Originally Posted by
Perumthachan
yes. i agree with that. right from the era of the atomists, western philosophy has walked right beside scientific growth. but what struck me was, western philosophy has been classified into the philosophies of epistemology, ethics and logic. all philosophers fall under this. in eastern philosophy, all of this falls under buddhist philosophy. i mean, shunyata is a buddhist concept similar to gorgia's sophist philosophy of 'nothing exists'. concepts like being, not-being, existence, idealism, skepticism, all of these can be found in buddhism. schopenhauer and nietzsche have openly advocated their praise for buddhism. even from hellenestic period, plato's idealism which found its fruition in immanuel kant's transcendentalism is supposed to be madhyamaka buddhist thought. greek philosophy of 'our senses forming perception about a world which is far away from the reality' is basically what buddha tried to say his whole life. husserl's phenomenology finds parallels between socrates and buddha. but then husserl gave prominence to transcendental ego which was later rejected by sartre just like buddhism rejected the concept of the soul centuries ago. heidegger's dasein is basically the buddhist shunyata concept of emptiness except that the german went back to it centuries later. his works are basically the western version of zen buddhism.
sometimes i wonder, whatever western philosophy took centuries to ponder and come to terms to, buddhism had already done it centuries ago. but the drawback was, buddhism in particular and all of eastern philosophy in general, it is shrouded under mysticism. i mean, you have monks and spiritual teachers who take their thoughts and go to a some secluded spot and pass it only to those who go towards them. whereas western philosophy walked out into the streets, walked out to the common man with debates and lectures. each generation would have a thinker who would agree to most of what his predecessor thought and then add on to it with his own genuine findings. eastern philosophy never had that. we kept spinning around what was there from the beginning, but then, that was all there was or still is to it. i sincerely hope eastern philosophers step out of the concept of the 'not-being' and 'self' and instead give a little more importance to the concept of 'being' and the 'becoming' which is what western philosophy is all about and which might be what present day living is all about.