questions like “Is there such a thing as Chinese philosophy?” have been all too common, persisting to today despite the greatest efforts of scholars of these philosophies². When the possibility of the very idea of a non-Western philosophy is under question, the only criteria for establishing it is that of its resemblance to the European and Anglo-American philosophies [largely used interchangeably here with the so-called Western canon³]. Naturally, this is reflected in the attempts to translate and/or interpret non-Western philosophical texts in the frameworks of Western philosophy to match already existing Western conceptual schemes. Often, what we are left with is the inability of non-Western philosophies to either replicate Western philosophy or to be counted as philosophy at all.

In response to the colonial condition and the relative inferiority of these interpretations of non-Western philosophies, comparative philosophy developed into what Weber and Chakrabarti call localism. This is the phase where the existence of a non-Western philosophy has been established. But, in the project of establishing the value of a distinctly non-Western philosophy, the differences between said non-Western philosophy and the Western tradition are highlighted. Radhakrishnan emphasized the spiritual and idealist strains of Indian thought as opposed to the rather anti-idealist phase of Oxford philosophy of the time⁴. Ganeri also points out the role Vivekananda plays in the Indian context⁵. Vivekananda explicitly downplays the role of analytic and logical thought in Indian philosophy in favour of a mythological past involving a spiritual and Vedāntic spine of Indian philosophy.

Notwithstanding (relativist and sometimes motivated by chauvinist) incommensurability criticisms, comparative philosophy has entered the critical conjuncture between universalism and localism. Within the context of the Indian tradition, this phase begot the work of greats like Bimal K. Matilal and Daya Krishna. The works of Steve Odin and Koji Tanaka are other great examples of this phase. Non-Western philosophies now speak to and are spoken to by Western philosophy to either support or to criticize certain positions in contemporary debates.

Here, I intend to raise a few familiar challenges that universalism and localism present. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines comparative philosophy as comparison of philosophies which have “developed in relative isolation from one another and that are defined quite broadly along cultural and regional lines”⁶. Yet, the intersections are not wholly non-existent. They are already existing dialogues between what seems to us as distinct traditions. Scanty historical information obscures the overt (or implicit) influences of the ‘gymnosophists’ on Pyrrho⁷ or the philosophical influence of Plotnius’ trip to India⁸. Historical encounters between “traditions” are not anomalies but form a vibrant, fruitful and stimulating history of philosophy across ‘philosophical borders’; traditions are not insulated but are constantly shifting multiplicities interacting with other traditions. Further, the reflexive attitude of comparative philosophy as ‘just philosophy’⁹ might even be developed from these historical encounters. What do these philosophers do that enables philosophical cross-pollination?

Universalist Encounters 🔗

The basic structure of universalist encounters is for P to compare A, a non-Western philosophy, with B, usually Western philosophy, in terms of F as given to P without reflection. The terms of comparison are often the implicit norms and philosophical topography of the context of the comparer P. The heart of universalism might be well-intentioned–a rationalist project to use existing norms to legitimize deviant and subaltern discourses. But, historically, universalism has very often lead to over-simplification and over-generalization across cultures. These are two major challenges for comparative philosophy posed by universalism.

The first is what Martha Nussbaum calls ‘descriptive chauvinism’¹⁰. Descriptive chauvinism amounts to the short-sightedness of a historian of philosophy to read into texts existing philosophical positions of their context. Universalism directly leads to descriptive chauvinism as the project of justifying an alternative discourse must appeal to some norms that are acceptable to existing circles of discourse. Otherwise, these alternative discourses remain wholly separated as in the case of regional and/or religious studies as opposed to being integrated into philosophy, sociology, linguistics etc.

In the spirit of a perverted perennialism, it is all too easy to replicate existing philosophical positions of the West in the interpretation of non-Western traditions. Take for example the reception of Indian logic in the late 1800s. H. Ritter (P) interprets the five-membered argumentative structure (F) of a nyāya (A) as a clumsy version of the deductive syllogism (B)⁵. This reads into nyāya the syllogism, whereas it does not take into account the specific problems that it tackles. In this case B, the Aristotelian syllogism, gives the norm for F, the argumentative structure, thereby making a comparison of A and B redundant. Here, we must notice that this comparison presupposes something that is common in nyāya and the syllogism; a fifth element–a pre-comparative tertium. This element is why the syllogism is compared to nyāya and not rasa. The problem is that the choice of F is far too general–an F which is not a context-less, Archimedean point, but rather an abstracted version of the norm of B.

Dārā Shukoh’s The Meeting Place of Two Oceans is another universalist project to develop an ‘isomorphism’ between Qur’anic and Upaniṣadic philosophies¹¹. In it, Dārā Shukoh “treats them [the Upaniṣads] as scripture, in the same category as Psalms of David, the Gospels and the Qur’an”¹². Ganeri quotes Dārā Shukoh:

According to certain Sufis, the worlds, through which all created beings must needs pass, are four in number: nūsūt (the human world), malakūt (the invisible world), jabarūt (the highest world) and lāhūt (the divine world) … According to the Indian divines the avashāt, which term applies to these four worlds, consists of four, namely jāgart, sapan, sakhūpat and turyā. Jāgart is identical with nūsūt, which is the world of manifestation and wakefulness; sapan, which is identified with malakūt, is the world of souls and dreams; sakhūpat is identical with jabarūt, in which the traces of both the worlds disappear and the distinction between ‘I’ and ‘thou’ vanishes …; turyā is identical with lāhūt, which is Pure Existence, encircling, including and covering all the worlds.

Clearly, Dārā Shukoh (P) compares the Upaniṣads (A) with Sufi ideas (B) by mapping the former onto the latter, i.e., using the latter as the basis for comparison. Although the limitations of this approach have been explained, this valiant comparison effort establishes a project of comparative philosophy before an encounter with the European discourse.

Consider another example: In the article “Process Themes in Chinese Thought”¹³, Charles Hartshorne writes:

In view of the forgoing, the reader will understand why I view with some approval the neo-Confucian rejection of Mahayana Buddhism (I have little knowledge of the Theravada). Consider: If earlier and later stages of an ordered sequence, such as those constituting the career of a human person, are, as Fa Tsang held, completely interdependent, and in that sense ‘identical’, then we would have precisely what Leibniz defined as ‘substance’. And if a Buddhist should reply, ‘Ah, but we assert such identity not only between earlier and later events in an individual’s career, but between any event and any other event, no matter what sequences they fit into’, then I answer: ‘You are now duplicating Spinoza or Royce.’ Everything and everything else forms one eternal system, call it nature, substance, God or whatever. And now we know where we are, with unqualified necessitarianism, devoid of contingency, creative freedom, or effective plurality. Is it the lifeless doctrine the Buddha offers us? I hope not.

In this case, Hartshorne (P) compares Fǎzàng’s mutual interpenetration/interdependence of phenomena (A) with Leibnizian monads (B) and Spinozist God/Nature (C) in terms of the ontology of relations (F). The catch here is that the ontology of the relation of ‘identity’ of phenomena is derived from the abstracted generalisation of shared concepts of B and C. Mutual interpenetration is not merely an identity relation in this sense. This inadequacy can be highlighted by doing the reverse: translating the positions of Spinoza and Leibniz in terms of Fǎzàng and noticing the differences with mutual interpenetration. For this reason, a good rule of thumb is to reverse the norms for F (with same level of abstraction but towards the other comparanda) and test for a shift in position of the comparanda.

The non-linear expression of the phases or tendencies of comparative philosophy can be argued for in the context of African philosophy. Tempels’ work on Bantu philosophy¹⁴ aims to (perhaps in a soft colonialist mood) make explicit the philosophical world view that is necessarily implicit to the peoples of the sub-Saharan region. Tempels (P) aims to structure a set of beliefs about the working of the world (the norms of philosophy as given implicitly to the Christian Tempels) and trace this out in the African context (A). Criticisms of Tempels’ approach are widespread in later phases of African philosophy by Okot p’Bitek¹⁵, Hountondji, Wiredu and others¹⁶. This reveals the second challenge raised by universalist encounters–that of over-generalization. The product of the approach of using meager existing sources (textual or oral) to draw conclusions about the philosophical milieu is to attribute an empirically unsubstantiated philosophical mindset to a wide range of people. Until philosophical positions can be attributed to particular texts, people or practices, the internal diversity of a living tradition will be obscured in favor of a fixed, historical and dead philosophy of a ‘peoples’. Today, one can no longer speak of an ‘Indian’ or ‘Chinese’ or ‘African’ philosophy.

This over-generalization also naturally leads into the development of a localist phase responding to the distinctiveness of the resulting world-view.

Localist Encounters 🔗

In the localist phase, comparative philosophy’s basic structure is for P (usually a scholar in a non-Western field) to compare A, said non-Western discourse, with B, a Western discourse, in terms of a F consciously chosen as that given to B. This, more often than not, results in a picture of the non-Western philosophy as either incompatible to or opposed to the Western discourse. Localist encounters fail to put non-Western philosophies in conversation with Western philosophies, in the former sense, when they deny that F can be applied to A meaningfully. Here, the level of abstraction of the norm of F is very less. In a very rudimentary way, we can think of this as a check-list of criteria (F) for a concept A to satisfy to be comparable with B. This check-list happens to be too particular to the context of B in the case of localist encounters. This is a sophisticated (yet still misguided) version of what Nussbaum calls ‘descriptive romanticism’¹⁰. The fifth element that jumped out at us in universalist encounters is the common ground on which the norms can be abstracted towards. The tertium makes a comparison fruitful and shows us to loosen the criteria for comparison.

Localism thus, raises the first challenge; that of incommensurability. How is it possible that distinctive philosophical traditions can be compared at all? We might be tempted to say that Nāgārjuna cannot be interpreted as an anti-realist because of the philosophical baggage anti-realism holds in the European tradition. Of course, one might object that the breadth between Hume and the Stoics in their anti-realisms is as big as that between Nāgārjuna and the Stoics. By Kant’s time however, a story of the unified development of the Socratic tradition into the present European philosophy is established. A canon is concretized which ties these philosophies together. Whether this was an entirely rational procedure is up to question. It is very likely that this was a retrospective imposition to legitimize Kantian philosophy. Yet, the canon exists as a background. All other philosophies are compared or contrasted to their closest (in geography, time or concepts) in the canon. Here arises the legitimacy of these extra-canonical figures. Anne Conway is compared to Leibniz, Cavendish to Hobbes, Elisabeth of Bohemia to Descartes and so on. But there is no great equalizer of this kind inbetween distinct traditions of philosophy (or so it seems). What then can the comparativist do?

One response to this would be to just construct a different canon. The ends and the means are the same for this project. In the very construction of the canon, the comparativist justifies the comparison/canonization of these philosophers. Graham Priest has done this expertly in constructing a canon for dialetheism. He brings Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Kant, Nāgārjuna, Jízàng, Dōgen and Hegel into the discussion to develop his themes of dialetheism and paraconsistent logics^{17 18}. This performs the dual job of destabilizing the existing canon by legitimizing the discussions of non-canonical figures as well as making comparison possible by abstracting the norms towards a particular problem to be solved now (in this case, that of dialetheism). The drawback of this approach however, is that it cannot sustain the entirety of the comparative project. This approach is plausible only insofar as an already relevant comparer P (in a field) chooses to use non-canonical figures. This must be the standard for contemporary philosophy but this cannot be the basis for comparative work.

The second response to incommensurability is suggested by Jaap van Brakel and Lin Ma¹⁹, where they introduce the idea of a quasi-universal concept. A comparer P necessarily begins comparison by assuming that all concepts are family-resemblance concepts. With this anti-essentialism in place, P must construct a quasi-universal concept in the meta-language of comparison which is an extension and connection of the two concepts being compared across traditions. This construction added to the usual epistemic virtues like charity and reasonableness provides a perspective on the comparanda. Clearly, the comparer’s own historical, linguistic and philosophical assumptions are crucially embedded in the meta-language of comparison and choice of comparanda. Yet, this does not devalue the project at the slightest. It is merely a reflection of the absence of a perspective-less and/or politically-neutral, value-neutral God’s eye view onto philosophical discourse across time and space.

Localist comparison can also result in the second camp, that of fundamental hostility between Western and non-Western discourses. In this sense, ethnophilosophy intends to delineate an African philosophy opposed to Western philosophy¹⁶. John Mbiti’s famous claims about the distinctiveness of African thinking of time as expressing a lack of the idea of a indefinite future provide an example of the localist tendency²⁰. Senghor’s emphasis on emotion and intuition in African reasoning as opposed to detached contemplation also reflects the desire to establish a distinctly African philosophy in the Négritude movement²¹. The most direct example is available in Innocent Onyewuenyi’s article “Is There an African Philosophy?”²². In it, they say:

When Western metaphysics defines “being” as “that which is” or “the thing insofar as it is,” the African definition reads: “that which is force,” or “an existent force.” God of course is the Great Force…

The concept of separate beings, of substances, to use a scholastic term, which exist side by side, independent one of another, is foreign to African thought..

The Africans see a relationship between morality and the ontological order. Everything is associated and coordinated under the all-embracing unity of “vital force.” In his judgment of his conduct the African takes into consideration the fact that he is not alone; that he is a cog in a wheel of interacting forces.

In these passages, it becomes clear that, adopting the norms of the Western discourse leads to a picture of African philosophy as fundamentally opposed to the core Western concepts of ‘being’, ‘substance’ and ‘individualism’. These oppositions may be fruitful to explore but comparative work of this nature still remains shackled to the Western norms of philosophy. This opposition–‘descriptive romanticism’¹⁰–also reveals the second challenge of localism: that of relativism. The discourse of such opposed philosophies relegates true conversation, as no conceptual foundation can be found for it. By fundamentally opposing the model of Eurocentric discourse, the comparer falls prey to interpreting non-Western discourse in terms of (although opposed to) the model. Here too, a way out is offered by quasi-universals, as they can release the strictures of the Western norms to include norms embedded in non-Western discourse.

Thus, the localist encounters engender incommensurability and relativist critiques, leaving us in need of a new method. This is the current state of comparative philosophy–the aforementioned critical conjuncture.

Comparative Philosophy as Philosophy 🔗

The examples enumerated so far are not exhaustive and there are a host of inadequately explored areas of history of ‘fusion’ philosophy with many promising ventures–Muḥibb Allāh Ilāhābādī’s relation to Advaita Vedānta²³, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Chishtī’s commentary on the Gītā²³, Mīr Findiriskī’s commentary on the Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha²⁴, the Latin American philosophy of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Africana philosophy in Outlaw and Paget and many more underresearched areas.

Comparative philosophy today exists in the manner of critically engaging with non-Western discourses to both assess and contribute to contemporary philosophical problems in the Western philosophies. The comparer (P) uses a non-Western concept (A) to assess a (usually) Western problem (B) with respect to an appropriately abstracted norm (F). All the major styles of Western philosophy–analytic, continental and pragmatist/process–have been engaged with non-Western sources. Ganeri, Garfield, Ames, van Norden, Wiredu, Diagne, Rizvi and others have fruitfully engaged various non-Western discourses with the Anglo-American/Analytic problems of today. Yuriko Saito’s discussions of everyday aesthetics also fuse Deweyan and Japanese aesthetics. Phenomenology and Buddhist philosophy have also crossed paths in contemporary literature. Possibly, the most interesting critical encounters are those of the Kyoto School and before them, that of Chinese Buddhism. They point beyond the three phases of comparative philosophy.

The Kyoto School philosophers, especially Watsuji Tetsurō, Masao Abe and Kitarō Nishida, skillfully interlace discussions of concepts from Japanese sources like Dōgen and Shinran with European/Anglo-American sources like Heidegger, Hegel and William James. Responding to the particular socio-political and existential condition of twentieth century Japan, they develop a phenomenological conversation that retains its distinct sources by adopting a critical attitude towards the concept and a nonchalant attitude towards the source.

Chinese Buddhism also developed distinctive positions like three truths in Tiantai, mutual interpenetration in Huayan and kōan practice in Chan from an Indian Buddhist foundation but responding to the problems of their time. The influence of Daoist ideas in Sengzhao and Zongmi, Buddhist responses to Confucian critiques and neo-Confucian criticisms of Chinese Buddhism all embody a ‘comparative’ approach which returns to being just philosophy. Further developments beyond China in the phenomenological dimension of Dōgen and socially conscious dimension of Thích Nhất Hạnh reflect a living, breathing philosophical tradition which is complex, diverse and is critically aware of its sources and problems.

What is clear in all such cases is that the focus on the existential and socio-political condition of the time requires the critical use of concepts from across traditions without the pre-occupation with their source. This is a bold programme for a comparativist today: to eschew the sources and absorb philosophical insight from all traditions without falling into the traps of universalism or localism.

Daya Krishna already hints at a fourth phase when he asks about a ‘comparative ‘comparative studies’’²⁵. The fourth phase, then, would be understood as P compares A with B in the respect of F, an appropriately abstracted norm informed by the existential and socio-political state of P; where P can let A, B be non-Western or Western without raising an eyebrow. This metaphor can, perhaps, be slightly modified. The comparer does not ‘choose’ the philosophical problems or thinkers arbitrarily, they need to respond to the existential, conceptual and political state of a post-colonial world. We are yet to ask “Does Sellars account for svataḥ prāmāṇya in level ascent procedures?”, can we dare to ask “Can Mo Di be understood as a bāhyārthavādin?” or “Can a padavādin better account for Huizi’s paradoxes than a vākyavādin?”