Below is my translation of the opening pages of Ronritekishikou to wa nanika, written by Makaso Ema Watanabe and published by Iwanami Shoten. Full citation and copyright information can be found at the bottom of the page. My own introductory comments to the work can be found here.
What is Logical Thinking?
Masako Ema Watanabe
Introduction—Is there only one way to think logically?
The importance and necessity of thinking logically has been recognized not just in academics, but also in business, education, and across a broad range of fields in which judgements are made on a daily basis. Logical thinking is talked about as if it is universal and unchanging. But what even is it for something to be logical? How is the line drawn between logical and illogical? Is there really only one way to think logically? This book will answer these questions by considering logic from two perspectives: its fundamental patterns, and its cultural aspect. In addition to “formal logic”, which is the basis by which logical thinking has come to be accepted as universal and unchanging, this book will identify a value-laden cultural aspect of logic, which will be called “substantive logic.”
Both the method of thinking (i.e., the procedures by which one reaches a logical conclusion) and the standard of being logical vary depending on one’s objective. Throughout this book selecting one out of several ways of thinking logically in order to best meet one’s goal will be named “polylogical thinking.” The aims of this book are to show the importance of polylogical thinking, provide guidance on how to employ it, and to identify it as the future of logical thinking.
The Cultural Aspect of Logic
During my time studying abroad at an American university, I realized that there is neither a single way of thinking logically nor a single way of being logical. I will never forget the shock of seeing “ungradable” written in red upon having my essay returned. And although I rewrote the essay carefully many times, I kept receiving the same comment. But the most shocking part is that as soon as I learned the structure of an American essay, and rewrote my essay accordingly, its evaluation skyrocketed. Not because of a sudden rise in English ability or a dramatic increase in knowledge, but because I followed the expected structure.
However, upon rewriting the essay in the American style, something that I had previously thought was very important became unnecessary. Even the thesis, the point of the essay, ended up changing. Thus, the conclusion had to change as well. The structure of the paper guided both the logic and the way of thinking. The way these differ between Japan and America would best be called an “Invisible Culture Clash.” Experiencing that difference firsthand was a surreal experience.
A line of logic is guided by the structure of a piece of writing. By taking advantage of that fact, one can think and write logically without having to start from scratch every time. Using the same logic as another person enables smooth communication with them. I have learned these facts from firsthand experience. Being logical is not the same thing across the globe. In fact, it varies by culture, is acquired through one’s educational upbringing, and is deeply connected to the questions of what a society values most, and what lies at the heart of its culture.
For example, although America and France both fall under the umbrella term “The West,” the truth is that these two countries have entirely different styles of essay composition, to the point that if an individual of one country writes an essay of their home country’s style in the other country, they will receive a failing grade with comments like “I don’t know what you’re trying to say”, “connection unclear”, or “insufficient argumentation”, and therefore “illogical”. If one wonders why such a thing happens, the answer is that the papers are written with a different objective. To anticipate the conclusion, the objective of an American style essay is to convince the reader of one’s assertion (thesis) in an efficient and easy to understand way. In contrast, the objective of a French style essay (called a dissertation) is to slowly work through every possibility, resolve paradoxes, and contribute to the public welfare by empowering political decision-making.
The American style aims to solve a complicated worldly problem by removing all irrelevant matters until it reaches a pure and simple form. In contrast, the French style confronts the complexity of a problem by following the dialectical approach of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis, in which the conventional viewpoint is brought together with one that opposes it, and the resulting paradox is resolved. This style aims to benefit the overall public welfare of a diverse and multifaceted society. In every country, there exists an expected form of conclusion and an expected means of reaching that conclusion. In other words, a logic.
As the English language has established a hegemonic position in the increasingly globalized economy, the American writing style, exemplified by the five-paragraph essay, has become the world standard. The knowledge and ability to write, understand, and reason along this style is indeed very helpful. It can facilitate effective communication and no doubt is an indispensable tool for people in a wide variety of fields and businesses. Additionally, many of the things called “logical thinking” in business and essay writing guidebooks are actually the American style. However, as can be seen by comparing it with the French style, the American way of thinking does not cover the whole of logical reasoning. Trying to push through every situation with this kind of thinking alone will lead to unexpected pitfalls.
Form of Culture and Form of Thought
While there are numerous ways to think logically, they are not limitless. It is possible to present several types as distinct “forms” (patterns). This book will present the characteristic logic and way of thinking for each for the four domains economic (America), political (France), legal (Iran), and social (Japan) by examining the “form” or “structure” employed when people speak and write within each domain. Economic, political, legal, and social domains co-exist in all countries. But judgements (logical conclusions) differ depending on which domain’s logic is used. With this approach, types that are both instrumentally helpful and fundamentally grounded can be specified without falling into cultural relativism by positing a myriad of logics and ways of logical thinking to each country.
The unique approach taken by this book is as follows. The “cultures” of the four countries America, France, Iran, and Japan will be taken to be the fundamental principles of the domain which is situated at the center of that society. The way of logical thinking that is used in each domain will be abstracted from the structures of the essays that are taught at school in the respective countries. Thus, the logic’s essential features—its methods and objectives, and its standard of value—will be revealed by way of the structure of essays which are both taught in school and used in practicality. Finally, the book will describe how to choose the best logic to adapt to particular contexts and situations.
The Form of the Essay Structures the Form of Logic and Thought
The reader may question “can you really learn about political and economic thought by looking at children’s writing?” But the effectiveness of using school essays to understand ways of thinking has already been shown by the results of an experiment and by actual educational objectives and practices that corroborate those results. In the experiment, elementary school students from Japan and America were shown the same four-panel comic depicting the day of a certain boy. The questions asked by the experiment were: how would they explain the picture and would they attach reasoning to their explanations? (Watanabe 2004). The participants were students in their last year of elementary school (sixth grade in Japan, fifth grade in America) taken from four different classes per country. A similar study has also been done with college students in the two countries, and it had nearly the same result (Watanabe 2023). Below are two sample essays from the experiment, the first written by a Japanese student and the second written by an American student. Note that the boy in the comic was named Kenta in Japan and John in America.
Japan
Kenta played video games without sleeping, then before the match he hurried to put on his uniform, then he got on the wrong bus, and then he did not make it match in time, so he was not able to pitch in the starting lineup.
America
My opinion on John’s day is that he had a frustrating day form the beginning of the day to the end of the day. It was a very ironic day for him, first he played video games for too long which caused a chain reaction of bad events. He got up late so his mind was in a state of panic, and which in effect caused him to go on the wrong bus which caused him to be late for baseball practice. All in all he had a bad day.
Over 90% of the Japanese students’ essays were either a sequence of events written in chronological order and connected by “and then…and then…”, or a “cautionary tale,” a sequence of events written in order, but ending with a “lesson learned.” In contrast, more than one third of the American essays began with an assertion, which was also the conclusion, followed by events that served as evidence for the conclusion.
To an American, who is used to thinking along the lines of an assertion-evidence-conclusion structured essay, the Japanese student’s essay seems to be a mere chain of events, with no sign of reasoning. Crucially, it lacks the most important part of the essay: the thesis (assertion). An essay with no thesis is, naturally, an essay with no reasoning. Thus, the essay is branded “illogical”. On the other hand, to a Japanese person, the American student’s essay feels overly assertive and opinionated, and lacks any interesting development since the conclusion was already known. For those reasons, they feel strong psychological and moral resistance toward beginning a paper with an assertion. And besides, is there really a need to make an assertion in an explanation of a comic? Is there a need to give a cause-and-effect reason for every single thing? Why not use a narrative style that allows one to better relate with the protagonist? In ways like these, people from different countries often simply cannot accept each other’s explanations. The reason for this will become clear after examining the differing objectives of the four domains—economic, political, legal, and social.
But if you only look at those things that essay writing guides call “logical”, such as show evidence, use induction and deduction, give cause and effect explanations, and so on, then you will not be able to see the origin of this cultural clash. You will mistakenly think it is a matter of ability, or lack thereof. What is manifested in the structure of the essay is a difference in writing style. But in education systems, the essays are viewed and evaluated through the lens of a mode of thought which is highly valued in modern society called “logical reasoning.” Through that lens, mastery of the appropriate style is converted into (results in) academic ability and achievement. However, the abilities evaluated within the four domains are completely different, and the methods by which they are evaluated also differ.
It may seem clear as day that America, the standard bearer of capitalism, places great value on economics. But students are not taught about raising profits, generating capital, or investment. What they are taught in school is a viewpoint and a way of thinking that places great value on a capitalist economy and ways of expressing those values. Nonetheless, there may be readers who, having seen the example essays above, are still under the wrong impression that the Japanese language and the people who speak it are illogical. After reading this book, which unravels logical thinking from its value-laden cultural aspect, the reader will come to understand that the writing education of Japan, the representative country of the social domain, fosters something with a value that cannot be gained from any amount of money invested or any strategically planned and executed project. The logic of the essay bolsters society.
Conceptions that Japanese people are bad at logical thinking, or that Japanese is an ambiguous language, are fundamentally groundless. Though that impression can be given, it is only because in Japan, there is a societal demand to intentionally make one’s conclusion vague or ambiguous. But when it comes to applying the rules of formal logic to the Japanese language, there is no problem at all. In Japan, rather than following fixed rules, there is a strong expectation that one ought to feel out the situation and choose one’s words and actions appropriately. But this disposition can also be taken advantage of. For example, if the situation clearly calls for economic logic, one can adapt one’s mode of thought and manner of expression to be logical.
After elucidating the four domains’ ways of thinking, this book will explain how to choose which logic to employ depending on the objective and the situation. This ability will be a valuable asset, as it will be the logic of the coming era. The modern era has been bolstered by science and capitalism, and has pushed forward with a single logic. Moving forward, there will be a shift from logical thinking to polylogical thinking.
Structure of the Book
The preliminary chapter explains how logical thinking came to be accepted as universal and unchanging by considering the disciplines that have come to shape western thought: (the study of) logic, rhetoric, science, and philosophy. The objectives and characteristic ways of thinking within these four fields are compared, and it is shown that each uses its own distinct way of logical thinking to meet its objectives. There is an easy to understand comparative chart (table 0-1) of the ways of thinking in these fields, so readers who have trouble with these subjects should refer to it. Readers already familiar with these ways of thinking, or readers who are especially interested in the cultural aspect of logic, may begin with chapter one.
In chapter one, the characteristics of four domains that make up substantive logic —economics, politics, law, and society—will be explained and displayed in 2×2 matrix. In chapter two, the structure of the essays of America, France, Iran, and Japan are compared to define four corresponding logics. The historical background that gave birth to each country’s writing style is described, and the value system that underpins its logic is explained. Chapter three provides a systemic analysis of how, and in what ways, the logic of one domain comes to seem illogical from the viewpoint of a different domain. The final chapter shows how to optimally choose among the four ways of thinking and employ them at the level of rhetoric—the art of expression. This book aims to show that understanding one’s own way of thinking and how it stands in relation to others is a necessary skill for the modern era, which is showing institutional fatigue, as well as the key to avoiding cultural conflict.
With polylogical thinking, the focus shifts from asking “how do I think and express myself logically?”, and “are these actions rational?”, to “which logic (or value system) should I choose to make a judgement?”, and “are these actions consistent with the values that I chose?” Changing one’s framework of understanding in this way not only will assist one in navigating the difficulties of the modern era, but also enable one to proactively consider what kind of logic will become central in the next era, and to which domain that logic belongs. The social domain, represented most clearly by Japan, is a promising candidate.
Translated by Mark Simoncic from 渡邉雅子 (Watanabe Masako) Ronritekishikou to wa nanika (『論理的思考とは何か』) (岩波書店、2024年), pp. i-xi
© 2024 Masako Watanabe
Posted by permission of Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo.
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