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Some Eastern Perspectives
confidence that such an inventory of linguistic varieties "will provide some of the necessary foundational material for research in logic, the theory of knowledge, and ontology.”3 A.C. Graham, in a programmatic article reprinted in the same series, states: "The concept of Being is a good test for the thesis of Benjamin Whorf that the grammatical structure of language guides the formation of philosophical concepts.” Like other writers in this field, Graham seems to envy the good fortune of the Chinese and others whose language prevented them from lapsing into some of the typical mistakes and confusions of Western ontology.
Not only orthodox Heideggerians may feel inclined to associate the linguistic approach to the question of being with what has been called "forgetfulness of being." The very idea of coping with the theme of being by laying bare and making empirically and structurally available its alleged linguistic foundations is in itself a significant historical symptom; and for all its cross-cultural breadth, it remains strangely parochial in its historical setting. This, of course, does not at all imply that it is philosophically irrelevant. We can learn from it; we have to learn from it. To take notice of this approach and its findings, and of the story of success which it has produced, is simply a question of intellectual honesty and alertness.
Rather different possibilities of cross-examining our Western theme of being seem to be suggested by what is called-faute de mieux-"comparative philosophy"-a discipline which still has difficulties in establishing itself as a discipline, and which has not yet produced any story of success.” Its reputation is still rather questionable, and among its more characteristic features is the discrepancy between its pretensions and its actual results. An impatient search for results and achievements, however, may in itself be detrimental to the not yet fully developed spirit of comparative philosophy, which has still to learn to understand better its own possibilities and aspirations. It would certainly be naive and futile to expect any quintessential, all-comprehensive concept of being from a comparison and adjustment of different ways of thinking about, or of dispensing with, what we call ‘being.'
Yet the basic stimulus of comparative philosophy, the postulate and actual prospect of a richer and wider context of philosophical and historical understanding and self-awareness, can no longer be put aside in our present situation. What comparative philosophy needs is courage, modesty, and patience; not the accumulation of more and more juxtaposable data, not the rash jumping to general conclusions concerning "essential" differences and "ultimate” identities, but the courage and patience to develop gradually its own hermeneutics, to adjust its means, methods, and expectations to its subject matter, and to grow into its own context of understanding and of being understood.
In reexamining ontological terms and questions in this new and