Top Down vs Bottom Up Philosophy

A philosophical tradition that emphasizes a "bottom up" understanding would focus on fairly mundane details of life. Let's take something absurd--how we clean our teeth--as an example. Doing that small act well, and in a mindful way, and understanding how it fits into the natural order of things would engender a specific way of experiencing and thinking of the world. Let's call that a "mind pattern".

A philosophical tradition that emphasizes a "top down" understanding would focus on the big and heroic view. Teeth cleaning would be an after thought. It would not be considered part of the philosophical tradition at all. The mind pattern would be completely different--probably totally restless and wasteful by comparison.

Think of the heroic gods of the classical world pantheon, like Zeus or even Norse gods like Thor. Note that there's not really a Zeus equivalent in the Norse tradition, which is pretty interesting. Odin is the All Father, but he's not like the Autocratic Zeus. Those "heroic" gods are top down entities, obviously. They are larger than life humans, basically. The super-aristocracy. The stories and tales of the gods and heroes will lead people to view their normal life as mundane and worthless. Emulation of the heroes and gods would mean pursuing unusual and extreme ways of life.

A philosophical tradition that focuses on manners and small ceremonies and is enmeshed in the world like the Shinto traditions of Japan would engender close to the opposite mind pattern and outlook.