Ethical capitalism sounds like an oxymoron; capitalism by its very nature is exploitative.

Interesting I had not heard of that before. In my opinion, the underpinning of Western individualistic philosophies seems more like mind-over-matter/mind body dualism described by René Descartes. In this case the metaphysics is very different from that of Chinese thought, or at least Daoism in particular, if one thinks for example of the story where "Zhuangzi dreamt of being a butterfly. Or was it that the butterfly dreamt of being Zhuangzi?"

I'm no sociologist, but certainly it's true that the ideas in these philosophies are very different from Descartes' mind/matter dualism or other such Western metaphysical ideas which support the individualistic beliefs in the West. However not demonstrating the same individualistic values does not mean therefore adhering to some other vaguely defined set of collectivist values. If anything, most of the philosophical thought over this time (which we group together despite the fact it ranges over centuries) reflected the political disunity of China and therefore spoke more to the need for structure and order. Obviously one way such order can be realized is in a more collectivist way of thinking, and there are such ideas in classical writing (famously, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foolish_Old_Man_Removes_the_Mountains). Overall, however I am not convinced that Chinese culture is as uniquely collectivist as the China watchers like to say, it is merely not individualist. A parallel question would be, why is the West not as collectivist despite such values being so strong in the Bible/New Testament (love thy neighbor as thyself, give up everything to follow me, etc.). These questions are not clear cut.

Can't we say that "the moon orbits the Earth," and it would be objectively true because even without the existence of people and our perception of the world, that would still be the case?

"Capitalism sounds great, as long as you dont know what capitalism is"

> his explanation FOR these cognitive differences: it involves differences between the primary mode of economy of ancient Western societies (i.e. Greek)—hunting and gathering, which favors a competitive approach—and ancient Eastern societies (i.e. China)—agricultural, which favors a more cooperative approach.

"The prosperity of the majority of Greek city-states was based on agriculture".

Golden Age Greece was fed by crops, not by "hunting and gathering". Similarly for Egypt and Mesopotamia during their cultural peaks.

Either you're misremembering the book or the book is in error, but cities of tens of thousands are too large to feed via hunting and gathering.

So npcs

It's interesting this is linked to collectivism, because the same principle is laid out in the older founding liberal texts such as Human Action. Which states that any action is an expression of value thus by taking an action you are inherently expressing value to others. This revelation can be said to be the underpinnings of all western individualistic philosophies.

Pretty sure this ones a troll

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Buddhism at it's core extoles the realisation of fundamental interconnection and inderdependance.

Probably the best pointer to the nature of karma, which is also collective. Global warming is probably one of the better examples of collective action and the outcome of that. (karma) International and intergenerational.

I have a philosophy question and am hoping for some input. I would appreciate citations if possible.

I am currently renting a house with a group of people in Mexico. We had an agreement that before leaving the house we are all meant to check the doors and windows to make sure the house is locked to prevent theft. We also all understood that leaving the door open could result in a theft.

A couple of days ago a door was left open and someone broke in an stole an iPhone from a bedroom.

1 Person didn’t know the door existed but didn’t verbally ask if doors were all closed before leaving

1 Person left the door open (in a part of the house with no traffic) and didn’t tell anyone before leaving the house earlier in the day

3 People knew of the door but didn’t check it

Whose responsibility is it to replace the phone? If so - why is this?

I feel that we all hold equal responsibility to replace the phone because we all share responsibility for ensuring the house is safe. Others feel that it should only fall on the person who has their phone stolen, and others feel that most of the responsibility should be on the phone owner but would be willing to contribute something to replace the phone.

Any insight is appreciated!

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so to what extent does it affect the more collectivist social belief system in modern china?

Just let your spirit go with the flow. I kind of think the aticle is brilliant having read only five lines of it myself

In china we say: life is like chicken, it can be sweet and sour at the same time

Finally two pholosophers sharing there wisdom.

Lol. 對牛彈琴…you win all the points

No one said it was "all about collectivism"

What is being said is that collectivism is a common theme within Chinese philosophy, which it is.

A good example of this is religion within China.

Buddhism and Daoism- both about helping others, and being communal, the collective outweighs the singular.

Abrahamic religions - about individualism, helping others is minimal, the singular outweighs the collective.

Also; Yang Zhu was regarded as a hedonist, not a philosopher, and was an outlier.

Much like we have people who believe in communism in the west, there's individuals in China who follow capitalist ideals. That doesn't make capitalism the majority belief within China, and doesn't make communism the majority in the west.

That's like saying "well, there's billionaores in the west so everyone is a billionaire", that's not how it works.

You seem to believe that a few individuals within a society believing something the rest of that society doesn't, suddenly makes that society about that individuals beliefs.

Perhaps this is why they fell for communism.

Yikes.

Well, this is why I quit Reddit. I forgot.

Anyway, be sure to educate Yang Chu, a famous Chinese philosopher of the exact time period in question (who makes an appearance in the author’s cited Zhuangzi, even!) and let him know that Chinese philosophy is just all about collectivism!

Again; not even close.

The entire meaning is "neither of us stands a chance if one of us fails, thus you don't find them hoarding-" it could be literally anything.

They used rice and agriculture as an example because it's the easiest to follow.

Their point was that hoarding and sabotaging in Chinese philosophy causes negative effects to everyone involved.

Read what they put again, but replace the word water with money, or houses, or cars, or literally anything.

In China, there's laws that stop people hoarding property, among other things.

Their example and analogy wasn't in any way literal. You just read it that way, which is on you.

I'm still not sure where you got lost and why you don't understand, everyone else got it.

And no.

Western philosophy is capitalist and individualistic, based entirely on personal wealth and personal success.

In Western philosophy, it's all for one.

In Chinese philosophy, it's very much socialist and communal, based entirely on societal growth, communal wealth and communal succes.

Chinese philosophy is one for all.

The rice farming is just a socioeconomically relevant metaphor for the importance of collective thinking. They never said it was a cause of this emphasis on collective thought or that it was anything but a metaphor.

He wrote:

“…neither of us stands a chance if one of us fails at growing rice in the first place. Thus you do not find them hoarding water.”

That is: because they farm rice, Chinese people have developed more “collective-oriented” philosophical distinctions from those in the West… despite the fact that those in the West also face the basic human predicament of sharing resources and cooperating in the rudimentary manner being described while farming other plants…

So that rice must be really magical, huh?