Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition

By: Grant Hardy, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Grant Hardy

Length: 18 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's Summary

Western philosophy is a vast intellectual tradition, the product of thousands of years of revolutionary thought built up by a rich collection of brilliant minds. But to understand the Western intellectual tradition is to get only half the story. The Eastern intellectual tradition has made just as important a contribution - and is also the product of thousands of years of cumulative thought by a distinct group of brilliant thinkers.

Their ideas demonstrate wholly different ways of approaching and solving the same fundamental issues that concerned the West's greatest thinkers, such as the existence of God, the meaning of life and the nature of truth and reality.

This epic and comprehensive 36-lecture examination of the East's most influential philosophers and thinkers - from a much-honored teacher and scholar - offers a thought-provoking look at the surprising connections and differences between East and West. By introducing you to the people-including The Buddha, Ashoka, Prince Shotoku, Confucius, and Gandhi - responsible for molding Asian philosophy and for giving birth to a wide variety of spiritual and ideological systems, it will strengthen your knowledge of cultures that play increasingly important roles in our globalized 21st-century world.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2011 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2011 The Great Courses

Not what I expected

If I had signed up for this class in college out of curiosity I would have dropped it after a couple weeks. As it was I made it about half way through before I returned it.

I was expecting an immersion in the actual philosophical teachings of the great asian minds. What I got instead was a mind numbing rapid fire list like litany of the HISTORY of asian philosophy. After the first few lectures it became very hard to follow and my interest rapidly waned. This lecture series is a shallow skimming of eastern philosophy delving briefly into each the numerous small branches and variations of the major schools of thought.

The names just flow by and the philosophies begin to blur, then, fade, then........WHOA I'm thinking about what I should be getting at the hardware store and haven't absorbed a word in the last 5 minutes. OK, concentrate, try to pay attention, OK Jong Chi in the time of the Jo Dynasty founded the Jang Xi movement of the middle path existential Buddhists believed in the 5 ways to enlightenment (list them all) which differed from the preceding 6 ways (listed for comparison) which meant he never wore shoes.......duct tape, have to pick up some duct tape......

oh I give up.

Among the Best Great Courses = Don't Miss

What did you love best about Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition?

Dr Hardy has a complete mastery of the material. It sounds like he is recalling from memory and it comes across as very conversational. He brings to light the genius of the philosophical thought from India and China and then includes Japan and Korea.
The history of the East is enlightening

What other book might you compare Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition to and why?

The closest comparison is to The Modern Intellectual Tradition: From Descartes to Derrida. However, I think this was better.

The performance was outstanding. Mastery of the material. Conversational and Enthusiastic. You could tell he loved the material and he could not wait to tell you all about it.

The Story was great. Dr Hardy was careful to repeat any lists and he went through them methodically and clearly.

Which scene was your favorite?

Favorite part.

There were many interesting and entertaining parts. You learn about "one hand clapping" and "shooting the messenger"

However the most memorable part that I paused and listened to over and over was:
Study Extensively
Inquire Carefully
Ponder Thoroughly
Sift Clearly
Practice Earnestly - Zhu Xi

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I cried when it was over. I wanted to continue to hear more. I will definitely be listening to this one again and take more notes.

Any additional comments?

Thought provoking
Entertaining
Enriching
You will definitely come away with a better appreciation of Eastern thought. You will also have a lot that can be applied to your life, like the following:
Knowledge and Action Must go Together

Much Richer than You Would Think

I listened to this right after its Western counterpart, and immediately noticed a lot of parallels (debates on the meaning of life) and deviance (emphasis on spirituality until very recently.) There is a lot of concentrated wisdom in this course from China, Japan, India and (in a single lecture) Korea. I was disappointed at the complete absence of Russia in this course, however.

Great Lectures among the best of the Great Courses

What made the experience of listening to Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition the most enjoyable?

Listening to a professor acknowledged for his ability to teach and who has obvious passion for the subject and a large coverage without losing his audience.

What did you like best about this story?

So much information here in a subject I did not know much about and feel that I learned quite a bit from it. Even if I can't remember all the names and specifics, there will always be new avenues of thinking opened by this book.

What about Professor Grant Hardy’s performance did you like?

Obviously passionate about the subject. The only problem is that he can't say "example" and says "edsample" which is a bit annoying. He can't help that of course, but if you are really irritated by that sort of thing, probably should let this one go. Sad if you have to, but I can understand that sort of irritability.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The story of the monk who after many frightening and potentially fatal incidents finds peace in the beautiful flower seconds before his death. This resonated with me strongly and brought to mind the rather famous verse from the new testament "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is lovely, ... , whatever is of good report, think about these things". This is the true inspirational value of the great courses: expanding ones knowledge and connecting various understandings with the feeling of understanding new and fascinating connections.

Any additional comments?

The great courses are amazing, I wholly recommend them with respect to those I have completed so far.

Fantastic, Comprehensive, Welcoming

Prof. Hardy has an excellent attitude and style. He is well versed and sees the big connections between these many schools and makes occasional reference to western thinkers and historical occurrences. I can think of no better way to get into eastern thought, especially Chinese (confucianism and daoism), Indian (Various forms of hinduism), and Buddhism (chinese, japanese, etc.).

Take notes!

The Title Is A Better Description Than Summary

I think the Audible.com summary is slightly misleading. It gives the impression, at least to me, that we would be focusing almost entirely on philosophers and religious leaders. We do spend most of our time with them, but Hardy also does a significant amount of lecturing on great historians, inventors, aesthetes, and novelists, as well as sketching out the history of Eastern thought. Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition is much closer, but even that's not perfect as Al-Biruni wasn't quite Eastern and Hardy admits that Chairman Mao was more influential than great.

Grant Hardy's performance is excellent. His enthusiasm for Eastern culture and his wide reading are apparent. There was a good "density of information", few-to-no dull spots, and a nice conversational tone with the occasional interesting anecdote. His analogy about the three hotels cleared up a lot of the confusion I had before the course.

Five stars all around, and the other lecture series he has on here is in my Wish List.

Respectful insight into foreign views

What other book might you compare Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition to and why?

I have listened to several lectures about philosophy, history of religion and even historical research, trying to understand roots and ideas of religious beliefs and getting a grip on how people around the world deal with the (to me: meaningless) questions of life, the universe - and everything.
This course, contrary to some other rather egocentric "great courses" on philosophy, breathes respect for "the world of the East", for its history and ideas. I do feel like I got somewhat closer to understanding how Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Indian and (whom did I forget? Sorry!) traditional philosophies "tick", what "rules" they followed and how they were constructed.

The reason for rating "story" only with 4 stars is that I missed some more detail on social history explaining more of the backgrounds of the philosophers described. I understand that this is due to the limited time of the course, but in the end I feel like I don't really get they WHYs: What are the reasons for the morals and ethics described and what are the "ultimate goals" that should be achieved by setting the rules and following them.
Yes, Mr. Hardy does explain the personal background of most of the philosophers and does give some (short) overviews on the respective historical context, but I found that, in some parts, a bit lacking.
This is, however, but a very small drawback, overall I am glad I took the time to listen to the course. I have not found "my new religion" or "my new philosophy" here, but that definitely wasn't my goal when starting this course.

Any additional comments?

Aside from his respectful, open and honest approach to the very different moral/philosophical systems he discusses, I really enjoyed the personal involvement Mr. Hardy showed, "spicing" his lectures with personal anecdotes, hints at his family and a personal, warm greeting of the imaginary audience (the infamous fake applause should be ignored).
His presentation, different to many other "great teachers", does not feel like he's reading from paper, but sounds freely spoken, personal (repeating myself here) and interested.

The Longest But Best Course

Would you consider the audio edition of Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition to be better than the print version?

Were there to be a print edition, it would be its own textbook.

What other book might you compare Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition to and why?

It references an entire library of books.

Have you listened to any of Professor Grant Hardy’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This course prompted me to pick up his other Great Courses series.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

Zen master Hakuin Ekaku's story is not only fascinating but very relatable to every listener.

Any additional comments?

I can't recommend this course enough. I've listened to it four times. There is so much information, you will come to the same realization quickly. It's like putting a cup under a waterfall. There's just too much to hold in a single listen. Best credit ever spent on Audible.

Great Instructor, But A Mile Wide and Inch Deep

First the good news. Professor Hardy is an outstanding lecturer. Truly one of the best I have heard in the Great Courses, and I have done many. He brings an excitement to the material, is wonderful to listen to, and communicates clearly and effectively. I did learn a new perspective of the East from this course, one that we too often ignore in the West. However, the chief problem I had was that just too many "great minds" were covered. So many in fact that you easily lose any perspective after a while. He sets it up as Indian and Chinese camps, but there was an intermingling of Buddhism, so even that got confusing. It was almost like reading an encyclopedia entry for an individual. Just the bare facts, then move on to the next. It was hard to see any large trends in thinking. Professor Hardy worried that he may not have included all the 'great minds." However, he would have been better off reducing the number from 30 or 40 down to maybe 10-12. In that way we could better see how the East dealt with the major philosophical issues he lays out in the beginning. I would still recommend this book however, as it does recap all of Eastern thinking, which can be beneficial to study, and because of the strength and energy of Prof. Hardy.

Breakthrough: Great Books for the East

Any additional comments?

My life has been greatly enriched though acquaintance with the Orient. Oriental thought is quite different from ours, often the exact opposite, but when I don't judge, I make fascinating new friends, acquire a larger perspective, and have new things to admire. Prof. Grant Hardy isn't perfect but I gave this course five stars for creating what has never been done before for the general public--to provide an overview of Eastern Intellectual Tradition. Western education typically presents itself as the discoverer and inventor of nearly everything, making it look as if the East was backwards, entirely overlooking that their culture was at least 5,000 years old and that they invented things long before the West, For instance, China and Korea were using block printing at least 100 years before Gutenberg. Intellectually and spiritually, they think and feel differently than us, but if one understands that we need both the left and right hemisphere of the brain, then it is easier to understand that their thinking also has great merit.

Hardy makes this "strange" (to us) world understandable to the Western mind. I know that it helped me to already know a little of the culture and to have a background steeped in Western intellectual tradition for comparison, but I believe that newcomers would be able to understand it. If you just want to understand world cultures, other courses (such as Customs of the World [highly recommended] or Understanding Culture and Human Geography) might be better and they might serve as introductions to this one, but anyone interested in the life of the mind and the thinkers who have shaped our world, Dr. Hardy is very knowledgable. He presented the information with enthusiasm and some humor. He was easy to understand. I felt he organized the material well.

As world commerce, the internet, and other modes of connection has made us a world community, we need to understand (accept and even appreciate) those who are different than ourselves. For anyone wanting to do that, this is a great course in understanding the underpinnings of the Eastern mind.

Enjoyable course with too large a scope

This course covers Asian philosophy from ancient to modern by discussing "great minds" and their beliefs. In total, over 70 great minds are discussed so you should be warned going in that the scope of this course is huge. There is no way you will remember all of the people mentioned, and no way that you will remember all of the details of their beliefs. For this reason, the course can seem to drag a bit as you get mired in arcana of different Hindu beliefs on metaphysics etc.

The course mainly discusses Indian, Chinese and Japanese philosophy and religion. In India, the focus is mainly on metaphysics and ethics, and I found these lectures to be the weakest. I believe this may be a result of Indian history being more oral than Chinese, and so we hear a lot fewer interesting stories of peoples lives in the lectures and rather more discussions of commentaries of commentaries of Vedic texts. It is easy to get lost between all the different Indian philosophical theories.

The Chinese and Japanese lectures I found to be absolutely brilliant. Perhaps this is because of personal interest, but I really did feel like the history discussed was worth learning about, the philosophy made sense and wasn't difficult to follow because it was presented in the historical context. On the Chinese side, I felt like I had learned a lot about a country that has always seemed very foreign to me, and the comparisons between Chinese philosophy and Greek philosophy are really quite striking. Japan has a fascinating history, and the philosophy of aesthetics and ethics was very nice to hear about.

Otherwise, the course gives one lecture to Tibetan Buddhism/philosophy and a few lectures to Korean philosophy. These are both very interesting topics but I think the time given to them might suffice for the average listener, I certainly don't feel the need to follow them up.

Overall, this course is a whirlwind, with some weak bits but mostly very worthwhile. I will certainly be following up with other courses on more particular topics, but I definitely needed this overview to know where I want to start. I certainly recommend this to anyone who is interested, but be prepared for a lot of new names and words!

Biased and incomplete

What would have made Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition better?

The writer, at the beginning, decides to tell the listener that he is relocating the Islamic religion from the east, of which this series would benefit because it riginated their and places it in the west, and decides to justify this by saying it is an monotheistic religion!

Looking into the Professors other audio-contributions, it seems that this intellectual is uneasy with talking about Islam in general. One other audiobook (Sacred Texts of the World) he goes into some detail on other religions i.e. Oral Torah—Mishnah and Talmud, Five Books of Torah, then has broad stroke chapters related to a whole book; Holy Qur’an?

How can you have 'Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition' and not have any chapters especially parts in the audiobook resigned for Islamic thinkers when they have influenced so much?

To relegate them in an addendum to others is unforgivable.

Any additional comments?

Do not bother, if like me, you want a rounded view of Eastern thinkers.

Great tour through the east

What did you like most about Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition?

It's very interesting and covers all the ground in a reasonably simple manner for outsiders. The professor is good and knows his stuff. He also presents it a somewhat light heated fashion, which complements the content well.

What does Professor Grant Hardy bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Unlike audiobooks that are written books just read aloud, this is a lecture series specifically designed for audio format. This makes it MUCH easier to listen to than a traditional audio book.

good but hard to memorise

It is a good text and the reader is inspiring but there are just so many names in foreign languages that it makes it difficult to learn much in the first audition.

Probably should be longer

As a counterpart to the western intellectual tradition; which is significantly longer; I think the eastern part should be given the same kind of depth.

A really quick run through!

A really enjoyable introduction to ideas in Eastern thought, a huge amount of which I'd never heard of! Baffling amounts of names in unfamiliar syllables but an inspiration to read further.

Interesting and entertaining

This was a good listen. and I learned a lot.
I missed having a course book, though; all those names...perhaps I should have bought the Teaching Company version.

Informative, interesting and humerous.....

Where does Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It would be in my top 3

What was one of the most memorable moments of Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition?

Discovering what Confucius did for a living...

What does Professor Grant Hardy bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

A true passion and knowledge of the subject..he'd be one of your favourite lecturers at University

Any additional comments?

I had a general interest in the topic and downloaded the lecture series just for fun really. I've have found the book very easy to listen to and been surprised at how much I have retained...whether you are engaged in studying the actual subject or like myself have a passing interest it's worth getting hold of this material..

Rich & accessible guide to Eastern thought

Enjoyable teaching style. Great analogies chosen to illustrate complex ideas, and nice highlights to give a flavour of each thinker. Some lectures manage to cover an impressive amount of material in 30 minutes! I took longer to finish this course, as so many people and ideas were introduced, but I will doubtless need to listen again. I had always been interested in Chinese thought, but now I am motivated to read some Indian philosophy too.

Wonderful course

I have had this course for a few years and have listened to it repeatedly. Grant Hardy is a joy to listen to and even though there was quite a lot of names, words and concepts I was unfamiliar with on my initial listen it was still so engaging and rewarding. It might be my favourite of the great courses, and there is a lot of serious competition (e.g Dorsey Armstrong’s course on The Black Death- another incredible listen).