Gih (Qi): Beyond Affordance.
Yang Lee, Robert E Shaw, Zheng Jin
Frontiers in Psychology January 1, 2017 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00556 (opens in new tab) via PubMed
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Gih qi Affordance Eastern philosophy Ecological psychology Embodied cognition |
| Key points | Proposes that the concept of Gih extends beyond affordance by activating a psychosomatic process that facilitates bidirectional interactions between subject and object, integrating mind and body. |
Abstract
Ancient Eastern thought posited the ontological integration of the "mind-body world". The body-mind syncretism was a foundational precept in Eastern philosophy in which "Gih" ("Qi") was considered the basic entity of the universe and the human being. This study attempts to build a meta-theory and to demonstrate empirical designs for Gih, discussing the problems of the mind and body, or the subject and object, compared with the concept of "affordance" proposed by ecological approaches. The notion of Gih extends beyond that of affordance in that Gih activates a psychosomatic process between the physical condition and the mental state that facilitates the bi-directional interactions between subject and object. Therefore, the concept of Gih integrates mind and body, providing a means of comparing Eastern and Western philosophical systems.