However, as Alfred North Whitehead pointed out, a difference in degree may sometimes become a difference in kind. They not only have tensions with other traditions, but they contain internal conflict as well. “Truth and Convention: On Davidson’s Refutation of Conceptual Relativism.” In, Rorty, Richard. Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975) were perhaps the most prominent and influential voices responding from India in the early part of the last century, presenting Indian philosophical ideas and comparing, contrasting, and even fusing Eastern and Western philosophy and religion. It is, perhaps, because of this long familiarity with cross-cultural dialogue and the willingness to take one’s partners seriously that many of the earliest works comparing Eastern and Western philosophies that are still important came not from Westerners but from non-Westerners responding to Western ideas. See our Privacy Policy and User Agreement for details. Hershock, Peter, Marietta Stepaniants and Roger Ames, eds. The comparative philosopher does not so much inhabit both of the standpoints represented by the traditions from which he draws as he comes to inhabit an emerging standpoint different from them all and which is thereby creatively a new way of seeing the human condition. It is important to distinguish comparative philosophy from both area studies philosophy and world philosophy. Larson, Gerald James and Eliot Deutsch, eds. A second sort is that some philosophical models differ from others in such fundamental ways as to make it impossible for the advocates to understand each other. Bonevac, Daniel and Stephen Phillips, eds. “Incommensurability, Truth, and the Conversation Between Confucians and Aristotelians about the Virtues.” In, Matilal, Bimal. After all, one thing philosophers habitually do is to compare the work of various thinkers with those of others, or with their own. He thinks that once the comparative project has passed beyond the initial stage of partial incomprehension and partial misrepresentation of the other, and an accurate representation of the other emerges, then the task of showing which rival tradition is rationally superior to the other comes into view. Comparative philosophy—sometimes called cross-cultural philosophy—is a subfield of philosophy in which philosophers work on problems by intentionally setting into dialogue sources from across cultural, linguistic, and philosophical streams. This is reading a text from another tradition and assuming that it asks the same questions or constructs responses or answers in a similar manner as that one with which one is most familiar. Or pick any two different philosophical arguments and compare them and how they relate to human nature. Ronnie Littlejohn Our teacher says "Compare and contrast the teachings of two philosophers and make connections between media and life today in an 1000+ word essay." World philosophy may be thought of as an effort at constructive philosophy that takes into account the great variety of philosophical writings and traditions across human cultures and endeavors to weave them into a coherent world view. Another way in which this has happened was that their comparative work was subsumed under area studies philosophy journals such as the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, African Philosophy, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Philosophy in Japan, or Asian Philosophy. Learn more. Socrates believed that the wise man, the philosopher who could understand ideas was the one capable of ruling others. World philosophy, like area studies philosophy, should be distinguished from comparative philosophy. David Hall and Roger Ames (1995) have argued against translating the name of the Chinese text Zhongyong as The Doctrine of the Mean, because they do not think that it pursues the same kinds of virtue analysis in practical reason that Aristotle does in his Nicomachean Ethics. Likewise, those wanting to construct a world philosophy often find a place for the thought of other traditions in the system they construct, but it is fair to wonder whether they really allow the voice of the other to express itself in its strongest form.