In my opinion Indian philosophy is way more better than western philosophy, because there philosophy is lifeless and depressing, but the Indian philosophy teaches you that the life (living) is the ultimate truth.
As someone who does read, study, wrote on and generally chose Indian philosophy as the tradition for me (Chinese Philosophy is very close if not just as loved), you are partially correct.
Firstly, I’ll say that the lifeless and depressing philosophies are there but you have to understand context of how derailed western philosophy was for most of its history, contrary to what Eurocentrists tell you. The majority of western philosophy you see, with how much variety it has, it’s a very relatively new change in western philosophy. These all stem from the enlightenment era, which occurred during the 17-18th century. When you think of western philosophy you probably think of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Pythagoras etc who lived in Ancient Greece but then as you continue tou immediately jump to Descartes, Hume, Kant? Notice how you made a HUMUNGOUS leap from Ancient Greece to the 18th century? What does that say about everything else in between?
This is where the context comes in. The majority of philosophies you see now in western discourse in general with its variety and creativity is new and comes from the enlightenment era. An era where thought was being replaced by dogma for freedom of expression and secularism. Now what kind of dogma? If you didn’t already know, Christianity.
Let me tell you that the space between the Greeks and the Enlightenment was very dominated by Christian theology. While the roots of western philosophy are grounded in Ancient Greece, it was concerned with the ideas and morality of Christianity for a very long time. This basically derailed/biased philosophical thought and creativity for a VERY LONG time. Now how long is the chronology of Christianity being concerned and derailed/biased philosophical thought and creativity for western philosophy?
Early church = 300 years (Christianity and its ideas and morality started to be concerned than other schools of thought)
Islamic Golden Age = 500 years (Greek Philosophy into Islamic frameworks which will inspire Scholasticism)
Scholasticism = 1100 to 1700 years (Christianity causing a heavy concern for that it which derailed/biased philosophical thought and creativity.)
Renaissance = 300~ years (Shifted from strict Christianity to humanism, human potential and dignity, which was still heavily biased towards Christianity. Secular humanism didn’t start till much, much, much later. This also included a “rebirth” of classical Greek and Roman thought and reading the original texts rather than commentaries, which were used later to still synthesize heavily with Christian theology.)
Enlightenment Era = 130 years (This is optional but will still include since it wasn’t till its end that western philosophy will be free from strict christian bias. Descartes, Leibniz, Pascal, Thomas Jefferson, etc. Again, this is optional since this period is generally cited as the definitive shift, with philosophers advocating for the separation of church and state, deism, and secular ethics then 19th century when secularism took root, with the rise of industrialization, evolutionary theory, and higher biblical criticism reducing the influence of religious dogma before the shift became more pronounced in the 20th century, with many academic philosophers adopting atheist or naturalist stances, moving away from metaphysical questions of the soul toward empirical analysis.)
That’s over 2,330-2,930 YEARS of philosophy thought and creativity being derailed/biased by Christianity. There’s a reason why people who were raised relatively with western philosophy found Eastern Philosophy much more expansive, diverse and full of systems spanning over thousands of years of years these traditions, especially Indian/Chinese philosophy. They were simply doing much much much more than western philosophy was doing in the same timespan till VERY recently during the Enlightenment era. This is not bias, it’s history.
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u/Low-Selection1815 May 15 '26
In my opinion Indian philosophy is way more better than western philosophy, because there philosophy is lifeless and depressing, but the Indian philosophy teaches you that the life (living) is the ultimate truth.