 &gt; Augustine, Aquinus<p>&gt; nuggets of so-called wisdom presented without argument<p>I think P-1 is half right in that Augustine and Aquinas are similar to the Eastern philosophy described by P.<p>These great catholic philosophers were of a scholastic [0] tradition, relying on syllogistic reasoning alone - deriving from certain axioms similar to the &quot;nuggets&quot; of eastern wisdom.<p>I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s necessarily fair to lump Descartes and Kant into this category as they were far more of the inductive tradition. The former was writing at a time when to write about such a thing could be considered heresy, so he had to work around some of these &quot;axioms&quot;. The latter wasn&#x27;t so much religious as informed by his cultural context.<p>0. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Scholasticism" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Scholasticism</a>