Unreason within Reason: Essays on the Outskirts of Rationality (review)

Reviews 107 some prevailing assumptions about the study of contemporary Chinese literature in these three "worlds." The greatest merits ofthe book are its comparative mode and its emphasis on the cultural elements that help shape its content. The editor as well as the contributors have certainly done a commendable job in presenting new perspectives and insightful readings of contemporary Chinese literature. Most of the contributors to the book affirm the close link between literary creation and social-cultural-political change, and they have not failed to support their views with specific literary details. Theyhave indeed opened up newvistas for further research and offer food for more thought on the general approach to contemporary Chinese literature. The present collection of essays not only bears the fruit of a meaningful conference, but also proves to have enlightened the mind ofthe reader by expanding the horizon ofChinese studies. It may also serve as a ready guide for the general English-speaking public unfamiliar with the topic. This volume constitutes one of the best books published in recent years on contemporary Chinese literature and should be recommended to all who are interested in twentieth-century Chinese writing. Kwok-kan Tarn The Chinese University of Hong Kong Angus C. Graham. Foreword by David Lynn Hall. Unreason within Reason: Essays on the Outskirts ofRationality La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1992. xvi, 293 pp. Hardcover $59.95, paperback $19.95. This volume contains a total of fourteen, wide-ranging essays which play upon a single, central theme: that all thought begins with spontaneous, prerational inclinations which are then scrutinized and judged by our rational faculty. Thus the prerational aspects ofthought are not—as the subtitle suggests—on the"outskirts " but at the heartof all our philosophizing. In the Introduction, Graham offers an intellectual autobiography tracing the development ofhis philosophical and Sinological interests. From this, one can better appreciate how the many facets ofhis scholarly work hang together and how they reinforce and illuminate one another. Graham is very open and honest about his intellectual growth, and this in itself stands as a tribute to him and a lesson for us all. One feels his disappointment when early in his career he lost contact with mainstream British philosophers and wonders what might have copyright1994been na(^ there been more people with the intellectual imagination and confiby Universityofdence ofPaton and RyIe. And one comes to appreciate the debt we owe to colHawai 'i Pressleagues like D. C. Lau, Henry Rosemont, Jr., and the faculty at the University of io8 China Review International: Vol. i, No. i, Spring 1994 Hawai'i, who not only challenged Graham intellectuallybut sustained him spiritually . At one point, Graham tells of a pivotal experience in 1970 when, under the influence of a combination of"black coffee and hashish" (p. 4), he became convinced of the importance ofpre- or subrational elements in thought. He says, "the date is noted here because it was the clearly defined start of all my thinking about awareness and spontaneity, and of my second solution of the two problems (fact/value, egoism/altruism) which continues to be central to me" (p. 4). Hence, this experience, which Graham refers to as a "revelation" (p. 5), was the beginning of the themes that animate most of die essays in this volume. In the first essay, "Value, Fact and Facing Facts," Graham presents a revised version ofhis "quasi-syllogism." This is an idea that had interested Graham for many years. Basically, his position is that we begin our ethical thinking already being moved in certain directions byprerational faculties and that successful ethical thought involves becoming aware ofall "relevant" perspectives on a given issue, so that one not only sees butfeels the inclinations of these various perspectives . The aggregate of these different ethical vectors will then determine and legitimate one's choice. Graham believed that this approach avoids the fact/value dichotomy and presents a form of altruism as a consequence offull awareness of different "relevant" perspectives. In this essay, Graham claims to have addressed certain objections concerning earlier statements ofhis position. First, he claims to have responded to Fingarette 's objection1 that his position entailed an inference to right action from the factthat one would...