What are the characteristics of western philosophy? Briefly discuss the content.

Compared with eastern philosophy, western philosophy separates the mind from the brain, perceives religion with the mind, and thinks science with the brain. In the east, it means that our hearts and brains are unified. Of course, this is just a metaphor.

Western philosophy can be divided into several periods with different emphases. Let's talk separately.

1) Greek period. If we look at the names of philosophical works in the pre-Socratic period, we will know that they mainly study the structure and operation of the universe, which generally belongs to the ontology of the universe and has the significance of scientific soil, which is different from the East. Pythagoras and Heraclitus are different numbers: the former has a mysterious belief in numbers, which is somewhat similar to the Book of Changes and the Indian school of number theory; The latter's endless thought and "everything burns in a certain sense and goes out in a certain sense" are closer to the Book of Changes in spirit. Socrates values morality and approaches Confucius. From him, the western spirit is outstanding: Plato is close to religion, Aristotle and the later atomic school are close to science, the later wise school can be attributed to logic, and the new Plato school belongs to religion.

2) Early Rome. The most famous book is Nature, which is difficult to define. It can be regarded as an attempt of scientific world outlook and scientific outlook on life.

3) Late Rome and the whole Middle Ages. Needless to say, it is mainly the theological world, and religion covers everything, which is certainly different from our China. But a master like Thomas Aquinas who pays so much attention to logic is probably just above Indian rationality, so it can be said that it is a mixture of religion and logic. After all, using "brain" to explain "heart" cannot be completely integrated.

4) Renaissance. Bruno was a master of philosophy in his early years. He seems to be closer to pre-Socrates, but in his world view, he has the brilliance of neo-Platonism, which is not found in China's history. Renaissance is essentially the revival of human values. If it is normal, it is close to Confucius; if it is overcorrected, it is close to Yang Zhu. This period of time is just a trend of thought, not a philosophy.

5) enlightenment. Bacon's science, Spinoza's pantheism, Descartes' philosophy, Leibniz's list. Among them, only Spinoza is worth mentioning. This man has a great personality and doesn't believe in the traditional God, but he has unparalleled religious sentiment, which is rare in both East and West. But after the Enlightenment, the scientific spirit rose rapidly.

6) German classical philosophy. The essence of western philosophy. But Kant's first criticism, in the final analysis, is what Buddhists call "only knowing the present", and the second and third criticisms absolutely do not exist in the East. It is purely practical and rational moral self-discipline. Hehe, whose mind in the East goes this way? No, Hegel, Fichte and Schelling all took the road of rational self-discipline, that is, the road of self-logic, which is not available in the East.

7) Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, similar to Buddhism's pre-Hinayana, suffered from all kinds of methods without me and leakage, and finally returned to Nirvana; As for Nietzsche, logically speaking, Schopenhauer's actions can be regarded as progress from "false view" to "middle view", but he really overcorrected and went to extremes, becoming Dionysian philosophy.

8) After Nietzsche. Factions abound. Bergson seems to be Heraclitus. Needless to say, logical positivism, logical atomism, linguistic analysis, psychoanalysis and so on. Moving towards details. Only phenomenology and existentialism are absolute towns. I think these two trends of thought have the meaning of echoing the oriental way of thinking. This significance is the historical significance of these two thoughts, that is, the way of thinking of the heart and brain, that is, from the west. This is completely obvious to Heidegger, especially in his later articles; Meloponti is still beating around the bush in epistemology, but it is also a necessary step in the western philosophy system; Sartre's thought has gone through several stages, but the ultimate significance is nothing more than that. He is not so much a philosopher as a thinker.

9) I didn't mention a few great men, such as Jaspers, Dilthey and Derrida. I think these people are nothing but rolling between tracks, but I respect their thinking ability. The most valuable postmodern thinkers are Foucault and Jill droz, who are the most thorough humanist thinkers. They broke and established the reality and attributed it to the liberation of human nature. If it can be realized, it will be a pure land on earth.

Having written so much, I sorted out my western philosophy. I hope you're not bored.