Why do some nations produce, relative to their population, an abundance of abstract thinkers while others do not?
The Greeks and the Germans stand out as factories (The French also) – even if in the past – of philosophers and thinkers, in general.
India and China as well, but here the relative population numbers makes it less impressive.
It could be a mix of free time and a feeling of superiority. A thinker needs time to think and the belief that their thoughts are important to express.
Those are the first two ideas that sprang to mind.
Clearly, it was something special about the times for the Greeks, because they haven’t kept up.
While there may be a cultural prediliction toward abstract thought, there are too many variables to really say much with confidence. I would suggest that it is a combination of a stable society over a fairly long period of time. There needs to be a history of ideas to build upon; and the most important would be having the luxury of leisure time to invest. It’s hard to develop complex thought and ideas in a society where most of the folks have their head down and their butts in the air…
Or perhaps tentative, most people are simply fueling the enormous machine…no time to think.
A
I find it odd when people say ‘abstract thought’ in this context.
I feel like most ‘normal’ people think abstractly. That is, they use words like ‘good’ and ‘existence’ and ‘society’ without ever really bringing the thoughts to the objects they represent themselves. I feel like philosophers, for the most part, think somewhat in the opposite direction from abstract.
At least the ones you are referring to – which brings me to my point.
The nations you listed were the ones predominantly involved in the development of the western culture, a culture that is represented by a certain edited version of history. “Colonialism” was a shifty period of time. You think Sir William fuck-off would think about stealing Johnny Native’s philosophy?
Everything the natives had to offer was eaten up.
I don’t buy into this idea that you need an easy life in order to have good ideas. Yes, you need a certain amount of time to write down or otherwise express them, but anyone but the most ridiculously overworked and maltreated person can always make time to think. There are scores of examples of great thinkers and artisans who led busy lives, particularly int’ olden days.
That’s a good point.
I imagine that many have developed fantastic ideas and stories that they simply kept in their heads, but never wrote down. Kafka almost fell into that, as he wrote his stories down, but didn’t publish them.
So, one must have time to write and the belief that the material is worth publishing.
There is an easy explanation. The nations that were most tecnologically developed in comparison to neighboring nations of more primitive standing produced as a result more elaborate sciences and philosophies.
Social activity and economy provides for better literature and produces more writers. The greatest things man creates are in highly concentrated areas of civilization and economy, hence the popular european philsophers.
“Technological development†itself implies a superiority in thought.
Technological advancement creates the environment within which the mind can explore
Could geography also contribute to the reasons listed?
Being positioned in a hub, a nexus, where cultures and ideas and peoples mingle and conflict and combine.
I think that geography counts. You never see anything much from people that live in extreme climates. I believe that has to do with the fact that few travel to such places and that the average person living in such places are focused on dealing with the environment.
I believe geography is paramount and tend to agree with Diamond’s theory in his book Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs_and_Steel
In essence, he states that the dominant civilizations arose from being in the best regions, geographically – e.g. the ‘fertile crescent’ (middle east / east Europe / Egypt) which was blessed with good climate, productive grain and productive animals that could be domesticated. Once exploited, productivity increased enough to enable some of the tribe to create tools, make jewelery and to invent.
From here it grew exponentially and paved the way for more inventions, discoveries and fortuity. For example, trade between more developed peoples not only added to their knowledge, power and wealth, but had the added advantage of inoculating them from diseases that would virtually wipe out less developed peoples in other continents.
But it’s not a simple linear equation where the strong become increasingly stronger. The Romans, for instance, were eventually beaten by “barbarians” and many great civilizations have collapsed from disease. Others collapsed from being too big and powerful; they became sluggish and noneffective or couldn’t feed their populations etc.
In social evolution, chance plays as large a part as intelligence and application.
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A philosopher must be fairly sure of where his next dinner is coming from.
Or live in a jaded society where those who are outrageous are sought after as dinner-party baubles and supported as intellectual ‘pets’.
Or be a bit mad.
Or have a rich Dad.
And have a pen.
Km - “Guns germs and steel” - Great book.!!! How to conquer continents with the common cold. And how sleeping with your cow can improve your bio-warfare capability. 
Greece, for whoever has ever been there, is anything but “fertile†or ideal.
I can see the emergence of civilization being sparked by abundance, such as around the Nile River or the Ganges River or Mesopotamia.
The geography I was referring to was being in the center of cultural crossroads.
There tends to be a relationship between the culture/state
and the individual. For example greece produced most of
genuis on the downside of its civilization. Most of the time
geniuses come from the downside of a civilization.
I predict that when the U.S. as the U.S. goes on the
downslide (starting in 2001) the genuises will come
out of hiding.
Kropotkin
Genius!
-Thirst
I’m seeing everyone pointing to specifics that would figure into the development of (published) abstract thinking. I agree that all cultures and peoples have capacity, but the mechanisms in which philosphical ideas came to be known still rely , as Tab pointed out, on enough stability to have the luxury of time to write it down.
LA,
It may be that time to think is less the issue than time to put it down in a sharable form. In today’s industrial societies, thinking is discouraged or distracted for most people. I don’t know if I would call it fueling the enormous machine because it may be the opposite. The machine doesn’t need any more creators, it needs consumers of what has already been created. The capacity to think is shared by all, but few are willing or encouraged to do so. Consider all the philosophical discussion in ILP. How many here have published their own original thinking? Why not? Almost all written here is simply discussion of published philosophers. Yet it is obvious that those who participate here have the luxury of time, the means to write, and even limited opportunities to publish on the internet. Even ILP provides distraction and encourages discussion of already published thinking. Perhaps for those who do have original thoughts, this is something to think about? 
Rome fell because of socialisation of the male. This is the telltale sign of a civilisation entering the latter stages of entropy, leaning towards the finality of chaos.
Genetics are key to more advanced cognition, and noble Satyr is correct that “cultural crossroads” lend to societies that attribute greater catalogues of advancement predicated upon abstraction.
Where there are cultural crossroads, there is cross breeding. Of course, a great deal of this has to do with the actual physical limitations with respect to reciprocity of resources, (education, art, literature, philosophical/philological advance springs from sustainability of necessities), which allows/prohibits the intertwining of cultures through marketing.
Affirmation of a non-existent, non-provable instance.
There is nothing original or previously undone under all the stars in the sky. What is today, was only adopted from a previous period in history.
We’re just too fucking stupid to know the difference.
A civilization eventually falls under the pressure of its own weight.
It collapses in upon itself when it has failed to sufficiently integrate and harmonize its parts into mindless supportive elements or when it has spread itself too thin.
Human history has been characterized by a series of growing sophistication in indoctrinating and integrating individuals into a whole.
This produces a growing diminishment of independence and individuality, as the one becomes more and more integrated and dependant on the whole – worshiping, revering and remaining grateful to it.
The necessary philosophies accompany this process as justifications for the loss, and a ‘greater’ gain is sought.
God is not dead, he’s just been replaced by another abstraction – culture, society, nation, ideology, race, cult, self.
(Gratitude, of course, being characterized by both love and hate – we are thankful to the giver but also resent him and ourselves for accepting and for needing his help. Shame is also present as we feel exposed to his judgment. It explains why we are most grateful to the dead and gone and why we incessantly gossip and fawn over them. They cannot hold our submission against us and they cannot bear witness to our need.)
This diminishment is accompanied with the necessary morality or interpretation of what it means to be truly free or an individual.
Our gratitude grows as our dependence grows. We no longer challenge it and so we fall deeper and deeper into dependence, becoming apologists and making the collapse inevitable.
Back on topic.
Leisure and abundance is a necessary element to thinking. A mind must be freed from physical need if it is to occupy itself with something else.
But this leisure must be a product of a previous period of struggle and suffering, or else it is naïve and decadent.
A man of thought must first taste the fires and survive before he can sit back and contemplate his experience.
It is his habituation with heat which makes any subsequent relief from burning a freedom from suffering.
Perhaps the roots of Germans and Greek thought can be found in how both won their pleasures with great suffering.