Can Different Cultures Think the Same Thoughts? A Comparative Study in Metaphysics and Ethics

287 Pages·2018·2.282 MB·English

by  Kenneth Dorter

Can Different Cultures think the same thoughts?

C a n D i f f e r e n t
C u lt u r e s t h i n k
t h e s a m e
t h o u g h t s ?
A Comparative Study
in Metaphysics and Ethics
kenneth Dorter
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress .nd .edu
Copyright © 2018 by the University of Notre Dame
All Rights Reserved
Title page art: “Confucius, Shankara, and Socrates,” by Gloria Wang
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Dorter, Kenneth, 1940– author.
Title: Can different cultures think the same thoughts? : a comparative study in metaphysics
and ethics / Kenneth Dorter.
Description: Notre Dame : University of Notre Dame Press, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017055853 (print) | LCCN 2018003386 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780268103552 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268103569 (epub) |
ISBN 9780268103538 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 0268103534
(hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Metaphysics—Comparative studies. | Ethics—Comparative studies.
Classification: LCC BD111 (ebook) | LCC BD111 .D67 2018 (print) |
DDC 109—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017055853
∞ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party
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encouraged to contact the publisher at [email protected]
To My Brother Ira

C o n t e n t s
Preface ix
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1 Going beyond the Visible: Zhuangzi
and the Upanis.ads 21
CHAPTER 2 Appearance and Reality: Parmenides,
Shankara, and Spinoza 41
CHAPTER 3 Metaphysics and Morality: Zhu Xi, Plato,
Aristotle, Plotinus 65
CHAPTER 4 Indeterminacy and Moral Action: Laozi
and Heraclitus 91
CHAPTER 5 Virtue Is Knowledge: Socrates
and Wang Yangming 129
CHAPTER 6 The Ethical Mean: Confucius and Plato 147
CHAPTER 7 Nonviolent Warriors: The Bhagavad Gita
and Marcus Aurelius 169
Conclusion 195
Notes 201
Bibliography 259
Index 273

P r e f a Ce
The project of this book has two aims. One is to explore issues in meta-
physics and ethics, including the way metaphysics can be foundational
for ethics. I approach these issues through the works of major thinkers in
the three main philosophical traditions—India, China, and the West—
comparing philosophers from two traditions in each chapter. An advan-
tage of this approach is that examining a subject from different directions
gives us different perspectives and allows us to see limitations and as-
sumptions that may be inconspicuous otherwise. The comparison may
also provide us with a perspective that is more than the sum of its parts.
Each of the chapters addresses its theme through the work of a different
pair or group of philosophers, while the Conclusion compensates for this
diversity of voices with an overview of the book as a whole.
The cross- cultural approach provides the project with a further
aim—to consider how far authors from different cultures can be said to
have comparable views. At least since Hegel there is an influential view
that not only is every culture unique, but the products of those cultures
are ultimately incompatible—that the resemblances are superficial and
the differences decisive. The issue of the validity of cross-c ultural cor-
respondences is addressed in some detail in the Introduction, while the
subsequent chapters are devoted to the specific metaphysical and ethi-
cal issues. The comparisons that follow have convinced me that there
are resemblances that are profound and important, but although the
chapters point out commonalities in the different traditions, I make no
claim that there is a universal philosophy. On the contrary, in places it
is obvious that there are fundamental disagreements among the philoso-
phers studied in different chapters. But within each chapter we see a
shared or at least analogous way of looking at things in different cultures.
ix