Kvitka-Osnovianenko Ukrainian Language and Literature Faculty

Department of Practice of English Oral and Written Speech

Year 3

Independent Study. Term II

Module 4. People and Personalities

1. Reading

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 favour 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 action, 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 judgement 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 judgement 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 humour. 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 happy 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. Find English equivalents in the text:

довести будь-як точку зору
не дивно, що
на користь чого-небудь
зрештою
задовольнити почуття
організувати дії
зробити поспішний висновок
немає сумніву
прояснити сприйняття
замінник почуття
викликати почуття
перебільшене почуття
на практиці / фактично
спочатку думати, а потім відчувати
приголомшлива тенденція
підтримати i підкріпити почуття
виражати судження, засноване на почуттях
спрямовувати увагу на що-небудь
крім своїх природних почуттів
за власним проханням
до подиву батьків
застосувати процес до чого-небудь
у результаті чого-небудь
мати перевагу
замість підтвердження своєї первісної реакції

2. Match the meaning and the word.

Historical significance and personalized meaning for individuals of certain realities	prove
Make clear or understandable	arrange
Show that something is true	substitute
Put in order	universal
Person or thing taking the place of or acting for another	current
Make something seem larger, better, or worse, etc. than it really is	satisfy
Generally accepted; in common use at present	contradiction
Belonging to; affecting all	clarify
Absence of agreement	i) value
10) Give a person what he wants or needs	j) exaggerate

3. Match the words with the opposite meaning

advantage	reject
constant	invalid
relevant	in practice
create	consistent
overwhelming	disadvantage
contradictory	inhibit
accept	current
faulty	destroy
in theory	faultless
excite	irrelevant
valid	rare

4. Match the words with a similar meaning.

technique	connected with
instant	in the end
emerge	investigate
support	momentary
purpose	arouse
relevant	method
initial	decision
conclusion	supply
ultimately	appear
provide	back up
excite	goal
explore	first