Attaining a Comprehensive Outlook in Life

A. Expanding Our Philosophical Frames: Western and Non-Western Traditions

- Many philosophers hold that there are three great original centers of philosophy in the world—
Greek (Western), Indian, and Chinese.
- All three arose as critical reflections on their own cultural traditions.

Indian
Greek
Chinese

- Global information age cannot be understood by oversimplification. One size does not fit all.
There are multiple cultures and there are different types of states in terms of modernization.
- Certainly, the culture of the east is different from the west, but that does not mean each culture
is incapable of understanding certain features of the other.

3 Attitudinal imperatives of Quito

(in appreciating Eastern thought)

1. The East does not make a rigorous distinction between religion and philosophy.
- Philosophy is religion, religion is philosophy.
- The eastern does not separate philosophical thought from religion that is life in action.
- Misconception: Eastern is just mythical/ religious not really philosophical.

Example:

- Eastern thought runs in a cyclical manner in which the end conjoins the beginning in a cyclical
style.
- Nothing ends or begins absolutely. A man may be born or die in a specific time, but it cannot be
said that his existence can be fixed at a specific time.
- This is indispensable to the understanding of samsara or rebirth. (When man dies, his life
continues in another form {vegetative, animal, and human).
2. Life for the Eastern is a translation of thought; it is a philosophy in action.
- Life must be an extension of thought, its fruit, and its application.
- For Quito, it is not accurate to judge Asia is poor because of religion. Rather, it is poor because it
cannot accept the division of theory or practice of philosophy and religion, of its thinking and its
way of living.
3. The acceptance of the validity of intuition and mysticism.
- Eastern thought does not follow a structured mode. By its nature, its intuitive and mystic.
- Unlike the west that theorize and speculate; no application to life is necessary.
- If logic is no longer able to solve a life problem, Asian mind resorts to intuition.
- One should not therefore be surprised at its mysticism, at its use of super-consciousness, or of
the existence of a third eye or a sixth sense. When the situation demands, it reverses the logical
patterns.