Turn towards Philosophy in the Earliest Cosmologies: Comparative Study of the Selected Warring States Period Excavated Manuscripts and Pre-Socratic Fragments
2017
Abstract
The paper explores parallels between the earliest Chinese thought newly found in excavated texts and pre-Socratic thought. In the context of the debate about philosophical value of ancient Chinese thought, it questions the relevance of metaphysics as a widely used reference frame.
Instead, it concentrates on cosmological thinking and identifies it, on both sides, as a turning point towards greater intellectual independence of an individual. The Greek and Chinese thinkers not only share the same concerns and questions but the similarities are also found on the level of language and genre.