A. C. Graham - Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China

This history of the Classical period (500-200 BCE) presents a vision of this subject and acts as an introduction for the non-scholar, a comprehensive history for the student, and brimming with bold new insights for the specialist. Disputers of the Tao focuses on the dialogues between rival thinkers, tracing the increasing sophistication of argument which developed with growing competition among the schools. The book is equally as concerned with how these philosophers thought as it is with what they thought. Chinese philosophy has unique features, but it has very much to do with what Westerners understand by rationality. Professor Graham identifies the rationalistic and anti-rationalistic trends which culminated in the Later Mohists and the Taoist Chuang-tzu. He presents a full account of Later Mohist proto-logic, explores the nature of Chinese science, and examines the relation between Yin-Yang speculation and the proto-scientific speculation of medieval and Renaissance Europe. Professor Graham analyzes the underlying conceptual differences between Chinese and Western thought, some of them rooted in differences between Chinese and Indo-European languages - affecting, for example, the categories and the concept of Being. Chinese thought raises fundamental questions about the posing of the fact-value issue and the relation between analytic and correlative thinking. Throughout, there are ample quotations from the ancient texts, in new translations which take advantage of recent advances in Chinese linguistics and hermeneutics.