Chinese philosophy reach in its contents. The classical Chinese provides various thoughts on theory of cognition, medical science, and other fields of physical and natural sciences. These thoughts can be taken into cinsideration for further development in modern sciences and technologies.

Ancient Chinese Philosophy (i.e.- timeless love of/ persuit of Wisdom as manifested in Old China) is always with us. The "huge challenge" we face is our growth toward 'wisdom' not the accumulation of 'knowledge'. It was noted some 2500 years ago (+/-) that 'the accumulation of much knowledge does not impart wisdom'. Pause for a moment and reflect on the diference between 'wisdom' and 'knowledge'......

I think there is a difference between what one might call "major" and "minor" schools of thought. Some of the latter, including the Mohists that you mentioned, might be considered as no longer relevant to modern society from one point of view-- because many of their proposals were specific to the conditions of the Warring States period-- but they are nonetheless important from a historical perspective. For example, the Confucians did not formulate their principles in a vacuum, but in response to and direct competition against the Mohists, Logicians (mingjia), Legalists, Taoists, and others. Likewise, when Buddhism first arrived in China from India via Central Asia, its proponents used terms borrowed from Taoism in order to make it intelligible to the people they were trying to convert. We need to know about all these interactions in order to get a fuller understanding of how China got started on the road to what it is today.

Thanks for the comments. Given that Western philosophy, culture and systems are dominating most of the countries in the world, should Chinese philosophy be "customised" with Western philosophy in order to attract the younger generations?

As far as i concerned, as a naturalist philosopher, I am also a Taoist with regard to my view of how the real world works. But then to speak of the Tao is to not know the Tao, due to the limitations of words....

Truth is beyond Chinese philosophy or Western philosophy. There are many paths to the truth, either Chinese philosophy or Western philosphy could lead to the truth.

Here in the United States, students (high school and university) are more and more identifying with the principles of eastern philosophy rather than those of western philosophy. This has not always been the case, but has been the trend since the 1970s. I think it might not be wise to try to increase the appeal of any one subject by describing it in terms of another; that is, to do so with this particular purpose in mind might backfire and even alienate one's audience. However, comparison and analogy, judiciously used, are valuable heuristic tools.

Yes, I would agree that comparison and analogy is a tool for the spiritual pursuits of many of today through the application of dialetheism and paraconsistent logic. For example, what is, is not and what is not, is as a natural personality trait of becoming as being. However, whether a critical realism is an appropriate approach is another question.

Please explain what you just said in simpler terms.

When one really does not know what one is talking about one desires to find and "create" a bounded rational that changes to fit ones desires and with a liitle bit of help from one's friends one will get what one wants.

Yes! Indeed, I believe it must substitute all religions in the world…

collective narcissism is collective narcissism and we should not accept this perspective as normal mental health. History has demonstrated what this perspective wants via man's inhumanity to mankind.

In my recognition, the ancient Western(Greek) Philosophy had developed in a time of leisure by the "love of wisdom", while ancient Eastern(Chinese) Philosophy had flourished through war and unstableness which people are hungered to solve secular troubles. Their backgrounds had sculptured the distinct difference between the two straits of the west and the east: One is more theoretical, the other is born for practical purposes.

Politically, Confucianism believed in traditional ethics and education to stabilize the state; Daoism followed the rule of "nature"; Legalism advocates law and the supreme power of the government; Mohism emphasized frugality and devotion in common welfare. Students of Mohism did have superb knowledges on technologies. However, unlike western philosophers as Aristotle, Euclid, or Ptolemy, they had never developed methods of science or mathematics. They did not have time to develop those ideas, and likely, they wouldn't had seen the need of them.

As its limitations of being "practical", I believe this is the reason why so many schools of Chinese philosophies had declined or blent with other schools considerably after the foundation of the First Empire(Chin& Han), which had dignified the ethics of Confucianism, and de facto practiced Legalism to empower the centralized government. For example, the idea of "Heaven Mandate" of the Naturalists(School of Yin-Yang) had unconsciously replaced the believe of a "Righteous Monarch" of the Confucianists, and the other ideas was absorbed by Daoism which significantly affected the Chinese framework of medicine and alchemy. Later in the "Period of Disunion" after the First Empire, Daoism and the foreign-introduced Buddhism was embraced by the literati class who had lost confidence to the empire and had been tired dealing with the rigid rules of Confucianism.

All of these statements has pointed out an outline of the Chinese Philosophy: It was born practical, and it has been transformed either to serve for the authority or stay in a personal, passive ease. This is the main problem that the Chinese intellectuals had stated in the early 20th century, and therefore the reason they proposed to abolish all these ideology and start over an "New China".

But if we take a look of the "original work" of these philosophies instead of understanding them through annotations by their "politically-right" descendants, those ideas which are born practical may still be applicable in the present world, and sometimes they're really astonishing. These intellectuals in the past had deep insights in the nature of humanity, which had hardly ever changed in our history.

Lets take an example. We know the fundamental idea of the Confucianism is "Ren(仁)". By its structural meaning, Ren(仁) consists "a human-being(人)" and a "two(二), which could be literally interpreted as "the way to get along with people".

So how does Confucianists explain the core meaning of Ren(仁)? There are so many explanations, since Confucius teach his students different based on their characteristics or talents. Nevertheless, there is an explanation I liked the most.

There is a paragraph in the 4th book of the Analects, which was originally translated like this(which I found in the Wikisource):

'The Master said, "Shan, my doctrine is that of an all-pervading unity." The disciple Tsang replied, "Yes."

The Master went out, and the other disciples asked, saying, "What do his words mean?" Tsang said, "The doctrine of our master is to be true to the principles-of our nature and the benevolent exercise of them to others,-this and nothing more."'

In the original Chinese paragraph, Shan has explain Confucius's doctrine to the other students by two words of concepts: Zhong(忠), Shu(恕).

忠 is formed by the character "Middle/Right(中)" and "Heart(心)", while 恕 consists "According to/ As(如)" and "Heart(心)".

If 忠 is 中心, 恕 is 如心-- to translate them literally-- I would say, the meaning of Ren(仁) is to "be true and act right to the others-- to be honest (忠)", and "treat others according to how they may feel-- show sympathy (恕)".

"Ren(仁)" is also described as the practice of harmony. If all these inferences above make sense, I believe that the essence of the ancient philosophies of China must still be inspiring in the present. In fact, "In 1988, 74 Nobel Prize winners made the assertion in Paris that if human beings want to live in peace and prosperity in the 21st century, they must look back 2,500 years and seek the wisdom of Confucius."

How do you think?

Both ancient Chinese and ancient Greek Philosophy are still applicable in modern world because of their wisdom and morality values which can be a unified modern world ideology for World (Earth) CITIZENSHIP of XXI century. This is the only way to protect Humanity from self-destruction nowadays when world problems and challenges are threatening world progress. For more details see at - http://wpf.unesco-tlee.org/eng/wcitiz.htm

One need look no farther than "the Art of War" (SunZi and Sun Bin) two books that have had a profound influence all over the world. These books are still used in the US Military as a tactics teaching tool. Over 2,000 years old, quoting many philosophical considerations from times long past yet still relevant in modern military circles. Consider some the elements discussed: Making Assessments

Waging War;

Attacking by Stratagem

Disposition

Momentum

Weaknesses and Strengths

Contest to Gain the Initiative

Varying the Tactics

Deploying the Troops

The Terrain

Nine Regions

Attacking by Fire

Using Spies

It is difficult to translate Chinese thought into Western concepts - first off the Chinese often emphasize going beyond the words, looking within the words, understand the meaning behind the words - a intuitive skill of understanding. This is true for Daoism and Confucianism, and many wonder if the translation of the Art of War truly reflected what Sun Zi and his follower Sun Bin where actually saying. A famous Zen Buddist says "that your words are like the finger that points to the moon". How would you translate that into understandable Western thought? I believe that the moon in this instance represents truth or integrity and the finger is simply an appendage of little importance - Pay attention to the Truth. Your reading on that?

I believe that philosophy is what we do, it is a action verb, we cannot take the text literally, no more than we can take the bible's literal translation - we have to see the meaing behind the words in both cases. If we treat the ancient wrtiers as representatives of a particular religion, perhaps we lose the value of the philosophy put forth, if we say "oh he was just an old Daoist worshipping people that came before him" - we lose the context of his words. It is important that we do not forget these famous words and attempt to bring them into modern life with useful translation - just as we have done with the Art of War.

I agree with the previous statements on SunZu, older forms of thought often can find new applications when utilized in new and diverse ways. The Art of War is in many ways like The Prince, in my opinion. Not only are there ideals in there how to wage and conduct a war but there are methods in there to face adversities of all kinds which can be utilizied on and off the battlefield. This is a philosophy also taught in many military schools, just like Clausewitz, so even though the teachings may be from long ago they still can find relevance today.

Certain aspects of Daoism and Legalism do not really fit into the modern world, they may have concepts that are useful but like many philosophies they tend to fit into a specific niche that often doesn't allow full translation of the works to other situations. Confucianism is making a comeback of sorts within the People's Republic of China where the ruling political parties see some use of the concepts. Sadly, in some ways many philosophies tend to be usurped to propogate specific political divisions, which can then give them a positive or negative view to others. Still this is just a fact of what comes with ancient texts that can be used or misused at any point. Considering that Chinese history is complete with many dynasties that originated outside of the so-called Middle Kingdoms the philosophies sometimes needed to be adaptable or useful to outsides in order to continue.

Many of the Chinese people I know do still propogate some Confucian or Buddhist (for those who are religious) concepts and pass them on to their children. Confucian concepts of filial piety and group-think tend to be more adpatable to Asian cultures which tend to emphasize wholeness in the community and within the family unit. Many of those Confucian concepts are entertwined in the culture already and persist, although I would suspect you'd need a real deep socialogical survey to know how deep and what concepts are integrated.

I think you will find that concepts that are irrelevant will not be passed down, just as individuals and society have a yin and yang so do social constructions and mores that will be handed down as they are applicable. In some ways its a social evolution in that useful traits and concepts will be passed down while those that have outlived their usefulness will be removed or reinvented.