How does Chinese philosophy compare with

How they compare in what? I'm not familiar with Chinese philosophy so I can't speak for that. But philosophies generally try to answer the same questions, origin of things, nature of knowledge, how things come to be the way they are.
A marker for Greek thought in pre-Platonian philosophers (Plato changes everything) was when they switched from inquiring about the causes of things ( Miletians, first Greek philosophers) to the nature of change. At some point there wasn't enough to say "this is like this because of a), b), c) but you had to establish how you knew that.  Heraclitus and the Eleatic school with Parmenides as his proponent belong to this category. Parmenides was the first to state, i.e. that the emotions cannot be a guide to knowledge but reason alone can be trusted. He also declared that nothing can come from not being.
Empedocles, while accepted this basic premise,  also held that change does occur and can be observed in the elements and their proportions. He divided his elements into 'original' and 'simple'. He named as his basic elements ('rizomata', roots) earth, air, and water out of which everything else is made by combining different proportions. Here perhaps he came close to the Chinese eight elements and their interaction and this is a similarity between the two philosophies.
Generally there are a lot of similarities in the way people think about the same stuff.

the teaching of history is never influenced by political correctness?

perhaps i'll give you a chance to retract that.

I'm not sure what you're trying to compare here, or on what criteria.

Originally posted by Hrothgar the teaching of history is never influenced by political correctness? perhaps i'll give you a chance to retract that.

The "Art of War" implies to me that war and peace are the same; managing the one and the many is the same. Her guiding principles don't change, it is the turmoil of human mind that causes the glitch.

Pericles wrote:
"The way History is taught in schools is guided by the goverment". Generally correct, I'd prefer to say that it carries a certain ideological message tied to the idea of the "nation" of the particular culture.

"...i was in Turkey and i was discussing with a Turkish student for politics and history and she was telling things totaly different from what i was taught at school."  Well, yes, of course. You go to Turkey and expect to hear our version of what happened? Look at my statement above. I bet she was equally surprised that our own schools taught such a different reality than she had been accustomed to 

"To tell the truth I think that ancient philosophical systems are superior if we can say that". I like to think that the process of human knowledge is like a layered cake: each of the layers is sitting on top and supported by the one below. The ancients laid a great foundation that has been built upon and expanded and applied to the new circumstances. Think of Froyd, i.e. The ancients of course detected mental illness but had no way  to treat it, they observed it and recorded  it. Froyd contruscted (or at least that was his goal) the  pathways of mental illness in an unprecedent way. Of course the inquisitive spirit of science and the scientific method of experimentation and data gathering had been established by the ancient Greeks, as you correctly state, 2000-something years ago. But if any of them had been around in the time of Froyd (not to mention today), I'd bet he'd sit  right down to do some neccessary  catching up!


I too think that generally speaking Western educational institutions are very liberal and politically correct, sometimes to the point of becoming annoying. This is partially due to the fact that the scientific community is recognizing now the bias of the past and how they were constructed (with religion, Europe-centrism, and class division being the main culprits). Our educational institutions are scrambling to  adjust and this had lead to a process of revision of EVERYTHING which some times leads to extremes.
Every voice is given credit these days,  no matter how outrageous the claim.
I'll mention a little story to you: I work the door at a bar and meet a lot of people. One night this rather unattractive black girl started to chat me up while I was standing there. "So,  where are you from?", she asked at some point detecting my slight accent.
"Greece", I replied, at the same time wondering whether this is the time to ask for my bathroom brake in order to basically get away from her. It was busy at the time, though, with people coming in steadily and everyone else busy behind the bar. I was stuck.
"Is that it?" I heard her chirp behind my ear.
"Is that what?"
"Just Greek? You can't just be one thing!"
"That's what my mama and papa told me" I replied, trying to hide my annoyance with a joke.
"Honey, you're the TRUE African. You've got Africa in you and the Greek civilization came from Africa", she claimed with the attitude and rightneousness of a scholar.
"Yeah, it was influenced by Egypt and the M. East; but there ain't no african genes in today's Greeks", I said non-challantly.
"Says who?", she said with a raised tone of voice.
"Genetic studies. Look, I don't think this conv.."
"Studies by WHOM? White folks?". I felt that this is war.
"Look, Greek civilization is tied to the emergence of the polis, the city-state. Without it we don't know if the Greek "achievement" would be possible. Nowhere in Africa there's a similar social development to set a precedent ..."
"Greeks took EVERYTHING from the Egyptians!", she held fast.
When I mentioned that this was not true, that even if it were ancient Egyptian was closer to Semitic than sub-Saharan languages, that the Greek cities were not theocracies but a totaly different social organization than Egypt I became to her a lost soul blinded by "whitey" propaganda. The claims I made backed by evidence did not matter since they were all constructions of the white establisment in her mind. The worst part, it turned out that she was the assistant head of the Black Studies Department in a local college!

The truth always lies somewhere in the midlle between extremes. Lets not forget this basic premise just because we're defending a progressive cause.
 



Edited by konstantinius - 14-Sep-2006 at 20:58

"Honey, you're the TRUE African. You've got Africa in you and the Greek civilization came from Africa"

http://www.geocities.com/olmec982000/blshang2.htm

Edited by gcle2003 - 15-Sep-2006 at 03:57

For a comparison between China and Greece achievements, this is my personal oppinion. But first I would like to say there is no PEOPLE superior to any others, but certain CULTURES have a greater development that other at some point of history, and  then shine.

Let's compare Greece and China in the following topics. I repeat, this is a personal opinion so I accept corrections:

Edited by pinguin - 23-Oct-2006 at 11:06

Originally posted by Hrothgar I don't understand the reasoning behind afro-centrism. how can ideas or "civilization" simply be "stolen" as if it dispossesed the progenator completely, while transfering this intangible wealth to the plunderer. That's like saying you stole answers from me on a math test, and it emptied my head in the process, and so I can never do math again. haha, I don't think so. Anyway, if abominations like Afro-centrism are promoted, it's not hard to see how the teaching of history is now taking a very negative view of Western achievements.