Greek philosophy arose from trade-driven cross-cultural encounters, not inward Being
Evidence
For Husserl, therefore, cross-cultural encounters are generally good, because they stimulate people to self-questioning. He suspected that philosophy started in ancient Greece not, as Heidegger would imagine, because the Greeks had a deep, inward-looking relationship with their Being, but because they were a trading people (albeit sometimes a warlike one) who constantly came across alien-worlds of all kinds. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 429
Categorization
- XREF: This trade-driven genesis of philosophy parallels Milgrom’s account of trade and institutions in medieval Europe. — connects to: Asianism and Africanism are Greek inventions alien to Middle Eastern thought
- CANDY: Pithy and surprising: philosophy born of cosmopolitan trade rather than inward genius — good dinner-party material.