Buddhist philosophy

Buddhist philosophy is a system of thought which started with the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, or "awakened one". From its inception, Buddhism has had a strong philosophical component. Buddhism is founded on elements of the shramana movement which flowered around 500 BCE, and has had a very strong influence on Hinduism. The Buddha criticised all concepts of metaphysical being and non-being as misleading views caused by reification, and this critique is inextricable from the founding of Buddhism.

Buddhism shares many philosophical views with other Indian systems, such as belief in karma, a cause-and-effect relationship between all that has been done and all that will be done. Events that occur are held to be the direct result of previous events. A major departure from Hindu and Jain philosophy is the Buddhist rejection of a permanent, self-existent soul (atman) in favour of anatta (non-Self) and anicca (impermanence).

Jain thinkers rejected this view, opining that if no continuing soul could be accepted then even the effort to attain any worldly objective would be useless, as the individual acting and the one receiving the consequences would be different. Therefore, the conviction in individuals that the doer is also the reaper of consequences establishes the existence of a continuing soul.

Cārvāka philosophy

Cārvāka or Lokāyata was a philosophy of scepticism and materialism, founded in the Mauryan period. They were extremely critical of other schools of philosophy of the time. Cārvāka deemed Vedas to be tainted by the three faults of untruth, self-contradiction, and tautology. And in contrast to Buddhists and Jains, they mocked the concept of liberation, reincarnation and accumulation of merit or demerit through the performance of certain actions. They believed that, the viewpoint of relinquishing pleasure to avoid pain was the "reasoning of fools".Cārvāka thought consciousness was an emanation from the body and it ended with the destruction of the body. They used quotes from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad to support this claim. Cārvāka denied inference as a means of knowledge and held sensory indulgence as the final objective of life.

Cārvāka held the view that Invariable Concomitance (vyapti), a theory of Indian logic which refers to the relation between middle term and major term freed from all conditions, could not be ascertained. However, Buddhists refuted this view by proposing that Invariable Concomitance was easily cognizable from the relation between cause and effect or from the establishment of identity.

Chinese philosophy

Philosophy has had a tremendous effect on Chinese civilization, and throughout East Asia. The majority of Chinese philosophy originates in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States era, during a period known as the "Hundred Schools of Thought",^[24] which was characterized by significant intellectual and cultural developments.^[24] It was during this era that the major philosophies of China, Confucianism, Mohism, Legalism, and Taoism, arose, along with philosophies that later fell into obscurity, like Agriculturalism, Chinese Naturalism, and the Logicians. Of the many philosophical schools of China, only Confucianism and Taoism existed after the Qin Dynasty suppressed any Chinese philosophy that was opposed to Legalism.

Confucianism is humanistic, philosophy that believes that human beings are teachable, improvable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour especially including self-cultivation and self-creation. Confucianism focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, the most basic of which are ren, yi, and li. Ren is an obligation of altruism and humaneness for other individuals within a community, yi is the upholding of righteousness and the moral disposition to do good, and li is a system of norms and propriety that determines how a person should properly act within a community.

Taoism focuses on establishing harmony with the Tao, which is origin of and the totality of everything that exists. The word "Tao" (or "Dao", depending on the romanization scheme) is usually translated as "way", "path" or "principle". Taoist propriety and ethics emphasize the Three Jewels of the Tao: compassion, moderation, and humility, while Taoist thought generally focuses on nature, the relationship between humanity and the cosmos (天人相应); health and longevity; and wu wei, action through inaction. Harmony with the Universe, or the origin of it through the Tao, is the intended result of many Taoist rules and practices.

Confucianism

Confucianism is a philosophical school developed from the teachings of the sage collected in the Analects of Confucius. It is a system of moral, social, political, and religious thought that has had tremendous influence on Chinese history, thought, and culture down to the 21st century. Some Westerners have considered it to have been the "state religion" of imperial China. Its influence also spread to Korea and Japan.

The major Confucian concepts include rén (humanity or humaneness), zhèngmíng (rectification of names; e.g. a ruler who rules unjustly is no longer a ruler and may be dethroned), zhōng (loyalty), xiào (filial piety), and lǐ (ritual). Confucius taught both positive and negative versions of the Golden Rule. The concepts Yin and Yang represent two opposing forces that are permanently in conflict with each other, leading to perpetual contradiction and change. The Confucian idea of "Rid of the two ends, take the middle" is a Chinese equivalent of Hegel's idea of "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis", which is a way of reconciling opposites, arriving at some middle ground combining the best of both.

Daoism

Daoism is a philosophy and later also developed into a religion based on the texts the Dao Te Ching (Dào Dé Jīng; ascribed to Laozi) and the Zhuangzi (partly ascribed to Zhuangzi). The character Dao 道 (Dao) literally means "path" or "way". However in Daoism it refers more often to a meta-physical term that describes a force that encompasses the entire universe but which cannot be described nor felt. All major Chinese philosophical schools have investigated the correct Way to go about a moral life, but in Taoism it takes on the most abstract meanings, leading this school to be named after it. It advocated nonaction (wu wei), the strength of softness, spontaneity, and relativism. Although it serves as a rival to Confucianism, a school of active morality, this rivalry is compromised and given perspective by the idiom "practise Confucianism on the outside, Taoism on the inside." Most of Taoism's focus is on what is perceived to be the undeniable fact that human attempts to make the world better actually make the world worse. Therefore it is better to strive for harmony, minimising potentially harmful interference with nature or in human affairs.^[7]

Legalism

Legalism is a political philosophy synthesized by a philosopher named Han Fei. With an essential principle like "when the epoch changed, the ways changed", it upholds the rule of law and is thus a theory of jurisprudence.

A ruler should govern his subjects by the following trinity:

1. Fa (法 fa3): law or principle.

2. Shu (術 shù): method, tactic, art, or statecraft.

3. Shi (勢 shì): legitimacy, power, or charisma.

Legalism was the chosen philosophy of the Qin Dynasty. It was blamed for creating a totalitarian society and thereby experienced decline. Its main motto is: "Set clear strict laws, or deliver harsh punishment". Both Shang Yang and Han Fei promoted the absolute adherence to the rule of law, regardless of the circumstances or the person. The ruler, alone, would possess the authority to dispense with rewards and punishments. Ministers were only to be rewarded if their words matched the results of their proposals, and punished if it did not; regardless if the results were worse or better than the claims. Legalism, in accordance with Han Fei's interpretation, could encourage the state to be a militaristic autarky. The philosophy was highly progressive, and extremely critical of the Confucian and Mohist schools. This would be used to justify Li Si's large scale persecutions of the other schools of thought during the Qin dynasty, and the invariable denunciation by Confucian scholars from the Han dynasty and onwards.

Naturalists

The School of Naturalists or the School of Yin-yang (陰陽家/阴阳家; Yīnyángjiā; Yin-yang-chia; "School of Yin-Yang") was a Warring States era philosophy that synthesized the concepts of yin-yang and the Five Elements; Zou Yan is considered the founder of this school.^[8] His theory attempted to explain the universe in terms of basic forces in nature: the complementary agents of yin (dark, cold, female, negative) and yang (light, hot, male, positive) and the Five Elements or Five Phases (water, fire, wood, metal, and earth). In its early days, this theory was most strongly associated with the states of Yan and Qi. In later periods, these epistemological theories came to hold significance in both philosophy and popular belief. This school was absorbed into Taoism's alchemic and magical dimensions as well as into the Chinese medical framework. The earliest surviving recordings of this are in the Ma Wang Dui texts and Huang Di Nei Jing.

Mohism

Mohism (Moism), founded by Mozi (墨子), promotes universal love with the aim of mutual benefit. Everyone must love each other equally and impartially to avoid conflict and war. Mozi was strongly against Confucian ritual, instead emphasizing pragmatic survival through farming, fortification, and statecraft. Tradition is inconsistent, and human beings need an extra-traditional guide to identify which traditions are acceptable. The moral guide must then promote and encourage social behaviors that maximize general benefit. As motivation for his theory, Mozi brought in the Will of Heaven, but rather than being religious his philosophy parallels utilitarianism.

Logicians

The logicians (School of Names) were concerned with logic, paradoxes, names and actuality (similar to Confucian rectification of names). The logician Hui Shi was a friendly rival to Zhuangzi, arguing against Taoism in a light-hearted and humorous manner. Another logician, Gongsun Long, told the famous When a White Horse is Not a Horse dialogue. This school did not thrive because the Chinese regarded sophistry and dialectic as impractical.

Agriculturalists

Agriculturalism was an early agrarian social and political philosophy that advocated peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism. The philosophy is founded on the notion that human society originates with the development of agriculture, and societies are based upon "people's natural prospensity to farm."

The Agriculturalists believed that the ideal government, modeled after the semi-mythical governance of Shennong, is led by a benevolent king, one who works alongside the people in tilling the fields. The Agriculturalist king is not paid by the government through its treasuries; his livelihood is derived from the profits he earns working in the fields, not his leadership. Unlike the Confucians, the Agriculturalists did not believe in the division of labour, arguing instead that the economic policies of a country need to be based upon an egalitarian self sufficiency. The Agriculturalists supported the fixing of prices, in which all similar goods, regardless of differences in quality and demand, are set at exactly the same, unchanging price.

Among the terms commonly found in Chinese philosophy are:

· 道 Dao (the Way, or one's doctrine)

· 德 De (virtue, power)

· 理 Li (principle)

· 氣 Qi (vital energy or material force)

· The Taiji (Great Heavenly Axis) forms a unity of the two complimentary polarities, Yin and Yang. The word Yin originally referred to a hillside facing away from the sun. Philosophically, it stands the dark, passive, feminine principle; whereas Yang (the hillside facing the sun) stands for the bright, active, masculine principle. Yin and Yang are not antagonistic, they alternate in inverse proportion to one another—like the rise and fall of a wave.

Among the commonalities of Chinese philosophies are:

· The tendency not to view man as separate from nature.

· Questions about the nature and existence of a monotheistic deity, which have profoundly influenced Western philosophy, have not been important in Chinese philosophies or a source of great conflict in Chinese traditional religion.

· The belief that the purpose of philosophy is primarily to serve as an ethical and practical guide.

· The political focus: most scholars of the Hundred Schools were trying to convince the ruler to behave in the way they defended.