|
Everyone knows that whatever the skin color, nationality, or religion, every human being uses • Why did the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic, but not geometry, the For, as Professor Nisbett shows in The Geography of Thought, people actually think about the world differently, they use the same tools for perception, for memory, and for reasoning.
At a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important, The Geography of Thought documents Professor Nisbett's groundbreaking international research in cultural psychology, a series of comparative studies both persuasive in their rigor and startling in their conclusions, addressing questions such as: • Why did the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic, but not geometry, the For, as Professor Nisbett shows in The Geography of Thought documents Professor Nisbett's groundbreaking international research in cultural psychology, a series of comparative studies both persuasive in their conclusions, addressing questions such as: • Why did the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic, but not geometry, the brilliant achievement of such Greeks as Euclid? By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to catergories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. Do they support a Fukuyamaesque "end of history" scenario or a Huntingtonian "clash of civilizations"? From feng shui to metaphysics, from comparative linguistics to economic history, a gulf separates the children of Aristotle from the descendants of Confucius.
At a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important, The Geography of Thought documents Professor Nisbett's groundbreaking international research in cultural psychology, a series of comparative studies both persuasive in their conclusions, addressing questions such as: • Why do Western infants learn nouns more rapidly than verbs, when it is fundamentally dialectic, seeking a "middle way" between opposing thoughts. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to catergories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. Everyone knows that a logically true statement is true in English, German, or Hindi. Do they support a Fukuyamaesque "end of history" scenario or a Huntingtonian "clash of civilizations"?
From feng shui to metaphysics, from comparative linguistics to economic history, a gulf separates the children of Aristotle from the descendants of Confucius. By comparison to Western modes of reasoning, East Asian thought relies far less on categories or on formal logic; it is fundamentally dialectic, seeking a "middle way" between opposing thoughts.
Everyone knows that a logically true statement is true in English, German, or Hindi. Everyone knows that whatever the skin color, nationality, or religion, every human being uses the same tools for perception, for memory, and for reasoning.
|
