Thinking and Feeling

There is a current belief among many that gut (instinctive) feeling is what really matters and that thinking is just messing around with words. This is based on the experience that so-called logical thinking can be used to prove any point of view. All this arises from our mistaken insistence that logical validity is enough. Since with different starting perceptions perfectly logical thinking can lead to contradictory conclusions, it is not surprising

that there has been some disillusionment with thinking in favor of gut feeling. •

Ultimately it must be feeling that matters most. Feeling is what makes a human being human. In the end it is to satisfy our emotions and values that we arrange our actions. It is this very importance of feeling that makes feeling so necessary.

A friend of mine was once driving along a country road when he saw a woman being knocked down by a car ahead of him. Perhaps it was a hit - and - run driver or perhaps the driver hadn't even noticed. My friend stopped his car to help the woman. Another driver came up and, seeing the parked car and the injured woman, jumped to a conclusion and, getting out of his car, he hit my friend and broke his jaw. There was no doubt about the strength of the driver's feelings. Unfortunately his perception was faulty and had misdirected his feelings.

Feelings are a sort of actions. The purpose of thought is to prepare us for actions, to prepare something for us to feel about. Thinking doesn't mean a laborious calculation as to how much' feeling is required, but an attempt to direct attention and clarify perception. Thinking should never attempt to be a substitute for feeling. The job of thinking is to clarify and arrange perception. It is this clearer view that then excites our feeling. The feeling may still be wrong, misplaced or exaggerated, but that is a much lesser danger than trying to abolish feeling.

In practice it is extremely difficult to think first and feel second. The overwhelming tendency is to feel first and then use thinking to back up and support the feeling. The tendency is so overwhelming that even the most intelligent people express an instant feeling - based judgment and then use their thinking to back it up in an essay or discussion.

The very first step in teaching thinking must be to provide a bypass to this instant judgment by requiring the thinker to direct attention to all the relevant and interesting points in the situation. Thus; in addition to his natural feelings, he directs attention to the other aspects..

A nine-year-old girl was very upset because her long hair had been cut at her own request. In a sulk she locked herself in her room. In the morning, to her parents' surprise, she emerged smiling and in good humor. She explained that in a thinking lesson at school she had been taught deliberately to look at all the plus and minus points in a situation and she had applied the process to her haircut. As a result she could see that it would make swimming easier and would have many other advantages, so she was hapipy about it. In this girl's case the technique helped her to use her thinking to explore the situation instead of just backing up her initial reaction,.Feelings may change as a result of an enlarged perception.

We trust our feelings because we cannot see how they can be wrong.

Feelings are, indeed, always right - but within the universe created by our perception at the time. Unfortunately it is very difficult for us to accept that our perceptions may be wrong. And even more difficult for us to accept, that our perceptions may be limited.

1. Answer the following questions:

1.What believe exists among many people?

2.Why does a person use logical thinking?

3.How can we satisfy our emotions?

4.What are purposes of thought?

5.Is it more dangerous to try to abolish feeling?

6.Why did the driver hit the author’s friend?

7.People use thinking to back up their emotion based conclusions, don’t they?

8.Where should the thinker direct his/her thoughts?

9.What helped the girl to be in a good mood again?

10.Which fact about perception is difficult for us to realize?

2.Find in the text the word to the meaning:

1.Historical significance and personalized meaning for individuals’ contradiction universal of certain realities.

2.Make clear or understandable.

3.Show that something is true.

4.Put in order.

5.Person or thing taking the place of or acting for another.

6.Make something seem larger, better, or, worse, etc. than it really is.

7.Generally accepted.

8.Absence of agreement.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20