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A review by jasperburns
Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition by Grant Hardy
3.0
My 3-stars has less to do with the excellent quality of the content and more to do with the inevitable nature of The Great Courses' content focusing too broadly. Breadth, of course, was the purpose of studying the entire eastern intellectual tradition, but it is truly hard to remember useful facts from traditions that span such a large amount of time and area. I'm writing this review a week after finishing it, and while I have a better general understanding of the culture and development of eastern traditions from India to Japan, it's really hard to recall specifics. I could count on one hand the number of takeaways that will stick.
The first thing that stood out to me was Hardy's discussion on Jainism since I had cursory familiarity with it and he was able to clarify some of my misunderstandings. I feel like having some knowledge about these topics prior makes this course more valuable. Conversely, maybe this breadth is useful if you plan on finding specific topics to focus on later.
The second thing was a quote from Zhuangzi they mentioned to cap off one of his chapters: "The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?" This quote I found to illustrate well and wittily one of the topics I've been toying with recently, the interconnection between words and meaning.
Jainism and Zhuangzi were two topics of probably two dozen that Prof Hardy spoke to. He speaks Chinese and seems very literate and knowledgeable about all the topics in all the relevant countries, and the interconnected history between these philosophies. His performance speaking about them was also very good. If you have done or intend to do more thorough research on certain topics, this course might help contextualize that research. However, I think that for the casual reader depth on any specific philosophy might be more useful than such broad strokes.
View my best reviews and a collection of my mental models at jasperburns.blog.
The first thing that stood out to me was Hardy's discussion on Jainism since I had cursory familiarity with it and he was able to clarify some of my misunderstandings. I feel like having some knowledge about these topics prior makes this course more valuable. Conversely, maybe this breadth is useful if you plan on finding specific topics to focus on later.
The second thing was a quote from Zhuangzi they mentioned to cap off one of his chapters: "The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?" This quote I found to illustrate well and wittily one of the topics I've been toying with recently, the interconnection between words and meaning.
Jainism and Zhuangzi were two topics of probably two dozen that Prof Hardy spoke to. He speaks Chinese and seems very literate and knowledgeable about all the topics in all the relevant countries, and the interconnected history between these philosophies. His performance speaking about them was also very good. If you have done or intend to do more thorough research on certain topics, this course might help contextualize that research. However, I think that for the casual reader depth on any specific philosophy might be more useful than such broad strokes.
View my best reviews and a collection of my mental models at jasperburns.blog.