Stop study of 'white' philosophers

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
21

I listed Granarian influences on Egyptian, they were black. I also listed many Swahili.

I need to point out, Sub Sahara Africa, like Europe north of the Danube, didn’t do shit till recently. We’re talking like, Germans had at best 500 years of borrowing philosophy from darker skin Latins.

Even the Greeks borrowed heavily from what you would call a bunch of “Sand Niggers” in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Empericism developed many places in the world, the European conception originally comes from Africa.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theologus_Autodidactus

People we point to and call whites are relatively recent adopters of philosophy, whereas Africa has been involved in it from the beginning. You can claim only North African, but it’s history stretches back to a period when the Sahara wasn’t nearly as harsh as it is now, and travel existed more freely between Africa and the rest of the world.

Sub Sahara Africa, north of South Africa, isn’t exactly forgiving climate wise for the preservation of characters, so written language was unlikely to ever be a top concern. Malaria, a disease that wrecked Rome horribly after it was introduced from Nero’s three expeditions into Africa, ravished the continent pretty bad since before our species, and food and game is plentiful. They really couldn’t build larger societies even if they wanted to, disease is a bitch. That’s the shit all our ancestors fought with. Was difficult always. Yes, when we sent early explorers and missionaries to Africa in the 14th to 16th centuries, we recorded a massive number of myths and ideas, wrote it down in fact, massive pre-contact ideas, which is easily the equal to anything my white ancestors developed prior to contact.

I see absolutely no reason to exclude them. I see good reason to exclude some fake as shit Kwanzaa like made up philosophies, or trying the black nationalist approach making it seem all ideas were originally black, or every pharoeh was black, etc. That’s retarded… but Africa has a strong enough history that it doesn’t need to blush given it’s past. Whites are relatively late adopters, most Africans choose to be either Muslim or Christian, and in some places this is of incredible antiquity, like Ethiopia. They have a fairly solid cultural claim to embracing philosophy. I wouldn’t look at Plato or Aristotle as being “white”, don’t recall such issues popping up where they would stop a debate and denigrate a nigger for dropping the olives. Greeks in fact went abroad in the development of their scientific mindset, exploring Egypt and Mesopotamia.

And do you really need me to start listing Asian philosophers? Is it you don’t believe they exist?

22

It’s the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

And vice versa…

23

What a load of bollocks! We’ve all seen it before where they ‘just’ say they are going to change the slant slightly, then before you know it there are ‘equal proportions’ of east and west etc.

There is simply a vast body of European works, far more of merit than anywhere else. Hindu’s and Chinese for example were insular societies, they didn’t mix it up much, which is good as it provides things like the Tao that’s reasonably unique. Yet for the same reasons as most inventing and industrial revolution happened in Europe, you just got much, much more quality philosophy mostly from Greece and Germany.

There haven’t been so many British philosophers, but I am not complaining because I have no AGENDA! I simply recognise the worth of all philosophers of note, and there are just many more European ones, period.

Turd

Yes but exactly what proportion of the entire mass of works do they represent? Probably around 1% eh or perhaps even 0.01%.

_

24

I have given my input, I will leave things there… I don’t have an agenda either, and I can make up my own mind on what is and isn’t quality philosophy.

25

Yes, and it’s original purpose was to educate British bureaucrats and administrators so that they could go off to run the colonies. It no longer serves that purpose.

It grants a degree in philosophy … should that only cover oriental and asian philosophers because of its original name?

Right. I’m not suggesting that Chinese philosophers ought not to be taught in a Chinese university. It seem perfectly sensible for them to concentrate on Chinese history and philosophy.

It’s only in the West that a preference for Western philosophers is considered wrong.

26

I imagine that if let’s say 10 or 20% of those living in China were Europeans, genetically, they would also like to hear about European thought.
It’s in the blood.
But maybe if the Chinese would be nicer to the Europeans living among them in that scenario, maybe then they would be more open to China’s culture. Because love trumps hate and all that.
Or better to say, because lies find open ears among those who desperately want them to be true.

27

Did I say it solely should? I did not.

Is it? There’s nothing wrong with preferences, except when forcing it on others.

28

I didn’t mean you have an agenda, just that those from whom these ideas derive, do. why else would they be doing it!

29

I don’t agree either that there should be any preferences. there shouldn’t be limits upon philosophy et al [apart from the obvious specific fields].

30

What the fuck are you talking about? India has just as a diverse array of philosophical schools as Europe, wasn’t something we taught them, they had it on their own.

China was usually the trend setter actually in terms of intellectual and industrial advances.

And England has provided it’s fair share of philosophers.

There is such thing as philosophy prior to Kant and Hegel, wasn’t a 19th century Prussian invention.

and that 1% is a very important 1%, its at the ancestral root of philosophy. That civilization largely died off from the Sahara destroying it’s fields, then the Romans advanced in, killing them off. The region hasn’t been a void either since, just can’t call it Granarian. Berbers and Saharan Jews have some very honorable mentions.

European and American Philosophy (North and South America) today is at best like, 30% of the output being done. Your not aware of this because your insular, you don’t set out to look. Nothing is wrong with their philosophies, nor vice versa. There is far more to philosophy in China than Confucius. Instead of appealing to your own ignorance and xenophobia, just spend some time in reading up. No reason to be intimidated, philosophy is philosophy.

31

I haven’t seen details of the curriculum or the required courses and available electives but I suspect that some teaching of Asian philosophers must be going on.
If none are taught, then that would be a problem.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAS,_Uni … _of_London

If a university is teaching courses, then it is selecting which subjects are important and which are not. And it’s forcing that selection on students. There is no way to get around it.

32

There are limited resources and there are specific interests of the professors. Often a university will offer a ‘unique’ course simply because one professor has a particular interest and wants to teach it.

On the other hand, there is core material which every philosopher has to know to be considered well-educated … that’s philosophers like Aristotle and Plato. One can’t understand much of Western history without understanding Platonism and Neo-platonism.

33

Yes, pretty much. If you’re arguing that non-Western philosophy should have greater emphasis because “boo hoo diversity and such”, then that’s not a valid concern. Besides, how would you defend some interest in Eastern Philosophy without being just as elitist? I’m sure there’s a bunch of African philosophy and Indian philosophy and Polynesian philosophy and we don’t commonly study any of that either. Are we obligated to start?

34

TF

There are hundreds of influential works from the west, can you truly state that there are as many from elsewhere? Nor of the same advances in thought? Care to direct me to 3 examples? I say 3 because you will probably swamp me with a load of links. Seriously though, intellectual advances if made in India would have got out all by themselves but they mostly didn’t. the only thing I can think of off hand, is the concept of ‘0’ and the potential for what later because calculus. I say that but some Hindu mystic saying; ‘you can take an infinity from an infinity, leaving an infinity remaining’ is not quite the same as calculus ~ which is the whole point really.

Examples? So they made a clock. They haven’t contributed enough to even make it to 1% on the 2005 Japanese dept of trade and industry calculation of world inventions where Britain has 54% of everything and USA has 25%. they failed even to realise western blast furnaces to make glass for centuries because they were so slow on the uptake [and used rice paper for windows].

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35

No, I’m not!

I see things much more differently than that.

36

I’m locked out of upstairs till tonight, I put a pick proof lock on without the key handy, so I will provide you the names of some early thinkers that are still relevant today. I can’t spell the names right from memory, Ishvara something ahoo, and a shitload of mathematicians and writers on statecraft. None of it really focuses on yoga or idol worship. Just the names aren’t forgiving to a bad speller like myself. I discussed a few with Zinnati, when it occurred to me he didn’t know shit about nothing.

Our scientific skepticism actually descends via the Pyrrhonists to India too. We are deeply indebted to them.

37

Um, yeah… you think?

38

During the various courses I took at college and university, our tutors would have regular catch-ups with the class (as well as our individual ones) to enquire whether the course was meeting our expectations and needs in what we were hoping to get out of it, and if there were specifics we wanted them to add or remove or concentrate more on i.e. they would tweak the course from year to year to ensure that it was meeting the pupils’ needs.

Pupils asking to study more Eastern and African philosophy… alongside its already abundant Western counterpart on the curriculum there caused uproar and actually made the news? Anything can be sensationalised these days… something I have noticed happening to our late night news of late.

I am keen to see if they have lectures there which are open to the public and if that is the case… attend one.

:bulb: such publicity they amounted :bulb:

39

If it wasn’t for the white males that help make western civilization run more smoothly these Marxists would be fucked.

Keep wishing for all of us to be dead assholes because if that happens you’ll find out what a Marxist nightmarish dystopia is really going to look like. It will be funny because these assholes are incapable of running a society let alone managing one on their own.

40

Yeah, it’s about European culture and history, basically, and then in the last 250 or so years American culture and history as well. All of it is the history of western civilization, which is still the engine of the world even today. SJW types are just Neanderthal regressions, an unfortunate remainder of civilization. After all not everyone can aspire to the heights. We may speak with Nietzsche here, and say that those whom we cannot teach to fly, let us teach to fall faster.