I am not sure that philosophers believe they are doing work like mathematics -- and if they do then they a wrong.  Philosophy inevitably involves teaching of traditions (see below).  But universities and indeed the word &quot;philosophy&quot; are historically tied to the  <i>western</i> tradition.<p>Philosophy students study study particular thinkers and the traditions in detail.  And rightly so: theirs words are open to importantly varied interpretation.  Students need to read read Plato because even today professors have non-trivial arguments about what he meant and how to apply the ideas.<p>So it is forgivably hard for philosophy to see beyond the western tradition it grew up in.  But it is unforgivably dumb to try and justify the Euro-centrism by an by an false analogy to science.<p>I if a student is learning classical mechanics, she needn&#x27;t read <i>Principia Mathematica</i>, and it doesn&#x27;t matter what Newton was thinking when he wrote it.  What matters is how you do physics today -- the various interpretations that physicists put on it can wait for some advanced course.