EASTERN PHILOSOPHY

I.- INTRODUCTION
Philosophy as 'totalizing rational knowledge, second-order critique'.
philosophy is a form of knowledge that seeks to provide explanations of
the topics he analyzes using reason and rational arguments (a
difference between faith and authority). Secondly, philosophy is a knowledge of
general and totalizing type, as it aims to provide answers to questions of a type
general and always maintains a totalizing perspective on them. In
third place, philosophy is a critical knowledge, as it analyzes the foundations of
everything he considers and never limits himself to accepting them naively.
Finally, philosophy is a second-order knowledge that employs data and
contributions of the sciences, which are always a first knowledge
degree on reality.
II.- BACKGROUND
The concept of philosophy remains somewhat obscure for most people.
men. Generally, such a concept evokes very disparate ideas: from a
arcane and somewhat mysterious knowledge, sometimes infused with poetry and
only for initiates, up to an art of knowing how to live reflectively and
slowly, like when we say that one must take things with
philosophy (something that we should all do in general).
To get a clearer notion of what philosophy is, let us try to
understand a definition of it. Although many have been proposed
definitions we are going to give a very general one that serves as a basis to start
to delimit what philosophy is and to distinguish it from other possible modes of
human knowledge
Philosophy arises as a way of studying all ideas and systems of
rational thoughts created since the time when the way of explaining the
natural phenomena began to do away with myths to rely on
above all in reason. This great step from mythology to proven truth
It is known as 'The transition from myth to logos'.

III.- DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOPIC

In the following work, we will carry out an analysis and in-depth study of the
Eastern philosophy.
A.- What is Eastern philosophy
We call Eastern philosophy the currents of thought that
they evolved in South Asia, especially in countries like China,
India and Japan, and in the areas of influence of Islam (from the peninsula
Iberian to Indonesia.
These philosophies are very diverse and only have in common their emergence.
in Asia, in very ancient and structured civilizations, such as China and
India, with little contact with the Western thought that emerged in the
Mediterranean basin.
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 Religious-philosophical currents such as Confucianism, Taoism or the
Buddhism, among others, continues to have millions of followers and
practitioners in the world, and have influenced thinkers and people
common in the West and the rest of the world.
B.- Origin of Eastern Philosophy
The oldest philosophical traditions in the East arise in India and in
China, between 1500 and 1200 B.C., associated with religious systems such as
Hinduism in India and ancestor worship in China, and they extend to
through the rise of kingdoms and empires.
In India, Hinduism was imposed following the invasion of the Aryans.
1500 BC, and the imposition of the caste system and a pantheon with
thousands of gods.
In China, as government systems are being created
centralized, Confucianism prospers, but also currents
philosophical like Taoism.
In later centuries, philosophies such as Buddhism emerge as a reaction
partly due to the rigidity of systems like the Hindu system.

C.- Characteristics of Eastern philosophy

The Eastern regions of planet Earth and especially ancient China
has given influential thinkers to the world, and these 7 are among the most
important figures in history.
Relationship between philosophy and religion
Relationship between philosophy and state
Relationship with everyday life
East in the West
West in the East
Collective over individual
Elimination of the 'I' and of suffering
1.- Relationship between philosophy and religion

The main philosophical currents are associated with the

main religious systems of Asia, or end up deriving towards
a religious behavior, such as the establishment of orders
monastic or the construction of temples.
2.- Relationship between philosophy and state

Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, as well as

Much later, Islam is closely associated with systems.
politicians, such as principalities, kingdoms, and empires.

3.- Relationship with daily life

Eastern philosophy is not part of a strictly defined thought.
not academic or intellectual, but a way of living, with millions of
trainees in Asia and the rest of the world. An example of this is the
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 tea ceremony in Japan, through which the
philosophical foundations.
4.- East in the West
The interest in Eastern philosophies in the West began to
mid-19th century, among thinkers like Arthur
Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and it became widespread starting in the decade
from the sixties of the last century.

Currently, there are millions of followers in Europe and America of the

Buddhist practices, yoga and meditation, and thousands of readers and
supporters of Eastern philosophy.
5.- West in the East
After the often undesired contact between the West and the East,
currents of Western thought have influenced countries
Asians, especially Marxist philosophy in China, Vietnam, and
North Korea.
6.- Collective over individual
Eastern philosophies do not attempt to separate the individual from the
society, but to integrate it into the family, like Confucianism, or to its
social group, such as Hinduism (with the caste system).
7.- Elimination of the 'self' and suffering
Both in India and China, the different currents tend to
despise the ego and propose the search for spiritual liberation,
of the end of suffering. One of the ways they promote as
the source of illumination is meditation
D.- Main Eastern Philosophies
Philosophy is the science that studies existence and seeks to provide answers to
the questions associated with morality, beauty, truth, the mind, the
knowledge and language of which the following stand out:
1.- China
Philosophical thought dates back to the appearance of the I Ching (the
Book of Changes), a divination text that also
collects beliefs and ideas from the 12th century BC. But the main ones
Chinese thought currents include Taoism and the
Confucianism.
a.- Taoism
Taoism emerged in the 6th century BC as a search for
harmony with nature. It is about an individual quest
what distinguishes it from Confucianism. Its main representative
It is Lao Tzu, whose doctrine is captured in the Tao Te Ching (400
a.C.)
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 b.- Confucianism
The father of this movement is Confucius (551-479 B.C.), who
proclaims the worship of ancestors, family, and rituals
social. It promotes a political and social ethics that has been adopted
through the different dynasties of the Chinese empire, and that even has
survived the current communist state of China.
Confucianism is present in other countries in Asia and in
any place where there is a colony of Chinese migrants.
2.- India
Hinduism dates back to the clash of the Aryan peoples and
Dravidian around 1500 BC. The Vedas, first books
sacred texts of Hinduism, are from 1200 BC, and other sacred texts,
like the Upanishads, are from 1000 BC.
Hindu philosophy cultivated areas such as ethics, epistemology, the
metaphysics and soteriology (theology of salvation). They believed in the
reincarnation and liberation through meditation and practice
religious.
Hindu philosophy is present in other countries, such as Nepal or
Bhutan, and other Asian nations.
a.- Buddhism
It is one of the heterodox branches of Hinduism, emerged in the
6th century B.C., based on the teachings of Prince Gautama
Buddha. Buddhism seeks the liberation from suffering through
of an ethical life, meditation, and the pursuit of wisdom
through the practice of moderation.
Buddhism spread to other nations in Asia, such as China,
Burma, Tibet, Japan and, in the last two centuries, to nations.
western. As it spread, it adopted different forms, such as the
Tibetan Buddhism, Won Buddhism (Korean) or Zen Buddhism.
They also believe in reincarnation.
3.- Japan
Japanese philosophical thought, similar to Korean, was very
influenced by philosophical currents coming from China and even from the
India, like Buddhism.
However, it maintains an ancient religious cult (with some
records from the 8th century AD), Shintoism. Shintoism consists of the
worship of ancestors and kami, deities of nature.
4.- Islam

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 From its emergence in the 7th century AD and its rapid
expansion across Africa, Asia, and Europe, Islamic tradition developed
various schools of thought in the Middle East and the peninsula
Iberian.
It is worth highlighting that it was thanks to these centers that the West
he came into contact again with classical Greek texts, translated from
Arabic to Latin, Hebrew, and Spanish.

E.- Difference with Western Philosophy

Eastern Philosophy differs from Western Philosophy by its component
traditionalist and their mystical interpretation of reality. Many philosophers
from the West do not consider these doctrines as philosophical, without
Embargo, Egypt was the cradle of Eastern knowledge and of the majority of
the mystical theories, which also influenced the thought of the
ancient Greek philosophers. Eastern mystical knowledge was concentrated
in secret fraternities and the teachings of their masters only
were shared by its members. That trend was largely one
of the reasons for the loss of all the body of knowledge that is
concentrated within the cloisters where they gathered. Later, this
ancient wisdom, mixed with occult beliefs, has gone away
turning into a huge amount of superstitions, cults and
creeds, which eventually became religions or occult sciences.
However, many of these doctrines are a great source of
wisdom and ethical teachings. Eastern religions preserve a
conception of man as part of nature with a power
potential within itself, while the West separated it from her
privileging reason as a paradigm. Buddhism is not actually
a religion, because this doctrine proposes a main goal in this life
What it means to achieve self-knowledge. It recognizes the existence of a God.
immanent, that is, within each of us, that only
one can glimpse by knowing oneself. Most religions
Orientals have a mentalist philosophical conception, that is to say that
they consider reality as a mental process feasible to modify with
the mind through meditation. They are pantheists, that is, they conceive
an immanent God, within every existing thing. Everything that exists that
it seems real to us is a mental creation of a total mind that us
contains. We see that Parmenides identifies Being with thinking and
considers the sensible world as an illusion of the senses and Plato
recognizes the Being in the pure transcendent essences accepting that the
phenomena of reality are just appearances. But for these philosophers,
any other knowledge that is not rational does not exist. All philosophy is
a way of conceiving the world. Religions are also
worldviews, but based on dogma. Western philosophy is
fundamental in reason and the oriental in the power of the mind beyond the
reason. Western religions adopted Platonic philosophy with a
Transcendent and powerful God who has left us an ethical code that
will allow our soul to be immortal and absolves us with Baptism,
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 from the inherited guilt of our first parents, for wanting to be like
gods. Buddhists believe in reincarnation and the karma that we bring from
other lives and in the possibility of freeing ourselves from this conditioning to
do not be reborn.
In the East, they consider that the basic principles of the teachings
Hiddens will enable man to reach true rational knowledge.
This ancient wisdom predicts phenomena that cannot yet be
to come to understand with reason, and their way of conceiving the origin of
The universe resembles the most accepted current scientific theories.
conclusions
Eastern thought maintains that pure consciousness without an object has a
own nature that can be clearly apprehended apart from the
particular representations of cognitive awareness, as they are only
forms of intentional subject-object consciousness, and cannot exist without
that one, unlike Western philosophy, in which the majority of the
paradigms are based on the search for an absolute truth, the
Chinese philosophy has been characterized by its inquiry into life,
where the main concerns have ultimately focused on the search
of the sense of existence

V.- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- internet (Wikipedia)
- History of philosophy. From the Roman world to medieval Islam. Mexico:
Twenty-first century.

- Encyclopedia classroom philosophy 9th edition 2000

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