Rejoinder to Hansen

Hansen (2012b) reiterates his view that the humanities should form the ideological foundation of the counseling profession by challenging the validity of the central premises for the author's argument that the humanities and science should have equal ideological standing. The author attempts to explain the reasons for their conflicting ideas on the issue by addressing the influence of cultural background on dialectical thinking. ********** Hansen (2012b) presents an interesting and thought-provoking rebuttal to my central premise (V. Suthakaran, 2012) that cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) can provide a theoretical model to understand the need for equal appreciation of humanism and science in the counseling profession. Hansen (2012b) explains that CEST, which is a theory of individual psychology, is not an adequate theoretical model to apply to the entire counseling profession. He also clarifies his stance on humanism by asserting that his thesis was not antiholistic, as I proposed in my earlier reply, because he applies a reductive perspective only to ideologies, not to people. Hansen (2012b) does, however, state that we have "significant points of agreement, most notably our mutual desire for both the humanities and science to be recognized as vital ideological contributors to the counseling profession" (p. 241). After carefully considering the points Hansen (2012a) makes in his original article and also in his reply to my response, I do not agree with Hansen (2012b) that our views on this topic are essentially the same. Hansen (2012b) continues to "maintain that the humanities should serve as the overarching ideology for the profession and that science should be regarded as a vital tool" (p. 245), which contradicts my main thesis that the humanities and science should have equal ideological significance. Our perspectives for advocating humanism or science as the overarching ideology for the counseling profession are fundamentally different and mirror the distinct dialectical thinking embraced within our respective cultures: Hansen's Western culture and my Eastern culture. Therefore, in my rejoinder, I attempt to explain how cultural differences in dialectical thinking may have had an impact on our conflicting conceptualizations in this special issue, instead of simply responding to Hansen's (2012b) counterarguments. DIALECTICAL THINKING: FORMAL LOGIC AND NAIVE DIALECTICISM Dialectical thinking is considered to consist of cognitive approaches toward resolving apparent contradictions and inconsistencies (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). The principles of Eastern dialectical thinking have been shown to be significantly different from Western epistemologies or ways of knowing (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). The predominant epistemology or way of knowing about the world in the East is naive dialecticism (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Naive dialecticism is a culture-specific mode of dialectical thinking that emphasizes the principles of change, contradiction, and holism (Spencer-Rodgers & Peng, 2004). The principle of change maintains that reality is a process that is dynamic and ever shifting. According to the principle of contradiction, reality is full of contradictions because change is constant and, thus, two sides of any contradiction are always in active harmony, opposed but connected. The principle of holism is that nothing exists in isolation, so a full understanding of anything requires the knowledge of how it affects and is affected by all of its relations. The principles of change, contradiction, and holism result in significant priority being placed on the perceptual field, the situational context, and relationships among objects and events in the environment (Spencer-Rodgers & Peng, 2004). Western dialectical thinking is primarily based on Aristotelian formal logic (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Thus, in contrast to naive dialecticism of the East, Western dialectical thinking emphasizes three different laws: the law of identity, the law of contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). …