[[=Julian Baggini]], in How The World Thinks: > Western philosophy is characteristically truth seeking. It seems to describe the basic structure of reality, logic, language, the mind. one example of this is an emphasis on science for science's sake. For truth-seekers, **disinterested learning is the best kind**, while **for way-seekers to be disinterested is as nonsensical as driving a car without caring where you end up**. >The Chinese are predominantly way-seekers, who according to Chenyang Li, 'typically do not see truth as correspondence with objective fact in the world; rather they understand truth more as a way of being a good person, a good father, or a good son. For them, truth is not carved in stone, and there is no ultimate fixed order in the world.' Whereas Western truth is 'absolute, eternal and ultimately true', the Chinese Dao 'is not present, it must be generated through human activity'. > Way-seeking chimes with Robin Wang's idea that the concepts of yin, yang and qi are not so much descriptions of ultimate reality as part of a **'shu, a strategy or technique that enables one to function effectively in any given circumstance.'** The centrality of technical strategy in thought is reflected in the contemporary Chinese word for academic learning, xue Shu, which is the Shu of study or learning. He continues: > **Is philosophy fundamentally about pinning down the world or attempting to navigate through it**? These two projects are related of course. [...] But the difference in emphasis is important. **If you are a truth-seeker fixed on getting your understanding of the world right, you are not going to be satisfied with conceptual vagueness, unclarity or ambiguity. If you are a way-seeker more concerned with how you live, you might not only accept such limitations but embrace them. You might find that engaging in the world with less reliance on concepts or language helps you feel closer to it, more engaged.** > Chakravathi Ram-Prasad suggests a different way to distinguish between global traditions, between those who use language as a guide and those who use it as a reference. He argues that in India, as in the west, language is understood chiefly as referential —words pick out aspects of reality. **In China, language is primarily a guide. It is there to tell us how to live, not what there is.**. Seems like this frame is trying to reconcile pragmatism and realism. It seems consistent with metaphysical realism or anti-realism about value. Why would moral philosophers in the Western tradition want to adopt the posture of impartiality? Why not just say "here's our story"? One might suspect the posture of impartiality is a pragmatic manipulation: if you can get people to accept your story as if they discovered it themselves, you're looking good. For one thing, you remove their temptation to write their own, competing story. You might even do this from an enlightened benevolent self-effecting spirit, recognising the value of social convergence on shared stories (harmony, cooperation, lack of conflict etc). So it might not be that you project a story of your own creation, rather that you amplify one written by someone else that you take to be viable and good. #todo #inbox