Re epistemic authoritarianism, I’m finding that a big issue as I begin to explore East Asian thought. The point came up at the SACP… I was talking to someone (I forget who it was now) and saying how it was important to philosophy that one identify how one’s position differs from others, and argue for that. My interlocutor said he thought that was a Eurocentric position; his take on Chinese thought was that it was a matter of tact and etiquette, that when one wants to spell out a new and different position, one doesn’t disagree outright with one’s predecessor, one leaves it to the reader to fill in the point. I pointed out that Indians are very clear about their disagreements (one of the most common stock phrases in Sanskrit philosophy is “if you say X, no, because of Y”) and he modified the term to “Indo-Eurocentric” – another one of the reasons I’ve tended to think South and East Asian thought are each closer to the West than they are to each other.

I’ve also been finding exceptions to the rule – Xunzi, for example, seems to be pretty clear about telling you that he thinks Mencius and Mozi are full of crap, and explaining why. But more generally, this is one of the reasons I find the intimacy-integrity distinction so useful – it points to a different style of thinking in East Asia, one which at least seems authoritarian at first glance, but may still have its distinct advantages. So my sense has generally been that we can’t expect the same standard of logic from East Asia that we have in the West (or in India) if we’re going to get anything out of it. But you know way more about East Asian thought than I do – do you think I’m way off base here?