{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_The_East_West_dichotomy_Chapter_2/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_The_East_West_dichotomy_Chapter_2","id":"wikisource_The_East_West_dichotomy_Chapter_2","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_East-West_dichotomy/Chapter_2","summary":null,"tags":["Headers_applying_DefaultSort_key","Subpages"],"text":"\u897f\u65b9\u6587\u5316\u6ce8\u91cd\u5206\u6790\uff0c\u4e00\u5206\u4e3a\u4e8c\uff1b\u800c\u4e1c\u65b9\u6587\u5316\u6ce8\u91cd\u7efc\u5408\uff0c\u5408\u4e8c\u4e3a\u4e00.\n\nThe West is deductive, from the universal to the particular; the East is\n\ninductive, from the particular to the universal. (Ji Xianlin, 2006 [1])\n\nAccording to the universal historians Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975) Samuel P. Huntington (1927-) and Ji Xianlin (1911-), the world\u2019s states form 21, 23 or 25 spheres, nine civilizations, and fall into four cultural systems: Arabic/Islam, Confucian, Hindi/Brahmin, and Western/Christian, with the former three forming the Oriental cultural system, and the latter one the Occidental cultural system (Toynbee, 1961; Huntington, 1993; Ji, 2006). The main difference between the Orient and the Occident, so people say, lies in their different mode of thinking: The East is inductive, the West is deductive.\n\nHenceforth, the Orient\u2019s search for universal formulas describing balance, harmony or equilibrium: for example, in Chinese philosophy, the two lines in Chinese \u4e8c (er, two) meaning weight and counterpoise. Similarly, we find \u5165\u5165 (ru-ru, enter-enter) meaning equal weight on both sides, \u5dfe (liang, equilibrium) representing scales in equilibrium (Wieger, 1965), or \u9634\u9633 (yin and yang) meaning two primal opposing but complementary forces. There are also Japanese \u305c\u3093 (\u7985, Zen) and \u7a7a (\u015b\u016bnyata, emptiness) meaning everything is inter-related; in India we find seva-nagri (the universe and I are one and the same) and tat tvam asi (thou art that) meaning that the soul is part of the universal reality.\n\nBy means of continuously inducing the universal, Confucianism, Taoism, Shinto, Hinduism and Buddhism \u2013 as a rough guide - all ultimately arrive at the universal concept of \u2018the One\u2019, \u2018Oneness of heaven and men\u2019 (tian ren he yi, \u5929\u4eba\u5408\u4e00), the \u2018divine law\u2019 behind all Vedas, the \u2018merger of Brahman and atma\u2019 (Brahmatmaikyam) or \u2018ultimate reality\u2019 (Ayam atma bhrama), the underlying inductive principle being that:\n\n\u201cAll observed things are connected, therefore all things are one.\u201d\n\nIn inductive reasoning, one induces the universal \u201call things are one\u201d from the particular \u201call things\u201d that are \u201cobserved\u201d. The conclusion may be sound, but cannot be certain.\n\nIn the Bodhicaryavatar, a key text of Mahayana Buddhism, Santideva (c. 650 AD) teaches us that the fate of the individual is linked to the fate of others (Williams et. al, 1998):\n\nHastadirbhadeva bahuprakarah yathaikah parinatyaniyah tatha jagad bhinnamabhinna duhkh-sukhanmakam sarvamidam tartheva.\nAlthough our human body is made of various parts we do not feel them as separated. Likewise this world is made of various elements but it is inseparable \u2013 it is one (Santideva, 650).\n\nIn the Abhidarma Sutra (The Higher Teachings of Buddha) of the Tipitaka (c. 100 BC), Lord Buddha\u2019s says there is no \u2018person\u2019, \u2018individual\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019 in reality - it is all but one \u2018Ultimate Truth\u2019 (Tipitaka, 2008). Nagarjuna (c. 200 AD), writer of the Madhyamika-karika, adds: To attain Nirvana is to achieve \u2018absolute emptiness\u2019 (Bapat, 1956); For D. T. Suzuki [\u9234\u6728 \u5927\u62d9] (1870-1966) \u2018Zen\u2019 is about the \u2018Ultimate Nothingness\u2019 (Suzuki, 1994). In Hinduism, the great epic Mahabharata (c. 600 BC-400 AD) reads: \u201cYad ihasti tad anyatra yan nehasti na tat kvachit\u201d or \u201cWhat is found here, can be found elsewhere. What is not found here, will not be found elsewhere\u201d (Mahabharata, 2008). In the Bhagavadgita (ca. 150 BC), Krishna says to Arjuna: \u201cMamaivamsho jiva-loke jiva-bhutah sanatanah\u201d (The living entities in this conditional world are My fragmental parts, and they are eternal) (Bhagavadgita, 2008).\n\nIn the Book of Changes (I Ching, \u6613\u7ecf; c. 1050-256 BC) \u2018One\u2019 is the supreme ultimate. In the Dao De Jing (\u9053\u5fb7\u7ecf, c. 600 BC), Laozi [\u8001\u5b50] says \u201c\u4e00\u751f\u4e8c\uff0c\u4e8c\u751f\u4e09\uff0c\u4e09\u751f\u4e07\u7269\u201d (One gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, three gives birth to all things) (Laozi, 42). Confucius, too, discovered the oneness of heaven (\u5929, tian) and man (\u4eba, ren) and rejoiced: \u201c\u4e94\u5341\u800c\u77e5\u5929\u547d\u201d (At fifty I understood the decrees of heaven), and later: \u201c\u5929\u751f\u5fb7\u4e8e\u4e88\u201d (Heaven produced that virtue in me) (Confucius, Lun Yu, 2;4, 7;23) We find similar notions in The Book of Mencius: \u201c\u5c3d\u5176\u5fc3\u8005\uff0c\u77e5\u5176\u6027\u4e5f\uff1b \u77e5\u5176\u6027\u5219\u77e5\u5929\u77e3\u201d (If you fully explore your mind, you will know your nature. If you know your nature, you know heaven) (Mencius, 7A.1), Dong Zhongshu: \u201d\u5929\u4eba\u4e4b\u9645\uff0c\u5408\u800c\u4e3a\u4e00\u201c (Heaven and men are a unit, they form the one) (Dong, 13;56) and Laozi again: \u201c\u4eba\u6cd5\u4e5f\uff0c\u5730\u6cd5\u5929\uff0c\u5929\u6cd5\u9053\uff0c\u9053\u6cd5\u81ea\u7136\u201d (Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its being what it is) (Laozi, 25).\n\nNote the implied universality: In the search for absolute interconnectedness, induction does not rely on categorical (formal) logic, hence the \u2018particular West\u2019, by inductive inference, is included in this universal \u2018oneness\u2019, or, as Nishitani Keiji (1900-1990) once nicely put it (Sueki, 2004):\nWestern modernity is to be overcome by the Eastern religious mind.\n\nWhile the vigorous deductive West had to occupy foreign terrain, build churches and spread the Gospel, the inductive East entertained certain passivity, albeit with a long-term holistic world view:\nWe firmly believe, no matter how long it requires, the day will be with us when universal peace and the world of oneness will finally come true.\n(Ji Xianlin, 1996)\n\nThe West, on the other hand, separates God and the world. After all, we are not Him, but created by Him: \u201cThen God said, Let us make man in our image; in the image of God he created him\u201d (Old Testament, Gen 1;31). Accordingly, in Western classrooms we teach an analytic \u2018concrete reality\u2019 based on conditioned textual analysis and interpretation of the world, rather than a holistic \u2018absolute reality\u2019. Some examples of major works of analytical reasoning are Euclid\u2019s Elements (c. 300 BC), Kant\u2019s Copernican revolution (1787), Darwin\u2019s Theory of Evolution (1859), Einstein\u2019s Logic of continuity (1905), or Smith\u2019s The Wealth of the Nations (1776), the underlying deductive principle (as old as the Greeks themselves) being that:\n\n\"All observed men are unique, Socrates is a man,\ntherefore Socrates is unique.\"\n\nIn deductive reasoning, one deduces the particular \u201cSocrates is unique\u201d from universal \u201call men are unique\u201d, relying on the premises \u201cSocrates is a man\u201d and \u201cAll men are unique\u201d. The conclusion is sound and valid.\n\nA world thus described by deductive reasoning reaches new conclusions from previously known facts ad infinitum. A world by inductive reasoning on the other hand allocates relations to recurring phenomenal patterns. We may call the former a \u201cstring of cause and effect\u201d, whereas in the latter we see a \u201cpuzzle made of its parts\u201d.\n\nAccordingly, in the same way as some cultures hold belief in one, many, or no gods at all, they also have different ways of perceiving the world and reasoning about it: Western civilization became analysis-based while the Orient became integration-based.\n\nI believe in this peculiar difference, and I suppose that most of those acquainted with Oriental thought do too. Yet, I do not believe in some ideas of two mysterious forces bound for confrontation as in Clash of civilizations by Samuel P. Huntington (1993), nor do I believe that one is inevitably superior and the other necessarily inferior in accumulating either wealth or wisdom as in The Protestant Ethic by Max Weber (1930) or in the Eastern Religious Mind by Nishitani Keiji (1942). There has been a difference in the independent development of the two great cultural systems, deeply embedded from their earliest history, in symbiosis with their people, and arranged according to their cultural outlooks \u2013 deduction and induction. This is what I believe.\n\nIn \u2018La Route de la Soie\u2019 Aly Mazah\u00e9ri quoted this ancient Persian and Arab saying from the Sassanian Dynasty (226-c. 640 AD):\nThe Greeks never invented anything except some theories. They never taught any art. But the Chinese were different. They did teach all their arts, but indeed had no scientific theories whatever (Aly Mazah\u00e9ri, 1983; Ji, 1996).\n\nI will not go so far as Mazah\u00e9ri to say they do only this and we do only that, nor will I claim that someone is definitely deductive in outlook just because he was born in London. It is not that easy. The making of every civilization\u2019s treasures and contributions towards history is determined by its methodology for explaining the world\u2019s phenomena according to its own experience and mode of rational interpretation: The East became more inductive while the West become more deductive \u2013 this appears to be born out by all the evidence.\n\nLet us next discuss how there has been an imbalance in the equilibrium and how Asia-centrism, after 1950, has been played its role in correcting this imbalance, and the history that led to it.","title":"The East-West dichotomy/Chapter 2","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":1395}