Introduction

Abstract

Geniuses are the ‘boundary setters’ of civilization in the sense that they determine possible intellectual and spiritual heights and depths. The lasting intellectual characteristic of a civilization is often shaped by its major philosophers either in an intentional or unintentional way. In the West, for instance, great thinkers, such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant and Hume, give model expression to problems that remain with Western civilization. The I Ching, Confucius, and Lao Tzu determined the concerns of traditional Chinese intellectuals. Each of these philosophies comes in and out of fashion regularly, even though its periods of popularity do not last long. It always comes back because it raises some ‘unsolvable’ time-independent questions and may be interpreted in new ways due to changed situations. That it does not stay long in fashion is perhaps because its usefulness for the common mind lies either in analysing some intellectual crisis or in laying the foundation for new intellectual development. Once it completes its assignment for continuing or destroying the tradition or for laying the foundation for new development, a sophisticated philosophy is, for a while, no longer useful.

To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial. The author of truth also usually meets with the former fate.

Schopenhauer (1958 I:xvii)