 It is clear that even if Daoism and other schools of thought positioned vis-à-vis Mohism in ancient China were in some sense “anti-rational” in orientation, their views were not developed in isolation but were in fact a consequence of prolonged social contact and interaction with Mohist philosophers, and so could not have developed without being amply informed by their opponents’ methods and views. This fact alone demands caution when making general statements about the logical and linguistic views of early Chinese philosophers working outside the Mohist tradition. One can easily discern an increasing sophistication in methods of disputation in traditions that did not exhibit a great interest in thematizing language and logic independently of other philosophical pursuits, and this should not surprise us given the tumultuous period in which these traditions developed and the contentious struggles of their adherents for varying positions of social status and privilege. Mengzi, for example, seeking to defend key ideas in Confucian thought, goes beyond his forebears in advancing views on the goodness of human nature by appealing to more sharply formulated premises about innate dispositions for feeling and moral judgment against those asserting that human nature is inherently neutral (2A6, and see Shun 1997 for an extensive analysis of argumentation in the Mencius text). By the time Xunzi enters the fray near the end of the Warring States period we find rebuttals to Mencian thought that dig deep into what it is to have a disposition, how dispositions inform the possibilities of human behavior, and how we ought to act in response to them (e.g., Xunzi, Book 23). Far from simply explaining his views, Xunzi marshals highly intelligible theories of semantics and reference in their defense, and he explicates these theories with punctilious definitions that are marked improvements over earlier formulations. According to Cua 1985, methods of disputation reach their highest point in the writings of Xunzi, who in no small way benefited from the standards of rigor that had emerged out of the ongoing disputes of his predecessors.