Western philosophy has long had a habit of drawing a tight circle around itself, declaring that true philosophy happens only within its borders. For centuries, some of its most influential thinkers have dismissed the idea that deep, rigorous thought could flourish outside the West. Immanuel Kant, speaking from his desk in Königsberg, didn’t mince words: “Philosophy is not to be found in the whole Orient.” Two centuries later, Martin Heidegger doubled down, as if time had done nothing to widen the circle. He argued that calling it Western-European philosophy was redundant—after all, he claimed, “philosophy is Greek in its nature.” Even in 2001, long after global intellectual exchange had become the norm, Jacques Derrida left his Chinese hosts stunned when he declared that “Philosophy is something of European form” and that “China does not have any philosophy, only thought.”
These bold declarations might seem, at first glance, extreme or outdated relics of another era. But take a closer look at the standard Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, and you’ll hear their echo loud and clear. The curriculum offers a highly selective menu: a grand tour through Ancient Greek, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary European thought—seasoned generously with Kant, spiced with Descartes, and served with a side of Wittgenstein. Want to venture beyond Europe? Unless you’re at one of the rare experimental universities, you’ll need to stray from the philosophy department altogether and enroll in a specialized Asian Studies program just to glimpse the intellectual traditions of half the world.
That doesn’t mean cross-cultural philosophy is entirely missing. Books and articles on Asian traditions exist, but they tend to be written by specialists—philosophers determined to bridge worlds that academia prefers to keep apart. And history isn’t completely one-sided. Arthur Schopenhauer, the 19th-century German philosopher, stands out as an outlier. He didn’t just dabble in Eastern thought—he devoured it, ranking the Buddha and the Upanishads right alongside Plato and Kant as humanity’s greatest intellectual achievements. One can imagine the raised eyebrows of his European peers.
But these exceptions barely make a dent in the bigger picture. As philosopher Jonardon Ganeri puts it, modern philosophy has a “dark secret”—a lingering fear of perspectives beyond the Western canon. Rather than welcoming non-Western traditions into the conversation, philosophy departments quietly sweep them aside, tucking them into Religious Studies as if they’ve taken a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong building.
Philosopher Bryan Van Norden knows this exclusion all too well. In Taking Back Philosophy, he recalls how a professor reacted when he incorporated non-Western thought into his dissertation. The response wasn’t an argument—it was a gentle shove toward the exit. Perhaps Religious Studies would be more suitable, the professor mused. Or maybe another department, one where “ethnic studies” would be, well, more appropriate.
This doesn’t read like Kant!
The real question is: is there any good reason to keep things the way they are? Philosophy, of all fields, prides itself on logic and rationality—so shouldn’t we expect a solid argument? Yet, according to Bryan Van Norden, the uncomfortable truth is much simpler: racism. He points out that philosophy’s “almost monolithically white” curriculum, which presents nearly all great philosophers as white men, isn’t just an accident. It’s part of “a broader pattern of xenophobic, chauvinistic, nationalistic, and racist efforts to separate ‘us’ from ‘them.’” At the very least, Van Norden, along with philosopher Jay Garfield, suggests that philosophy departments should own up to what they’re actually teaching. If they refuse to engage with non-Western traditions, the most honest thing they could do is stop pretending and rebrand as “Departments of European and American Philosophy.”
Reality, however, is more layered than simply calling it racism. The counterarguments, to be fair, aren’t without merit. After all, there is something we can call the European philosophical tradition—a vast and intricate web of ideas that has been spinning for ages. Alfred North Whitehead once quipped that Western philosophy is “a series of footnotes to Plato.” That might be overstating it, but the essence rings true: philosophy doesn’t unfold in a vacuum. It’s a long-running dialogue, a chain reaction of questions and rebuttals stretching across generations. Even the most revolutionary ideas don’t materialize out of thin air; they spark from the embers of past thinkers, including those who lived and died centuries ago. When philosophers engage with one another, they aren’t starting from scratch—they rely on a shared intellectual landscape, drawing from familiar texts, referencing a common heritage, and speaking a philosophical language they all understand.
The same could be said of the great philosophical traditions of China and India. Buddhist philosophy unfolds like an epic conversation, an intricate dialogue spanning over 2,500 years, tracing its lineage back to the Buddha’s earliest teachings. Hindu philosophy, on the other hand, is a slow and meticulous layering of thought, building upon the near-eternal foundations of the Vedas and the Upanishads. These traditions don’t exist in isolation, of course—ideas leak in, perspectives seep through. But at its core, each remains an internal dialogue, a vast intellectual world with its own gravity, making it difficult for outsiders to simply jump in midstream.
The barriers go beyond language. It’s not just about learning Classical Chinese or Sanskrit; it’s about navigating a dense labyrinth of reference points. Just as understanding Kant is easier when one is familiar with Descartes, Leibniz, and Hume, diving into Chinese philosophy requires more than just picking up Zhu Xi—it means going back to Mengzi, Confucius, and beyond. Engaging with these traditions isn’t as simple as adding a few readings to a syllabus. It demands an immersion so deep that even mastering a single philosopher can take a lifetime. I should know—I spent four long, painstaking years trying to get Jiddu Krishnamurti right.
Also, maybe Van Norden’s professor had a point. If Eastern philosophies are so deeply embedded in religious traditions, can we really be shocked when academia sidelines them into Religious Studies? Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism are not just schools of thought—they’re living traditions, intertwined with meditation, rituals, and mystical practices. It’s no surprise they don’t fit neatly into the frameworks of Western philosophy.
Some even argue that insisting they do is intellectual imperialism. Who says these traditions ever sought validation as “philosophy”? Maybe their thinkers would be amused watching scholars wrestle to fit them into the academic mold. Are we forcing too hard to prove they “measure up”? Philosopher James Apple suggests a different approach: rather than making them mirror our expectations, we should let them define themselves. That doesn’t diminish them—it honors them for what they truly are.
And this brings us to the greatest barrier of all: for those raised in the incubators of modern academia, many non-Western texts simply don’t look like philosophy. Their cryptic style resists the clean, state-of-the-art argumentation found in prestigious Western journals. They might take the form of riddle-like poetry, sprawling narratives, or intricate metaphors—a far cry from the structured, step-by-step reasoning that Western philosophers are trained to expect. For someone conditioned to seek a polished, carefully crafted argument, this kind of territory can feel too wild to explore.
Of course, not every text with deep ideas is automatically philosophy. Are thought-provoking films or insightful poems philosophy? Philosopher Costica Bradatan warns against drawing rigid lines, asking, “How can we tell, as we let ourselves be absorbed by a Sufi poem, where poetry ends and philosophy begins?” But this feels too loose. Surely, some boundary must exist. Otherwise, what separates philosophy from someone’s musings on social media? As Stafford Betty argues, there must be at least a minimal attempt at rational explanation—a belief that logic, coherence, and careful justification can help us evaluate reality and build a meaningful understanding of the world.
As you can see, as soon as we start nudging philosophy’s cultural barriers, something fascinating happens—the question grows larger, more dizzying: What is philosophy, anyway? In fact, this has been one of philosophy’s most endlessly debated questions. Why? Because philosophy is fluid. Lift a stone, and you’ll find it—lurking in unexpected places, taking countless forms.
So whether we should tear down philosophy’s Berlin Wall and let East and West finally merge depends entirely on what we think philosophy is—and what it’s for. If it’s not just a Greek invention but, at its core, a love of wisdom, then it’s far more than the refined art of argumentation. It’s every way in which human minds awaken to truth. And perhaps, deep down, that’s the real fear of philosophy departments: non-Western thought might not just join the conversation—it might change it entirely.
Ideas don’t carry passports
In recent years, a growing movement of philosophers—once again, all from the Eastern side of the wall—has grown tired of the polite academic game of “dialogue between cultures.” Instead of carefully tiptoeing around philosophy’s dividing wall, they’ve grabbed their pickaxes and started hacking away at it. But they’re not merely dismantling barriers; they’re questioning whether the divide should have existed in the first place. Is there really such a thing as Eastern or Western philosophy, or is that nothing more than a convenient myth?
Historian Peter K. J. Park argues that the idea of philosophy as a Greek-born, self-contained tradition is a relatively new and highly political invention. In his book Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy, he notes that in the 18th century, most scholars believed philosophy began in India or Africa—or that both gave it to Greece. It was only later, with Immanuel Kant and his followers pulling the strings, that history was rewritten as a neatly packaged Greek-to-Kant success story—relegating all other traditions to the category of “religion.”
If philosophy’s Eurocentric story can be unraveled with the same determination that wove it, then the future imagined by Jay Garfield and Bryan Van Norden might not be so far off. They picture a world where Confucius stands alongside Kant in every syllabus, where students debate the Bhagavad Gita as often as The Republic. In this future, Avicenna’s Flying Man soars just as high as Putnam’s Brain-in-a-Vat—not as an obscure relic, but as a vital piece of the philosophical puzzle.
Van Norden calls this “Multicultural Philosophy,” but this isn’t just about thinkers lobbing ideas over a wall because they can’t meet in the same space. It’s about dismantling the wall entirely—realizing that truth is best found through a global conversation between the world’s great philosophical traditions. This vision isn’t new; it has surfaced throughout history, occasionally landing in the right minds. Thomas Aquinas is one example. In 13th-century Paris, he urged students steeped in Platonized Christianity to expand their perspectives—not only by reading Aristotle, but by engaging with Jewish and Muslim philosophers.
Jonardon Ganeri pushes this even further with “Cosmopolitan Philosophy.” He rejects the idea that cultures are sealed-off worlds. There’s no singular “Indian philosophy” or “Greek philosophy”—only individuals thinking, questioning, and shaping ideas. Cultural boundaries, he argues, don’t matter because ideas don’t carry passports. Instead of dividing philosophy by geography, students should simply engage with great minds, wherever they emerge.
One of the strongest points made by post-Western philosophers is that many revered Western texts don’t fit the mold of “philosophy” either. Why does the Bhagavad Gita leave philosophers uneasy, while Parmenides’ cryptic poem On Nature gets a free pass? Neither follows conventional argumentation—they simply had a different idea of what reasoning looks like. And what about Nietzsche’s wild and unstructured Thus Spoke Zarathustra or Wittgenstein’s disjointed Philosophical Investigations? If logical perfection is the standard, Western texts hardly hold up to scrutiny. Even Aristotle and Descartes can be contradictory, murky, or unconvincing. Yet, as Van Norden puts it: When philosophers encounter a difficult passage in non-European texts, they “roll their eyes and throw up their hands in frustration.” And let’s not pretend Western philosophy is all dry logic—it thrives on myths and allegories. Just look at Plato’s cave or Socrates’ vivid tale of the Underworld before his death.
Push a little further, and the East-West divide starts to dissolve. As Pierre Hadot and other historians have shown, when philosophy took its first bold steps in the Axial Age, it wasn’t fixated on rigid argumentation but on transformation—a way of life, not just an intellectual pursuit. Greek, Roman, Buddhist, and Confucian thinkers alike acted as guides to living, wrestling with the same essential question: How should one live? If modern Western philosophy flows directly from Greco-Roman thought, then why does the East-West divide still feel so vast? And if both Socrates and Nāgārjuna used questioning to shatter assumptions and spark new ways of thinking, why is only one of them a fixture in philosophy departments today?
It seems that by surviving on a strict diet of pure argument, modern academic philosophy has lost its ability to digest anything outside its own traditions. If we only search for the familiar step-by-step logic we expect, we risk blinding ourselves to philosophies that may, in some ways, surpass our own. There isn’t just one way to do philosophy. What matters is whether a thinker genuinely labors to build a coherent metaphysical, logical, and ethical vision. And anyone who has ventured beyond the Western canon can attest: non-Western philosophies contain “huge philosophical riches”—overflowing with insights that challenge, stretch, and reshape the mind. Dismissing them as “not real philosophy” isn’t an intellectual stance—it’s a mix of unfamiliarity and reflexive bias.
“Philosophy must diversify or die”
So, what happens when non-Western philosophies don’t just knock, but push the floodgates of the Western canon wide open? For one, long-overlooked traditions—from Upaniṣadic dialogues to Confucian ethics—might shake the dust off Descartes and Sartre, injecting profound insights into questions that Western philosophy has been wrestling with for ages. What if alternative approaches to ethics, consciousness, or political thought have been waiting just beyond the syllabus, offering solutions that Western thought hasn’t even considered?
Philosophers across cultures have tackled the same fundamental dilemmas—in ethics, metaphysics, logic, and language—often with perspectives that break free from familiar molds. Their unconventional reasoning isn’t a weakness; it might be precisely what’s needed to jolt philosophy out of its intellectual echo chamber. Has Western thought been running in place for centuries, simply because it refuses to step outside itself?
As Alasdair MacIntyre argues, any pursuit of truth demands encounters with rival, incommensurable viewpoints. Philosopher Mark Siderits calls this “fusion philosophy”—a cross-cultural approach that blends the best of global traditions to tackle deep problems. Take analytic thinkers, who break ideas into components, and holistic thinkers, who see the whole before the parts. Maybe these aren’t opposing styles at all—but two pieces of a puzzle that, once combined, could push philosophy beyond its old boundaries.
One of the most fascinating ways so-called Eastern philosophies are shaking up Western thought is by rethinking logic itself. Since Aristotle, most Western philosophers have treated contradictions as deal-breakers. But across Asia, thinkers have long been more willing to wrestle with paradox. Nāgārjuna’s Catuṣkoṭi (tetralemma) doesn’t reject binary logic—it stretches it—arguing that a proposition can be true, false, both, or neither. In other words, reality doesn’t always fit neatly into either-or categories. Daoist thought takes a similar approach, as seen in the Dao De Jing’s claim that “being and non-being generate each other.”
Modern logicians are starting to pay attention. Paraconsistent logic treats contradictions as potentially meaningful rather than dead ends, while dialetheism (“two-way truth”) holds that some contradictions are simply… true. Philosopher Graham Priest applies this idea to Buddhism, arguing that the self both exists (as an experience) and doesn’t exist (as an illusion). It also gives a fresh perspective on the mind-bending Liar Paradox: “This sentence is false.” Classical logic short-circuits trying to make sense of it—if it’s true, then it’s false, and if it’s false, then it’s true. But dialetheism simply nods and says, “Why not both?” Accepting the contradiction keeps reasoning intact instead of spiraling into absurdity.
While mainstream logic still resists contradictions, some philosophers are beginning to see paradox not as a breakdown of reason—but as a doorway to deeper insight. What was once dismissed as mystical nonsense is now being explored as an alternative way of seeing reality. Maybe contradictions aren’t obstacles to truth. Maybe they’re the key to seeing beyond it.
But there’s an even more urgent reason to let non-Western philosophies shake up the curriculum. Beyond introducing new voices, alternative vocabularies, and fresh approaches to philosophy’s most stubborn riddles, they might break modern philosophy’s addiction to extreme abstraction. Just as mindfulness revolutionized Western therapy, extra-European traditions could restore overlooked dimensions of wisdom—intuition, lived experience, practice, and even meditation. Philosophy wasn’t always an intellectual chess game; it was a way of being.
Most philosophers agree that philosophy is born in dialogue. So why keep the conversation locked inside the same walls? Students looking for meaning—and anyone questioning whether philosophy still matters—deserve more than a closed loop of scholars citing each other. If philosophy keeps shrinking its scope, why should anyone turn to it for answers? This is why Garfield and Van Norden warn, “Philosophy must diversify or die.” When we stop insisting philosophy must always look a certain way and open the door with humility, we make it, as Costica Bradatan puts it, “a richer, more sophisticated, and more relevant affair.”
This article Is philosophy too Western for its own good? is featured on Big Think.
The post “Is philosophy too Western for its own good?” by Shai Tubali was published on 02/28/2025 by bigthink.com