18) The difference between European and Eastern or Asian philosophy Written by Rainer: rainer.lehrer@yahoo.com Learn languages (via Skype): Rainer: + 36 20 549 52 97 or + 36 20 334 79 74

------------------------------

The difference between European and Eastern or Asian philosophy Eastern philosophy? What is philosophy? Philosophy requires a structure or a logically structured system. In Plato's dialogues or conversations, one can see very well the principle of yes-no questions. "Yes" or "No" are the possible answers. If something is black, it cannot be white, etc. How does that look in Asia? Collections of stories, some of which can be very funny, are loosely linked in the form of parables. These collections of tails generally do not form a whole, but reflect life experiences from different situations. It is far from me to look down on them, but it has nothing to do with a logically structure. Where does this difference in thinking between Asia (India / China) and Europe come from, which gave Asia a great cultural and technical advantage in antiquity and then led to the obstacle to modernization after the Middle Ages and later to the triumph of Europe? I will now try to explain this via a very simple example: I am in a shop because I want to buy a computer. Since I have no idea about technology, but like each of us have a certain knowledge of human nature, I will of course observe the behavior of the seller to find out whether he wants to sell me a bad product for a lot of money. With this method, I can very quickly achieve an average result of 50%. I usually do not get beyond that, because of course the dealer also continues to learn and this psychology has nothing to do with technology. Instead, I will now slowly delve into the world of computer science. This takes years and will, at least in the beginning, bring me disastrous results. However, after a long course of study, I can record a success rate of 70 or 80%. And that way, it happened that Europe lagged behind Asia for centuries till the Renaissance. Later on, while the Asian continued to rely on feelings, the European went for analysis and passed by the former. Back to list!

-----------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------

Back to Hungarian portal! Back to English portal! Back to German portal! Back to Spanish portal! Back to French portal! Back to Russian portal!