Unreason within Reason
Essays on the Outskirts of Rationality

A. C. Graham

The Western tradition has tended to identify rational thinking with the purely logical, excluding other kinds of thinking (such as thinking by analogy, correlation, imaginative simulation) from philosophy. Yet the latter forms of thinking are indispensable in the conduct of life. The central argument of Unreason Within Reason is that it is this endeavor 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.

"Graham demonstrates vividly that a Sinologist does not have to give up grand philosophic or cultural speculation just because of a love for concrete historical and textual detail. He also shows that a philosopher need not be limited to only one great cultural tradition. In the end, Graham's writings admonish us all to live a better and more responsive life guided by a spontaneous joy at the diversity of human culture, conduct, poetry, philosophy, and art."
—Philosophy East & West