Toward the Geocentric Framework of Intuition: The Yin-Yang Balancing between the Eastern and Western Perspectives on Intuition

It is increasingly recognized that the geocentric integration of the West and the East (the West-East balance) is not only economically but also culturally imperative for the whole world in the future (Chen & Miller, 2010; Li, 2012a). However, to achieve such integration is the biggest challenge for both Western and Eastern scholars, especially at the fundamental level of philosophy. The Eastern philosophies share the theme of wisdom, so I categorize them as one group and refer to as the ‘philosophy of wisdom,’ in contrast to the Western philosophies with a shared theme of knowledge, which I categorize as another group and refer to as the ‘philosophy of knowledge’ (Li, 2012a; cf. Jullien, 1998). Since the Eastern philosophy of wisdom is lesser known to the world than the Western philosophy of knowledge, it is critical to explore it first. It has the unique potential to facilitate the necessary integration due to its special capacity to reframe ambiguity from that of a negative problem (inconsistency) to a positive solution (completeness) as well as balance logical analysis with intuitive imagination. The geocentric integration can help develop a geocentric meta-paradigm of cognition from complexity (rooted in the Eastern ontology of ‘Tao’) to ambiguity (rooted in the Eastern epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing), and finally to metaphor (rooted in the Eastern methodology of ‘Wu’). The reframed perspective of ambiguity as a multi-frame blend will mediate between complexity and metaphor with a shared duality of diversity-in-unity (Li, 2012a).