Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies
Released in 1921, ’’Eastern and Western Cultures and their Philosophies’’ put forth Liang’s theory of three cultures. This was one of four main Neo-Confucian responses to Scientism. His theory stemmed from Yogacara Buddhism’s three natures. His theory was based in his definition of the formation of distinct cultures. In Liang’s book he states that: What is culture? It is the life-style of a people. What is life? It is the expression of inexhaustible will—something quite close to the will in Schopenhauer—always being satisfied and yet not fully satisfied.
According to Liang, will decides life and life decides culture, so cultures are different when the wills and desires of the people who populate them differ. Liang saw three orientations of the will: the desire 1) to change and affect your surroundings to bend to your will 2) to change your will so you do not desire to change your surroundings 3) to eliminate will entirely so one no longer desires anything because of his understanding that much of the world is an illusion. To Liang, the three orientations of will were not unconnected but a progression. He says that since knowledge starts with applying reason to your surroundings the first orientation is the most formative. This leads to an imbalance, where one must start to use intuition to relate morally to the world. Finally, as intuition develops, it leads to hardship instead of relieving it. This leads to direct perception, which is the third orientation. Liang maintained that the West held the first orientation, while China held the second and India held the third.
Read more about this topic: Liang Shuming
Famous quotes containing the words eastern and, eastern, western, cultures and/or philosophies:
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“All right, so there he is, our representative to the world, Mr. Western Civilization, in codpiece and pantyhose up there on the boards, firing away at the rapt groundlings with his blank verses, not less of a word-slinger and spellbinder than the Bard himself and therefore not to be considered too curiously on such matters as relevance, coherence, consistency, propriety, sanity, common decency.”
—Marvin Mudrick (1921–1986)
“Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different.”
—Kate Millet (b. 1934)
“I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist: a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)