SORAJ HONGLADAROM

INTRODUCTION

The relationship between the disciplines of philosophy and area studies seems tenuous. Philosophy is a normative discipline par excellence, while area studies is an empirical investigation in search of a detailed understanding of the area in question through observation and theory making. This does not mean, however, that philosophy has absolutely no role to play, for area studies, being interdisciplinary in nature, has a tendency to include disciplines which can shed light on the main problems of the field. Its role, nonetheless, is usually limited to a kind of expository or explanatory investigation of the systems of thought or ways of thinking of the people in the area. That is not the same as philosophy, for were philosophy to be so it would be no different from intellectual history or cultural anthropology. Were philosophy unable to be distinguished from these disciplines that would constitute a very strong case against retaining philosophy today as a viable discipline. If philosophy can only describe the ways of thinking of various people at really would be redundant.

In this sense, the condition of possibility of Thai philosophy, as will be shown in more detail below, is that Thai thinkers and philosophers begin to search for the optimal way of living, the best direction the community as a whole should take, while acknowledging that there can be no final answer to the question. This is different from the sort of investigation usual in other disciplines in that there is no assumption of finality. Philosophy consists of an unending process, which is necessary for the health of the community.

However, the present situation in Thailand and elsewhere demands that this complacency in thinking be revamped. If Thai culture is to surge forward and be responsive to the changes brought about by world conditions, then it has to be adaptive. This does not mean merely that Thai culture has to change and embrace elements from foreign cultures; Thai culture is always doing that. What needs to change is the feeling of complacency regarding Buddhism as providing the solution to every possible philosophical problem. To be complacent in thinking means to be stuck in ones own attitudes and ideas and unable to see beyond them. If one believes that Buddhism provides every answer, then one does not need to think for oneself. If one believes that the authority that provides justification for philosophical beliefs comes from Buddhism alone, then it is not as responsive as it needs to be external circumstances. For philosophy does not limit itself only to the primary concerns of Buddhism, but is much broader and is concerned more with the complexities of the mundane world than is religion. Thus, for example, Buddhism does not seem to have a clear cut answer to such vexing present philosophical problems with strong bearing on the lives of people as the problem of just distribution of limited resources. To depend wholly on Buddhism in the belief that it can provide a real solution would only mask the tendency to stop thinking and finding answers for oneself and ones own society. Present world circumstances with their interconnection and strong dynamism demand that members of each society be alert, active and responsive to change. Philosophy must play a role in creating such an atmosphere.

Before we take a close look at this, however, a rather important point needs to be clarified. In order to find out how Thai philosophy is possible, one has to be clear on the sense in which one uses the term, "Thai philosophy". One is reminded of terms like "Chinese philosophy," "Indian philosophy," or "Greek philosophy," which mean, of course, the philosophies of the respective traditions, each one having a long history. What these philosophies share in common is that the philosophy is an integral part of the cultural tradition in which each is found. Thus I chose to call them collectively "cultural philosophies." This is simply a catchword to call all instances of "Y philosophy," where "Y" denotes a cultural or national entity. The philosophy constitutes what could be called the philosophical tradition, defined through shared canonical texts and sets of problems and methods. Examples are Plato’s and Aristotle’s writings in the case of Greek philosophy, Confucius’ and Lao Tze’s in Chinese philosophy, and the Vedas in Indian philosophy. These texts partly define what it means to do philosophy in their respective traditions; they set out the problems and methods of philosophizing. What is significant is that anyone can become members of these traditions, not by privilege of birth, but by subscribing to the same set of shared problems and methods constitutive of the respective traditions. That is the first meaning of "cultural philosophy" — a way of doing philosophy consisting of a shared set of problems and methods such as those of a Plato or a Confucius.

So a cultural philosophy can be construed in both ways. Indian philosophy thus becomes either the philosophy defined mostly by the Vedic tradition, or any kind of philosophical activity done by Indians for Indians. The second meaning might not seem at first glance to be a serious one. For what is so important about the nationalities of philosophers involved in a project? Perhaps this sense could be made clearer if one understood it to be an expression of a cultural or national entity in terms of philosophy. Thus Thai philosophy in this sense is an expression, a manifestation, of the whole culture engaging itself in philosophical activity. This does not sound as grandiose as it appears because the manifestation here is only what members of the cultural or national entity talk about, engaging themselves in a problem they find valuable and interesting. Here the focus is on the cultural entity, not the canon-based tradition. Thus, to say that a cultural philosophy is such a manifestation is only to say that it is the activity of talking, discussing, arguing by members of the entity in question on a common topic. What makes the talk philosophical is that it is based on rational persuasion and the topics concern general matters about what is really valuable or whether the direction the society as a whole is taking is really good.

This topic on the nature of philosophy will be discussed in the next section. The philosophical topic about which a cultural or national entity talk is here of less importance than the activity of talking and discussing itself. Hence, since such an activity generally occurs within the limits or terrain of a cultural or national entity, it defines the philosophy of that culture.

Consequently, the example of the Thai engaging in interpreting Confucius can be seen as part of the concrete manifestation of the Thai culture in its reflexive activity of extending beyond itself in order to adapt itself so as to be responsive to changes. There is a caveat to this, however. The Thai who undertakes to interpret Confucius must do so in the context of Thai culture. That is, merely possessing Thai nationality or ethnicity is not a sufficient criterion to quality one to be doing Thai philosophy. One has to "live within" the culture in question. This sense of living within is rather difficult to define, but one aspect of it is that one has to be a full member of the culture. For example, the Thai interpreting Confucius has to be Thai culturally. It will not do if the Thai grows up abroad and has little or no cultural ties with the homeland. In a word, living within a culture includes the sense of belonging to that culture, a willingness to identify oneself as a member of that culture. Otherwise the Thai here would really be doing Chinese philosophy had he grown up and imbibed aspects of Chinese culture so that he became another Chinese. Another aspect of living within a culture is that the philosopher’s intended audience has to be members of the culture to which he or she belongs. This point is not difficult to grasp because if a Thai philosopher transmits his or her own philosophical viewpoints, not to members of his or her own cultural entity but to those of another culture, then it could hardly be said that he or she is doing Thai philosophy.

The two senses of cultural philosophy described above share a common trait in that they are both activities of talking, discussing and arguing among interested parties. In the former sense, the interaction and arguments center around the core of sacred texts or accepted practices and the interpretations and viewpoints offered are operative within this framework. In the second sense, the activities are more loosely based. They are not necessarily tied to a particular set of texts or practices. But since one cannot walk away from ones own cultural identity, the two senses of cultural philosophy converge at this juncture. On the one hand, merely sticking to the canonical texts and following canonical interpretations is hardly a way to remain responsive in the modern world; on the other hand, without such ties to the tradition, it appears that members of the cultural community are cut loose and have no one to hold on to except oneself. Were that so, there really would be no sense in which an activity could be termed Thai philosophy.

Therefore, the possibility of Thai philosophy is straightforward. It is the activity of discussing, arguing, debating, refuting, affirming, etc., all through the use of logical reasoning, to arrive at some kind of value which the community finds appealing. If such an activity happens in Thailand, that is Thai philosophy.

As mentioned above, Thai studies aims at understanding various aspects of Thai society and thus is an empirical investigation. Philosophy, being a normative discipline, seems to have a tenuous relationship with that. However, a Thai conducting an investigation in Thai studies is an instance of the Thai community reflecting on itself, which is as it should be. If the reelection eventually consists in rational debates (for it is hardly conceivable that when the community reflects on itself it would involve only one individual) on the question of values or some broad questions a methodology for which has not been settled, the activity of philosophizing results. That is the way Thai philosophy is possible. Consequently, philosophy and Thai studies seem to be in much closer relationship than previously appeared. A normative and an empirical, descriptive discipline seems to be much intertwined.

An implication of this for Thai philosophy is that, since Thai studies by a Thai is an expression of the community’s reflection on itself, the discipline has a strong affinity to philosophy, despite the obvious differences. Thus philosophy can indeed be a part of the collaborative, interdisciplinary effort of Thais to understand themselves, as well as that of members of the world community to understand Thais. What sets it apart is that philosophy is by nature reflective and skeptical, not, as usually understood, a mere set of doctrines to be described and catalogued. In this sense Thai philosophy, let me emphasize, is not just such set of doctrines, but activities of Thai people when they enter into rational argumentation in order to understand deep questions that other disciplines find too intractable to study.

So Thai philosophy is possible through its consisting of activities of arguing and discussing. Continuity with the past is also important, and plays a strongly formative role. This is what sets the activities occurring in Thailand apart from those of the same type occurring in other cultures. Whatever is distinctive of Thai culture is formative in the sense that it provides a scheme by which talk and debates concerning deep value take place. However, since the activities themselves are by nature not limited within these horizons, the tradition thus affords only a starting point, a frame of reference which can be adapted or modified by the members of that tradition themselves. This is just a fancy way of saying that the tradition is alive and responsive to outside developments. In this way, there is no need to be concerned that Thai philosophy in this conception is a break with the tradition or the past. It is merely the tradition itself, but in its active, dynamic role. Thai studies thus become in part an activity of Thais to understand themselves. There is no need to boast that this is the only way to understand Thai culture; in fact foreigners may have a better perspective than we do, since they are not hampered by biases or prejudices that shadow us. But without the Thai community reflecting upon itself and trying to see its role in the scheme of things, as well as the overall meaning of what there is and what it means to be Thai, then such a community would remain locked within its self-imposed prison of tradition. Thai culture would thus become no better than a show piece in a museum.

1. See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith, trans. (New York: St. Martins, 1929), e.g., A2/B6-A6/B10.

2. This can be seen from the small amount of research being done by members of philosophy departments throughout the country. Most research written and published within these few decades is expository in nature, and draws mostly upon Buddhist sources. Some reasons for this depends on individuals, but a more interesting and deeper reason would seem to be that being Thai and thus integral parts of the culture, their philosophers feel that there really is no need to philosophize.

3. See, e.g., Charles Taylor’s discussion of the Hegelian concept of Sittlichkeit in Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 376-387.

4. I have argued for this point extensively in Horizons of Philosophy: Directions for Philosophy in Thailand (In Thai, forthcoming with Chulalongkorn University Press).

5. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 377-379.

6. Thus my conception differs from that of Jürgen Habermas, who in "Philosophy as Stand-In and Interpreter" (in Kenneth Baynes, James Bohman and Thomas McCarthy, eds. After Philosophy: End or Transformation? [Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987], pp. 296-315) argues for a conception of philosophy as retaining a place for "empirical theories with strong universalistic claims" (310). That is, philosophy will provide place for such theories when they are capable of demonstrating their justified occupation. Thus philosophy in this sense has a strong universalistic overtone. For Habermas this points to a way whereby universalist claims are possible. However, for philosophy to be able to hold such a place seems to presuppose that it could in some way point to the universal, even though philosophy does not in fact grasp it. But that is a very different conception of philosophy than presented here, which is derived from situations where visions of what constitute good life and so on collide. This conception changes the aim of philosophy from establishing truth to seeing what good could come out of the unfinalizable arguments.

7. Soraj Hongladarom, Horizons of Philosophy (forthcoming).

8. Thongchai Winichakul, in Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-body of Nation (Chiang Mai: Silkworms Books, 1994, pp. 6-9), argues against claims made by traditional scholars of Thai studies that Thai people know better about their subject matter than anybody else. I agree with him on this point. However, what seems to be missing from his account is that he does not provide a full support of the thesis, nor does he see any merit in the conduct of Thai studies by Thais on the methodology based on what he called "the researchers" predetermined notion of what constitutes a Thai worldview" (8). I happen to disagree with him on both points. The first point seems to presuppose that Thongchai disapproves of a Thai studying her own society, but that is ironic, for Thongchai himself is a Thai, and thus necessarily subject to the same criticism he levels on the workings of other Thais studying their own culture. Thonghai supposes that these Thai scholars uncritically, think that they know what "Thainess" means, and this forms a core of his criticism, having rejected the idea that "Thainess" can have any fixed meaning (9). But "Thainess" does not have to have fixed meanings in order for these Thai scholars to be able to do what they are doing and doing well. The word could be defined extensionally, as logicians say. That is, there is no need to find a fixed meaning for the word, what is required is only that there be some tangible criteria to separate all Thai people from others, such as holding Thai passports, living within a certain geographical region, and so on. These requirements are not abstract and are actually in use to find out who is Thai and who is not. To press for any deeper meaning than this seems to me a case of philosophical illusion.

On the second point, Thongchai seems to be denigrating somewhat attempts by Thais to understand themselves. But what is wrong with having such a predetermined notion of Thainess? Apart from the notion of fixed meanings mentioned in the previous paragraph, the works of these scholars can well be seen as manifestations of the Thai community’s attempts to understand itself, and as such there is hardly any need to justify the meaning of "Thainess" involved in the projects, for that is always assumed. Viewed from this perspective, Thongchai’s own works, Siam Mapped, and other works aiming at understanding Thai society or its history, are equally such manifestations. Thongchai, to be sure, has a point in his criticisms, but one has to be aware that in a group’s reflecting upon itself there is hardly any point in trying to separate oneself from the reflection as if it were possible to stand back outside the circle of one’s own cultural identity and to find out which way of looking is the most truthful.