Theoretical Research On Chinese People's Practical Thinking

It is clear that culture and thinking are important key words in contemporary academic context.Thinking pattern is component and deep connotation of a certain culture,and it is a kind of stable meta-cognition pattern to perceive and deal with surrounding information.There is clinging habit for Chinese to ask “what is the use”,that is to say,Chinese like pursuing usefulness and utility.This present paper mainly focuses on pragmatic thinking pattern,which contains four parts.Part one,the writer elucidates definition and basic characteristic of pragmatic thinking.Pragmatic thinking is defined as a kind of thinking pattern which seeks realistic usefulness and utility.There are three basic characteristics of pragmatic thinking:(1)instead of transcendental pursuit of afterlife,it emphasizes secular satisfaction;(2)instead of theoretical construction,it focuses on applied exploration;(3)instead of long-term interests,it pay more attention to short-term interests.On Chinese pragmatic thinking,there are four developmental stages that evolves from biological adaptation to cultural choice,and the four stages go through as follows:germination,occurrence,formation and determination.It is easy to find that Chinese consider knowledge,relationship and religion as tool and means.Part two,it is important to consider the cultural reasons that lead to pragmatic thinking.(1)View of “One World” makes individuals emphasize realistic life and daily life.According to View of “One World”,Chinese set goal in this life world,therefore,it is important to seek secular satisfaction instead of transcendental goals.(2)The traditional idea of knowing and doing emphasizes that knowledge should benefit doing.Meanwhile,the traditional idea of nature and man considers the need of man.As a result,Chinese value applied research based on human needs,while despising basic theoretical studies.(3)Chinese have two evident mindsets.One is the prize of opportunity,and the other one is the horror of lack of material.It is traditional mindsets that urge Chinese to pursue short-term interests.Part three,it is an essential task to reveal the formation mechanism of pragmatic thinking.As a complicated existence,pragmatic thinking refers to related values and epistemology.Chinese culture has formed a practical value that emphasizes the survival and development of individuals and groups.The speech pattern makes pragmatic values and pragmatic epistemology instill into individual thinking format.It is very interesting that Chinese tend to ask “what is the use” and “how to do it”: the former one helps individuals chase realistic goal pursuit and arouse utility-function cognition pattern;the latter one helps individuals seek certain ways to solve realistic problem,and makes individual avoid theoretical explanation.Under the guidance ofsuch a kind of language pattern,Chinese tend to form pragmatic thinking.Part four,it is necessary to try to respond to “Needham puzzle” from psychological perspective.This paper refers to the core questions in “Needham puzzle”.There are two basic questions,one is “Why modern science developed in the West?” and the other one is “Why modern science failed to develop in China?”(1)If we want to answer the question “Why modern science developed in the West”,we need trace back to Greek civilization and Hebrew's civilization,which respectively provide cognitive factor and personality factor for the generation of modern science.Under the impact of ancient Greek tradition,the westerners formed a conceptualized formal logic,trying to perceive nature with element-structure cognitive pattern,and use abstract numbers to describe and deduce existence.In a word,Greece's tradition offers cognitive preparation for generation of modern science.Under the impact of Hebrew's tradition,the westerns form transcendental goal and motive,seek self and meaning.In a word,Hebrew's tradition offers personality power for generation of modern science.It is easy to find that the modern science is the product of cognitive power and personality power that reject pragmatic thinking.(2)As for the question“Why modern science failed to develop in China”,this paper also investigates psychological factors systematically.Firstly,ancient Chinese always adopt analogical reasoning and related logic which can links all kinds of things,therefore,it is difficult to separate nature from man.Meanwhile,ancient Chinese tried to perceive nature with utility-function cognitive pattern,and use abstract numbers to guide practice.That is to say,the cognitive characteristic of ancient Chinese is not useful for generation of modern science.Secondly,because of Confucianism and Taoism,Chinese favor realistic goal,at the same time,Chinese tend to seek pleasure and avoid bitterness.These personality factors can not offer power to facilitate the generation of modern science.In a word,ancient Chinese didn't owe the psychological condition for the generation of modern science.Pragmatic thinking pattern is helpful for Chinese to adapt to hard environment,take in new things and keep open-minded towards outer cultures.Due to the excessive emphasis on “utility” and “function”,the Chinese people neglect the theoretical approaches which can not be applied quickly and avoid the pursuit of transcendence.If we want to realize mental modernization,we need to further promote theoretical thinking.Meanwhile,if we want to realize higher development of human nature,we need inherit transcendental quality,understand transcendental quality of Greece,and make transcendental goal a key component of Chinese overall goal pursuit.