People my age may remember a Monty Python sketch pitting Greek against German philosophers in a game of soccer. The players just wander around the pitch in deep thought until Archimedes figures out the point of the game and the Greeks score. It’s quite hilarious.
The sketch would have worked just as well if Chinese philosophers had been substituted for the Germans. The questions for today are, how do Greek and Chinese thought differ, and why?
There are two essential differences: Greek thought is individualistic, while the mainstream of Chinese philosophy emphasizes the collective; and the Greeks viewed time and history as being a linear process, while the Chinese see time as having a circular element. I believe these differences are mostly attributable to geography. Chinese society was built around communal agriculture, and changed very slowly; Greece was resource-poor, so many Greeks made a living as middlemen in trade. The latter condition lends itself to a world view that is more dynamic and more focused on the individual.