Thorsten Pattberg

“ Contrary to popular belief, cultural evolution leads to systems that can be more stabile than the Mendelian (genetic) ones, because culture is less sensitive to migration. That is believable, isn’t it? ”

“ Till to this day, for the typical Western-educated scholar studying history in China is often a painstaking process – many experts despair at the horrible lack of regionalism, objectivity, glossaries, reference material, logical structure, punctuation, a useful introduction, but instead loads of beautiful adjectives, great analogies, lovely sceneries, ethical evaluations, dialogues, personal comments and practical moral lessons. ”

“ Since cultural evolution – although groups influencing each other’s evolutions - does not necessary develop simultaneously to genetic evolution, therefore two nations may have quite a similar culture and values but not necessarily share the same high degree of racial phenotypes, and vice versa (Reynolds 1983; Cavalli-Sforza et al 1994, Mace 2005) .
It is difficult to find out who is the greatest individual in human history. ”

“ Kung Tu Tzu said, "If all men are equal, how is it that there are greater and lesser men?" Mencius said, "Some follow their greater part and some follow their lesser part.” "Why do some follow their greater part and some follow their lesser part?" ”

“ The authority of the living was derivative, depending upon the authority of the masters, who no longer were among the living (Arendt, 1993) ; and only through memorizing the classics and their transmissions through the historical records, a great man would be able to comprehend the depth and complexity of human existence (Li Wai-Yee, 2008) . This is true of China today, were commentators on Chinese ancient texts still often treat them as closed system with complete internal coherence and assume ‘pan-signification’. ”

“ Even now, 2500+ years after the I Ching [易经] , Lun Yu [论语] , or Dao Dejjing [道德经] , the Chinese people embrace the Confucian ideal of a ‘harmonious society (和谐社会, hexie shehui) ’, ‘oneness of man and heaven (天人合一, tian ren he yi) ’, ‘everything under the heaven or Celestial Empire (天下, tianxia) ’. This relationship between Confucius, the ‘inductive approach’, and the Chinese collective mind is so intimidating, that it makes me think that if there had been a great individual much earlier than the Duke of Zhou, Confucius, or the mystical Fu Xi -, maybe 10,000 years, maybe 20,000 years earlier ”

“ The most likely answer is: because a third cultural system does not exist. As all available evidences speak for themselves; to us speaks yet another Nobel laureate:
中 华传统文化的一大特色是归纳法,可是没有推演法。其中归纳法的来源是什么?“易者象也”,“圣人立象以尽意”,“取象比类:,”观物取象“都是贵穿《易 经》的精神内。都是归纳法,是向上求整体”象“的方法。徐光启在翻译了欧几里德的几何原本以后,了解到推演法一个特点就是”欲前后更置之不可得“。就是一 条一条推论不能次序颠倒。这跟中国传统不一样。中国传统对于逻辑不注意,说理次序不注意,要读者自己体会出来最后的结论。 The inductive method is a major feature of traditional Chinese culture, but not so the deductive method. What is the source of the inductive method in China? ”

“ Although both could have developed the whole range of possible talents to a sufficient degree, yet each of them dominantly practiced one set of particular talents more than the other. Given the limited time to practice during a lifetime, many people may become excellent artists or brilliant scientists, but rarely does someone triumph in both areas. ”

“ West, who quite differ in their attitudes, behaviors and ways of perception. Why, let us openly employ terms from differential psychology to describe them. Mr. West is more rational driven, while Mr. East is more intuitive. ”