Eastern Enlightenment ("Erleuchtung") overcomes corruption by desire. Western Enlightenment ("Aufklärung") overcomes corruption by untruth. Both attempt to achieve integrity of the mind.
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Replying to @Plinz
Nah. Western enlightenment is also about managing desire (e.g. substituting conscious for unconscious goals), and plenty of Buddhist practices are about overcoming perceptual distortions. False dichotomies like this are misleading & culturalist.
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Replying to @Plinz
From an appreciation of civilizational achievements as a multifaceted whole, to a cheap caricature where Asians somehow 'complement' European Reason.
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Replying to @FPallopides
I think that from a philosophical perspective, each idea must be evaluated on its own merits, not as part of a culture. Cultures are substrates of memetic evolution, but it does not do thinkers justice when we reduce them to cultural identities. Every mind is a complete universe.
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Replying to @Plinz
Wait, what? Didn't _you_ just tweet a generalization about Eastern vs Western enlightenment, and didn't _I_ just protest that philosophical traditions (and, sure, individual thinkers) are more complex than that? At least one of us must have missed something here
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Replying to @FPallopides @Plinz
To elaborate: It is _very_ easy to read your original tweet as "Asians just naturally think differently than Europeans", or the like. I meant to counter: humans are humans everywhere, and thus every philosophical tradition (and individual thinker) is complex the way humans are.
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I agree! And I don't think that this is what my original tweet said at all. I find it disturbing that it reads this way for you. I suppose that even in 280 chars I fail to express enough context. I should stop trying to turn a public feed into a salon.
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