1 . Nothing is, of course, absolutely independent of anything else. I am powerfully attracted by the Hegelian view of the circle as the best metaphor for the ‘shape’ of the overall ‘structure’ of thought. And of course too, all definitions are based on circumstances; but they are not limited to them. Circumstances are never merely particular, precisely because they are circumstances. My conception of ‘politics’, in the general/abstract sense, is not formulated independently of experience; it is formulated by looking at what is common to all those instances of the phenomenon I have been able to examine. There is a paradox here that one cannot avoid – one cannot identify politics unless one has an idea of what it is one is looking for to start with, but when one has identified it, it will not conform exactly to whatever idea of it one had to begin with. But this paradox is nothing to be alarmed about, because it is just the circle in action.

2. Unless you can tell me exactly which categories you are referring to, we certainly can’t go any further with my reasons to refuse to entertain post-modernist and feminist ideas in the context of this debate. But to try and make some progress on this topic, here are some examples I would give of categorial thought in the Western tradition: in his Categories, Aristotle proposes ten categories conventionally translated into English as substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and affection; in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant proposes space and time as well as four groups of three categories (categories (i) of quantity: unity, plurality, totality; (ii) of quality; reality, negation, limitation; (iii) of relation: inherence and subsistence, causality and dependence, community; (iv) of modality: possibility–impossibility; existence–non-existence, necessity–contingency.

Now it is indeed difficult to think outside these categories. Indeed, if Aristotle and Kant are right, it is impossible. I defy anyone, wherever and whenever they find themselves, to think without presupposing some notion, for example, of relation. But what these categories have in common is a lack of content. The category of relation does not specify either the relata or the nature of their connection in even the vaguest terms. And it is in this sense, and no other, that I am interested in developing ‘politics’ as a category because, as I have pointed out, *some* conception of politics must be presupposed in order for you to be able to identify it at all, in China or anywhere else. That is not to say that one’s ideas will not be modified extensively in the course of investigation, as you point out.

Where it seems to me that the post-modernist and feminist critiques have some bite is within what I call the realm of value. Do not think that I am unaware of the history of colonialism or of gender relations. Insofar as (informal) colonialism or chauvinism persist into the present, I am as keen to see them disappear as anyone else; my ideal world is one in which no-one is arbitrarily subjected to the will of another without redress. So, insofar as post-modernism and feminism are highlighting continuing injustices, and demanding remedies, they most certainly have an important role to play in contemporary political debate. But as I have already said, that is not my game. I keep firmly separate the philosophical and the ethical spheres, whereas they tend to mix them up, persistently presenting as conclusions from philosophical arguments positions that do not really logically follow from them.

Thus, from the philosophical point of view, most of what the post-modernists and feminists have to say, however well-intentioned and valuable from a rhetorical or strategic point of view, appears to me as a series of non-sequiturs. From what you say of Chakrabarty, he would fall into this group of people who either deny or are unaware of the fact that there is a point of view from which one can bracket one’s value commitments, but since it is from that very point of view I wish to try and think through categorial issues (and seem to be managing to do so with some degree of success), I am going to hold to this position until I am convinced otherwise. That is not to deny that value commitments are real and important things, because they are; and if there is a piece by DP that you really think I should read, then by all means forward it to me, because the last thing I want to be accused of is being closed-minded.

3. On the issue of the logic of the sciences, one must be very careful to distinguish the logical and sociological-historical questions at issue. Sociologically, and historically, you are of course quite right about the traumatic nature of the export of the sciences which had their origin in Europe. But one cannot literally export a conceptual framework, because ideas are not in space, only time, and they are not material. What was exported were the books, the equipment, etc. So there are two different levels to this question. That said, at the logical level, I have no problem either with the idea that science changes over time; I am already a pluralist when it comes to the existence of types of truth (ethical, historical, scientific, aesthetic, formal, philosophical truths all have a place in my scheme), and the idea of shifts in scientific truth is one I view with equanimity, in the same way that historical and indeed all other forms of truth can be said to change.

In this, incidentally, I find myself in agreement with figures like Nietzsche and Derrida for whom truth is a functional metaphor. I am also, as it happens, something of an admirer of Kuhn, and indeed one way of describing what I am doing is extending his approach from the natural sciences to ‘science’ in general, or indeed, to ‘thought’ in general. It is integral to all the regions of thought I identify in this dialectical system that I am proposing that they undergo something like Kuhnian paradigm shifts as each strives to be more like itself. Without this provision there is no explanation of the reality of intellectual and ethical progress.