Horizontal Thinking vs Vertical Thinking: A Comparison between Chinese and Western Philosophical Counseling based on Socrates and Confucius

Abstract

Similar to the First and Second problematics distinction of thinking figured out by Hall and Ames (1995), we further propose two modes of thinking, i.e., horizontal thinking and vertical thinking, which can also be defined as analogical/correlative thinking and causal thinking. When being extended to the field of philosophical research, they can be used to manifest the differences between Chinese and Western philosophical thinking. Philosophical counseling is an emerging activity which attempts to make the academic and theoretical philosophy more practical and helpful in people’s daily life. Focusing on Chinese thinking (horizontal thinking) and Western thinking (vertical thinking), we analyze the differences between philosophical counseling in the East and West under different modes of thinking from the general to the specific in logical sequences. We especially select Socratic dialogue and Confucius’ heuristic teaching as epitomes of Western and Chinese thinking, in order to explore the possibility of combining the two together and search for an appropriate localization approach to philosophical counseling in China.