Unreason Within Reason: Essays on the Outskirts of Rationality

by A.C. Graham, David Lynn Hall (Foreword by)

The Western tradition has tended to identify thinking with the purely logical, excluding other kinds of thinking (such as thinking by analogy, correlation, imaginative simulation) from philosophy, without denying their indispensability in the conduct of life. The central argument of Unreason Within Reason is that it is this endeavour to detach the logical from other kinds of thinking which has led to the present crisis of rationality, in which reason seems everywhere to be undermining its own foundations.

Genres: Philosophy

293 pages, Paperback

Published October 18, 1999

About the author

Angus Charles Graham (1919-1991) was born in Penarth, Wales. He studied theology at Oxford University and served as an interpreter in Malaya and Thailand while in the Royal Air Force. In 1946 he enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he remained throughout his career. An important Sinologist, Graham is credited with introducing into English several little- or poorly-known works of Chinese classical literature and philosophy, and is celebrated for his insightful analysis of these texts. Among his books are translations of Lieh-tzu and Chuang-tzu; a partial reconstruction of the anti-Confucian writings of Mo-tzu and a study of Mahoism, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science; a comparison of Eastern and Western religions, The Disputers of the Tao; and Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking.