Penetrating cross-cultural analysis of alternative models of human reasoning. Uses examples from ancient Greek and Chinese thought and recent ethnography.

Long before science as we know it today existed, sophisticated studies of the external world were undertaken, notably in Mesopotamia, India, China, and Greece. G. E. R. Lloyd explores three interrelated issues concerning those investigations. This first issue is methods--how was it thought that they should be pursued? The second is subject-matter--what was assumed about what there is to be investigated? The third issue is aims and value--what were such investigations thought to be good for? Thus how did an ideal of demonstration that would yield incontrovertible conclusions come to arise and...