Home Numerology What type of thinking do you have? Western or Eastern? The problem of the origin of philosophy. Features of Western and Eastern styles of thinking. Specifics of Russian philosophy Types of legal thinking Western Eastern etc.

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What type of thinking do you have? Western or Eastern? The problem of the origin of philosophy. Features of Western and Eastern styles of thinking. Specifics of Russian philosophy Types of legal thinking Western Eastern etc.

Until a few decades ago, scholars tended to dismiss differences in thinking between East and West. However, the vast majority of studies have identified a characteristic bias. Most of the subjects in psychological tests were white wealthy and educated citizens who preach the principles of democracy. Almost 70 percent of them were American students who do not spare their personal time for the sake of science and hope to be rewarded for this.

Studies with a western bias

But on the basis of one group of people it is impossible to form an idea of the universal truths of human nature. No one will deny that people living in Japan and Western Europe are used to thinking differently. Each ethnic group has its own traditions and customs. One gets the impression that the research work of scientists is a propaganda of the Western way of thinking. After all, if a selective group of volunteers personified an average earthling, it would not be necessary to emphasize once again that this earthling lives in the western regions of the planet.

Collectivism or individualism?

And only now scientists have begun to consider the representatives of the East and the West as completely different subjects. Between them, the main difference was revealed: the attitude to the concepts of "collectivism" and "individualism". Oriental citizens are accustomed to putting the collective and the interests of the surrounding people above all else. Westerners are considered notorious individualists, self-sufficient and independent.

The differences are too big

The social orientation of the inhabitants of the East and West also forms further differences between the representatives of these regions. When Europeans and Americans answer standard sociological survey questions, they show overconfidence, overstating the bar of their abilities. We can say that in the West there is a "cult of personal growth" that teaches people to be successful and put their needs above the public. Each inhabitant of the left hemisphere is fixated on his own happiness, every human action is made through the prism of self-affirmation. For example, 94 percent of American professors rated their intellectual ability as "above average."

East Asian mentality

With regard to sociological surveys conducted in East Asia, a completely opposite picture was revealed here. For example, the Japanese tend to underestimate their abilities. It would never occur to these people to overfeed their ego and vanity. They are not so scrupulous about the issues of rights and personal freedom and consider their existence as an integral part of society as a whole. The culture and thinking of the Orient is holistic, or focused on the whole picture, while the Western priorities are based on individualism, that is, on the individual elements of the overall picture.

Case in point

Differences in worldview can be traced on the example of a simple test. When people are asked to categorize inanimate objects, they do so in different ways. What would you say if you were asked to list two related concepts in the list "bus, train, way"? While you choose your answer, let's say that the inhabitants of an individualistic Western society group two vehicles into one category. Which, in general, is logical. But representatives of the holistic eastern mentality unite the concepts of “train” and “way”. Thus, they notice a functional connection between these two words, which make up a complete picture of the journey.

conclusions

Experts say that the inhabitants of the East and the West, looking at the same situation, interpret it differently. But if these people focus on different things, this means that they live in a completely different worlds. And although there is no evidence that social orientation can have a genetic component, it is clear that people adopt the behavior of those around them. So, for example, Japanese emigrants in America are reconfiguring their thinking in an individualistic direction.

The philosophy of the Ancient World originated in relation to the three centers of civilization: India, China, Ancient Greece. In the East (India), philosophy expressed the features of the mentality of a self-profound, self-observing, seeking and comprehending the truth in the depths of one's own spiritual life, therefore, the type of worldview can be called contemplative. But it is impossible to completely withdraw from the world into oneself. You can refuse nature only by observing the rules of spiritual practice. Another element of the East - the culture of China - gave rise to a philosophy addressed to nature and its vitality. Hence the type of worldview - naturalistic, where in relation to the world a person feels himself a part of nature, its spiritual creativity.

Western civilization originates in Ancient Greece. The Greeks saw the world as objects for analysis. The attitude to the world was expressed in the worldview of the researcher, who strictly observes the distance between himself and the object, strives and establishes a dialogue in relations, analyzes these relations themselves.

Geographic conditions

The Ancient East is subdivided into:

· Near East (Babylon, Sumer, Egypt, Assyria, Palestine);

· Middle East (India, Iran, Afghanistan);

· Far East (China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan).

Chronological boundaries

The concept of "Ancient East" covers a grandiose time span of human history from the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e. (formation of statehood in Egypt and Mesopotamia) until the III century. n. e. (Fall of the Han Dynasty in China). End ancient history in India coincides with the Arab invasion of the Hindustan peninsula - 710 AD. e.

Signs of the Ancient East as a type of civilization:

· the economic basis is ameliorative agriculture, in which land and water are owned by the state;

centralized structure of state power with a developed bureaucracy;

The absolute power of the state is represented by the ruler (pharaoh, king, emperor);

The population is completely dependent on the state; the majority live in more or less enclosed and scattered rural communities;

Man neither objectively nor subjectively distinguishes himself from nature and society. This circumstance to the greatest extent determines the specifics of the spiritual culture of the Ancient East.

Of the four main centers of ancient Eastern civilizations - Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China - the last two are of particular interest for the history of philosophy.

1. 2. Features of ancient Indian and ancient Chinese philosophy

For more than a hundred years, the discussion on the Ancient East has been going on, during which two extreme points of view were expressed.

1. India and China have not created a real philosophy, have not “grown up” to it, therefore, in relation to them, one should speak of pre-philosophy, or a religious-philosophical worldview.

2. India and China presented to the world a super-philosophy, to which the West has not yet risen.

Such an attitude is possible if Western European philosophizing is taken as a standard. It expresses the irreducibility of the Chinese and Indian way of philosophizing to the European one; they were very arbitrarily united by one word - "East" - and opposed to "West". In reality, one should speak not of two sources, centers of world philosophical thought, but of three: the West, India and China. There is much less similarity between India and China than between the West and India, connected by a common - Indo-European - ancestral home and language. India, on the other hand, was spiritually related to China by Buddhism, which penetrated there only in the 2nd century BC. n. e. Buddhist motifs are found both in the Arab-Muslim culture and in the Slavic ("The Tale of Prince Joasaph").

Many modern historians of philosophy refer to the ancient West, Ancient India and Ancient China as three very different, but equal in spirit interlocutors.

The genesis (origin) of Indian and Chinese philosophy is connected with the figurative concepts of mythology. L.S. Vasiliev, author of fundamental works on the origin of ancient Chinese civilization, state and worldview (Vasiliev L.S. Problems of the genesis of Chinese civilization. M., 1976; Vasiliev L.S. Problems of the genesis of the Chinese state. M., 1983; Vasiliev L.S. Problems genesis of Chinese thought (formation of the foundations of worldview and mentality. M., 1989.) developed a general scheme for the transition from mythological worldview to philosophical thinking. The transition from pra-philosophy to philosophy as a scheme includes four variants of this transition:

1) Old Testament;

2) Indo-Aryan;

3) antique;

4) Chinese.

The Old Testament version of the origin of philosophy is characteristic crowding out many mythological deities by a single God-Absolute.

Indo-Aryan (ancient Indian) version of the transition is associated with combination mythological deities with quite rationally understood One.

The ancient version of the transition is characterized by the desire for a holistic rationalistic picture of the world, where there is no place for Divine arbitrariness.

In the Chinese version, the mythological consciousness was seriously supplanted by strict ritualism (“Chinese ceremonies”).

Philosophy unites tradition and scientific theory, myth and logos. Chinese philosophy originates in myth, does not leave it, as happens in ancient Greece. Myth has been able to serve for centuries as the necessary canvas, artistic and cognitive horizon, in which the formation of Chinese psychology and philosophy took place. That's why Chinese medicine and even martial arts techniques have become permeated through and through. philosophical concepts, and philosophy - very naturalistic images and associations. (For example, a philosophical and aesthetic category that is found only in China is purity). But myth is not enough for the genesis of philosophy. Philosophy becomes philosophy only after developing its own - different from both myth and science - way and the language of understanding reality.

Philosophy begins in the Ancient East as a commentary: in China - to the I Ching (Canon of Changes); in India - to the Vedas (Upanishads). Indefinite, vague ancient texts and hymns contained the possibility of ambiguity and ambiguity of interpretation.

Genesis ancient philosophy associated with human properties:

· Doubt in the reliability of both the mythological worldview and the evidence of the senses, common sense;

· Surprise about which Aristotle wrote.

Commentary (interpretation) acted in India and China as the primary philosophical way of understanding reality and stimulated the formation of original philosophical thinking and language.

1. 3. Philosophy of Ancient India

Stages and sources of ancient Indian philosophy

In the middle of the II millennium BC. e. cattle-breeding tribes who came from Central Asia, Iran and the Volga region began to move to the lands of Northern India. They called themselves Aryans (Aryans). It was the Aryans who brought the Vedas with them, which in Sanskrit (ancient Indian language) means witchcraft, knowledge. The Vedas were created from 1500 to 600 years. BC e.

First stage Indian philosophy - Vedic. The Vedas are an extensive collection of religious hymns, incantations, teachings, observations of natural cycles, "naive" ideas about the origin-creation of the universe. Currently known four Vedas: Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda. Each Veda consists of four parts:

· samhitas- religious hymns, Holy Bible»;

· Brahmins- books written by Indian priests (brahmins) and addressed primarily to brahmins, which describe the correctness of performing rituals and sacrifices;

· aranyaki- books of forest hermits;

· Upanishads (sitting at the teacher's feet) are philosophical commentaries on the Vedas.

The number of Upanishads cannot be precisely determined, since their writing continued until the 19th century. However, the most authoritative are the ancient Upanishads, including Chandogya Upanishad, Aitareya Upanishad, Kaushitaki Upanishad, Kena Upanishad, Taittiriya Upanishad, etc.

Upanishad ends First step Indian philosophy - Vedic.

Second phase called epic (600 BC - 200 BC) At this time, two great epics of Indian culture are created - the poems "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata". Around the same time (VI - V centuries BC), six philosophical schools- Darshan, based on the recognition of the sacredness and revelation of the Vedas: Sankhya, Vaisheshika, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Yoga, Vedanta. In parallel, there are three opposition systems that question the authority of the Vedas: Buddhism, Jainism and Charvaka Lokayata.

Third stage ancient Indian philosophy is associated with the writing of sutras (from the 3rd century AD to the 7th century AD). By this time, a huge philosophical literature had accumulated, and an urgent need arose for its systematization and generalization, which was done in sutras - brief summary treatises.

Cosmic order

At the heart of Indian philosophical cosmology lies the idea of the eternal pulsation of the Cosmos, identified with breathing Brahma - Creator God.

Exhalation (existence) is replaced by inhalation (non-existence). Like man, Cosmos-Brahma lives his life, which is equal to 100 cosmic years or 8.640.000.000 Earth years, after which he dies and lasts for the next 100 cosmic years. Eternity of Nothingness(Maha Pralaya). Then a new Brahma is born and again 100 cosmic years lasts Eternity of Being(Maha Manvantara). At the same time, an ever more perfect human race appears every time.

In its development, each human race inevitably passes through four epochs (yugas), moving downward from the Golden Age to the Iron Age, losing Beauty, Truth and Good, gradually plunging into Evil, Falsehood and Ugly. Now the last of the four yugas is going on - the Kali Yuga, which began at midnight on February 17-18, 3102 BC. e. Kali Yuga will end, as it has happened many, many times, with the destruction of all life in fire and water. There are more than 425,000 Earth years left before the completion of our Kali Yuga.

Each new Universe forms a higher level of perfection and is only a stage in the evolutionary development of the universe.

The cosmism of Indian ontology (the doctrine of being and non-being) is manifested in the recognition of existence directed evolution of anything and everything from nature to spirit, passing through a series of intermediate stages. This law of cosmic order and expediency makes inanimate matter strive for transformation into living matter, living matter into a conscious, rational one, and rational matter towards spiritual, moral perfection. The whole world, nature and humanity are equally subject to the law of cosmic evolution and order - Rita. In relation to an individual, this is expressed in the requirement of constant spiritual self-improvement. Improving himself, a person increases the degree of perfection of the Universe. By committing evil, a person not only harms himself, his evolutionary development, but also hinders the development of society, nature, Cosmos. Not only an obvious, concrete act of a person - an act, but also an evil word, and a bad thought can be immoral. Human Action, Word and Thought acquire a cosmic scale according to the law of Rita.

Hindu ideas about the universe

The ideas of the ancient Hindus about the foundations of the universe are very complex and varied. Nevertheless, three main image-concepts can be distinguished with the help of which the world is described: prakriti, purusha, maya.

The world is originally undifferentiated material state - prakriti. Prakriti consists of three energies - "gunas".

Guna sattva - lightness, peace, holiness, sublimity, light.

Guna rajas - activity, struggle, strength.

Guna tamas - passivity, mass appearance, obesity, laziness, darkness.

In every phenomenon, in every object, there is a struggle of these gunas, which causes things and phenomena from the unmanifested, undivided state of existence and transfers them to the manifested, dissected state of being.

Prakriti is opposed purusa is pure consciousness. In the Rig Veda, Purusha is the first man, sacrificed by the gods, from whose body the Universe and people were created. In the Upanishads, the mythological meaning of this concept was replaced by a philosophical one, and "purusha" began to mean an individualized spiritual principle. The main task and purpose of purusha is to realize its specificity, irreducibility to prakriti.

The true "face" of praktriti is manifested in the fact that the highest reality - Brahma - is obscured from purusha. Prakriti tries to assure the purusha that the world is what it seems, is the purusha, that behind it, prakriti-matter, nothing else is hidden. In fact, the nature of being is just... dream, mirage, maya.

Thus, for the first time in the history of philosophical thought (long before I. Kant), the great epistemological problem was posed: the distinction between essence and illusory, genuine and inauthentic being.

Features of the process of cognition

The first act of the cognizing consciousness must consist in recognizing the unreality, the inauthenticity of this world. It is a common human error that we attribute to this world an independent, real existence. This is the delusion (avidya) into which prakriti leads us. The second is in the search for true, authentic being, that is, the Absolute-Brahma. It is impossible to rationally define the Absolute. Moreover, for any such attempt, there should be only one answer: "Not that, not that." The basic principle of knowledge was the principle: He who has known himself has known God.

The essential feature of ancient Indian philosophy is the belief in the identity of God and the human soul, which found its expression in the famous "formula": Brahma is Atman. Each of us, according to this statement, is the bearer and custodian of the spark of God Brahma. Therefore, in principle, the knowledge of Brahma - the essence of the world - is possible, but never completely happens. A person is obliged to strive for this: only to the aspirant Brahma will open one of its sides. As the Indian thinker of the 19th century wrote, Ramakrishna - "If a jug of water is enough to quench my thirst, why do I need a whole lake?"

In the history of world philosophy, at least two types of cognition are known.

First - European: the study of an external object without taking into account the mental state of the cognizing subject.

In ancient Indian philosophy, second type knowledge: the study of what's going on in my mind as a result of contact with the world of objects. Obviously, to engage in such a philosophy, special psychological qualities and abilities are also needed. 8th century Indian philosopher n. e. Shankara, in his commentary on the first sutra of the Vedanta-sutra, says that in order to study philosophy it is necessary:

know about the difference between the eternal and the transient;

be detached from all petty desires, personal motives and practical interests;

lead a decent human moral and virtuous life;

Master the technique of meditation.

Great attention is paid to technique of concentrated contemplation - meditation. The purpose of meditation is the ascent of the human soul (Atman) to the Brahma Absolute. The experience of mystical unity, the merging of the Part and the Whole acts in Indian philosophy as the first and main method of cognition (the path of jnana). Eat one more method of cognition: Love (the path of bhakti). Through loving contemplation of the creations of God-Brahma, a person can receive Knowledge.

Indian yoga is based on pneumatic physiology, that is, the technique of correct (rhythmic) breathing. The ascent of the Atman to God-Brahma was presented as a movement of psychic energy (a figurative name for psychic energy is the Kundalini serpent), which in a sleepy, coiled state resides in every person. The beginning of meditation coincides with the awakening of this energy and its successive passage through the seven nerve centers (chakras) located along the human spinal cord. In the stage of perfection, called "samadhi" (trance, ecstasy), the mind of a person is completely distracted from the outside world. This stage is characterized by the ability of a person to realize his essence with pure consciousness and draw joy and bliss in a state of unity with the Absolute. This is the state of overcoming individuality and entering the supra-individual or the unconscious (personal and collective).

In Indian philosophy, the theory of knowledge is not only closely related, but also, as a rule, flows into psychology (the doctrine of the soul, consciousness, the human "I").

In Indian psychology, there are the two constituent elements of the soul;

· First, Atman(spark of Brahma), the same for all people, indestructible, eternal. Only due to the presence of Atma (Atman) for a person there is an opportunity to know the Brahma-Absolute.

· The second, Manas - the actual consciousness accumulated by a given person, his life experience, personal worldview. At the moment of death, only Manas dies, while the Atman continues its march through time in subsequent rebirths.

In India, long before the great psychological discoveries in Europe, there was an idea of varying degrees clarity of mind: consciousness of the period of wakefulness; sleep consciousness with dreams; dreamless sleep consciousness. Three types of states of consciousness present us with three images of the world. If for Europe the picture of the world perceived by us at the moment of wakefulness is the only acceptable, correct one, then in India all three types seem to be practically equal. Moreover, the picture of the world “beyond” the dream (dreamless sleep) is called the most true, because it allows you to get closer to the basics of being without the veil of maya that distorts everything and everyone.

The place and role of man in space, the world and society

With a cursory, primary comparison of the cultures of the "West" and "India", their difference, "dissimilarity" in the interpretation of the place and role of man in the world, society and Cosmos is striking. With a deeper entry into the logic of the philosophical thinking of the "West" and "East" (India), on the contrary, it becomes completely obvious their essential unity.

The main feature of European culture is its anthropocentrism (man in the center and at the head of the world). This finds its ideological substantiation in the Bible: “And God said: Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Gen. I, 26).

In India, however, man has always been considered "on an equal footing" with animals, birds and insects.

The most important concept of Indian ethics is samsara - recognition of the eternity and indestructibility of the soul, doomed to suffer in this life.

... "The soul wanders in the cycle of birth and death, passing through 8.400.000 forms of life" (Bhagavad Gita).

The philosophy of Ancient India reflected the holistic worldview of the people, the ability to see the unity of souls in everything, the impossibility of a neglectful, cruel treatment of a living creature. In the practice of behavior, the ecologism of the world outlook was expressed in the requirement ahimsa - non-harming, non-killing. In this original ecological prudence of Hinduism lies the first outward difference between the West and India.

Moksha. Karma. The second difference lies in the answer to the global question: "What is the purpose of life?"

For a "normal" European, life is very often associated with pleasure, comfort, and therefore death - the end of life - is perceived very negatively. The very thought of the inevitable end of life is unbearably heavy. Perhaps that is why Judaism, Christianity, and Islam promise their followers a continuation of life after death. Quite the opposite of this we find in Hinduism. The soul is immortal, indestructible and doomed to constant rebirth in various bodies (“the wheel of samsara”). A person has eternal life (the ideal of a European), but this life is understood as a combination of suffering. Indeed, what is life if not a chain of suffering? Birth is suffering, love is suffering, illness is suffering, fear for one's loved ones is suffering, old age is suffering. But why does a person suffer? Because it is too attached to life, not free. What's the point human life? - In the cessation of all life, in breaking the accursed chain of constant rebirths and achieving moksha - liberation from the obligation of evolutionary development.

According to the law of karma the concrete life of a person is only one day in the Great School of Life. The goal of this School is for a person to acquire the most complete life experience through an endless series of successively lived lives, which in the intervals between incarnations turns into the ability for a moral life.

In the West, a person must live morally in the hope of future life; in India one must live morally in the hope of ending eternal life.

Halfway to the Great Liberation are the Mahatmas or Great Souls who have completed their studies at the School of Life and have reached an understanding of the goal of cosmic evolution.

The world for the Mahatmas is not a source of pleasure, but a field for moral work. Only by doing good deeds, having good thoughts, saying good words, a person acts in accordance with the law of cosmic evolution, and only on this path is liberation (moksha) possible from the chain of endless life. From the point of view of Indian philosophy, a person should himself seek the application of his moral efforts and be grateful to the world for the opportunity to engage in self-improvement.

1. 4. Buddhism

Gautama Buddha was born in 563 BC. e. in the north of India in the princely family of Shakyamuni and received the name Siddhartha.

The Eightfold Path is a Buddhist program of personal self-improvement leading to the Great Liberation - Nirvana. Buddhists believe that all the great teachers, prophets and sages talk about this path. Moving along it involves the following steps:

1). Correct vision. Many people suffer because of ignorance of the true purpose of their existence, because of the absence or loss of the “route” of Their Path. In the context of Buddhism, the correct vision is the four noble (Aryan) truths: life in the world is full of suffering; there is a reason for this suffering; suffering can be ended; there is a path that leads to the end of suffering.

2). Correct thought. You can change a person only by changing his intentions. However, only the person himself can make or not make a decision in his heart. The path of self-improvement requires constant mental determination, inner discipline.

3). Correct speech. Our words are a manifestation of our "I". A rude word is a reflection of the rudeness of character. If you forbid yourself to lie, be rude, scold, then you can influence your character, that is, engage in self-building of your "I".

4). Correct action. The goal of self-improvement is to become more humane, more compassionate, kinder, to learn to live in harmony with oneself and other people.

The moral code of Buddhism consists of Five Commandments Guidelines.

· The first rule encourages us to curb anger that can lead to the mutilation and murder of other living beings. Life is sacred, so don't kill!

· The second rule is not to steal, as this violates the community of which everyone is a part.

· The third rule calls for the curbing of sexual desire. Sexual desire, like appetite for food, is natural and normal. However, its predominance in the soul and in society is unnatural and monstrous. So the Buddhist rule is chastity (no sexual intercourse outside of marriage).

The fourth rule is to avoid lying. The Buddhist is devoted to the truth and for him lies have no justification.

· The fifth rule is to abstain from intoxicating substances such as alcohol and drugs, since they do not allow a person to fully control himself mentally, morally and physically.

5). Right way of life. You should lead a lifestyle that does not require you to break any of the five commandments. This applies to the choice of profession, life partner (partner), friends and acquaintances.

6). Correct effort. The path of self-improvement requires constant diligence and diligence. Spiritual growth is impossible without volitional self-compulsion and a moral analysis of one's intentions, words and deeds.

“Just as rain breaks into a house with a bad roof, so lust breaks into a poorly guarded mind. But just as rain does not break into a house with a good roof, so lust does not break into a well-guarded mind.

7). Right attention.

“What we are today is generated by what we thought yesterday, and our thoughts today generate our life tomorrow: our life is the product of our thought.”

Spiritual self-improvement involves the strictest discipline of thinking. Our thoughts are not "steeds" rushing at a furious gallop. A person must control his consciousness and bear moral responsibility for his condition.

8). Correct concentration. Enormous attention is drawn in Buddhism to the technique of concentrated contemplation - meditation. The purpose of meditation is to calm the spirit through the experience of the mystical unity of a given human being with the Cosmos.

The Eightfold Path is three stages of spiritual growth: the first is the moral discipline (1 - 6), the second is the discipline of thought (7), the third is the discipline of consciousness, leading to "higher wisdom".

For 45 years, Gautama Buddha, who founded the monastic order, taught people to live morally, that is, in harmony with the world, people and themselves. “The Buddha ideal is more than a regulative principle or an abstract guideline for behavior. It is a very specific life program that is feasible for a person and which is fully realized in the life experience of the Buddha himself. Buddha is the embodied moral ideal ”(Guseinov A.A. Great moralists. M., 1995, p. 62).

1. 5. Philosophy Ancient China

The Chinese themselves called China Tian-xia, that is, the Celestial Empire. Almost from all sides, China is naturally limited - the sea and mountains, only from the north its territory had no barriers for a long time.

But this "omission of nature" was eliminated in the III century. BC e., when the first Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the construction of the Great Wall of China. This wall has become a kind of sign, a symbol of statehood and culture of China. It is said that the Great Wall of China can be seen even from space. The territorial isolation of China played significant role in the history of the country: the limited space turned into a kind of cultural isolation and focus on oneself. All that remained outside of China was the eerie and incomprehensible world of the barbarians.

Another self-name of China was the "Middle Kingdoms", that is, the middle, the center of the universe, and the Chinese themselves began to feel the only cultural bearers, responsible before Heaven and Earth for the correctness of the cosmic cycle (the alternation of spring and autumn, the movement of heavenly bodies, the change of by-catch and ebb). This sense of responsibility was embodied in the ritual (the famous "Chinese ceremonies"), which permeated and permeated all levels of Chinese life and culture. The hieroglyph for "Middle Kingdoms" is a square (this is the earth), in the center of which is a halberd, that is, a weapon to protect this land from enemies.

Characteristic features of the Chinese worldview

The economic basis of ancient Chinese civilization was primarily agriculture. The land was owned by the rural community, and it also distributed this land in accordance with the so-called "well system". This meant that the whole earth was divided into nine parts, shaped like a square. Eight peripheral parts were at the disposal of individual families or tribal clans that made up the community, but the central, middle allotment of land was considered public. It was jointly processed and the harvest from it came as a tax to the state treasury.

This “squareness” of the cultivated field entered the minds of the ancient Chinese so deeply that they represented the country itself, the Celestial Empire, in the form of a square, in the center of which the Emperor should be (Fig. 1).

The community members lived in isolation, their daily and personal life was strictly regulated by ritual and was under the most severe control of public opinion.

The traditional technique of agriculture and the communal-serf way of life led to the preservation and reproduction of the traditional worldview aimed at preserving the historically established customs, myths and shamanic beliefs of the tribal society. The most characteristic features of the traditional worldview were the animation and revitalization of Nature (the worship of trees, rivers, mountains), the cult of ancestors and the past in general, the fear of any changes and innovations. This was even reflected in the ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in an era of change!” Chinese culture has become like a man walking forward, but with his head turned back. The cult of the past and its representatives in real life(old people, elderly relatives, parents, older brothers)

The Chinese revered any hill as a deity. “From ancient times in China there was a cult of five sacred mountains located in the south, west, north, east and center. Mount Taishan (lit. Great Mountain), which really existed and was located in the east of the country, enjoyed the greatest respect. She was considered patron of the imperial house, and the Sons of Heaven personally made sacrifices to her. The five points of space along which they were located determined the structure of the mythological Cosmos. But most of all, the Chinese honored the mythical Mount Kunlun, the center of the earth. They believed that it was possible to penetrate into the higher spheres of the universe through it. (V.V. Evsyukov. Myths about the universe. M., 1990, pp. 38 - 39).

From the middle of the first millennium BC. e. all the ruling persons were elevated to the same level with the highly revered ancestors. A very peculiar, but typical of a traditional agricultural society, social hierarchy has developed: seniors and bosses are at the top, and juniors and subordinates are at the bottom.

The Chinese worldview is characterized by cyclical understanding of development, common to the cosmos, nature and man. Everything that has once arisen must in due time disappear in order to arise again in a transfigured form. Everything and everything contains a limit, a certain critical mass of growth, a boundary, after reaching which the motion vector inevitably changes its direction to the opposite. “No matter how you flourish, you will have to return to your limit,” said the ancient Chinese sage Lao Tzu. Speed goes into deceleration and rest; beauty, having reached its ultimate perfection, inevitably turns into ugliness; evil can flow into good, and the seeds of evil "sprout" in good. The entire universe is in a state of mutual transformations, mutual overflows and mutual germination. However, in different places of the Celestial Empire, the degree of this metamorphic whirlwind is different.

For the Chinese worldview, it is very important the concept of the center middleness, the existence of a certain ideal point, equidistant from all the boundaries of the cultural ecumene (Ecumene - a space inhabited by people). The center, the middle is in a state of absolute rest, while the movement diverges from it in concentric circles. The farther to the periphery, the more energetic movement and transformation, the more restless existence. The ancient Chinese perceived themselves and their civilization as the Middle of the World, and therefore it should have its own center - this is the Emperor, a completely conditional, ideal point. (The notion of the existence of a “middle” emperor, the Son of Heaven, was preserved even in the era of the most severe civil strife and unrest).

Since the middle position is a state of rest, it becomes clear why in China such honored and cultivated qualities were revered peace And inaction.(Especially in relation to the emperor). The existence of a cyclic model of universal development meant the recognition of a vicious circle as the only possible trajectory of movement.

IN ancient india this led to the fact that in a number of philosophical schools there was a recognition of unreality, the appearance of movement and development. A similar approach is found in the Bible: “What was, is what will be; and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun...” (Book of Ecclesiastes 1:9).

Therefore, the ideas of unlimited (linear) progress, eternity and infinity of the Universe were not characteristic of China.

Next feature Chinese worldview has become her "community", i.e. focus on social issues. Chinese sages were preoccupied with problems government controlled, they were interested in a person in his relation to other people and to the state. Human nature was understood mainly functionally. A person who is disrespectful to the state, the law, has an "evil" nature, and a law-abiding, that is, well-managed person has a "good" nature.

Ancient and Medieval China for the first time in the history of world culture were staged and morally comprehended questions about the methods of public administration.

It was necessary to answer the questions of the development of civilization:

What are the ways to manage people?

Law or ritual should be the basis of management?

Is the person more ruled by virtue, force, or fear?

Ideas of Chinese management: compromise and "golden mean".

The ancient Chinese image-concept of "man" was the following:

1. This is a harmonious combination of "three flowers": jing, qi, shen, visibly expressed in the correct (from the point of view of the Chinese!) psychophysical appearance of a person.

2. Permeated with Chinese cultural tradition. In this sense, even a barbarian can become Chinese. (You can only be born a Hindu).

3. Law-abiding, respect for elders in age and rank; tactful, humane attitude towards neighbors.

The rise of the Chinese philosophical tradition

Philosophy begins in China as an endless commentary on the I Ching (Canon of Changes), created in ancient times, but recorded in the VIII - VII centuries. BC e.

Book of Changes

The Book of Changes (Another name for the I Ching is Zhou Yi) consists of two parts:

1. Actually "ching", i.e. the canon, the sacred text, which provides a description and graphic representation of the universal law "I", thanks to which our universe, constantly changing, transforming, continues to maintain the status quo (its being).

2. Comments (zhuan) on the canonical part.

The essence of the "I-ching" is the affirmation of a "simple" thought: everything and everything is in constant mutual transition, mutual overflow, mutual change. But how to describe, how to explain this fluidity of visible being? Words do not fit here, because the word is static by nature. A way out was found - a conditional, graphic image of a fluid universe is perfectly conveyed by various combinations of horizontal lines: - and - -, symbolizing two opposite principles.

Even in the depths of the mythological consciousness of ancient China, the most important mental act was accomplished: the division of the surrounding reality into two opposite principles. The matrix for this was the sexual division of living nature into male and female. In the future, all paired opposites were comprehended depending on their "gender". Thus, the Sun, Sky, light, dryness, the peak were associated with the active masculine principle YANG "--", and the Moon, Earth, darkness, humidity, lowland - with the passive feminine principle YIN "- -".

Various combinations of these two universal signs in the "I-ching" were assembled into a system consisting of four images, eight trigrams (Fig. 2) and 64 hexagrams.

The formation of the world is symbolically described as a transition from the ideal image of the Great Limit (Tai Chi), through the struggle and unity of YANG-YIN to a more specific, “corporeal” state of the universe. And its further harmoniously fluid existence is supported due to the constant connection and mutual transition of things, phenomena, events containing mainly Yang with things, phenomena, events containing mainly YIN (Fig. 2). “All substances carry YIN and YANG in themselves, are filled with Qi and form harmony,” says a later philosophical treatise (“Daodejing”, ch. 42).

Rice. 2. Development of Yin and Yang ratios from the Great Limit (Tai Chi) to the level of eight trigrams (gua)

QIAN DUI LI ZHEN XUN KAN GEN KUN

This system of eight figures (“gua”) serves as a picture of what is happening in heaven and on earth. At the same time, the constant transition of one sign to another is similar to the way in which the transition of one phenomenon to another takes place in the world. This is the decisive and main idea of the “Canon of Changes” (Faleev A.I. Classical methodology of traditional Chinese zhen-jiu therapy. M., 1991, p. 14).

The overflow (“changes”) of the states of the cosmos, nature, state and man do not occur chaotically, but systemically in the form of circular closed cycles. This is reflected in the square-circular (Square is a symbol of the Earth, the circle is a symbol of Heaven) principle of the arrangement of trigrams. In other words, trigrams are located either in a circle or along the perimeter of a square consisting of nine cells.

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Private educational institution higher professional education

"Omsk Law Academy"

in the discipline "Philosophy"

on the topic: The difference between the Eastern and Western thinking

The processes taking place in the world today pose a number of problems for the world community not only of a socio-economic, but also of a cultural nature. On the one hand, the prospects for the development of a multipolar world require intercultural interaction, a dialogue of cultures. On the other hand, the growing intensity of communication, political, economic ties does not contribute to understanding and cultural rapprochement. The peoples of the world became physically close before they learned to understand each other. This is the relevance of the consideration of this topic.

The division of cultures into Western and Eastern implies not only their geographical location, but also the different mentality of the peoples inhabiting these territories, that is, the difference in the characteristics of the ways and methods of knowing the world, scientific, religious, artistic, aesthetic and spiritual values, basic worldviews, socio-economic and political structures. As the German ethnographer Leo Frobenius noted at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, world history is the history of "the eternal struggle between Western civilization and the world of the East" Culturology / Ed. N.G. Bagdasaryan. - M., 1999. S. 24 ..

An overview of the problem of the difference between Western and Eastern types thinking implies the relation of consciousness to being, as well as ways and methods of knowing the world. It is also necessary to stipulate that dualism is considered in relation to the Western and Hindu-Buddhist, Taoist-Confucian worldviews as more opposed to Islamic, based, like Christian, on the religion of Judaism, and also, in philosophical and scientific aspects, on ancient views.

In this period of global change, interest in Eastern culture is intense, both throughout the world and in Russia, and in general becomes a significant phenomenon. The range of interests is connected not only with ecological, aesthetic and exotic aspects, not only with the pragmatic, communicative, but also with the spiritual side. On the one hand, this interest is formal. On the other hand, representatives of the Western world turned to the spiritual, essential foundations of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Does it not follow from this that the pragmatic and rational type of the Western personality needs a certain moral position, which he is looking for in religious beliefs or philosophical ideas, methods of spiritual practices of the East.

As C. G. Jung notes in his work “On the Psychology of Eastern Meditation”, the inconsistency of Western views is reflected primarily in religious teachings, since here the beneficial influence comes from outside - from religion and "God's Grace". In turn, religion directs the aspiration of individuals in love for their neighbor "as for oneself."

There is a prejudice regarding the inherent value of the Eastern type of thinking, philosophical views, which opposes them to active, rational, pragmatic thinking and positive philosophy in the West. This attitude, perhaps primarily, is rooted in the ideas of Western European imperialism of the 19th century, as well as the somewhat distorted idea of F. Nietzsche about the “superman”, which contributed to the perception of Indian and Chinese cultures as barbaric, dark and ignorant, in need of the expansion of Western progress. So the ways of “liberation of personal consciousness”, characteristic of Eastern teachings, are interpreted by the followers of Z. Freud as “depersonalization” in the sense of regression to primitive forms of consciousness, which was served by the Freudian interpretation of the principle of “nirvana” as the desire of the individual to return to the “mother’s womb of the oceanic consciousness (unconscious). aesthetic economic culture

In the textbook "Culturology", which examines the characteristic national types, a clear definition of this phenomenon is given: "the virtues of Western man are vigor and intensity, fashion and sensation, oriental man- the exact middle and mediocrity, noiselessness and withering, about the virtue of a Russian person - passivity and patience, conservatism and harmony ”Culturology. Tutorial for university students educational institutions/ Ed. prof. Drach G.V. - Rostov-on-Don, 1997. P.339. .

With its focus on the knowledge and development of the inner world of the subject, the Eastern worldview and, in particular, Buddhism, led representatives of European, Russian philosophy and religious thought to characterize it as: "religion of fatigue" (O. Spengler), "selfish magic" (S N. Trubetskoy), “religion of egoism” (V. S. Solovyov), “pessimistic doctrine” (A. Men). Contrasting the Eastern and European types of thinking, Hegel considered the Western, extreme type, as "independent consciousness, for which being-for-itself is the essence", and formal Eastern, as "non-independent consciousness, for which life or being-for-some-other is the essence”: “the first is the master, the second is the slave” Hegel G.W.F. Phenomenology of the Spirit. - SPb., 1992. P. 103 ..

Such a "distorted" view of Eastern teachings, according to J. Botsman, is inherent in Europeans in connection with the desire to consider all other philosophical and religious doctrines through the prism of Greek metaphysics. While primitive peoples perceived nature as a whole, Western thinking is characterized by a dilemma, which is based on the problem of comparison with the reality of reasoning, since the mind has the property of being alienated from reality.

This difficulty, according to J. Linden, is a feature of the very process of symbolization and logical reasoning, since in order to analyze the abstract properties of the world, an individual must be excluded from consideration of himself, which complicates the Eurocentrism inherent in European consciousness, as well as the feeling of the priority of "high" culture over "barbarian ", ideas about the difference in mental capacity highly developed peoples and peoples at lower levels of evolution.

Thus, the ideologist of Eurocentrism, the German theologian and philosopher E. Troelch argued that non-European peoples lack historical self-awareness and a critical attitude towards the past, and only European civilization, which inherited the great ancient culture and professing the "Holy truths of Christianity", gave birth to a spirit capable of realizing the unity human race and penetrate all countries. The American anthropologist P. Bitek called this view "intellectual contraband" that European scientists bring to non-European cultures, which, for example, finds expression in the distortion of the results of studies of religious beliefs in the field of African studies.

As for the differences between Western and Eastern types of thinking, which can be defined as left hemispheric - Western, and integral - Eastern, they reflect, first of all, the ways of cognition, where in the empirical sense, Eastern philosophy has always been more scholastic and less scientific than Western . In particular, V. Solovyov in his early works ("Criticism Western philosophy", "Philosophical beginnings whole knowledge", "Criticism of abstract principles"), considering the antithesis of East and West, characterized the Western as "abstract" and "analytical-rational", and the Eastern as "whole", "synthetic-intuitive" Solovyov V.S. Philosophical journalism: in 2 t. - M., 1989. T. 1. S. 6 ..

In search of truth, based on rationalism, European consciousness strives outside, towards the social and political absolute. Eastern thinkers, striving for Enlightenment, use reflection in search of not so much theoretical answers to questions about the nature of human existence, as they create methods for managing mental processes leading to deep self-knowledge, the maximum realization of the potential of the individual's psyche. Eastern teachings, due to their practical orientation and synthetic universality, are characterized by the desire to overcome the dualism of knowledge and action, theory and practice.

A distinctive feature of the development of consciousness in European culture is dynamism, which is based on a continuum, but inside it there are constant changes, cyclical advances either forward or backward, characterized either by a holistic vision of the world, or by the dualism of cognition, and in modern conditions by the splitting of consciousness in that number.

So the source of the "universal talent" that left its mark on the best achievements of European culture (and not only European), the ancient Greeks, as F. Engels noted, was in the extraordinary development of both types of thinking. The integrity of ancient Greek thinking was based on the fusion of the ethical, aesthetic and epistemological aspects. While the prevailing development of the left hemisphere type of thinking formed in the Romans severe realism and prudent pragmatism. On the other hand, the powerful agonal spirit of the ancient Greeks and the imperial claims of the ancient Romans contributed to the development of Eurocentrism, characterized by an unbridled desire for power, self-affirming imposition of one's will on the surrounding peoples, individualism, one might say, egocentrism. D. Suzuki believes that the Western mind, corresponding to the Western tradition, is insightful, intellectual, inductive, conceptual, schematic and impersonal.

Aspirations, the goal of the evolution of Western culture, as E. Neumann notes, is "the liberation of man from nature and consciousness from the unconscious" Neumann E. The origin and development of consciousness. - M., 1998. S.391.. This process, underlying the existence of the European type of culture, contributes to the disintegration of Western man. In his studies of Eastern and Western types of thinking, K.G. Jung focuses on this process, which contributes to the splitting of the individual into a conscious personality and an unconscious being. The reason was the sudden intrusion into the European process of development, which is still in a primitive state, "the psychology and spirituality of a culture of a much higher level", which explains the endless relapses of "barbarism" throughout historical development Western civilization. "And so we became highly disciplined, organized and rational, while remaining at the same time primitive beings, with a slave psychology, cut off from education and culture" Jung K.G. Yoga and the West: A Collection. - Lvov, Kyiv, 1994. P. 25 ..

This characteristic reflects the fact that ever more advanced scientific and technological achievements are becoming more dangerous and can lead to global destruction. Another reason for the "spiritual impassability" of the West, Jung considers the historically determined split in the European consciousness.

Analyzing the thought process of the Indian, Jung emphasizes its difference from the European and considers it as "observation of thought", reminiscent of the original way of formulating thoughts among representatives of primitive culture. But the thinking of primitive man is largely an unconscious activity, in which the subject is aware only of its result.

Hinduism, and then Buddhism, created methods that allow you to deeply understand and transform human nature, moreover, proven by the experience of more than one millennium. First of all, this concerns the philosophy and methods of yoga, and then Vedanta, Buddhism, Taoism, the goal of which is the liberation of a limited, egocentric consciousness from any connection with objects and objects. A. Watts believes that physical or social, biological or cultural ties become the basis for such a limited consciousness. One of the main reasons for this is that a person cannot get rid of the influence of his unconscious. According to Jung, the European must first know himself as a subject, that is, his unconscious. But for Western man, in most cases, the desire to repress unconscious material is characteristic. It should be noted that 3. Freud and C. G. Jung differ in their assessment of the unconscious material: for the first, the unconscious is an appendage of consciousness, where everything that is incompatible with consciousness is forced out due to the presence of a number of complexes in the subject; for the second, the unconscious is creative in character, a collective psychic predisposition.

Eastern schools, including yoga, turn to the conscious will in working with the unconscious - to reduce its potential, that is, they strive to ensure that the unconscious covers as little part of the personality as possible. In Buddhism, unconscious behavior, which is understood as "habitual selective acts of consciousness that hide or "isolate" objects from their context," is transformed with the help of "intense concentration, disciplined consciousness" Watts A. Psychotherapy. East and West. - M., 1997. P.79.. Reducing the potential of the conscious contributes to the reflection of the unconscious in symbolism and metaphysics.In European culture, the unconscious is also reflected in symbols, primarily in dreams, but here the individual does not consider it necessary or is not able to analyze them independently.

Methods may include some form of meditation, including focusing on an object, a symbolic image, attempts to suppress verbal thinking or forms of dialectics, and others, including analytical meditation or symbolic interpretation. Methods differ between schools and teachers, and also depend on the motivation and mental organization of the student. The purpose of the method and techniques of liberation is to ensure that the individual himself gets rid of accepted mythologies, from his own illusions, fears of other people and independently cognizes the truth (in the context of Buddhism and Taoism - emptiness as the "true nature of things").

Buddhism does not extensively explore metaphysics and cosmology, and in the latter case, it does not consider the world as such, but the world expressed as an aspect of mental experience, but distinguishable worlds as different levels of consciousness of a living being. Thus, liberation must come from illusory perception, and not so much the physical world, as Watts emphasizes, but from social institutions, from the concepts and forms of thinking with which they are described.

In European philosophy, one can also find a similar idea of an illusory perception of reality by the ancient philosopher Epictetus, and then by E. Cassirer there is a statement that a person lives and perceives the world through the prism of his imaginary emotions and fears, illusions and their loss, his own fantasies about things. Cassirer emphasizes that instead of turning to reality itself, a person is constantly turned to himself, separating physical reality by artificial mediators - immersion in linguistic forms, symbols, artistic images and religious rituals. The illusory nature of perception, as noted by A. Karmin, as a factor that determines human behavior, is facilitated by such a manifestation of the impact of language on thinking as the ability to create verbal illusions that are formed from childhood, in which, for example, knowledge of the name of an object is taken for knowledge about it.

In the study of Eastern teachings as a holistic psychological phenomenon, in particular jnana yoga (yoga of cognition), based on the work of representatives of transpersonal psychology (S. Grof and his school), E.A. Torchinov considers cognition not intellectual, rational knowledge, but " a peculiar, intuitive gnosis. According to this school, cognition is the main means of achieving liberation, which is based on a kind of "intellectual intuition" of the self-revealing absolute, "identical with the last basis of the subjectivity of the cognizer." It is characteristic that in Western philosophy, in particular, in the work "Criticism pure mind", speaking of the purely theoretical and abstract possibility of knowing things in themselves, Kant notes that the subject needs to free himself from his inherent forms of a priori sensual contemplation (space and time) and the categories of reason. And then he considered it necessary to acquire a new, insensible type of contemplation, which Schelling later called "intellectual intuition".

Thus, using the characteristics of Eastern thinking by D. Suzuki, we can say that the Eastern mind is “synthetic, integrating, impenetrable, deductive, non-systematic, dogmatic, intuitive (rather even affective), spiritual-individual and social-group” Fromm E., Suzuki D., Martino R. Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. - M., 1997. S. 11 ..

Based on the foregoing, we can draw the following conclusions that European and Eastern types of thinking are distinguished by the dominance of one or another type of thinking, which is expressed in the ways of knowing the world and its description, since each nation dismembers, structures and classifies the observed phenomena from the standpoint of its own mentality and native language requirements. European and Eastern types of thinking differ in their orientation and ways of realizing the personality.

It can be assumed that the interest of a Western personality in Eastern traditions and methods of spiritual self-improvement of an individual is based on: fear of global catastrophes, to which accelerating scientific and technological progress leads; loss of illusions in relation to a number of values of Western civilization and, in particular, the value of the individual and human relationships; the loss and, first of all, among young people of the moral guidelines of responsibility, compassion, a sense of duty, the desire for self-improvement, an inclination towards a using style of being; confidence in the effectiveness of oriental traditional methods of self-realization.

As sociologists and psychologists have been writing for a long time, in the Western world market relations invade deeply intimate spheres of life. Oriental culture makes it clear that in the future, for humanity, a transformation will be important that is directed not outside, but inside a person, and which should be facilitated by a new understanding of life and death.

Bibliography

1. Hegel G.W.F. Phenomenology of the Spirit. - St. Petersburg, 1992.

2. Cultural studies. Textbook for students of higher educational institutions / Ed. prof. Drach G.V. - Rostov-on-Don, 1997.

3. Neumann E. Origin and development of consciousness. - M., 1998.

4. Soloviev V.S. Philosophical journalism: in 2 volumes - M., 1989.

5. Watts A. Psychotherapy. East and West. - M., 1997.

6. Fromm E., Suzuki D., Martino R. Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. - M., 1997.

7. Jung K.G. Yoga and the West: A Collection. - Lvov, Kyiv, 1994.

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"Weird" Minds

Until recently, scientists have largely ignored the global diversity of thought. In 2010, in an authoritative article published in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, they wrote that the vast majority of participants in psychological research were "Western, educated, developed, wealthy and democratic" or "weird" for short ( “western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic” - “Weird”). Nearly 70% were Americans, most of whom were students who sacrificed their time to take part in these experiments in the hope of earning pocket money or course credit.

The default assumption was that this sample group might represent universal truths about human nature that all people are basically the same. If that were true, the western bias wouldn't matter. However, the small number of available studies, in which the subjects were people from other cultures, showed that this was far from the case. “Westerners – and Americans in particular – were moving to the far end of the distribution,” says Joseph Henrich of the University of British Columbia, co-author of the study.

The population of Hokkaido has grown rapidly from a few thousand to the six million people who live there today. (Photo: Alamy)

One of the most notable differences is related to the concepts of "individualism" and "collectivism"; whether you consider yourself independent and self-sufficient, or close-knit and interconnected with other people around you, whether you value the team over the individual. As a rule, for people in the West, individualism is more characteristic, and for the population of Asian countries - India, Japan or China - collectivism.

In most cases, this manifests itself more noticeably than one might expect. When asked about their views and actions, people in individualistic Western societies tend to value individual success over group achievement, which in turn is also associated with a need for greater self-esteem and the pursuit of personal happiness. But such a craving for self-affirmation is also manifested in excessive self-confidence and a tendency to overestimate one's abilities, as evidenced by the results of many experiments. For example, 94% of American professors, when asked about the level of their competence, claimed that it was “above average”.

But, as it turned out, such a tendency to self-inflation is practically absent in a number of studies conducted in East Asia. In some cases, participants were more likely to underestimate their abilities than to inflate their sense of self-worth. People living in individualistic societies may also place more emphasis on personal choice and freedom.

Holistic thinking permeates the philosophy and culture of the East.

It is important to note that our "social orientation" obviously extends to fundamental approaches to reasoning. People in collectivistic societies tend to think about problems in a more "holistic" way and focus on the relationships and context of the situation. On the other hand, people in individualistic societies tend to focus on individual elements and view the situation as fixed and unchanging.

As an example, imagine seeing a picture of someone tall bullying someone smaller. Without additional information, Westerners are more likely to think that this behavior reflects something significant, and fixate on a big figure: he must be a bad person. “Thinking holistically, you can think about what could be going on between these people: maybe this big guy is the boss or the father,” Heinrich explains.

This style of thinking extends to how we categorize inanimate objects. Suppose you were asked to name two related items in a list containing the words: "train, bus, path." What would you say? People in the West choose "bus" and "train" because they are types of vehicles. And a holistic thinker would say "train" and "path" because he focuses on the functional relationship between them - one element is necessary for the other to work.

Social orientation can even change how you see. An eye movement study by Richard Nisbett at the University of Michigan found that East Asian subjects spent more time looking at the background of an image—processing the context. But Americans tend to focus on the center of the image most of the time. Interestingly, this difference is found in children's drawings from Japan and Canada, hence the suggestion that different ways of seeing appear at a very young age. What we focus on determines what we later remember.

“If we are what we see, and we pay attention to different things, then we live in different worlds,” Heinrich says.

There are no clear boundaries between the difference in thinking of both cultures; people in immigrant communities can incorporate both mindsets.

Although some argue that our social orientation has a genetic component, there is evidence that we adopt it from other people. Alex Mesoudi of the University of Essex recently researched the mindsets of British-Bangladeshi families in East London. He found that over the course of a generation, immigrant children adopt more elements of an individualistic worldview and less of a holistic cognitive style. The main driver of the transition is mainly the media.

But why do different styles of thinking come to the fore? The obvious explanation is that they reflect an established philosophy that has come to prevail over time in a particular region. Nisbett points out that Western philosophers emphasize freedom and independence, and such oriental traditions, like Taoism, tend to focus on the concept of unity. For example, Confucius emphasized "obligations between emperor and subject, parent and child, husband and wife, elder brother and younger brother, between friend and friend." Various ways visions of the world are embedded in literature, education, political institutions, so it is perhaps not surprising that these ideas also influenced some basic mental processes.

Even so, differences between individual countries point to many other unexpected factors at work.

On the border

Consider the United States, the most individualistic of all Western countries. Historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner have long argued that western expansion fostered an independent spirit as each trailblazer in the wilderness fought for his own survival. In line with this theory, recent psychological research has shown that border states (such as Montana) tend to have higher levels of individualism. However, to confirm the "voluntary settlement theory," psychologists wanted to study another independent example.

William Clark is one of the American agronomists who helped develop Hokkaido. His call "Guys, be ambitious!" personifies the thinking of the pioneers, preserved to this day.

It is for this reason that the example of Hokkaido is so interesting. Like most East Asian countries, collectivist and holistic thinking prevails in Japan. However, the rapid migration to the northern territories resembles the active settlement of the American "Wild West". The Meiji government even hired US agronomists, one of them Horace Capron, to help with farming techniques. If the "voluntary settlement theory" is correct, the pioneer settlers on the island of Hokkaido must have developed more independent views than those in the rest of Japan.

Shinobu Kitayama of Michigan State University found that Hokkaido residents tend to place more importance on self-reliance and personal achievement, as well as emotions such as pride, than Japanese on other islands, and are less concerned about other people's opinions. Next, the study participants were asked to take a social reasoning test in which they were asked to discuss a doping baseball player. The Japanese from other islands tended to explore the circumstances, such as considering the drive to succeed. And the Japanese from Hokkaido blamed the player's personality more or talked about a flaw in his moral character. Again, the tendency to blame personal qualities is characteristic of an individualistic society, and much closer to the responses of the average American.

germ theory

Another (paradoxical) idea is that the difference in thinking is an evolved response to microbes. In 2008, Corey Fincher (University of Warwick) and colleagues analyzed global epidemiological data to show that the level of individualism and collectivism in a region correlates with incidence: the more likely you are to catch an infection, the more you become a collectivist and less an individualist .

In general, the idea is that collectivism, characterized by coherence and respect for others, may encourage more conscientious people to avoid behaviors that help spread the epidemic. It was difficult to prove that the apparent correlation in the real world was not caused by some other factor, such as the relative wealth of the country. But laboratory experiments supported this idea. When people are afraid of illness, they seem to be more accepting of collectivist thinking, such as behaving in line with group behavior.

Hokkaido is no longer a wild borderland, but the history of the region has left an imprint on its inhabitants, endowing them with unique features.

But perhaps the most surprising theory is the farming one. Thomas Talhelm of the University of Chicago studied 28 different provinces in China and found that the orientation of thought is related to the region's agricultural culture.

Talhelm said he was first inspired by his own impressions of the country. During a trip to Beijing, he noticed that in the north, strangers are much more sociable: "If I ate alone, people would come up and talk to me." But in the southern city of Guangzhou, people are more reserved for fear of offending.

Respect for others seemed to be a sign of a more collectivist mentality, so Talhelm wondered what might lie behind the two worldviews within the same country. The split did not correlate with indicators of wealth or modernization. But the researcher noticed that there is a difference in the agricultural crop grown in the regions: in most of the southern regions - rice, in the north - wheat. “The split runs exactly along the Yangtze River,” Talhelm says.

Rice cultivation requires much more collaboration: it is a labor-intensive process involving complex irrigation systems that cover many different farms. In contrast, growing wheat uses about half the labor force and depends on rainfall rather than irrigation. And this means that farmers do not need to cooperate with their neighbors, and they can focus on caring for their own crops.

Compared to other branches of agriculture, rice cultivation requires more collaboration within the community, as it requires intricate irrigation systems spanning many plots.

Can these differences lead to a collectivistic or individualistic mentality? Collaborating with scientists in China, Talhelm tested more than 1,000 students from rice and wheat regions, using the Triadic Holistic Thinking Test, among other measures. Also, the subjects were asked to schematically depict the relationship with their friends and like-minded people. People in individualistic societies tend to draw themselves larger than their friends, while collectivists try to portray everyone the same height. “Americans have a tendency to draw themselves very large,” Talhelm says.

Of course, people from wheat-producing areas scored higher on the individualism scale, and people from rice-growing areas showed more collectivist thinking.

Talhelm tested his hypotheses in India, where the regions are also clearly divided into wheat and rice. The results are similar. Of course, many of all the people interviewed are not involved in agriculture, but historical traditions home regions still shape their way of thinking. "There is some inertia in the culture."

Cognitive kaleidoscope

It is important to emphasize that these are only general trends among a huge number of people. But within each population studied, there is a range of directions. "The black-and-white divide doesn't work from an anthropological point of view," says Delwar Hussain, an anthropologist at the University of Edinburgh who worked with Mesudi on a study of British-Bangladeshi communities in London. As Hussain points out, there are many historical ties between Eastern and Western countries. This means that some people have mastered both ways of thinking. Factors such as age and class will also have an impact.