GREATEST ASIAN PHILOSOPHER

MATT JUSTIN F PAJARILLO

CONFUCIUS (551 BCE479 BCE)

Kong Qui, better known as Confucius, was born in 551 B.C. in the Lu state of China
(near present-day Qufu). His teachings, preserved in the Analects, focused on
creating ethical models of family and public interaction, and setting educational
standards. He died in 479 B.C. Confucianism later became the official imperial
philosophy of China, and was extremely influential during the Han, Tang and Song
dynasties.

JIN YUELIN(1895
1984)
Jin Yuelin was a leading philosopher in Republican-era China, yet he remains
virtually unknown in the West. His major publications include a textbook on logic
( Luoji ), an epistemology ( Zhishilun ) and an ontology ( Lun dao ). Like many other
Chinese intellectuals of his time, he was greatly influenced by Western ideas and
terms. Most importantly, he considered the problem of induction, which was central to
his thought, from the perspectives of epistemology and ontology. In his response to
this problem, Jin employed terms drawn from Chinese tradition, as well as
neologisms, thus creating a unique philosophy of process.

Lorry Anne T. Panlilio

Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (AVICENNA) (c. 9801037)

He is probably the most significant philosopher in the Islamic tradition and arguably
the most influential philosopher of the pre-modern era. Born in Afshana near Bukhara
in Central Asia in about 980, he is best known as a polymath, as a physician whose
major work the Canon ( al-Qanun fil-Tibb ) continued to be taught as a medical
textbook in Europe and in the Islamic world until the early modern period, and as a
philosopher whose majorsumma the Cure ( al-Shifa ) had a decisive impact upon
European scholasticism and especially upon Thomas Aquinas(d. 1274).

WANG CHONG (27 AD 100 AD)

Wang Chong is one of the best-known thinkers of Han China (221 BCE220 CE), but
the significance of his ideas is far less certain. Wang's native province of Guiji stood
on the southeast margins of the Han Empire. He developed a rational, secular,
naturalistic and mechanistic account of the world and of human beings and gave a
materialistic explanation of the origin of the universe.

Hannah Jean D. Peamante

THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274)

Thomas Aquinas, O.P., was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of
the Church. He was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the
tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the Doctor Angelicus and
the Doctor Communis. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much
of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of
ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory.

AUGUSTINE (354 AD-430 AD)

Augustine of Hippo, also known as Saint Augustine, Saint Austin, Blessed Augustine,
and the Doctor of Grace, was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose
writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy.
After his baptism and conversion to Christianity in 387, Augustine developed his own
approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and
perspectives. Believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom,
he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and made seminal contributions to
the development of just war theory.

Krizzia Ann Joy D. Rafanan

LAOZI (-531 BC)

Laozi was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is known as the
reputed author of the Tao Te Ching and the founder of philosophical Taoism,
and as a deity in religious Taoism and traditional Chinese religions. Although
alegendaryfigure, he is usually dated to around the 6th centuryBC and
reckoned a contemporary ofConfucius, but some historians contend that he
actually lived during theWarring States periodof the 5th or 4thcenturyBC.

WANG YANGMING (1472-1529)

Wang Yangming, courtesy name Bo'an, was a Chinese idealist Neo-Confucian philosopher, official,
educationist, calligraphist and general during the Ming dynasty Wang was the leading figure in the
Neo-Confucian School of Mind, founded by Lu Jiuyuan of Southern Song. This school championed
an interpretation of Mencius, a Classical Confucian who became the focus of later interpretation,
that unified knowledge with action. Their rival school, the School of Principle treated gaining
knowledge as a kind of preparation or cultivation that, when completed, could guide action.

Rica Mae Petracorta

FENG YOULAN (1895-1990)

Feng Youlan was a Chinese philosopher who was instrumental for reintroducing
the study of Chinese philosophy in the modern era. In 1935 Feng, on his way to
a conference in Prague, stopped briefly in the Soviet Union and was impressed
with the radical social changes and cultural ferment.

WANG FUZHI (1619-1692)

Wang Fuzhi, 16191692 courtesy name Ernong, pseudonym Chuanshan, was a
Chinese philosopher of the late Ming, early Qing dynasties. Wang Fuzhi is said to have
written over a hundred books, but many of them have been lost. The rest of his works
have been collected in the Chuanshan yishu quanji.
Wang was a follower of Confucius, but he believed that the neo-Confucian philosophy
which dominated China at the time had distorted Confucius's teachings. He wrote his
own commentaries on the Confucian classics (including five on the Yijing or
Book of Changes), and gradually developed his own philosophical system.

John Cedric Quito

SUN YAT-SEN (1866-1925)

Sun Yat-Sen was a Chinese revolutionary, first president and founding father of the

Republic of China, and medical practitioner. As the foremost pioneer of the Republic of
China, Sun is referred to as the "Father of the Nation" in the Republic . Sun played an
instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty during the years leading up to the
Double Ten Revolution.

Al-Ghazali (1058-1111)

Ab mid Muammad ibn Muammad al-Ghazl, shortened as Al-Ghazali and known as

Algazelus or Algazel to the Western medieval world, was a Muslim theologian, jurist,
philosopher, and mystic of Persian descent. Within Islamic civilization he is considered to be
aMujaddidor renewer of the faith, who, according to tradition, appears once every century
to restore the faith of the community.His works were so highly acclaimed by his
contemporaries that al-Ghazali was awarded the honorific title "Proof of Islam".

Gerald Regondola

Mulla Sadra (1572-1640)

S
adr ad-Dn Muh
ammad Shrz, also called Mulla Sadr, was an Iranian Shia
Islamic philosopher, theologian and lim who led the Iranian cultural renaissance in the
17th century. Mulla Sadra brought "a new philosophical insight in dealing with the nature
of reality" and created "a major transition from essentialism to existentialism" in Islamic
philosophy, although his existentialism should not be too readily compared to Western
existentialism.

MOU ZONGSAN (1909-1995)

Mou Zongsan was a Chinese New Confucian philosopher. He was born in Shandong province
and graduated from Peking University. In 1949 he moved to Taiwan and later to Hong Kong,
and he remained outside of mainland China for the rest of his life. Over the last 40 years of his
life, Mou wrote histories of "Neo-Daoist,"Confucian, andBuddhistphilosophy (totaling six
volumes) a group of constructive philosophic treatises, culminating in his 1985 work.