The difference between rational thinking and perceptual thinking
"Perceptual thinking" is a typical way of thinking under the influence of China's "perceptual culture". In fact, sensibility is the main means of understanding for all people, so its existence is by no means limited to China people.
Perceptual characteristics are changeable, unprincipled and extreme, from one extreme to the other. In short, everything is done according to your own feelings. What you like can be praised exaggeratedly, and what you hate can be vilified beyond measure. Here, your feelings come first. If the source of this feeling is that you have encountered strange things alone, the average perceptual thinker always takes a negative attitude.
On the other hand, if you already know the overwhelming opinions of others, no matter how strange you feel about yourself, you will follow the opinions of the majority and follow the crowd.
For example, Einstein's "theory of relativity" was accepted by the society before Einstein's death and was highly respected. For the public, it is impossible to know the greatness of relativity. Because no one has studied its mathematical derivation, or its context, or its systematicness, or the logic and significance of its conclusion in detail. But why would anyone like it?
Why is Einstein not only respected by the physics community, but also welcomed by the public?
This is because others, authorities, all think so, so of course we believe it. So believe in your feelings and follow them. The English name is "Jump on the wagon".
But Heliocentrism, who is also the truth, was rejected by the public and suppressed by the church when he first came out. Because everyone knows what "Heliocentrism" means, but no one has ever heard of this idea, so it is heresy for the public and the church. As a result, Bruno was burned to death at the stake, and Copernicus didn't say that his book The Operation of Celestial Bodies could be published until the last moment when he died in his hospital bed.
These two examples illustrate that the public has adopted two extreme states of perceptual thinking when judging the truth.
An attitude is influenced by the outside world? No one understands, another attitude depends on you? I knew about it, but I didn't delve into it.
In the view of a "rational thinker", the establishment of his fundamental rational authority should be based entirely on his own understanding and not influenced by external opinions. It can be said that the firmer a person's rational thinking is, the more he will know, the higher his cognitive ability, and the less he will be disturbed by outside opinions when facing new things. Or on the other hand, rational thinkers who come to the auditorium in Dallas can temporarily "suspend judgment" on things they don't understand, instead of making judgments easily, which is just the opposite of the casual and natural judgment of "perceptual thinking".
Differences between Chinese and Western Rational Thinking and Perceptual Thinking
China paid attention to literature, history and culture in ancient times, while western modern times paid attention to science and engineering culture. Comparatively speaking, China people have strong perceptual thinking, while westerners have strong rational thinking, which is also the fundamental reason for the backwardness of modern science in China.
1. China people's thinking lacks logic and verification, and lacks the use of thinking tools. Scholars point out that the mainstream thinking of China people is still thinking in images, which is characterized by fuzziness; The concept is vague, the thinking is vague and the understanding of things is also vague.
What are the above? Blurred? The most prominent thing is the ambiguity of the concept. It is difficult to clearly understand the unknown world with vague concepts, which is our fatal thinking weakness in China. If a person's concept is vague, you can't discuss anything clearly with him. Therefore, the vague concept also leaves a gap for changing the subject and sophistry. It is impossible to be interested in categories and rise to abstract logical thinking by belittling concepts. Therefore, we in China attach importance to intuition and experience, and are content to get an overall superficial impression through intuition, rather than making detailed analysis. Therefore, China's traditional thinking especially relies on feeling and attaches importance to concrete perception. This kind of thinking is difficult to analyze the nature of things and lacks enthusiasm for exploring the unknown. In this way, for thousands of years, we China people have been vaguely here, and until now, China people still can't think in the right way.
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2. Lack of research on thinking science makes the progress of China people slow. Although there are many philosophers and thinkers in the history of China, it seems that none of them have entered the field of thinking itself. How to think correctly has never been the object of China literati's vision. The science of thinking is almost blank in the cultural history of China, but the west began to study this field as early as 2000 years ago. This protracted research makes the thinking tools sharper and sharper, and gradually becomes the mainstream way of thinking in the West. On the other hand, China, in the pre-Qin period, due to the lack of conscious understanding of the instrumental nature of thinking, the spark of China's logical thinking was extinguished instantly. The thinkers in ancient Greece are stronger from generation to generation, and Aristotle's teacher is Plato; Plato's teacher was Socrates, and these students and teachers surpassed each other from generation to generation.
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Aristotle's famous saying is? I love my teacher, but I love truth more? . Therefore, the students of these great thinkers not only inherited, criticized and developed their teachers' knowledge, but also pushed the research results in the ideological field from one step to another, which is also the academic tradition of Greece. Because students are all? Standing on the shoulders of giants? China's inheritance is just the opposite: none of Confucius' 72 best students surpassed his teacher, none? Standing on the shoulders of giants? Looking around the world, it is standing on the legs of predecessors to see the world. Naturally, the weasel laid the mouse-a nest is not as good as a nest. The West is advancing in doubt and criticism, while China is wandering and declining in interpretation and compliance. Someone pointed out: "Compared with Europeans, China people's perceptual thinking ability is very developed, but their rational thinking ability is quite lacking. The Chinese nation has a history of 5,000 years, but there has never been a thinker.
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Some people may point out that a hundred schools of thought contended in the pre-Qin era were thinkers, but according to European standards, thinkers refer to people with the highest level of rational thinking, and the theories of a hundred schools of thought contended are basically perceptual thinking such as ethics and morality, which is very rough and superficial compared with rigorous western philosophy. For example, Confucianism, as the representative of China Thought, whose core ideas, such as "benevolence" and "propriety", are all theories that teach people how to make a living, not people. Hegel commented on the theory of Confucius, the greatest philosopher in China. A common-sense morality, which we can find anywhere, in any country or even in a better place, is not outstanding.
Confucius is only a practical wise man in the world. There is no speculative philosophy in him, only some kind, worldly and moral lessons, from which we can get nothing special. What did Cicero leave us? Political obligation theory? , is a moral lesson book, richer and better than all the books of Confucius. The four great inventions that China people have always been proud of belong to empirical inventions or discoveries, rather than rational reasoning and speculation.
Several Chinese in China won the Nobel Prize in the United States, but their achievements also belong to inventions or discoveries, instead of putting forward new theories and doctrines like Darwin and Einstein. Facing many western thinkers, although western rational science had spread to China as early as the Ming Dynasty, China people were not interested in these rational things at all, and western science books translated by China people were rarely thrown into the trash can. China people have the same attitude towards science as primary school students. It is impossible to actively study rational science without being slapped by Mr. Wang. It was not until westerners armed with rational science hit China with guns beyond China's imagination that they thought of learning rational science from the west.