Differences from Western Philosophy

Arguments against the "Eastern philosophy" designation

Some have argued that the distinction between Eastern and Western philosophies 
is arbitrary and purely geographic, that this artificial distinction does not 
take into account the tremendous amount of interaction between Eastern and 
Western thought, and that the distinction is more misleading than 
enlightening. Furthermore, it has been argued that the term Eastern philosophy 
implies similarities between philosophical schools which may not exist and 
obscures the differences between Eastern philosophies.

One such argument is historical. Our first "historical glimpse" of Western 
philosophy actually takes us to Asia Minor. Whether its root lie in India 
(or the roots of Indian philosophy stem from an Indo-Aryan invasion) we may 
never know. But it is surely plausible that the Middle East was a crossroads 
of ancient religious cum philosophical systems.

A related argument is linguistic, based on the classification of Sanskrit 
as one of the earliest Indo-European languages. (Nietzsche famously argued 
that Christianity and Buddhism were "kindred" religions.)

The central conceptual structure shared with Classical Western philosophy 
(and lacking in East Asian thought prior to the Buddhist "invasion") includes 
counterparts of the dichotomies between reason v emotion, appearance v 
reality, one v many, and permanence v change. Indian and Western thought, 
with their robust mind-body conceptual dualism, share consequent tendencies 
to subjective idealism or dualism. Formally, they share the rudiments of 
Western "folk psychology" --a sentential psychology and semantics e.g. 
belief and (propositional) knowledge, subject-predicate grammar (and 
subject-object metaphysics) truth and falsity, and inference. These concepts 
underwrote the emergence (or perhaps spread) of logic in Greece and India 
(In contrast to pre-Buddhist China). Other noticeable similarities include 
structural features of related concepts of time, space, objecthood and 
causation -- all concepts hard to isolate within ancient Chinese conceptual 
space.

One fundamental reason for the separation is that both traditions of Eastern 
philosophy tend to be marginalized or ignored in Western studies of the 
"history of philosophy." So both tend to be relegated to the World Religions 
departments of Western universities, or to New Age nonacademic works, though 
there are several notable exceptions.

The perception of God and the gods

Because of the influence of monotheism and especially the Abrahamic religions, 
Western philosophies have been faced with the question of the nature of God 
and His relationship to the universe. This has created a dichotomy among 
Western philosophies between secular philosophies and religious philosophies 
which develop within the context of a particular monotheistic religion's 
dogma regarding the nature of God and the universe.

Eastern philosophies have not been as concerned by questions relating to the 
nature of a single God as the universe's sole creator and ruler. The 
distinction between the religious and the secular tends to be much less 
sharp in Eastern philosophy, and the same philosophical school often 
contains both religious and philosophical elements. Thus, some people 
accept the metaphysical tenets of Buddhism without going to a temple 
and worshipping. Some have worshipped the Taoist deities religiously 
without bothering to delve into the philosophic underpinnings, while others 
embrace Taoist philosophy while ignoring the religious aspects.

This arrangement stands in marked contrast to most philosophy of the West, 
which has traditionally enforced either a completely unified 
philosophic/religious belief system (e.g. the various sects and associated 
philosophies of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), or a sharp and total 
repudiation of religion by philosophy (e.g. Nietzsche, Marx, Voltaire, 
etc.) The distinction between religion and philosophy is not so 
important in the East.

Gods' relationship with the universe

Another common thread that often differentiates Eastern philosophy from 
Western is the belief regarding the relationship between God or the gods 
and the universe. Western philosophies typically either disavow the existence 
of God, or else hold that God or the gods are something separate and distinct 
from the universe. This comes from the influence of the Abrahamic religions, 
which teach that this universe was created by a single all-powerful God who 
existed before and separately from this universe. The true nature of this 
God is incomprehensible to us, His creations.

Eastern philosophic traditions generally tend to be less concerned with the 
existence or non-existence of gods. Although some Eastern traditions have 
supernatural spiritual beings and even powerful gods, these are generally 
not seen as separate from the universe, but rather as a part of the universe. 
Conversely, most Eastern religions teach that ordinary actions can affect 
the supernatural realm.

The role and nature of the individual

It has been argued that in most Western philosophies, the same can be said of 
the individual: Western philosophies generally assume as a given that the 
individual is something different from the universe, and Western philosophies 
attempt to describe and categorize the universe from a detached, objective 
viewpoint. Eastern philosophies, on the other hand, typically hold that people 
are an intrinsic and inseparable part of the universe, and that attempts to 
discuss the universe from an objective viewpoint as though the individual 
speaking was something separate and detached from the whole are inherently 
absurd.

Syntheses of Eastern and Western philosophy

There have been many modern attempts to integrate Western and Eastern 
philosophical traditions.

German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was very interested in 
Taoism. His system of dialectics is sometimes interpreted as a formalization 
of Taoist principles.

Hegel's arch-enemy Arthur Schopenhauer developed a philosophy that was 
essentially a synthesis of Hinduism and Buddhism with Western thought. He 
anticipated that the Upanishads (primary Hindu scriptures) would have a much 
greater influence in the West than they have had. However, Schopenhauer was 
working with heavily flawed early translations (and sometimes second-degree 
translations), and many feel that he may not necessarily have accurately 
grasped the Eastern philosophies which interested him.

Recent attempts to incorporate Western philosophy into Eastern thought include 
the Kyoto School of philosophers, who combined the phenomenology of Husserl 
with the insights of Zen Buddhism.