![[:en]Prof Leigh Jenco - LSE[:]](https://i0.wp.com/african-century.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/leighJenco.jpg?fit=300%2C150&ssl=1)
We have a possible reconciliation. Leigh Jenko has now distanced herself from the apparent separation of Chinese and Western philosophy in terms of ‘rational’ and non-rational’. She wrote to me on 23 November: ‘Regarding reason/rationality, I am not keen on using such terms,………., so I think we are in agreement here. ‘ Bravo.
![[:en]Prof Jenco[:]](https://i0.wp.com/african-century.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/leigh_jenco3.jpg?fit=225%2C225&ssl=1)
This is a discreet (Note 1) follow up: Prof Leigh Jenco let me know that she held to a three part distinction: rational, non-rational and irrational. Western philosophy is rational, while Chinese philosophy is non-rational. Frankly this concept of ‘non-rational’ seems merely a polite version of ‘irrational’. In all my life I have never heard of non-rational thinking. My response to her was: “I think you will find it untenable to maintain a distinction between rational and non rational…
Leigh Jenco seeks to acclimatize classic Chinese thought to Western philosophy in her talk at Aristotelian Society (16 Nov 20). Her first gambit is to place Chinese history into a similar historiography as the West and to make it share an ‘early modernity’. There is this underlying wish to help accommodate and rehabilitate China by showing how similar it is to the West. This is pretty violent in creating an imperial China when China shares more with Ancient Egypt…
There is a myth that Western culture is based on rationality. It is, according to this myth, because of the rationality of the Western mind, that Western culture produced all the great wonders of the modern world from culture to modern industry to modern arms. The rest of the world is characterised by a lack of rationality. Even in this decade Western philosophers can give talks at professional gatherings questioning whether Chinese are ‘rational’. Leigh Jenco suggests a tripartite…
