Perception According to East and West

Culture is not just race, nationality or any particular social category–culture is an experience.”-Peng. This article describes the theory of perception focusing on how eastern and western people understand perception. Eastern culture commonly follows three pedagogies namely Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Whereas the western theory focuses on our sensory experience of the world around us and involves both the recognition of environmental stimuli and actions in response to these stimuli. This Article aims at emphasizing the theoretical understanding of human perception. It provides the reader with the brief descriptions of perception according to Jainism which majorly includes Pratyaksh, Paroksh, Avgrah and Iha. It also describes how Hinduism explains perception (pratyaksha) as the primary means of knowledge (pramana) gained through five sense organs (indriya) and the awareness of perceptual being which is produced by virtue of a connection with the ‘inner’ sense faculty or mind (manas). Whereas, according to Buddhism, perception is a non-conceptualized or indeterminate awareness. Furthermore, Article discusses the western approach describing that we gain information about properties and elements of the environment that are critical to our survival. Also, a perception not only creates our experience of the world around us; it allows us to act within our environment of perception in psychology. By this way, this article aims to provide a comprehensive viewpoint of perception.