Jin Yuelin or Chin Yueh-Lin (; 14 July 1895 – 19 October 1984) was a Chinese philosopher best known for three works, one each on logic, metaphysics, and epistemology. He was also a commentator on Bertrand Russell. Biography Jin was born in Changsha, Hunan and attended Tsinghua University from 1911 until 1914. He obtained a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 1920. In 1926, Jin founded the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University. Jin was an active participant in the May 4th movement as a young, intellectual revolutionary. He helped to incorporate the scientific method into philosophy. Hao Wang was one of his students. He died in Beijing. Philosophical context: Eastern vs. Western thought Among the first to introduce certain basics of modern logic into China, Jin also founded a new philosophical system combining elements from Western and Chinese philosophical traditions (especially the concept of Tao). Not much work on Jin's philosophy has been done in the West in English, although a decent amount has been done in Chinese. Jin does not advocate a traditional, historical approach to philosophy, but rather presents philosophy as a practicing approach to solving problems – philosophy as goal in and of itself. This is quite different from how Chinese philosophers at the time viewed the study of philosophy. At the risk of oversimplifying, Jin's approach can be viewed as a hybrid between Western and Eastern philosophical ideologies – influenced both by his Western education in logic and science, and by his Chinese roots. He was interested in Bertrand Russell’s work, and in particular with two main concepts: breaking down the complex into smaller parts, which was his understanding of Russell's logical atomism, and rebuilding through the logical method, which was Jin's reading of Russell's logicism. Both the logicism and the logical atomism affected Jin’s thinking and philosophy. However Jin can be considered a Chinese philosopher because he was most informed by Chinese philosophy, and concerned himself most with Chinese concepts, such as Tao. “However,” Zinda writes, “Jin used discursive structures borrowed from both Chinese and Western thought as modes of persuasion”. Jin's views on Chinese philosophy Jin's writing is intertwined with his desire to navigate the space between Chinese and Western philosophy. In his essay “Chinese Philosophy”, Jin highlights the differences he sees between the two spheres regarding the study of philosophy. He sees the Western approach to philosophy as being more