Arguably, there is a Eurocentric problem in philosophical practice, which, among many other things, has unwarrantedly given Western analytic philosophy an identity power that governs our collective social imagination regarding the ideal philosophy. In this paper, I argue that in both the African and Western philosophical communities, this identity power makes it such that the African analytic philosopher is the victim of different forms of epistemic injustice. In the African community, he is a victim of epistemic withdrawal and epistemic meekness; in the Western community, he is a victim of epistemic gatekeeping. I characterize these forms of epistemic injustice, setting the stage for further research.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American Transcendentalist, is known as “the American Confucius”. He is also deeply influenced by the Confucianism from Confucius to Mencius, moreover, there is a constructive dialogue and engagement between them. However, it can not be inferred that Confucianism is also transcendentalism. First, Confucianism is based on “One-worldness”. Second, Confucianism is a kind of Guanxi-ism (relationism), so it is not individualism. Third, Confucianism is not intuitionism, but has the“structure of emotion-reason”. Fourth, Confucianism is not focus on “Oversoul”, but towards a pan-aestheticism based on the integration of Rites and Music. However, there are many similarities between American Transcendentalism and Chinese Confucianism: first, the harmony between man and nature; second, the returning to the human nature of goodness; third, the pursuit of “Moral Perfectionism”; fourth, the emphasis on the realization of beauty.

The first noble truth in Buddhism points toward a purely phenomenal experience. Though purely qualitative in nature, the experience of suffering has an existential aspect. As stated in the second noble truth, suffering has a cause that relates to our situatedness in the world. Notwithstanding, the cause of suffering has to be something external to the mental state of suffering itself. Some of the more recent studies on mental states suggest two different positions on the nature of mental states. One may view mental states as self-referential, reflexive and purely qualitative in nature; alternatively, one could view them as transitive as pointing towards something external, beyond and other than themselves in terms of their cause or the like. The former of these positions is known as internalism, while the latter is named externalism. Nyāya school of Classical Indian Philosophy presents a unique position in this regard. They view pain and pleasure as objects of cognition rather than their content. As such, an act of perception becomes a mere transitive act, a mere operator or the lowest common denominator of all mental acts without having content in themselves. Buddhist logician, however, views mental states as pure qualitative states. As such, they seem to embrace internalist position regarding mental states. This paper attempts to demonstrate that this position if prescribed to Buddhism, renders their second noble truth problematic.

ComparativePhilosophy is an open-access, independent peer-reviewed international journal of philosophy, with emphasis on the constructive engagement of distinct approaches to philosophical issues and problems from different philosophical traditions (whether distinguished culturally or by styles/orientations) for the sake of their joint contributions to the development of the common philosophical enterprise and of contemporary society, and on general theory and methodology of comparative philosophy.