ID :
136165
Wed, 08/04/2010 - 22:03
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https://www.oananews.org//node/136165
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'Religion-philosophy divide more evident in Western philosophy'
TEHRAN, Aug. 4 (MNA) - The division between religion and philosophy is more evident in Western philosophy than Eastern philosophy, says Professor Nancy Bauer.
“The sharp line that we find between religion and philosophy in the western tradition is for the most part absent in eastern philosophy,” Bauer, a professor of philosophy in Tufts University, told the Mehr News Agency.
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: Some scholars and thinkers believe that eastern philosophy is more practical than western philosophy, which is more theoretical. If this belief is true, then is dialogue between western and eastern philosophers possible? And, if it is, can we consider “Theory and Action,” the subject of World Philosophy Day in Iran in 2010, a facilitator to dialogue between western and eastern philosophers?
A: This is a complicated set of questions which cannot be addressed without appealing to both cultural and political considerations, as well as philosophical ones.
Free exchange of ideas at the congress is vital. So whether World Philosophy Day 2010 will be an occasion for the facilitation of dialogue is in part a simple political question. One of course hopes that it will be.
Then there is the question of whether eastern and western philosophers differ too dramatically in orientation for genuine dialogue to be possible. You have characterized eastern philosophy as “more practical” than western philosophy, which you describe as “more theoretical.” Let me try to unpack these claims.
Since the early modern period, western philosophy has become an increasingly secular enterprise. Of course, some western philosophers, even today, are deeply religious. And others are deeply interested in the philosophy of religion. However, as a rule, western philosophers understand philosophy as inquiry that does not take any spiritual or metaphysical or axiological commitments for granted. And, for the most part, western philosophers understand themselves to be participating in a specialized theoretical enterprise. Even when we are talking about religion or values and exhorting people to behave in one way or another, we for the most part are not addressing “the folk,” at least directly, nor do we see ourselves as working from a shared set of metaphysical or ethical commitments. This distance from the hoi polloi has been reinforced by the professionalism of western philosophy in the 20th century—its complete entrenchment in universities, which hold the discipline to the same scientific standards to which they subject all other fields.
The sharp line that we find between religion and philosophy in the western tradition is for the most part absent in eastern philosophy. In other words, certain religious, metaphysical, and axiological values and commitments are fundamental starting points for eastern philosophers. Indeed, many eastern philosophical traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta, couldn’t make sense of, and have no need for, a separate branch of inquiry called “ethics.” Of course, philosophers working in eastern traditions spend a lot of time interpreting the shared values that their work builds upon. But precisely because these values are fundamental for the people—and not just the philosophers—who share the religious commitments from which they spring, the work eastern philosophers do tends to resonate in the real world in ways that western philosophy does not.
There’s no reason to believe that western philosophers actively want their work to be irrelevant in the real world. Indeed, I suspect that the opposite is true. (The popular website askphilosophers.com, as well as the newly inaugurated and heavily trafficked philosophy opinion blog in The New York Times, suggest that many western philosophers do care about speaking to and with people outside the profession.) However, I think that it will take more than desire and good will for western philosophy to find a way to make itself relevant to people’s lives and experience. I don’t see that there’s a way—in fact, I don’t think it’s a good idea—for western philosophy to fight its own secularization. What would have to happen, I think, is for western philosophers to see our irrelevance as a serious crisis in the discipline. For better or worse, the leading departments of western philosophy are filled now with people who are convinced that the esotericism and scientism of the profession are good things, things that show how rigorous and serious western philosophy is. So I don’t see a sea-change in western philosophers’ self-understanding coming any time soon.
I can’t speak for eastern philosophers, but my guess is that they are going to be at least as unwilling to abandon the non-secular presuppositions that so richly inform their work as western philosophers are to alter their commitments to scientistic theorizing. From the western point of view, a radical shift in the enterprise would be necessary for eastern philosophical work to possess the level and quality of rigor that western philosophy, in both its “continental” and “analytic” incarnations, aims for.
What this means is that I don’t think that conversations between eastern and western philosophers, even if they’re conducted in with the greatest good faith, are going to erase the differences emphases that we find in western and eastern philosophy. Still, philosophical progress, however one defines it, depends fundamentally on philosophers’ finding their views and presuppositions challenged by radically different approaches. For that reason, no philosopher from any tradition ought to turn down an opportunity to converse with a fellow practitioner who approaches the subject in a profoundly different way, provided that the fundamental rule of all philosophy—that participants be allowed to converse without political constraint—is respected.
Nancy Bauer is associate professor of philosophy at the department of philosophy in Tufts University. Bauer specializes feminism and feminist philosophy; continental philosophy, especially 19th-century German and 20th-century French, philosophy and film. She is author of “Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy, and Feminism”.
“The sharp line that we find between religion and philosophy in the western tradition is for the most part absent in eastern philosophy,” Bauer, a professor of philosophy in Tufts University, told the Mehr News Agency.
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: Some scholars and thinkers believe that eastern philosophy is more practical than western philosophy, which is more theoretical. If this belief is true, then is dialogue between western and eastern philosophers possible? And, if it is, can we consider “Theory and Action,” the subject of World Philosophy Day in Iran in 2010, a facilitator to dialogue between western and eastern philosophers?
A: This is a complicated set of questions which cannot be addressed without appealing to both cultural and political considerations, as well as philosophical ones.
Free exchange of ideas at the congress is vital. So whether World Philosophy Day 2010 will be an occasion for the facilitation of dialogue is in part a simple political question. One of course hopes that it will be.
Then there is the question of whether eastern and western philosophers differ too dramatically in orientation for genuine dialogue to be possible. You have characterized eastern philosophy as “more practical” than western philosophy, which you describe as “more theoretical.” Let me try to unpack these claims.
Since the early modern period, western philosophy has become an increasingly secular enterprise. Of course, some western philosophers, even today, are deeply religious. And others are deeply interested in the philosophy of religion. However, as a rule, western philosophers understand philosophy as inquiry that does not take any spiritual or metaphysical or axiological commitments for granted. And, for the most part, western philosophers understand themselves to be participating in a specialized theoretical enterprise. Even when we are talking about religion or values and exhorting people to behave in one way or another, we for the most part are not addressing “the folk,” at least directly, nor do we see ourselves as working from a shared set of metaphysical or ethical commitments. This distance from the hoi polloi has been reinforced by the professionalism of western philosophy in the 20th century—its complete entrenchment in universities, which hold the discipline to the same scientific standards to which they subject all other fields.
The sharp line that we find between religion and philosophy in the western tradition is for the most part absent in eastern philosophy. In other words, certain religious, metaphysical, and axiological values and commitments are fundamental starting points for eastern philosophers. Indeed, many eastern philosophical traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta, couldn’t make sense of, and have no need for, a separate branch of inquiry called “ethics.” Of course, philosophers working in eastern traditions spend a lot of time interpreting the shared values that their work builds upon. But precisely because these values are fundamental for the people—and not just the philosophers—who share the religious commitments from which they spring, the work eastern philosophers do tends to resonate in the real world in ways that western philosophy does not.
There’s no reason to believe that western philosophers actively want their work to be irrelevant in the real world. Indeed, I suspect that the opposite is true. (The popular website askphilosophers.com, as well as the newly inaugurated and heavily trafficked philosophy opinion blog in The New York Times, suggest that many western philosophers do care about speaking to and with people outside the profession.) However, I think that it will take more than desire and good will for western philosophy to find a way to make itself relevant to people’s lives and experience. I don’t see that there’s a way—in fact, I don’t think it’s a good idea—for western philosophy to fight its own secularization. What would have to happen, I think, is for western philosophers to see our irrelevance as a serious crisis in the discipline. For better or worse, the leading departments of western philosophy are filled now with people who are convinced that the esotericism and scientism of the profession are good things, things that show how rigorous and serious western philosophy is. So I don’t see a sea-change in western philosophers’ self-understanding coming any time soon.
I can’t speak for eastern philosophers, but my guess is that they are going to be at least as unwilling to abandon the non-secular presuppositions that so richly inform their work as western philosophers are to alter their commitments to scientistic theorizing. From the western point of view, a radical shift in the enterprise would be necessary for eastern philosophical work to possess the level and quality of rigor that western philosophy, in both its “continental” and “analytic” incarnations, aims for.
What this means is that I don’t think that conversations between eastern and western philosophers, even if they’re conducted in with the greatest good faith, are going to erase the differences emphases that we find in western and eastern philosophy. Still, philosophical progress, however one defines it, depends fundamentally on philosophers’ finding their views and presuppositions challenged by radically different approaches. For that reason, no philosopher from any tradition ought to turn down an opportunity to converse with a fellow practitioner who approaches the subject in a profoundly different way, provided that the fundamental rule of all philosophy—that participants be allowed to converse without political constraint—is respected.
Nancy Bauer is associate professor of philosophy at the department of philosophy in Tufts University. Bauer specializes feminism and feminist philosophy; continental philosophy, especially 19th-century German and 20th-century French, philosophy and film. She is author of “Simone de Beauvoir, Philosophy, and Feminism”.
