School of Humanities & Languages
Diversifying philosophies enhances our understanding of humanity
Published on the 04 March 2026
Karyn Lai co-produces the Classical Chinese Philosophy podcast in the History of Philosophy Without any Gaps series. Photo: Adobe Stock images.
Ancient Chinese philosophical texts can help us appreciate life’s rich diversity.
Engaging Western and non-Western philosophies in dialogue can help us better understand human aspirations and achievements, says a philosopher from UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture.
Our philosophical explorations should move outside the intellectual traditions of the Western world to other traditions, for example, Indian, African, Chinese and Indigenous, says Professor Karyn Lai from the School of Humanities & Languages.
“Philosophy in any one culture is ingrained in its values and how it thinks through issues. In the English-speaking world, philosophy tends to validate certain conceptual schemes and specific methods of analysis,” says the author of An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy.
“Comparing this tradition often referred to as ‘Anglo-American’ with others helps bring out how its preferences and methods have developed in specific time periods and contexts, and how they have become ingrained in our thinking.”
Prof. Lai engages with Western and Chinese philosophies to promote richer, more culturally inclusive and relevant models of human wellbeing. Her research challenges conventional conceptions of knowledge.
Philosophy in the West arises from Ancient Greece and has been shaped by influential thinkers such as Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant, she says. “Studying cross-cultural philosophical traditions helps us appreciate that the Western tradition is just one among several. Each tradition has specific methods of analysis.
“In Anglo-American philosophy we have, for example, the Socratic method, deductive reasoning and other forms of logical analysis. These evaluative practices are critical to ensuring our reasoning is rigorous. But these aren’t the only ways of thinking through issues.
“We don’t realise there are many ways to think philosophically, and to think well.” For example, Chinese philosophies engage through metaphor, analogies and fables, prompting us to exercise our imagination.
So how do we have a philosophical dialogue across traditions?
A commitment to complementarity, to knowing the other better
Prof. Lai proposes that one way to foster dialogue is through a dialogic approach that draws on complementarity, the Daoist notion of simultaneously holding differing viewpoints, ideas and methodologies in tension.
Complementarity rejects hierarchical dichotomies (paired elements where one is preferred), for example, male over female, strong over weak, and rational over emotional, arguing instead for the interdependence and the integrity of the polarities.
Complementarity suggests that reality is more complex and less static than we often assume, Prof. Lai says.
This is illustrated, for instance, by the pre-second century BCE text Sunzi’s Art of War, which holds that you must understand your opponent’s strategies and views rather than simply seek to push back against them.
While the Art of War was talking about strategies in war, its insights may be applied to how we think about opposition more generally, she says.
“Chinese philosophy has something to offer here: if we're going to move forward [in our current geo-political climate], we need to embrace the attitude of complementarity, of both/and rather than either/or; this is one step in the right direction,” she says.
Knowing (the other) better
Considering differences in Chinese and Western conceptions of knowledge is a case in point.
“English-language philosophy is predominantly focussed on two forms of knowledge: knowing about something, such as what it’s like or what it is; and knowing how to do things or procedural knowledge.”
“By contrast, Chinese philosophical texts focus on practice and on knowing by doing; it’s very much embodied knowledge. This is why the Chinese tradition is attentive to questions about cultivating a person’s capacities and dispositions.
“For example, you cannot learn calligraphy by just reading about it. You have to do it, learning through practice,” she says.
“The fact that Chinese thinkers understand knowledge as embodied and situated says a lot about the way they think about humanity. For these thinkers, we are embodied beings. We are situated in social and political and natural environments, and we act within those environments.
“So, while you can talk about concepts of knowledge – and this critical distance has its utility – this way of talking and thinking is largely decontextualised. Chinese philosophy brings out the relational and the situated; for example, whether I’m taller or shorter in height, might produce difficulties or advantages when I take on certain activities.”
Drawing from both the Chinese and Western traditions in their approaches to knowledge, helps us reflect on the situated and embodied aspects of human existence to review and refresh our concepts of knowledge, and vice versa, she says. “This is one way cross-cultural dialogue can deepen our understanding of knowledge.”
Ancient texts can help us examine modern values
Prof. Lai has been exploring ancient Chinese Daoist texts, particularly the Zhuangzi, to understand what its stories tell us about mastery, action, knowledge and agency. The Zhuangzi is named after the revered figure Master Zhuang.
“This text has a lot to say about people who are considered ‘disabled’,” she says. “This is interesting given that parts of it were written as early as the 4th century BCE when only privileged men could read and write.
“Why would its authors be interested in those deemed ‘less than normal’? In fact, the text goes further, being critical its contemporary society’s prioritisation of the ‘valuable’ or ‘useful’; it rejects these entrenched values.
“Among its other narratives, it tells the story of a wondrous tree, its wood deemed useless, such that it’s left alone. However, the tree grows to a magnificent size, such that it can provide shade for hundreds of oxen.
“The story prompts us to ask ourselves, are we guided too much by what society tells us is ‘useful’, and ‘useless’?”
The text does not have a word for ‘disability’, she says. “Rather, it uses storytelling and exaggerated language, even derogatory language, to try to show how society characterises those who fall short of accepted standards. This is very much an either/or approach to life.”
Stories about the person ‘sad horsehead humpback’, or another called ‘hunchback limpleg’, highlight the high estimation we give to what is ‘normal’, she says. These labels rely on what would today be considered an ableist approach to life.
“The Zhuangzi’s point is not that we cannot celebrate excellence, but rather that we should champion excellence in all its forms. The text prompts us to reflect on the shallow attitudes of those who want to draw attention to what some people lack, rather than what they might have.
“As the Zhuangzi shows, life is too important for us to take a one-size-fits-all approach to it. Its philosophy encourages us to embrace the richness of life by appreciating its diversity.”
A black-and-white approach to the world impoverishes life
There is a dominant paradigm in Western philosophy of a decontextualised, disembodied observer. American philosopher Thomas Nagel (in 1989) characterised this preferred perspective the ‘view from nowhere’.
The assumed neutrality of the ‘view from nowhere’ serves to disguise not only philosophy’s historical and cultural embeddedness but also its cultural chauvinism, when it assumes that this is a model of how philosophy should be practised through all time and everywhere. “To insist that there is only one tradition that gets it right is exclusionary,” she says.
As part of her work to diversify philosophy, Prof. Lai co-produces the podcast, Classical Chinese Philosophy in the History of Philosophy Without any Gaps series with Professor Peter Adamson, at Ludwig Maximilians University Munich and King’s College London.
The podcast explores classical Chinese philosophy, as part of the series’ aim to democratise access to world philosophies, through its provision of free 20-minute episodes.
“In taking up the invitation to understand what is different in other cultural traditions, we also discover more about ourselves, including our rather set ways of going about things. Cross-cultural philosophy offers us an opportunity to appreciate both ourselves and the other; in this way, it can help us better appreciate what life holds for humankind.”
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