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In contrast, the question of 'what is water' has never been asked by the Chinese intellect, nor have the matters composed of it been looked for, as it has in the Western science. According to classical Chinese thought, water is one of five basic elements of the universe. The other four are metal, wood, fire and earth. None of these five elements have been further investigated into and analyzed by the Chinese science. They are all treated as non-analytical final entities. It has been found that traditional Chinese science, quite complicated though, is non-abstract science, in essential contrast to the abstract theoretical science in the West (Logan:64).
It is proposed in this essay that the ontological difference between the Chinese thought and Western thought comes from the fact that the language is written in different types of script, that is, alphabetic writing for the language in the West, and ideographic writing in China, because alphabetic writing presents the arbitrary property of the linguistic sign, while ideographic writing doesn't, which subsequently affects the speaker's perception of the language, and as the result of which, the world. What is arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign? In one sense the answer is quite simple. According to Saussure, there is no natural or inevitable link between a concept and the sound representing it.(Saussure:67; Culler:29). The link is merely conventional.
For instance, the concept water is currently linked to the sound water. But the connection is not internal. Had another sound been picked for this concept at the beginning, it would have represented water equally well. In essence, the sound water, and all others in the language, have no intrinsic meanings by themselves, so can theoretically represent any concept, as long as the connection is accepted by the speech community. Please note that in this case, and throughout, the concept is written in red color, such as water, and sound in blue such as water. It is also important to remember that while alphabetic writing links to sound only, the Chinese ideographic character links to concept graphically and in the meantime carries a sound. In other words, the Chinese character is a meaningful sound. The arbitrary property of the linguistic sign is demonstrated in the following figure:
Figure I consists of four smaller figures, all of which contain four identical concepts, namely, moon, tree, man and water, and their corresponding sounds. Every sound has opportunities to work for all the four concepts. In the alphabetic writing, meaningless letters represent meaningless sounds, which demonstrates that there is no intrinsic connection between a concept and a particular sound. This provides the speaker with the opportunity to perceive the arbitrary connection between them.
For example, the concept water is currently associated with the sound water. But this task can equally be fulfilled by the sound tree, man, moon or another, because none of them are inherently related to the concept water. In contrast to alphabetic writing, characters in the Chinese ideographic writing are intrinsically meaningful, thus are not able to represent the arbitrary relationship of the linguistic sign, as presented in following Figure II:
As mentioned earlier, while alphabetic writing only links to the sound, Chinese ideographic writing links to both the concept and sound in the meantime. The Chinese character is an alloy of a semantic value and a phonetic value. In essence, the link between the concept and sound is still arbitrary. But this important feature is disguised by the ideographic characters. For instance, the speaker would not have chance to perceive that all the sounds in Figure II, as written in 水, 木, 人, 月, to be meaningless, thus can link to any concept. Instead, each character can link to only one particular concept. I contend that it is exactly this difference in exhibiting the arbitrary nature of linguistic sign that affects the speaker's perception of the language and world. The following figure displays the contrast.
On the left part of preceding figure, the concept water is not linked to any particular sound, because none is intrinsically connected to it. Therefore, the sound doesn't provide any means to define the concept and discriminate it from other concepts. This sensation of the arbitrary connection readily leads to desire for the knowledge about the concept or substance, and to discriminate it from other concepts or substances. In other words, when the sound is mentally treated as external aspect of the concept, but not an integral part of it, it is natural for the speaker to wonder: what is it? In this particular case the question is: what is water?
On the right part of Figure III, the concept water is linked to a sound which is written ideographically as 水. The character depicts the concept graphically while carrying a sound. The link between them would seem internal and inevitable. As the result, the property of the sound being meaningless is disguised. And the perception of arbitrary connection between the concept and sound does not occur in the human mind. The concept is sufficiently discriminated by the sound written in the Chinese character.
Thereafter, concept written in alphabetic writing is abstract. On the surface, a concept is linked to a particular sound. But this sound, and all other sounds, are internally meaningless. So the concept can potentially link to any sound. And the nature of the concept is not relevant to whichever sound it is associated with. In contrast, concept written in ideographic writing is concrete, in which a concept is intrinsically associated with only one sound, but not any other. Were an alphabetic writing adopted for the Chinese language, arbitrary links between concepts and their current sounds would stand out. The following figure illustrates the situation when Chinese language is written in PinYin, an alphabetic sound-indicating system adopted in China in 1958.
After the Chinese language is written with an alphabetic script, it will become compatible with Figure I in terms of representing the arbitrary connection of linguistic sign. Meaningless letters represent meaningless sounds. Ontological curiosity would consequently occur in the mind. There is widespread argument among scholars that spoken language has the single greatest influence of all factors upon man's thought processes. Second only to the impact of speech on thought is writing (Logan:59). This essay argues, with above discussion, that writing exerts more fundamental and significant impact on the thought processes. And it is primarily the writing that makes intellectual difference between the Chinese mind and Western mind.
In early 1970s, American social psychologist Alfred Bloom was conducting research on political thinking in Hong Kong. In his interviews, he found that his Chinese interviewees lacked the ability of counterfactual reasoning. For instance, one of the questions that Bloom asked is: 'If the government had passed a law requiring that all citizens born outside of Hong Kong make weekly reports of their activities to the police, how would you have reacted?' To Bloom's surprise, one interviewee after another answered: 'it has not', to this question. All the interviewees were native speakers of Chinese. So this question, and all others, was not asked in English, but their Chinese counterparts.
The Chinese language is different from Western languages, such as English, in many aspects. For instance, unlike English, Chinese verbs do not inflect for tense, voice, person and mood. A single form is used in all these situations. What is concerned in Bloom's study is the subjunctive mood for counterfactual conditions. Some comparisons between English and Chinese are listed in the following two tables.
| fact: | He does not know Chinese, so is not able to read this book. |
| counter-fact in English: | If he knew Chinese, he then would be able to read this book. |
| counter-fact in Chinese: | ru2guo3(=if) he know Chinese, he jiu4(=then) be able to read this book. |
| fact: | He did not know Chinese at that time, so was not able to read this book. |
| counter-fact in English: | If he had known Chinese at that time, he would have been able to read this book. |
| counter-fact in Chinese: | ru2guo3(=if) he know Chinese at that time, he jiu4(=then) be able to read this book. |
In the Chinese language, there are words equivalent to 'if'(ru2guo3) and 'then' (jiu4) in English, for making assumptions. But Chinese verbs do not change form for subjunctive mood, as do in English, to indicate counterfactual conditions. Bloom spoke both English and Chinese. With his knowledge of the languages and experience with native speakers of Chinese in the interviews, he hypothesized that the grammatical feature of subjunctive mood encourages the human mind to leave the reality and enter the realm of theoretical reasoning.
Two important issues are related to Bloom's research. The first is whether or not there is theoretical reasoning in Chinese philosophical and scientific thought. Answer to this question is a solid 'no' by the investigation into the Chinese philosophy (Graham; Hansen) and history of science and technology (Logan). In other words, Bloom's observation of the deficiency in logical reasoning in Chinese thought is substantially corroborated by credible researches. This issue has become more complicated in modern times when China and West are closely interacting with each other. It is necessary to distinguish between the 'process' and 'consequence' of thinking. In philosophy, science and all aspects of society, the Chinese thinking does not enter the process of theoretical reasoning, but merely takes advantage of the consequence of the Western theoretical reasoning process.
The second question is why the Chinese thought lacks deductive reasoning. Bloom gives an answer in perspective of grammatical features of the language. Details of Bloom's research will not be further discussed in this section. Instead, I would propose an alternative explanation to the phenomenon that Bloom observed. The different modes of thought on counterfactuals come from different writing systems, namely, alphabetic writing on the one hand and ideographic writing on the other. In both Figures I and II, only the links between concepts and sounds on the left-hand upper quarters, that is, those between concepts and words in black, are facts. All the others, that is, where the links between concepts and words in blue, are counterfactual. In Figure I, the paths for making counterfactual assumptions are through. For instance, according to the left-hand lower quarter, it is possible to assume that if the object moon were linked to the sound man, then the object tree could be linked to the sound water, man to moon, and water to tree. And so forth.
On the other hand, Figure II tells an entirely different story. The paths for counterfactual assumption are blocked by the ideographic writing. Each character is intrinsically linked to an object. The arbitrary link between the sound and object is disguised. As the result, initializing counterfactual premises would become substantially more difficult, if ever possible, and logical reasoning thus does not take place. A problem with Bloom's questionnaire survey is that the counterfactual premises were provided. The participants were placed at the beginning of a track for logical reasoning. As a result, whether or not they can initiate the premises is not tested. In conclusion, the difference between Western and Chinese intellect on logical reasoning comes from the different types of writing system.
At this point, an immediately question must be: did the logical reasoning occur in the human mind before the appearance of alphabetic writing? The answer is 'no', according to the analysis in this essay. Requisite for logical thinking is the sensation, subliminal though, of the arbitrary connection between the concept and sound which comes completely from the alphabetic writing. The human mind would have no chance to sense the arbitrary connection without the aid of alphabetic writing, thus to mentally treat the concept as abstract entity.
Illiterates in literate society are affected by the general thought pattern through oral media, such as conversation, radio, TV, and other channels of social interaction. The general thought pattern of a society affects all aspects of that society, such as legal system, politics, social customs, science and technology, religion, and so forth, to a variety of degrees. Taking part in these activities, the illiterates, though unable to read and write, would follow the prevalent mode of thinking of the literate society.
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