Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2014

 

Seen from the Perspective of Man, the Way, and Analogy——A Look at the Cognitive Orientation of Chinese Culture Centering on the Pre-Qin Period

(Abstract)

 

Yang Guorong

 

In Chinese culture, the cognition of facts and evaluation of values interlock. If one sees things at the level of the Way (dao), ritual (li), and language, cognition shows the dimensions of the human perspective. Such a process does not confine itself to a narrow grasp of facts, but directs us toward the evaluation of values. In terms of cognitive mode, this orientation is manifest in seeing things from the perspective of the Way and of analogy. The former concerns the connectivity, holistic nature and process of the object itself and involves a tendency toward dialectical thinking; the latter grasps the object from the perspective of analogy and takes similarity as its starting point for inference. This kind of thinking has different characteristics from deductive reasoning. Seeing things from the perspective of man at the level of the knower and from the perspective of the Way and analogy at the level of the known simultaneously directs us to the efficacy, legitimacy, and appropriateness of the process of knowing and acting. In Chinese culture, this is concretely embodied in the cognitive orientation of knowing what is proper. The conformity between the argument and given circumstances not only involves reason and fact but also, in the course of practice, integrates several cognitive features of Chinese culture.