 Those arguing for radical incommensurability – the view that the questions and answers in one tradition cannot sustain meaningful statement in the other tradition – rely on the recognition of radical difference in basic concepts and modes of inquiry. Given such radical differences, they argue, there can be no cross-traditional reference to a common subject matter and to a truth about that subject matter that is independent of the basic conceptual vocabulary and theories and justificatory practices of a particular tradition (see Rorty, 1989, and Shweder, 1989). Looking for a possible Chinese-Western instance of radical incommensurability, one might go to Daoist texts such as the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi. When it is said in chapter one (as traditionally arranged and on one translation) of the Daodejing that “The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way,” or in chapter two that the “sages abide in nonaction and practice the teaching that is without words,” one is finding something different from the usual in Western texts infused with ideals of discursive rationality and argumentation. Or consider the Lunyu or Analects 1:2, where the importance of rightly ordered family relations is emphasized for right order in the state (“He who has grown to be a filial son and respectful younger brother will be unlikely to defy his superiors and there has never been the case of someone inclined to defy his superiors and stir up a rebellion”). The prominent and enduring place of this theme of state as family writ large sets that tradition apart from Western contractual traditions that have come to emphasize right order in the state as that which can be ratified by an uncoerced agreement among equals concerned to protect their private interests. Opponents of radical incommensurability will level the charge that it presupposes a hyperdramatic contrast between traditions. For example, the Western tradition has not lacked for skeptics on the power of discursive rationality, and some of these skeptics have nevertheless believed in a mode of veridical access to something of supreme significance – to a powerful experience within themselves or to something much larger outside themselves. At the same time, it must be noted that the positive theme is more recessive in the Western tradition and appears mainly in theistic versions, as it does in Plotinus (Enneads), Meister Eckhart (Von unsagbaren Dingen) and Hildegaard of Bingen (Scivias). Similarly, the Western tradition has certainly housed strains of thought that do view the state as more of a natural outgrowth of small human groups such as family and community. Even a major modern figure such as David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, 3.2.2) explicitly rejects the idea of contract as central to understanding the origin or justification of social and political bonds. There might still be a difference between Chinese and Western traditions with respect to which strains of thought become dominant or at least prevalent, but that difference does not appear to come under the heading of radical incommensurability.