ABSTRACT
It is important for our understanding of Chinese culture to learn that it is not only based on Daoist mysticism or Confucian morality, but that it also had, even at its beginnings, a rational ingredient. The internal logic of Western rationalism, however, puts before us a dilemma: either Chinese rationalism is of the same type as Western rationalism, and hence inferior to it, because less well developed, or Chinese rationalism represents a different kind of rationalism, which seems impossible. Chinese rationality, therefore, is either not rational at all, or is less rational than Western rationalism. The best way to get out of this dilemma is to investigate the behaviour of both of these forms of rationalism when they are confronted with similar tasks, and under comparable circumstances.1
