Living with Contradiction: focusing on Eastern Philosophy

Living Philosophy English Creative Society

The other day, I wrote that our society values rationality and logic to a great extent.


So, where is that tendency coming from? Where is the origin of this way of thinking?


Nisbett (2003), in his book "The Geography of Thought" attributed this feature to the ancient Greece where debates played an important role in the society. He pointed out that:

The general explanation given for why the Greeks, rather than some other people, invented logic, is that a society in which debate plays a prominent role will begin to recognize which arguments are flawed by definition because their structure results in a contradiction. (p. 25)

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why


For the Greeks, contradiction was not acceptable.


There is an interesting story that shows how Greek Philosophers disliked contradiction and irrationality.


"A philosopher named Hippasus, one of the pupils of Pythagoras, discovered the existence of irrational number. Pythagoras became angry and threw him to the sea. "

Hippasus→http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus


It seems like Greek Philosophers really didn't like irrationality.






However, Eastern Philosophy allows the existence of contradiction in our world. Nisbett, in the same book, argued that:

The world is constantly changing and is full of contradictions. To understand and appreciate one state of affairs requires the existence of its opposite; what seems to be true now may be the opposite of what it seems to be. (p. 13)


In Eastern world, contradiction is a normal state of the society.

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It seems like there are lots of contradictions in our modern world.

And the point is that it is regarded as a negative thing; if there is a contradiction, we have to resolve it.

Contradiction is something that should be resolved.







However, do we really need to resolve them? Is the existence of contradiction a bad thing? According to Eastern Philosophy, maybe not.





Once, my Japanese friend had an interesting comment about friendship.

"I think the ideal form of friendship is this: I am Buddhist. You are Christian, I don't agree with you and I don't think I ever understand you. But that doesn't matter. Let's go drinking together."








Contradictions can coexist.