introduction promises the worse as I had no idea what he was saying or what he intended to do with this book on oriental thought and moral philosophy.
From here, Danto moves to his first chapter where he
seems to argue that moral values rest on factual beliefs, That argument is interesting in itself, but its application to the rest of the book was not so evident, In the next few chapters, Danto offers a few interesting thoughts about Indian philosophy karma, moksha, although this discussion bogs down here and there before it picks up when he moves to Buddhism and Taoism.
By the end of the book, it was not clear what Danto's main point was, Thinking about it some, and rereading the introduction, the theme of the book might be that oriental philosophy is about escape from this world and salvation from the repeated birthrebirth cycle "cosmic boredom" and, therefore, it is not about ethics governing relationships between individuals per se.
How this argument connects to his fact v, value discussion in Chaper One is not clear, Alternatively, and also going back to the first chapter, perhaps Danto is saying that oriental thought rests on mistaken facts and, therefore, its belief systems are wrong.
But then, the connection of this theme to oriental philosophy being void of ethics, properly defined, is also not clear, The East is no longer remote, Events there penetrate our consciousness in a new way, and Oriental thought now exerts a stronger fascination for Western minds than ever before.
applies an analytical framework to eastern spiritual and contemplative traditions, Danto parses out the differences between different spiritual models to clarify their philosophical positions, Arthur C. Danto was Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University and art critic for The Nation, He was the author of numerous books, including Unnatural Wonders: Essays from the Gap Between Art and Life, After the End of Art, and Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post Historical Perspective.
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