|
Martin -- I completely agree with you that Philosophy is a Western category, though not that's it's Christian. Philosophy is just that discipline that people practice when they're acting within the historical tradition started by Aristotle and Plato. Not that non-Western persons can't do philosophy, or that the 'philosophies' of their tradition aren't just as valuable, just that the tradition of philosophy is a western one. So it's been practiced almost entirely by pagans, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, and Atheists. Within the tradition, since the demise of paganism, it has been largely Christians who have dealt with the relation between philosophy and religion. I did indeed forget a few Jewish philosophers (I'm pretty embarassed that I'd forgotten Levinas -- the ones I was thinking of were Maimonides, Spinoza, and Maimon). I don't know how much Islamic philosophy has been going on since the Middle Ages, but there we have Al-Ghazali, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Averroes. But among the Christians we have Augustine, Aquinas, Scotus, Descartes, Locke, Berkely, Kant, and half of Hegel, and many more of the stature of at least Maimon. So I don't think that it is an exaggeration to say that, from the rise of Christianity probably until today, the problematic of the interaction of religion and philosophy has largely been a Christian problematic. To the extent that Atheists and Agnostics do philosophy of religion, it tends more to be either arguments against the existence of God, or disprooving arguments for his existence.
__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."
"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
|