Talk:Indonesian philosophy

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Prune back to stub?

As it is so poor, I suggest this article is pruned back to being a stub then rewritten.
212.84.99.221 13:40, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

It's not clear to me that the article should be here at all (any more than an article on New Zealand philosophy, or Belgian philosophy, or Venezuelan philosophy). There just doesn't seem to be a distinctive school or variety of philosophy from Indonesia (as the article itself seems to say). I'd have VfDed it, but I wanted to leave time for evidence to be given that proved me wrong. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:36, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Mel, I think we should not move too quickly here. My gut feeling is that there are aspects of ethics and political philosophy that are peculiar to Indonesia, and that given a week or two these might come out. There was a recent call [1] for interwiki cooperation; I think this might be a case in point, and we should allow time for the author/s to improve the page. Banno 20:44, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Well I might elaborate this article in the not too distant future, using materials from the Indonesian page. Meursault2004 23:17, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

If you've had a chance to read it, does it do anything to dispel the impression given by this article that in fact there's no distinctive Indonesian philosophy, just philosophy done by Indonesians (just as there's a lot of philosophy done by Dutch philosophers, but no Dutch philosophy)? I know that Banno has a gut feeling on this, but I have a gut feeling that goes the other way, supported by the negative evidence that in twenty-five years of studying and teaching philosophy, I've never seen any mention of Indonesian philosophy. I'd not put it up for deletion on the basis of the gut feeling, but the evidence, and the contents of the article itself, are pushing me in that direction. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:01, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

The basis of my "gut feeling" is similar to yours, Mel, in both duration and content; but I'll fill it out a bit for you.

I have never read of a distinctively Indonesian philosophy, either; but then, I have never gone out of my way to look for one. But Indonesia is the third most populous nation, and has been buffeted by Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and western imperialism. It is not unlikely that there are philosophical notions that are endemic to the area; or at the least, adapted to Indonesian culture.

For example, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika is a notion that should well have been filled out by Indonesian academics. I'd like to know how.

Put the page up for deletion if you like. I will vote against it, for several reasons.

• I think we should keep stubs if there is potential for growth. There is at least potential here. Stubs are good, in the same way as bookmarks are good.
• I would not have a problem with having an article called New Zealand philosophy or Dutch philosophy, and might one day have a go at Australian philosophy. That the nuances of regional philosophy are not well-known outside of those regions seems to me to be a reason for having such articles in the Wiki, not against it, as you seem to suppose. (indeed, it would seem to me that having a decent categorisation of philosophies by region would go a long way towards dispelling the monolithic and misleading division into "Eastern" and "Western" philosophy - something I might take up in Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy )
• PM Poon (talk · contribs) and the IP addresses are relatively new editors, and I think should be given the opportunity to work on this article with minimal interference - that is, not much beyond assisting with copy-editing.
• We have an obligation to avoid the sort of systemic bias that creeps in as a result of our being mostly English-speaking Westerners - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. Tolerating pages like this is part of that process. So does supporting non-English-speaking editors.

Yours, Banno 21:21, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Hi, everyone! I'm a new kid here. Sorry for showing up late, but it's me who proposed this article. I don't mind the article status of being stub for the time being, since i can look for the valid references for it. I understand Mel's 'gut feeling' about the article. 'Indonesian Philosophy' is a new study even for us Indonesians. it is still growing and hasn't yet very well established such as Western philosophy, something that you Westerners can be proud of. However, as I wrote in the article, 'Indonesian Philosophy' has been studied by Indonesian academics since 1960. it only waits for somebody to 'light the fireworks' for the world and it really happened. 'The fireworks' have burnt Mel and other skeptics :-) FHidayat 9:02, September 4, 2005

Article as it stands (15 ix 05)

The article seems to be using a shifting and very broad notion of philosophy. Sometimes it's the academic discipline (as discussed in Philosophy), sometimes it includes a general world-view or set of cultural beliefs and practices, sometimes it includes theology... and the division into schools is similarly confusing. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:16, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

As an academic discipline, Indonesian philosophy is brand new. But, as a tradition, Indonesian philosophy includes worldviews, set of beliefs, religious speculations. I can show you Mel that your Western philosophy is not distinctive and not original too, if you really exaggerate that Indonesian philosophy is not distinctive and original. I just wonder how in this hybrid cultural interaction we can talk about the originality or authenticity of philosophy. Plato learned philosophy from Egypt, Mao Tse Tung learned from Lenin and Stalin, Nietzsche learned Buddhism, so I think it is no wonder Indonesians learn from you Westerners. No originality? Three of you Westerners read Plato's Phaedo. Each of you cannot reach similar conclusion. Why? Everybody has different understanding and with this difference, you can conclude differently in the form of different understanding, different philosophies. That had been done by Averroes, Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, when they read Plato's and Aristotle's works FHidayat 04:25, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

1. Plato didn't learn philosophy from Egypt.
2. No-one's denying that philosophers are interlinked, but that wasn't what I was asking about (though I'm still to be convinced that there's any more a distinctive Indonesian philosophy than that there's a distinctive Belgian philosophy, or Welsh philosophy, or Sri Lankan philosophy.
3. The real problem is the the term "philosophy" is being used in a sloppy, vague, and unexplained way, so that a wide range of activities and things are being included with little if any attempt at reflection.
4. The problem about these "schools" is also still there; "school" seems to be being used to distinguish between philosophy done at different times, or influenced by different traditions — but that's not what's notmally meant by the term. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:11, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry, Mel. I am taking your comments into my full consideration. In near future, i'll add some words in introductory part to explain the term 'philosophy' i operate. Thx a lot. FHidayat 04:31, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I have cited references

I have finished this article by citing references. Please comment and check. If you think it is satisfying, please set it free from 'verifying' note. Thanks. FHidayat 04:30, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Francis Xavier

Perhaps someone can verify the information on Francis Xavier. First, he was not a Portuguese but a Spaniard. Well actually he was a Basque :-) But did he translate (portions of) the Bible into Malay? I doubt that. It must have been someone else. Meursault2004 11:12, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the criticism, Revo. I've read some on-line articles and they made me sure that Francis Xavier was a Spaniard. He was associated as a Portuguese because the Portuguese King John III sent him to Portuguese colonies in the East Indies. FHidayat 03:41, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Pancasila should be in here...

If any school of thought can even be considered unique to Indonesia it should be Indonesia's Pancasila. I would argue that Pancasila is more than mere ideology because it encompasses a way of life which is very religious yet heterogenically tolerant, cooperative yet not socialist, responsibly accountable but not totallitarian, centralized but not hierarchical. Or at least these are my beliefs of what Pancasila is.

Conceived by a conference of Indonesia's founding fathers (but not by Sukarno alone, though he was the one to originally propose a version for consideration by the BPUPKI), it was an almagam of various philosophies gathered from various Indonesian cultures further refined by debate and discussion. Though much criticism has been flaunted upon it especially since the fall of Soeharto's regime, I personally feel that Pancasila's failure is more because within Soeharto's reinterpretation of Pancasila rather than within Pancasila itself. I also feel that a lot of the unravelling tendencies of Indonesian society is due to our forgetting of past staples of thinking such as gotong royong (familial cooperation), tenggang rasa (tolerance to the point of even helping the celebration of other religions' holidays), tepa selira (patience accompanied by a driven need to improve conditions civilly), etc. all of which is condensed within Pancasila's five tenets.

I'd write more on Pancasila but to do it justice I must dig up my old text books, and do a thorough deconstruction of them to clean them from New Order pollution; a task I fear I am not very qualified to do. --Lemi4 12:53, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with u, Lemi. As stated in the article, it's Nasroen who has been the one who proposed Pancasila as one of the original Indonesian philosophical theme, and I fully agree with them. I am also planning to add some lines about it. Let's cooperate with it. Please give some beginning lines first. FHidayat 05:53, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, as this article has exceeded its page limit, I added some lines about Pancasila in article titled Pancasila Indonesia. Please comment on it FHidayat

Indonesian terms

There's a problem with Indonesian terms being used without explanation (at least, no explanation when they first appear). In particular:

mupakat, pantun-pantun, Pancasila, hukum adat, gotong-royong, and kekeluargaan

Incidentally, I think this article is great. I'm not a philosophy student, but I do think there are distinctive themes in Indonesian philosophy. --Singkong2005 08:55, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

hukum adat (or in Dutch, adatrecht) has been an object of study done by Dutch intellectual Cornelis van Vollenhoven (1874-1933), particularly in his Het Adatrecht van Nederlandsch-Indie. However, as suggested by an Indonesian thinker Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, hukum adat is only a part of adat as a whole. This article has explained (in adat part) that adat embraces in unison a particular society's tradition, custom, convention, law, and pre-scientific knowledge.

As for mupakat, this term was assumed as taken from Arabic word muwaffaqat, but was changed into Indonesian spelling, so it came as mupakat. This term was used (especially by Mohammad Yamin, an ultra-nationalist philosopher) to mean 'traditional way to decide something by collective deliberations'. This practice had been done by pre-Indonesian traditional societies or ethnic groups long before they knew the Western concept of democracy. In this article, this term has been explained in adat social structure part.

Pantun-pantun has also been explained in this article as an original kind of poem created by Indonesian traditional ethnic groups.

As for gotong-royong and kekeluargaan, unfortunately, have not been elucidated in this article. I like to cite here a quote of Soekarno's speech which a bit expounds what being called as gotong-royong. Soekarno said: gotong-royong adalah pembanting tulang bersama pemerasan keringat bersama, perjuangan bantu-binantu bersama. Amal semua buat kepentingan semua, keringat semua buat kebahagiaan semua. Holopis-kuntul-baris buat kepentingan bersama! (Risalah Sidang BPUPKI & PPKI 1995:82). This can be translated as gotong-royong is scarbbling together, sweating together, struggling together. All of us work for all's interest, all of us sweat for all's happiness. All of us march together to work for all's interest. In short, as well-translated by Lemi4 above, gotong-royong is familial cooperation. This leads to another word, kekeluargaan, which can be translated (I am not all sure about it, though) as familiality--a traditional notion that all members of a particular ethnic group belongs to the same family, that is, the same ancestry, so they cannot hurt one another. They must consider other members of the same group as their brothers and sisters they should take care of.

By the way, I too find it helpful to give some explanation of the Indonesian terms above when they first appeared in the article, so I am editing it a bit soon. FHidayat 11:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Too bad, Singkong2005, I cannot add some more lines since this article has exceeded its page limit. I'm afraid it may affect the Wiki homepage. It seems that we have to be content to have it only in this 'Discussion' page.

Misleading title

As other editors have mentioned, this article does not deal with philosophy as such, but more with ethnic, religious, and political issues in Indonesia. Therefore, it should be renamed to a more appropriate title, or perhaps merged with Indonesia. -- noosphere 09:14, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

This is the peculiar characteristic of Indonesian philosophy which needs explaining. Philosophy in Indonesia has been considered as included in the larger entity called Adat or Kebudayaan and budaya. It hasn't been separated yet as happened in the history of Western philosophy. To indigenous Indonesians, reality is one; politics, religion, philosophy and spirituality are different aspects of the single reality. FHidayat 12:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Copy edit and re-read

Some cleanup is strill needed by someone with good knowledge of the material would help - whether the eds of 2 - 3 years ago are still around - who knows - probably moved on SatuSuro 13:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

-- I agree with u. Let me clean it up soon and re-read it, re-edit it. Thx FHidayat (talk) 09:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)