Self-Cultivation Philosophies in Ancient India, Greece, and China

Philosophy is still predominantly considered a theoretical discipline. In Self-Cultivation Philosophies in Ancient India, Greece, and China, Christopher W. Gowans pushes back against this narrow conceptualization of philosophy by arguing that the ancient traditions it treats are best understood as self-cultivation philosophies, meaning programs of transformation for improving the lives of human beings.The introduction explains and defends the concept of self-cultivation philosophy. Gowans's careful account of a cross-cultural concept of self-cultivation accommodates the diverse conceptions found across the texts he examines. A fully fledged self-cultivation philosophy has four key elements: an underlying account of human nature (and our place in the world), a depiction of our existential starting point, a portrayal of the ideal state to be attained, and a program of transformation by which individuals may move from the starting point to the ideal. Gowans refers to these as the four-part structure of self-cultivation philosophies. The book then divides into three parts: India, Greece and Rome, and China.Part 1 focuses on the Bhagavad Gita, the Sāṃkhya and Yoga philosophies of Īsvarakrsna and Patañjali, and the teaching of the Buddha (here represented in the Sutta Pitaka) and his followers Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga and Sāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra. All these texts accept the Liberation Paradigm, where it is supposed that the life of each human being is one of a series that extends indefinitely into the past and will extend indefinitely into the future (without liberation). These texts are united in two central perspectives. The first is that a better life is available to us, which is free of mental distress. The second is that such a life is achieved through reflection on the true nature of the self. However, the texts differ on their specific understanding of the self, the ethical orientation of their ideals, and the practices they recommend.Part 2 focuses on Hellenistic philosophy, particularly the Epicureanism of Epicurus, Lucretius, and Philodemus; the Stoicism of Chrysippus, Epictetus, and Seneca; and Pyrrho and the Pyrrhonism of Sextus Empiricus. In these texts, philosophy heals the soul just as medicine cures the body. An important difference is that while the medical patient requires no knowledge, healing the soul entails changing one's beliefs. The Hellenistic self-cultivation philosophers differ in many respects, but they are united in seeking well-being in our current lifetime, unlike their Indian counterparts.Part 3, perhaps the most ambitious, focuses on the early Confucian outlooks of Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi; the classical Daoist perspectives of the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi; and the Chan tradition of Bodhidharma, Huineng, and Linji. While it is not particularly controversial to argue that the early Chinese texts proposed self-cultivation regimes, as Gowans points out, the book hopes to add value by characterizing them as philosophies. Gowans's book is another example that shows it is legitimate and valuable to read the Chinese texts as philosophy, in his case defined as a reflective practice that seeks understanding fundamental questions.Gowans's book is one of the few that does three-way comparative philosophy, covering important and diverse texts from each tradition. Furthermore, it provides a systematic account of self-cultivation philosophies and how they manifest in different traditions. He does not argue that one cannot find self-cultivation philosophies elsewhere; his focus is on how we can use self-cultivation philosophy as a valuable explanatory framework for diverse texts and traditions. Gowans successfully shows how our understanding of each text benefits from his four-part structure. However, due to its sheer breadth, some of Gowans's textual interpretations (particularly of the Chinese sources) are controversial: for example, the proposal that Mencius primarily criticizes desires may surprise some specialists.This is a book of many strengths. It is an accessible introduction on how to engage with diverse texts both philosophically and responsibly. Gowans showcases the many shapes philosophy takes across time and space (e.g., the notion of transformative texts, texts intended to facilitate some fundamental transformative process in the lives of their readers). It may also be helpful for specialists wanting to understand how issues in their own geographical fields expand to others. It is of particular value for philosophers who want to delve into non-Western thought and its many manifestations since it guides one through the methodological issues that come with different texts and traditions (e.g., the difference between a concept and a conception). The reader is guided through the historical context and the predominant scholarly issues regarding the interpretation of the texts, authorship, and language. Gowans also manages to do it without generalizing, showing instead the variety found within each philosophical tradition. For those reasons it is an important contribution to comparative endeavors and philosophy generally. Gowans shows how neither the contemporary philosophy of the seminar room, nor ancient Greek philosophy, is the paradigm of what is to count as philosophy.