Easterners and westerneres approach to different disciplines
So now, let us take a look at how these differences between ancient cultures actually apply today. How these two opposing systems of ancient thought may account for modern differences in Philosophy, Mathematics, Science, Healthcare, Education, and Psychology. First, let us explore philosophy.
Eastern philosophy
Remember, in Eastern Philosophy, the search is for harmony and practicality. And this is likely because so much of their lives depended strong community.
They didn't have much of a debating tradition and instead focused on dialecticism - the idea that people can believe different things simultaneously, and it’s fine. We can believe in contradictory things. We don't have to prove that I'm right and you're wrong, instead we can hold on to two different truths at the same time.
Because of this, many of the arguments that are made in eastern philosophy tend to be “unfalsifiable”. i.e. There’s no conceivable evidence that can be given to disprove these arguments.
For instance, Laozi might say something like: the value of a wheel is found in the distance between its spokes. There's clearly some wisdom here but there's literally nothing that I could say that would be able to prove that Laozi's proposition here is wrong. I can't come up with an argument about why value is not found in the distance between spokes. It's unfalsifiable.
We also find that in Eastern Philosophy the conceptualization of the self tends to be only in relationship to others. Now, let’s contrast this to Western Philosophy.
Western philosophy
In western philosophy, the search is for the Truth.
And it is believed that the best path towards this Truth is via the use of abstract language. Much of the history of western philosophy is someone realizing that no book exists to describe an abstract concept, inventing a word, then writing a book defining that word.
It was even believed that abstract ideas were in a way more real than things in this reality - a belief explored thoroughly in Plato’s Theory of the Forms.
Numbers, for instance. We can take these three objects, and these three objects, and these three objects. And we can apply the number three to all of them. And in a way, the number three is more real than any of the three objects it represents.
There’s a very strong debating tradition in the west on this path towards the Truth.
They followed formal logic. Following the principles of identity non-contradiction and middle exclusion, everything has to be one or the other.
And importantly - the arguments of Western philosophers are mostly falsifiable. I.e. there is conceivable evidence that can disprove the claim. It’s possible to argue against Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Nietzsche, Kant, Hegel in ways that are impossible to argue against Confucius.
Western Moral Philosophy also tends to focus on the Morality of the individual or the individual’s actions, rather than the Morality of the collective. We see similar trends in medicine.
MEdicine
We find that western medicine tends to treat isolated areas. Western medicine employs surgeries that treat isolated areas, monofunctional pharmaceuticals that treat isolated areas. If you have pain in your liver, Western Doctors treat your liver, not your entire body, not your spirit, not your family, not your friends, not your house, not your meditation practice. They are going to treat the isolated areas.
Traditional Eastern Medicine, on the other hand, tends to treat the body holistically, focusing on the whole body with acupuncture, diet, massage, meditation, social relationships, etc. There is a focus not on the isolated area but on the whole, and the interaction between all of the different areas. Now we can compare Eastern and Western sciences. Now, things here get a little blurred. Of course there's a modern, more western style of science in the east today, but when we look at traditional eastern sciences like astrology, the hindu sciences, yoga sciences, etc. we actually see strong differences.
Science
In most Western Sciences, we also find a concentration on isolated objects. There is an organization of the world categorically and there are usually hypotheses that can be tested and verified and falsified.
We can contrast this to Eastern traditional sciences - Astrology, yoga, acupuncture, etc - where we find an emphasis on complexity and context, an organization of the world relationally, and few tests or falsifiable claims.
What this means is that it's very easy in the west to learn about the knee, it's very easy to learn about one isolated thing. But if a westerner were to try to learn about astrology, there's a massive amount that they must learn about the context, about astrology in general before they can understand any piece of it. Same thing with Hinduism and 80 million gods. Same thing with yoga. There's so much to understand before getting there. There's not an easy entry point. That’s Nisbett’s main point here.
Rather than organizing the world in terms of categories, there's much more of a focus on organizing the world in terms of relationships: relationships between different parts of the body, relationships between the soul and the self, the metaphysical world and the physical world etc.
Mathematics
Complexity makes testing difficult In mathematics, western culture’s focus on abstracts has had an interesting impact.
Researchers have found that skills in arithmetic develop at about the same speed in both easterners and westerners. But they find that in geometry, there's a much greater learning curve for most eastern learners. Why?
Nisbett postulates that it is because arithmetic is linked to objects. In arithmetic, we have five apples plus five apples equals ten apples. There are no variables.
In geometry, however, there are variables. We find abstract equations like y = mx + b. Variables are abstract objects.
Perhaps, later on, easterners excel at mathematics far beyond Westerners. But in the realm of geometry, Nisbett and his team found that Westerners learn the concepts much more quickly, and posits that this is because abstracts are already a part of the culture in the west; whereas in the east, they are not. Now, the ways that easterners and westerners tend to analyze human behavior. We're going to explore this a bit more deeply on this topic.
real world example
There's also an emphasis on internal and individual factors. In the west, because of the focus on isolated objects, behavior tends to have an individual cause and individual responsibility. Westerners tend to say “oh it's just one bad apple,” that the individual is the cause of the problem, not the system, not the context.
In the east, in comparison, there is a belief that behavior has complex causes. There is an emphasis on both internal and external factors. The blame for any act an individual commits is believed to be rooted not just in the individual, but in their environment, so the whole group is held responsible. Here's an example:
Different media responses from the US and China
Gang Lu
Back in 1991 at the University of Iowa in the United States, there was a Chinese Physics student named Gang Lu shot his several faculty and students, then himself. This was in response to losing the awards competition. His scholarship and his ability to attend university were both riding on winning this competition. He appealed but wasn’t successful. Gang Lu subsequently failed to obtain an academic job. So he killed his advisor, several other students, and then himself.
Now, this is a heartbreaking but interesting case to consider. Because this rampage was committed by a Chinese student who was at the time living in America, the case was reported in both Chinese and American newspapers. Let’s take a look at the ways this case was reported.
What we find in American newspapers at the time was an explanation of behavior through a focus on internal individual causes. They focused on his inherent personality, saying that the individual had a “very bad temper,” that there was a “sinister edge to his character.” They also blamed it on his attitude, saying that he had a “personal belief that guns were an important means to redress grievances.” They also blamed it on individual psychological problems, saying that he was “a darkly disturbed man who drove himself to success and destruction.”
Now, let’s compare this to Chinese Newspapers. Here, we find an explanation of behavior through a focus on his relationships, saying that he “did not get along with his advisor,” that he had a "rivalry with [the] slain students,” and that he was isolated from the Chinese community. Chinese Newspapers also blamed his actions on external factors, saying that he was a “victim of the Chinese top student educational policy,” and recognizing the “availability of guns in the United States.”
Richard Nisbett’s answer
When Real Talk Philosophy held its first event exploring Richard Nisbett’s book, Jon Dallas sent an email to Richard bluntly asking which he thought was “better,” eastern culture or western culture.
Richard responded, “… I think the facts are more favorable to Easterners than is apparent in my book. The Western cognitive virtues are relatively simple and straightforward and are readily learned by Easterners. The Eastern cognitive virtues are not so clear-cut and are more linked to socio-emotional attributes. They are therefore going to be difficult for Westerners to pick up.”
There's a lack of entry points in Eastern Culture, and you need to know the entire system as opposed to the ability to focus on an individual isolated object.