Unit 1 - Cultural Differences Lecture Flashcards
Thesis of book
Most basic aspects of cognition are not cross-culturally universal
Western thought is not the only one
Ancient Greeks
Special occasions - plays and poetry readings
Chinese would never do that
Agency
Individualistic perspective
Greek debate
Ancient Athenians were great proponents
Debating = life
Etymology of “private”
Root of the word deprived (of social interaction)
Greek curiosity
Greeks speculated about the nature of the world
Constructed models of the world based on underlying principles
Ancient Chinese
Special occasions = visiting friends/family
Harmony > Agency
Harmony > agency
A person is the totality of social rules
Self-control is valued more than other-control
Collective agency
Each person is a cog in the social machine
You must adjust yourself to fit the environment, not the other way around
Adjusting = revered trait
Chinese debate
Public disagreement was discouraged (no debates)
Chinese curiosity
Lacked interest in natural world
Myth of the Cave
What our senses show us is not always real
Plato’s reality
“Forms”
Goal of philosophy/science from Plato’s perspective
Unearth the “forms”
Aristotle
Tradition of seeing attributes as distinct from objects
eg. the sweater is blue but blueness is separate from the sweater
An unseen reality exists under the surface
Are all properties of objects important?
No
eg. colour not important; size/weight is
Essential vs accidental properties
Indo-European languages and nouns
Make nouns out of adjectives (white -> whiteness)
How do Greeks categorize objects?
According to abstract attributes
eg. human being - featherless biped
Superficial things change but the essence of something does not
Does the world change?
According to Greeks, it does not
According to Chinese, it is ever-changing and full of contradictions
Greeks and logic
If logic contradicts the outside world, logic always wins
Chinese philosophies
Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism
Confucianism
Not really a religion, rather a philosophy
Focus on the here and now and the concrete; not much supernatural elements
Stresses economic well-being and education
Malleability of human nature (big emphasis)
Interpersonal harmony
Buddhism
Shared emphasis on holism
Added epistemology
Abstraction in Chinese philosophy
No search for underlying essences
Nature in Chinese philosophy
A mass of substances rather than a collection of objects
Social life in Chinese philosophy
Interdependent and complex; no man is an island
Nature in Greek philosophy
Social construct?
Arose from objectivity/subjectivity debate
No other culture divided the world between in and out
eg. waterfalls made by man/nature are both real in Ch philosophy
eg. Plicher - everything in the world not touched by beavers
Distinction between objectivity/subjectivity
Arose from the tradition of debate
Nature and science
The concept of nature makes science possible
Whatever happens without human agency is possible to study scientifically
Surgery in Chinese history
Health is a complex balance of forces
Cause and effect in Chinese philosophy
Not a thing; events are the result of an interplay of many factors
Complex relationships in Chinese philosophy
Most things are explained by complex relationships
Categorization in Chinese philosophy
Because things are so complex, categorization is not an important aid to understanding
Social origins of the mind
Ancient social differences that gave rise to differences in thought
eg. Ancient Greece vs. Ancient China
Attributes that shaped Ancient Greek thinking
City-states due to topography/mountainous terrain
Democracy - political units were small
Traded internationally; exposed to different ideas
Attributes that shaped Ancient China thinking
Little trade, ethnic homogeneity
Plains - agriculture and irrigation (central control is best)
Centralized political control
Seven-level model of influence
- Ecology
- Economy
- Social structure
- Attention
- Metaphysics
- Epistemology
- Cognitive processes
Implication of the seven-level model of influence
Homeostasis
Implications on the thought of the modern world - Easterners
Attend more to environments and relationships Environment is seen as uncontrollable More change Explanations in terms of relationships Middle way to resolve contradictions
Implications on the thought of the modern world - Westerners
Attend more to objects Environment is seen as controllable Less change Explanations in terms of objects Logic used to understand the world Likely to insist on right and wrong
