The Geography of Thought
Encyclopedia
Richard Nisbett's book The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ... and Why proposes that the passion for strong ontology and scientific rationality based on forward chaining
from axiom
s is essentially a "Western" phenomenon. The ancient Greek passion for abstract categories into which the entire world can be taxonomically arranged, he claims, is prototypically Western, as is the notion of causality
.
He claims, in other words, that the law of the excluded middle is not applied in Chinese thought, and that a different standard applies. This has been described by other thinkers as being hermeneutic reasonableness.
Forward chaining
Forward chaining is one of the two main methods of reasoning when using inference rules and can be described logically as repeated application of modus ponens. Forward chaining is a popular implementation strategy for expert systems, business and production rule systems...
from axiom
Axiom
In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered either to be self-evident or to define and delimit the realm of analysis. In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true...
s is essentially a "Western" phenomenon. The ancient Greek passion for abstract categories into which the entire world can be taxonomically arranged, he claims, is prototypically Western, as is the notion of causality
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
.
He claims, in other words, that the law of the excluded middle is not applied in Chinese thought, and that a different standard applies. This has been described by other thinkers as being hermeneutic reasonableness.