my basic sketch of it is that philosophy and rationality are overconcerned with objective reality, and that we should instead focus on how perceptions are subjective and how we relate to one another.
I’d go even further than that, and state that the very notion of an objective reality onto which we can project our “rational” action without regard for social or moral/ethical factors is somewhat peculiar. It seems to be very much a product of the overall notion of λόγος - variously given the meaning of “argument”, “opinion”, “reason”, “number”, “rationality” and even “God” (as in the general idea of a “God’s Eye View”) - that seems to permeate Western culture.
Needless to say, such “logocentrism” is nowadays viewed quite critically and even ridiculed by postmodernists and feminists, as well as by others who point out that non-Western philosophies often held quite different point of view, even within supposedly “rational” schools of thought. For instance, the Chinese Confucianists and Mohists advocated a “Rectification [i.e. proper use] of Names” as the proper foundation of all rational inquiry, which many in the Western tradition would find quite hard to understand (with some well-deserved exceptions, of course).
I don’t see why this post is downvoted. When someone asks for an expression of postmodern thought and someone writes a reply to explain it, you shouldn’t vote it down because you don’t like postmodernism.
The idea that clarity about language is important is very familiar indeed in the Western philosophical tradition. (“It all depends what you mean by …” is pretty much a paradigmatic, or even caricatural, philosopher’s utterance.) It sounds as if the Confucian notion has a rather different spin on it—focusing on terminology related to social relationships, with the idea that fixing the terminology will lead to fixing the relationships—and a bunch of related assumptions not highly favoured among Western analytic philosophers—but I can’t help thinking there’s maybe a core of shared ideas there.
It is very possible that I’m overoptimistically reading too much into the terminology, though. Would any Confucian experts like to comment?
The Chinese Confucianists and Mohists, for instance, advocated a “Rectification [i.e. proper use] of Names” as the proper foundation of all rational inquiry
My understanding of this is that it’s basically map/territory convergence, with an especial emphasis on social reality- let “the ruler” be the ruler!
I’d go even further than that, and state that the very notion of an objective reality onto which we can project our “rational” action without regard for social or moral/ethical factors is somewhat peculiar. It seems to be very much a product of the overall notion of λόγος - variously given the meaning of “argument”, “opinion”, “reason”, “number”, “rationality” and even “God” (as in the general idea of a “God’s Eye View”) - that seems to permeate Western culture.
Needless to say, such “logocentrism” is nowadays viewed quite critically and even ridiculed by postmodernists and feminists, as well as by others who point out that non-Western philosophies often held quite different point of view, even within supposedly “rational” schools of thought. For instance, the Chinese Confucianists and Mohists advocated a “Rectification [i.e. proper use] of Names” as the proper foundation of all rational inquiry, which many in the Western tradition would find quite hard to understand (with some well-deserved exceptions, of course).
I don’t see why this post is downvoted. When someone asks for an expression of postmodern thought and someone writes a reply to explain it, you shouldn’t vote it down because you don’t like postmodernism.
The idea that clarity about language is important is very familiar indeed in the Western philosophical tradition. (“It all depends what you mean by …” is pretty much a paradigmatic, or even caricatural, philosopher’s utterance.) It sounds as if the Confucian notion has a rather different spin on it—focusing on terminology related to social relationships, with the idea that fixing the terminology will lead to fixing the relationships—and a bunch of related assumptions not highly favoured among Western analytic philosophers—but I can’t help thinking there’s maybe a core of shared ideas there.
It is very possible that I’m overoptimistically reading too much into the terminology, though. Would any Confucian experts like to comment?
My understanding of this is that it’s basically map/territory convergence, with an especial emphasis on social reality- let “the ruler” be the ruler!