Common Sense Philosophy/Part V
PART V: DIALOGUES WITH TRADITION
Having established the foundations of the Common Sense framework, identified the core principles of civilizational evaluation, catalogued the great obstacles to human flourishing, and examined the pathways of liberation, this final section of the argument turns to an honest reckoning with the world's major philosophical traditions.
No philosophy can claim universality if it engages only with its own tradition. The chapters that follow subject Western philosophy (from Plato to Habermas), Eastern philosophy (from Confucius to Buddhist ethics), and the philosophical traditions of the Global South (from ubuntu to decolonial thought) to the same combination of respect and ruthlessness -- acknowledging genuine insights, criticizing genuine failures, and drawing from each tradition the elements that survive honest scrutiny.