Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction.

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Abstract
Chinese ways of dealing with seeming contradictions result in a dialecticalor compromise,approach —retaining basic elements of opposing perspectives by seeking a “middle way.” European-American ways, on the other hand, deriving from a lay version of Aristotelian logic, result in a differentiationmodel that polarizes contradictory perspectives in an effort to determine which fact or position is correct. Empirical studies showed,that dialectical thinking is a form of folk wisdom,in Chinese culture: Chinese preferred dialectical proverbs containing seeming contradictions more than did Americans. Chinese were also found to prefer dialectical resolutions to social conflicts, and to prefer dialectical arguments over classical Western logical arguments. Furthermore, when two apparently contradictory propositions were presented, Americans polarized their views and Chinese were moderately accepting of both propositions. Origins of these cultural differences and their implications for human,reasoning in general are discussed. 3 3 3 Consider the following statements about recent scientific discoveries: Statement A. Two mathematicians,have discovered that the activities of a butterfly in

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