[T]he greatest value of Brown and McLeod's study consists in that they have made an extremely convincing case for comparative theologians, philosophers and interreligious scholars on Chinese thought to abandon the binary “the same or not” mindset identified at the beginning of this review. With a further respect towards the historical and traditional nature of classical Chinese thought, I believe their work can lead to even more fruitful conversations on how to harmonize classical Chinese thought and Western thought without making them uniform.

Journal of Interreligious Studies

Whether it is a discussion of the non-naturalism of dao or tian, Brown and McLeod demonstrate the intellectual value of comparative philosophy as one formidable approach to early Chinese philosophical writings.

China Review International

[What] Brown and McLeod try to accomplish in this book is to prove there are a number of texts of early Chinese thought … which can be interpreted fruitfully by means of a conversation with Western thinkers rich on transcendence and non-naturalism … I celebrate that, because of their sophisticated analyses of so many early Chinese texts, Brown and McLeod have accomplished their goal.

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Challenging the popular scholastic view that early Chinese thinkers lacked non-naturalistic concepts, Brown and McLeod robustly demonstrate the importance and varied ways of non-naturalist and transcendental concepts in early China, presenting an invaluable contribution to the field of Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy.

Jinhua Jia, Chair Professor of Humanities, Yangzhou University, China