Admiration of China and Classical Chinese Thought in the Radical Enlightenment (1685-1740)

Title

Admiration of China and Classical Chinese Thought in the Radical Enlightenment (1685-1740)

Author

Jonathan I. Israel

Page

1-25

DOI

Abstract

The European controversy over how to interpret Chinese Confucianist thought, during the early eighteenth century left the Radical Enlightenment's conception of Confucianism as essentially atheistic, materialist and as resembling Spinozism, in a generally rather strong position. This was partly because the subversive argument put forward by writers like Isaac Vossius, William Temple, Saint-Evremond, Pierre Bayle, Anthony Collins and Nicolas Freret was, in effect, supported by one wing of the moderate mainstream Enlightenment, most notably by Arnauld, Malebranche, and La Croze, who arrived at broadly the same conclusion out of opposite motives, wanting thereby to damage the reputation of classical Chinese thought (and also that of the Jesuits). The opposing view upheld by the Jesuits and Leibniz, according to which classical Chinese philosophy embraces "natural theology" and a providential God, did not prosper so well as it came to be opposed by the Papacy and condemned by the Sorbonne.

Keyword

classical Chinese philosophy, Confucianism, hylozoism, natural theology, Papacy, Spinozism, Radical Enlightenment

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