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Where do I start if I want philosophy beyond the European canon, not just Plato?

Aroha Tipene Fellow
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Society & cultureAfrican & AfricanaChineseIndianNagarjunaZhuangzi#beyond-the-canon#getting-started#indigenous-philosophy#world-philosophy
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My students find it obvious that a river can be a person, and I'm trying to understand why so much of Western philosophy finds it strange, and what tikanga might say to philosophy in return.

But when I look for a place to start, nearly every introduction begins with the Greeks, goes through Descartes and Kant, and adds ‘non-Western philosophy’ as a last chapter, if at all. I don't want to skip the Greeks; I just don't want to start by being told everyone else is an appendix.

Where would you start? What are good first primary texts from African, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, Latin American or Indigenous traditions, readable by a beginner? And is there a way to read across traditions without making the mistake of assuming everything means the same thing?

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5 answers

Accepted answer

  1. Kenneth Lam Chi-ho

    ✓ Accepted answer Fellow

    My main advice is: start with a question, not a tradition. Pick something you care about, here perhaps personhood, or what we owe to land, and read how several traditions argue it. That way nobody is an appendix.

    Short, readable first texts, all available in English:

    • Chinese: the Analects (a few passages a day) and the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi, which are funny and strange.
    • Indian: the Bhagavad Gītā; then, if you like argument, a guided reading of Nāgārjuna.
    • Islamic: al-Ghazālī's Deliverance from Error; Ibn Ṭufayl's Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān.
    • African: Kwasi Wiredu's essays on conceptual decolonisation; the Ethiopian Hatata attributed to Zera Yacob (its authorship is disputed, which is itself an interesting story).
    • Latin American: Sor Juana's Reply to Sor Filotea.
    • Japanese: Dōgen's short essay Genjōkōan, with a good commentary.

    On reading across: watch for false friends, words that seem to match but don't. Ren is not quite ‘benevolence’; dharma is not ‘duty’; śūnyatā is not ‘nothingness’. When two traditions seem to agree, ask what work the idea does in each system.

    And for your students' river: the debates about whether personhood is relational, especially in African philosophy, will meet tikanga much more directly than Descartes does.

    Helpful · 1
    1. Aroha Tipene

      Fellow

      Kenneth, ‘start with a question’ is exactly the permission I needed. Personhood it is.

      Helpful · 2

Other answers

  1. Kwame Asante

    Fellow

    On personhood specifically: read Ifeanyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye on the Akan and Igbo view that personhood is achieved in community. They disagree with each other, which is a good sign. And Wiredu's essays on the Akan concept of a person are short and very clear.

    Helpful · 3
  2. Meera Kulkarni

    Fellow

    For India, a gentle warning: avoid books that present ‘Indian philosophy’ as one spiritual worldview. It was a centuries-long argument between rival schools: realists, idealists, materialists, sceptics. If a book doesn't mention the Cārvākas or the Nyāya logicians, it's probably selling you something.

  3. Mateo Quispe

    Fellow

    For Latin America, after Sor Juana, Mariátegui's essay on the problem of the Indian is short and powerful. And for your interest in rivers and land, the Andean idea of Pachamama has been discussed seriously in recent constitutional debates in Ecuador and Bolivia. That's a good bridge between tikanga and philosophy.

    Helpful · 1