Below the fold is my personal take on comparative philosophy, written way back in 2001~2. I suppose it’s dated, even juvenile, but my view on comparative philosophy hasn’t changed much since then. Perhaps this means that I should reflect more deeply on the matter, but I prefer to think not. There is a point beyond which talking about how to do comparative philosophy loses its value, and one’s aim is better served by just doing some good comparative philosophy.
A Definition of Comparative Philosophy
Comparative philosophy is a process of critical and constructive dialogue. Through such dialogue, two or more philosophers, philosophical systems, schools or traditions are brought together to debate on conflicting positions and collaborate on common grounds. But this is undoubtedly too broad a definition, for the process of dialogue seems conducive to the development of any philosophy, each building upon and reacting against the work of its predecessors and contemporaries. To delimit our characterization suitably, we may specify that comparative philosophy is a process of mediated dialogue between two or more philosophical traditions that do not share a common constellation of conceptual terms. I will somewhat elaborate on this definition in the next three paragraphs.
Conceptual terms are, so to speak, the building blocks of worlds of thought, which make mutual communication possible and meaningful to those who understand the concepts. And where there is no shared conceptual terminology, disputes and agreements are liable to be at cross-purposes, if the involved parties did not first take the trouble to learn each other’s vocabulary.[1] Hence the most elementary step in comparative philosophy is to acquaint oneself with key conceptual terms of the concerned philosophical traditions, i.e., with the typical roles that philosophical concepts play in descriptions, explanations, prescriptions and evaluations in given systems of thought. The best way of doing this would be to peruse the classics of each tradition, either in translation or in the original language, and to investigate as systematically as possible the etymology of each key term and its employment by particular thinkers.[2] Also, it would be greatly helpful to study the language and the social and historical background of the philosophical classics, if these are not one’s own, and to read the commentaries and secondary literature on them. By this process of familiarization, one becomes an informed observer of an alien world of thought, and even its inhabitant, to the extent that one is sympathetic towards it, and is able to coordinate one’s life by the rules and the ideals internal to it.
When we are thus acquainted with the philosophies to be compared, we are in a position to engage in comparative philosophy. The task of comparative philosophy, however, does not lie simply in juxtaposing two or more philosophical schools of thought or traditions, and noting the similarities and differences between them. This would be the task of a comparative history of philosophy, which should be assigned an indispensable (but nonetheless preparatory) part in comparative philosophy. The end product of comparative history of philosophy is a panoramic view, resulting from the juxtaposition of discrete philosophical views. It leaves the philosophies untouched, but broadens our perspective on them. By contrast, the end product of comparative philosophy is a transformed philosophical view, improved by criticism and constructive development. The main task of comparative philosophy, as I see it, is meaningful dialogue involving effective criticism and collaboration.
But how can we bring together Plato and Mencius, for example, and have them converse with each other? In the Hades that Socrates imagined, one could meet in person Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer, converse with them and question them to one’s infinite delight.[3] What immense pleasure it would be to meet Plato and Mencius, Zhuangzi and Wittgenstein, and to hear what they have to say to each other! Every student of philosophy must have entertained fancies of this sort one time or another. But keeping our focus on the here and now, the more practical answer to our question is that Plato and Mencius are brought together in me, if I am conversant with both through my readings. Then I could question Mencius on behalf of Plato, or agree with Plato on behalf of Mencius, and vice versa. Or, I could assess what I believe to be their strengths and weaknesses from a third point of view. The governing purpose of such dialogue is that participants should learn from each other the flaws in their own philosophies in order to correct them, and the merits of others’ philosophies so as to incorporate them. Confucius presents us with a concise and illustrative model of just this kind of interactive learning (Analects 7.21): “When I am walking in a group of three people, there will surely be a teacher for me among them. I pick out the good parts and follow them; the bad parts, and change them [in myself].”[4] When we engage in comparative philosophy, we mediate meaningful dialogue between philosophical traditions, with conscientious application of the governing purpose.
[1] For instance, Chinese thinkers of the 4th century C.E. employed the method of “matching of concepts” [geyi], in which Buddhist concepts were interpreted in terms of Chinese philosophical concepts, without access to accurate translations of Buddhist doctrinal scriptures. Any agreement they found was apt to be superficial, and it seems that this approach resulted in a failure to arrive at a deep understanding of Buddhist doctrines. The later flowering of Chinese schools of doctrinal Buddhism came hand in hand with detailed textual exegesis, which in turn was made possible by meticulous translations of Buddhist doctrinal texts, beginning with the translation project undertaken by Kumārajīva (344-417 C.E.).
[2] The kind of investigation I have in mind is well exemplified by (1) Angus C. Graham, “The Background of the Mencian Theory of Human Nature”, reprinted in A. C. Graham, Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (Singapore: The Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1986), pp.7-66, and (2) Kurt von Fritz, “Nous, Noein, and Their Derivatives in Pre-Socratic Philosophy (excluding Anaxagoras)”, reprinted in Alexander Mourelatos (ed.), The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp.23-85.
[3] Plato, The Apology of Socrates, 41a
[4] E. Bruce Brooks and A. Taeko Brooks (tr.), The Original Analects: Sayings of Confucius and His Successors (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p.42.
