我們可將傳統中國的知識論述稱為「結構知識論」或「關係知識論」，因為這些論述所指稱的主體是各種「關係」，而在關係之中形成一個相對的固定結構。本文討論中國理解事物的結構性方法。此法在古代中國就已發展得很詳盡，它建立於外在世界與人心的結構一致性，被視為人類理解的先決條件；而意識和外界的結構組成，是以代表傳統中國的結構概念的「理」字來指稱。

Traditional Chinese theories of knowledge can be called structural or relational epistemologies, because the subject they refer to are relations, forming a relative fixed structure. The present article shows that in China, the structural approach to comprehension had already been elaborated in ancient times. It has been developed as an epistemological model that arises out of the compatibility between the structures of the external world and those of the human mind. Such structural compatibility has been seen as the basic precondition of human perception. The structural constitution of consciousness on the one, and of external world on the other side, has been expressed by the term li理, which functioned as the traditional Chinese concept of structure.