The ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts (Jul 2016)

Teaching Ancient Greek Philosophy as a Non-Western Tradition

  • Paul Carelli

DOI
https://doi.org/10.16995/ane.150
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 23, no. 2
pp. 150 – 163

Abstract

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Comparative philosophers are well aware of the interpretive difficulties that arise when using the methodological tools of one tradition to understand another. Such difficulties, however, also arise when looking back through traditions. This is especially the case with ancient Greek philosophy understood as the foundation of the Western philosophical tradition. Unreflective application to ancient Greek thought of methodologies that developed later in the tradition can introduce ways of thinking as foreign to it as to a non-Western tradition. This essay demonstrates how certain strategies developed by comparativists can and should be employed in interpreting ancient Greek philosophy.

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