Questioning Buddhism on the Way to “World Philosophy”

The idea of world philosophy originated with Feng Qi in China, and its most committed recent practitioner was Mou Zongsan. It must bring together at least two of the world’s endogenous philosophical traditions: those of China, India, and the West. (Ancient Israel had no real philosophy, and Japanese and Korean philosophical ideas are rooted in Chinese and/or German thought.) Although I have generally worked only with Chinese and Western philosophy, the present essay addresses itself to some ideas out of India. Indian and, especially, Buddhist thought is skeptical about the possibility that ordinary life can be satisfactory or good, and despite the influence of India on Chinese metaphysics, the Chinese never bought into such skepticism. To complicate matters, the West is of two minds on this issue: Plato clearly thinks ordinary life is unsatisfactory, but the French philosophes and many Western philosophers and psychologists today hold that ordinary lives can, on the whole, be good ones. Here I want to call into question two main arguments that Indian or India-influenced philosophers have mounted against the possibility of good ordinary human lives. The familiar first one points out that human lives are full of desire(s) and asserts that desire is a lack that cannot be anything but unpleasant. But some gestalt psychologists take issue with this pessimistic assessment of desire. Someone who hasn’t recently eaten can very easily anticipate a fine meal with great pleasure. However, one can take a larger view, as Eckhart Tolle recently has, and claim that everyone eventually becomes unsatisfied with their life. This would certainly lead us toward questioning the possibility of good ordinary lives, but is it true? Let’s assume we have someone who doesn’t want to “rest on their laurels.” They have accomplished great things, let us say, but eventually want to do more. Does this mean they were ever unsatisfied or discontented with their life? With food, we can be satisfied after a meal but eventually want to eat again. Does this mean we were ever dissatisfied? I think not, and the same holds for accomplishing things in life. Indian and partial Western pessimism about life aren’t at all obviously correct. This is world philosophy, but nothing prevents such philosophy from favoring one of the traditions it considers over others.