Comparative study of Indian and western philosophy
To characterize Indian philosophy as wholly spiritualistic is as much wrong as to characterize Western philosophy as wholly materialistic. Nor can we say Western philosophy is wholly scientific, rational and ethical, while Indian philosophy is wholly apologetic based on faith and mysticism. Such characterization is wrong because in both traditions we find realism and idealism, monism, dualism and pluralism, materialism and spiritualism. In both systems there are schools, which emphasize logic or ethics. In such a situation what we can at best say is that Western philosophy or Indian philosophy generally exhibits such and such tendencies.
Following are the points of differences between Indian and western philosophy:
- One of the most important points of difference between Indian philosophy and Western philosophy concerns the origin and purpose of I ‘ i; philosophical enquiry. If we read the histories of Indian philosophy and of Western philosophy, it becomes clear that the latter is purely academic or theoretical, while the former is predominantly practical. While Western philosophy begins with curiosity about and wonder at the external world, Indian philosophy, as already noted in the previous Chapter (‘Introduction’), takes its birth in the awareness of perennial suffering associated with human existence. No doubt the wonder or curiosity, which is generally believed to give rise to Western philosophy, may not be childish but mature, but it is always an intellectual enterprise of the wise. It may even be above the stage where stories and mythologies are believed to answer our curiosities. But even the questions ofthe wisest in the west have not addressed the problem of human existence so consistently and so exhaustively, as the Indian have done.
- Even when it is pointed out that Indian philosophers are interested in the knowledge of one’s own self and of the external world pragmatically unlike the Western philosophers who are interested in knowledge only academically (and not also pragmatically), the meaning of knowledge in these two contexts is vastly different. It is true that the content of knowledge as conceived by the Indian philosophers and that of knowledge as conceived by Western philosophers are different. For example, it is maintained that the Western philosophers are interested in knowledge of external things. The external things may mean external world as, for example, in the case of Thales, ‘Anaximanader, Anaximenes, Empedocles, Democritus, and other cosmological philosophers, or it may denote the nature, scope and limits, and criteria of knowledge; or it may mean the scientist’s or philosopher’s or religious man’s language about the world, God, soul, etc. in the analysis of which the linguistic philosophers are interested. In short, the Western philosophers are extrovertive in their passion for knowledge. In direct contrast to this, Indian philosophers can be safely described as introvertive. Because they are pre-eminently interested in the knowledge of the self. They are also interested in the matters in which Western philosophers are interested, but these matters take back seat in Indian philosophy.
- Any serious and effective attempt at a distinction between Indian Philosophy and Western philosophy must first of all take into consideration the very meaning of the word “Philosophy”. A casual perusal of the histories of western and Indian philosophy reveals that people of different ages and of different races and different cultures have expected philosophy to function in many different ways. Let us first begin our inquiry into the western meaning of the term. Though the English word “Philosophy” is derived from the Greek root “Philosophia”(= “love of wisdom”), it has never retained its original meaning, for different reasons; (1) because, wisdom (‘sophia’) could be not only knowledge of reality which a philosopher was expected to possess, but also intelligence, which a wise carpenter, a wise merchant, a wise artisan possessed. But Pythagoras, who describes himself as a philosopher, distinguished “sophia sought by the philosopher (knowledge based on contemplation) from the practical shrewdness of a businessman and the trained skill ofthe athlete.
The modem western conception of philosophy as characterized by critical discussion owes its origin to Plato and his characterization automatically denied his predecessors’ conception that philosophy is (unexamined) wisdom. However, Plato also held that philosophy is direct knowledge of “true Reality”, by which he meant intelligible world as distinguished from the ever-changing sensible world. Direct knowledge, according to him, ought to be true unlike opinions and beliefs. Similarly, ‘true Reality’ in his opinion was not that of philosophers at all, for they never knew what should be the ideal of human life. Since a philosopher knows true ideals, he also knows how to live.
Contemporary philosophers question the Platonic conception and the modem and general opinion, that philosophy is knowledge of ultimate reality. Their objections are (i) that the existence and nature of ultimate reality is a scientific, not a philosophic, question and (ii) that whether there is an ultimate reality is itself if at all a philosophic question.
Epicureans, Stoics, Sceptics, agreed that the main aim of philosophy is to achieve peace of mind and so, Cicero (a Roman) defined philosophy as “art oflife”. Even if Nyaya philosopher is considered as doing no more than dealing with logical fallacies, his task should be regarded as advice to avoid fallacies either in daily life or in discussions.
Not only the Indian philosophers, but also the other early Greek philosophers used the word ‘Philosophy’ to refer to cosmology and politics, but also to ethics and metaphysics. Aristotle meant by philosophy not only logic, metaphysics and ethics, but also anatomy and politics. Aquinas who moved in the footprints of Aristotle, his master, Bacon, Hobbes and Descartes – all defined philosophy in encyclopaedic terms, as did Leibniz and Wolff. To be sure, they did distinguish between ‘moral’ philosophy, ‘natural’ philosophy, ‘civil’ or political philosophy and ‘first’ philosophy or metaphysics. But in general they used “philosophy” as often to refer to what we now call “science” as to refer to what we now call ‘philosophy’.” 19 With the advent of logical positivism, contemporary analytic philosophy and Existentialism philosophy has undergone tremendous transformation. For the logical.positivists the task of philosophy lies in determining the truthvalue of proposition, especially by the standard of what they called “meaningfulness”, which itself depends on empirical verification. They did not propose any new theory of reality, nor did they reject any: they simply brushed aside all metaphysical, ethical and aesthetic issues on the ground that they were meaningless. The contemporary analytic philosophers are interested in analysing our concepts and language from logical point of view rather than proposing new philosophical theories. The existentialists who condemn all their predecessors for their negligence of man as an individual and subject emphasise human existence as the central issue ofphilosophy.
The Indian counterpart of “Philosophy” is “darSana” or “mata”. The word ‘darsana’ means ‘look’ or ‘vision’ – vision of reality. Thus in “Sad – darsana” the word darsana means six views (ofreality) -the six being Nyaya, Vaisesika, Sankhya, Yoga, Purva MImamsa and Uttara MImamsa (Vedanta). Although darsana was earlier restricted to Hindu darsana, i.e. philosophical schools based on the Vedas, later it seems to cover non-Vedie philosophical schools, namely, Carvaka, Jainism and Buddhism also. In this case darsana or view does not denote empirical perception, such as perception of colour, smell, taste, etc. for these are not realities, but intellectual perception of what underlies the smell, taste, etc. This means the conception of reality could be theistic or atheistic, spiritual or materialistic and therefore these could be methods of arriving at darsana ofreality. Mata, means opinion. So Bauddhamata or Bauddha darsana means Buddhist philosophy.