Comparative Philosophy and Method

Insularity describes a cluster of obstacles hindering the pluralistic practice of philosophy. One such hindrance is a blinkered perception of philosophy itself, in which one philosophical method or tradition is stipulated to be philosophy, full-stop, end of conversation. Other methods or traditions are simply dismissed with the broad brush of “X is not really philosophy.” Another obstacle is fussiness on the part of some philosophers when confronted by the claims made by other disciplines. Many philosophers of religion, for example, favor working with analytic concepts derived from ahistorical theism rather than engaging religious traditions and practices in their particular historical and cultural plenitude (which would require collaborating with historians and social scientists, among others). Here, the dismissal takes the form of a practical shrug of the shoulders: “Who can do all of this work while taking care to maintain and develop specialized philosophical expertise?” Insular philosophies thus designate a set of approaches distinguished by an exclusivist claim to possess a normative understanding of philosophy as well as a practical acknowledgement of the limits of any one person’s professional expertise. The essays collected in Comparative Philosophy and Method: Contemporary Practices and Future Possibilities, edited by Steven Burik, Robert Smid, and Ralph Weber, provide a sophisticated rebuttal to the claims of insularity.

Set beside the tidy self-understanding held by insular philosophies, comparative philosophy can seem unruly. As Burik, Smid, and Weber point out in their introduction, comparative philosophers can be analytic, continental, pragmatic, or resist categorization altogether. They might identify with traditions from cultures around the world, or sometimes they take an explicitly intercultural stance. They can choose to concentrate on texts and thinkers from ancient, modern, and postmodern historical periods. What’s more, not all of these philosophers agree about what comparative philosophy is. Some, for example, call themselves intercultural, transcultural, global, or cosmopolitan philosophers, while others prefer the labels post-comparative or fusion. Faced with diversity on a scale that could easily become unwieldy, even overwhelming, the editors make clear that comparative philosophy (their preferred label) is intrinsically a collective, collaborative undertaking; no one scholar could reasonably claim to possess specialization in comparative philosophy in all of its manifestations. In other words, comparative philosophy is thoroughly pluralist in both self-understanding (i.e., what counts as philosophy) and practice. For this reason, the editors argue, questions of method and methodology provide a meeting point where comparativists of all sorts can noisily assemble.

The editors have organized the twelve essays of the volume into five thematic “constellations.” These categories are, they tell us, provisional and overlapping. They should not be taken as a map of comparative philosophy as an area of study, but rather something like the seating arrangement at a dinner party: a practical effort to promote synoptic understanding by placing particular essays in proximity to others, and to generate dialogue amongst the broad intended audience, one comprising both seasoned and curious comparative philosophers alike.

The first two constellations are organized around two fundamental problems besetting comparative philosophy: Western bias and cultural essentialism. Both require resolution so that responsible comparisons can be made. (“Responsibility” points to the necessity of normative participation by philosophers in the constructive structuring of their comparative inquiries.) Regarding Western bias, Robert Cummings Neville argues for “two-faced comparison,” an approach directed toward the development and ongoing correction of both comparisons and the categories in which those comparisons take place (22). Roger Ames upholds the necessity of recognizing the contingency of cultural narratives (which provide the form of cultural generalizations) for both the Other as well as interpreters. Cultural generalizations understood in this way become provisional and open to correction and revision. Jaap van Brakel and Lin Ma advocate a more systematic approach through their model of comparative philosophy, dubbed the “XYZ model for interhuman interpretation.” In contrast, François Jullien directs attention to the unstructured “between” or “écart,” a liminal space amid different languages and conceptual schemes, a place that is not quite one tradition or the other (84). All of these approaches promote responsible comparison on the part of culturally embedded interpreters.

The third constellation takes up the practice of translation. Language is central to comparative philosophy in two ways. One concerns the relationship between language and philosophical practice. The articulation of and engagement with philosophical ideas is always embedded in language. The other considers the place of translation in the practice of comparative philosophy. Elisa Freschi takes a strong position, arguing that translation is the “real litmus test” of one’s understanding of a text (97f). In a related argument, Souleymane Bachir Diagne argues that language learning is itself a necessary condition for comparative philosophy insofar as it opens the “path of voyage, of learning languages, and decentering” (91). Other contributors, however, embed translation within the broader category of creative interpretation.

Creative interpretation raises two related issues, which are explored in the final two constellations. First, as Neville notes in his essay, comparativists and comparisons are always situated in particular contexts—social, political, cultural, and biological. Responsible comparisons thus strive to be “objective” or “neutral.” Jonathan O. Chimakonam and Amara E. Chimakonam systematically set out the method of “conversational thinking” as a more neutral approach to comparative philosophy. Burik, in contrast, argues for a minimalist approach to method, one that is pluralistic and draws creatively on Western and non-Western sources. In this way, comparisons can be responsible and open to diverse ways of thinking. Robert Smid likewise argues that the confluence of philosophic creativity and methodological pluralism promotes responsible comparisons while facilitating “the unpredictability of genuine inquiry [and] the persistent wildness of comparison” (196).

The second issue raised by creative interpretation regards the simmering tension between decentering or disentangling approaches and fusion or globalizing approaches. Jonardon Ganeri argues that the classical Indian philosophical traditions not only provide an alternate to the Greek and Hellenistic traditions but also a helpful corrective to the insularity resulting from “analytical detachment”: the Sanskrit traditions foster “phenomenological immersion” in “a form of life” (145). Gabriel Soldatenko describes the unique situation occupied by Latin American philosophy, one simultaneously in reaction to the dominant Western tradition while excluding native systems of thought. This results in a view of comparative philosophy characterized fundamentally by hybridity (which connects in interesting ways with the argument made by Burik). Finally, Arindam Chakrabarti and Ralph Weber argue for a “global post-comparative approach” (160). While this is often described as “fusion philosophy,” Chakrabarti and Weber prefer to call their approach “just philosophy.”

In their introduction, the editors declare their intentions to present “a diverse set of methodological considerations for comparative philosophy,” one sufficiently diverse so as “to challenge myopic understandings” of both comparative methods and the practice of comparative philosophy generally (5). While these essays will no doubt find an eager audience amongst a wide range of philosophers, they should be required reading for insular philosophers of all stripes.

Stephen Dawson is associate professor of religious studies and chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Lynchburg.

Stephen Dawson

Date Of Review:

March 20, 2023