西方理性思维的源头：单一世界秩序 Inside the Western Mind: Single-ordered World

学者一般认为：理性思维是西方文明发展的基石，而东方文明的基石是审美思维，或者叫联想思维。

郝大维与安乐哲指出，西方宇宙学说中的一个重要的假设是认为世界是个单一的整体。这个假设令很多人否认多元世界秩序的存在。所以，西方人很难接受语言，风俗习惯和文化的多元性。为了要达到他们周围社会的稳定，他们希望看到的是和谐，秩序和一元化，而不是不和谐，混乱和无秩序，无政府状态。其结果是，在寻找全球性原则与规范中，和谐，秩序与一元化成为选定的概念。

在西方，无论是从社会或哲学角度，人们对于无秩序/无政府状态的概念存有恐惧。可以这么说，在哲学上，西方人不能忍受知识上的无所以依据，他们需要一个单元有秩序的宇宙作为稳定知识的依据。

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Extracted from "A Philosophical Evaluation of Western and Eastern Civilization from a Whiteheadian Perspective" by

Wang Shik Jang: It is often pointed out that while the advancement of Western civilization has been based on a rational way of thinking, that of Eastern civilization has been based on an aesthetic way of thinking......

According to Hall and Ames, one salient characteristic of the Western cosmologies lies in their presumption of the world as “a single-ordered whole.” With such a presumption of the world as a single-ordered whole, many people in the West deny that there are many world orders. For example, it has not been easy for the Westerners to accept plurality of languages, customs and cultures. Therefore, in order to achieve social stability in their surroundings, they favor harmony, cosmos (i.e., order) and unity rather than discord, chaos and anarchy. As a result, harmony, cosmos, and unity have become the selected notions that are sought in an attempt to discover universalizable principles and standards........
Some people may ask why a single-ordered world, i.e., cosmos has always been preferred in the West to the diffusing plurality of the world, i.e., chaos. An answer would be that the notion of anarchy, whether it is social or philosophical, has been feared in the West. Or, philosophically, it can be said that people in the West could not bear an epistemological uncertainty. Therefore, in order to arrive at a tolerable degree of epistemological stability, they needed the concept of unified world, i.e., universe.