The Geography Of Thought : How Asians And Westerners Think Differently-- And Why [EPUB]

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E-Book Overview

When Richard Nisbett showed an animated underwater scene to his American students, they zeroed in on a big fish swimming among smaller fish. Japanese subjects, on the other hand, made observations about the background environment...and the different "seeings" are a clue to profound underlying cognitive differences between Westerners and East Asians. As Professor Nisbett shows in The Geography of Thought people actually think - and even see - the world differently, because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China, and that have survived into the modern world. As a result, East Asian thought is "holistic" - drawn to the perceptual field as a whole, and to relations among objects and events within that field. By comparison to Western modes of reasoning, East Asian thought relies far less on categories, or on formal logic; it is fundamentally dialectic, seeking a "middle way" between opposing thoughts. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to categories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behaviour

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E-Book Information

• Year: 2011,2003

• City: London

• Pages: 346

• Language: English

• Identifier: 1857883535,978-1-85788-353-4,9781857884197,1857884191

• Org File Size: 2,571,268

• Extension: epub

• Toc: Content: Cover Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1 The Syllogism and the Tao Philosophy, Science, and Society in Ancient Greece and China 2 The Social Origins of Mind Economics, Social Practices, and Thought 3 Living Together vs. Going It Alone Social Life and Sense of Self in the Modern East and West 4 "Eyes in Back of Your Head" or "Keep Your Eye on the Ball"? Envisioning the World 5 "The Bad Seed" or "The Other Boys Made Him Do It"? Causal Attribution and Causal Modeling East and West. 6 Is the World Made Up of Nouns or Verbs? Categories and Rules vs. Relationships and Similarities7 "Ce N'est Pas Logique" or " You've Got a Point There"? Logic and the Law of Noncontradiction vs. Dialectics and the Middle Way 8 And If the Nature of Thought Is Not Everywhere the Same? Implications for Psychology, Philosophy, Education, and Everyday Life Epilogue The End of Psychology or the Clash of Mentalities? The Longevity of Differences Notes References Index.