Chinese Thought In Early German Enlightenment From Leibniz To Goethe

The book is a philosophical-historical examination of the influence of the knowledge of China imparted by the Jesuits on the thinking of the German Enlightenment in the 18th century. Is it not primarily concerned with a comprehensive reconstruction of the philosophy of the thinkers discussed, but rather with the political and intellectual contextualisation of a line of thought that recognised the practical philosophy and state organisation of China as different from that of Europe, but equal to it and in some respects superior to it. This challenged the claim of theology that Christian revelation alone provided access to truth. The volume analyses the opposition to this line of thought, especially on the part of Protestant orthodoxy. It argues that in the German Enlightenment of the 18th century, the possibility emerged to conceive philosophy on the basis of reason as a phenomenon not limited to Europe but as a path followed under different conditions in China.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, European intellectuals shifted from admiring China as a utopian place of wonder to despising it as a backwards and despotic state. That transformation had little to do with changes in China itself, and everything to do with Enlightenment conceptions of political identity and Europe's own burgeoning global power. China in the German Enlightenment considers the place of German philosophy, particularly the work of Leibniz, Goethe, Herder, and Hegel, in this development. Beginning with the first English translation of Walter Demel's classic essay "How the Chinese Became Yellow," the collection's essays examine the connections between eighteenth-century philosophy, German Orientalism, and the origins of modern race theory.

This book is a philosophical-historical examination of the influence of the knowledge of China imparted by the Jesuits on the thinking of the German Enlightenment in the 18th century. It is not primarily concerned with a comprehensive reconstruction of the philosophy of the thinkers discussed, but rather with the political and intellectual contextualisation of a line of thought that recognised the practical philosophy and state organisation of China as different from that of Europe, while equal to it and in some respects superior to it. This challenged the claim of theology that Christian revelation alone provided access to truth. The volume analyses the opposition to this line of thought, especially on the part of Protestant orthodoxy. It argues that in the German Enlightenment of the 18th century, the possibility emerged to conceive philosophy on the basis of reason as a phenomenon not limited to Europe but as a path followed under different conditions in China.

Eighteenth-century Europe, commonly referred to as the Age of Enlightenment, witnessed a growing interest in China on the part of many great thinkers, inspired by reports of the Jesuit missionaries. The German philosophers Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and Christian Wolff (1679-1754) were among the admirers of Chinese thought and civilization. Leibniz contribution to the Western understanding of China was mainly metaphysical and religious. His younger contemporary and friend Wolff focused on Chinese ethics, concentrating on the practical morality and political ideals of Confucius. Julia Ching and Willard G. Oxtoby present English translations of important texts related to China by Leibniz and Wolff, accompanied by two introductory essays on the philosophical and historical context. The epilogue sketches the reversal of the European opinion on China in the succeeding centuries, as reflected in the writings of Kant and Hegel.

China in Early Enlightenment Political Thought examines the ideas of China in the works of three major thinkers in the early European Enlightenment of the late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries: Pierre Bayle, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and the Baron de Montesquieu. Unlike surveys which provide only cursory overviews of Enlightenment views of China, or individual studies of each thinker which tend to address their conceptions of China in individual chapters, this is the first book to provide in-depth comparative analyses of these seminal Enlightenment thinkers that specifically link their views on China to their political concerns. Against the backdrop especially of the Jesuit accounts of China which these philosophers read, Bayle, Leibniz, and Montesquieu interpreted imperial China in three radically divergent ways: as a tolerant, atheistic monarchy; as an exemplar of human and divine justice; and as an exceptional but nonetheless corrupt despotic state. The book thus shows how the development of political thought in the early Enlightenment was closely linked to the question of China as a positive or negative model for Europe, and argues that revisiting Bayle’s approach to China is a salutary corrective to the errors and presumptions in the thought of Leibniz and Montesquieu. The book also discusses how Chinese reformers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries drew on Enlightenment writers’ different views of China as they sought to envisage how China should be remodeled.

Originally published between 1920-70,The History of Civilization was a landmark in early twentieth century publishing. It was published at a formative time within the social sciences, and during a period of decisive historical discovery. The aim of the general editor, C.K. Ogden, was to summarize the most up to date findings and theories of historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and sociologists. This reprinted material is available as a set or in the following groupings: * Prehistory and Historical Ethnography Set of 12: 0-415-15611-4: £800.00 * Greek Civilization Set of 7: 0-415-15612-2: £450.00 * Roman Civilization Set of 6: 0-415-15613-0: £400.00 * Eastern Civilizations Set of 10: 0-415-15614-9: £650.00 * Judaeo-Christian Civilization Set of 4: 0-415-15615-7: £250.00 * European Civilization Set of 11: 0-415-15616-5: £700.00

Studies of the reaction of European thinkers of the Enlightenment - Leibniz, Wolff, Hegel, Kant, et al -to Chinese culture and ideas.

Why was Leibniz so fascinated by Chinese philosophy and culture? What specific forms did his interest take? How did his interest compare with the relative indifference of his philosophical contemporaries and near-contemporaries such as Spinoza and Locke? In this highly original book, Franklin Perkins examines Leibniz's voluminous writings on the subject and suggests that his interest was founded in his own philosophy: the nature of his metaphysical and theological views required him to take Chinese thought seriously.