The origins of modern cross-cultural European interpretations of Chinese philosophy. New thoughts on China in the work of G. W. Leibniz

Introduction

Cultures may be divided into those with the characteristic propensity to preach to others and those which are able to learn from others. The first require a great deal of self-importance, as well as an even larger dose of arrogance, while cultures with the capacity to learn from others need only the mature self-confidence necessary to comprehend their own limitations and shortcomings, and to prevent their foundations from being undermined. The ability to learn, that is to allow other cultures or civilisations to influence one’s thinking, may be considered one of the hallmarks of cultural development. If such a standard were to be applied, European or Western culture in general would seem childlike; the history of the Occident is one of cultural arrogance, of a culture that imposed the notion of its superiority and sovereignty over all other cultures. Even today the Occident insists on supremacy and to be the deciding voice in intercultural relations, and for the education of others it offers only brute force (economic, political) and powerful (military) methods, applying them thoughtlessly and without hesitation.

Calls for the Occident to learn from others therefore did not happen often. And rightly so, because such sentiments brought these critics outside the established order, where the recognition and understanding of others was suppressed by the pressures of conquest, control and baptism. One voice that could be heard when modern contact began between the European West (here we must include the Tsardom of Russia) and China was that of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), whose work is considered the beginning of a rational interpretation of Chinese philosophy, religion and knowledge generally (e.g. Widmaier, 2006; Merkel, 1952).

Leibniz was not the one to discover China, as far as Western culture was concerned. His historical contribution lies in his presentation of Europe and China as two distinct ways of contemplating the world, both fully comparable and resulting in types of societies at the same high institutional, economic, technological, political and moral level. In this sense he saw China as the “Europe of the Orient” and as such susceptible to investigation using the same tools of natural philosophy with which Leibniz was familiar from European scholarship. The difference lay precisely in his transferring the focal point of knowledge to philosophy. Leibniz was able to read books about China which dealt predominantly with geography and trade, and which also made some comparisons with regards to possible Christianisation (Kircher, 1667), but the subject of philosophy had yet to be touched upon. The history of trans-cultural relations contains people’s basic attitudes to the world and to humanity, to Nature and society, to order and hierarchies, to values and wisdom, and to knowledge. In other words, the complex broader contexts which cultures use to create their identity and which the European cultural tradition refers to as philosophy. Leibniz’s emphasis on discerning and understanding the similarities and differences in the comparative interpretation of Western ^[2]and Eastern philosophy was therefore entirely appropriate, if only because the roots of cross-civilisational strife often dig down into areas of misunderstood and distorted ideals. However, his desire to move beyond a mere hermeneutics of Chinese spiritual systems (Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism) to the idea of cross-cultural exchange in the areas where one civilisation was ahead of the other (according to Leibniz the Chinese were ahead in practical philosophy, while the Europeans had much to offer China in the speculative sciences), deserves recognition to this day: he was the first representative of the classical school of European philosophy to knowingly reject Eurocentrism. This can be seen in the preface to Novissima Sinica (Latest from China, Leibniz, 1697), published over 320 years ago. To answer whether Leibniz’s rejection of Eurocentrism made him the founder of cross-cultural comparative philosophy, one must look no further than his second ground-breaking work on Chinese philosophy, Discours sur la théologie naturelle des Chinois^[3] (DNT) from the year 1716.

The historical context of Leibniz’s interpretation of Chinese scholarship

Leibniz, precursor to the theory of recognition

A virtuous life is founded in knowledge. While Leibniz acknowledged the validity of this overt intellectualism, whose end could be nothing less than the equivalence of personal, that is educational, perfection with moral perfection (together with the ability to counteract scepticism and moral relativism), he was loath to connect his system of philosophy to the single principle of pure reason. Conflicts of interest between people call for a practical approach with good (as good as possible) theoretical underpinnings. Leibniz thought the principle of perfection (principium perfectionis) was directed at united and self-unified thought (thought is a model of the integration of plurality within the monad) and therefore leads to a loss of unity within the self and a division into the areas of possible worldly perfection (ontology, morality and logic). This was how Leibniz described the practical (moral) character of rationality: the laws of reason apply equally to the ontological sphere (the world) and the moral sphere (practical human behaviour); they govern both God and Man.

A person in action must calculate, assess both the potential and the risk, success and failure, and the long-term or short-term gain. These are dependent on the person’s knowledge: they are not political calculations, but rather acts of thought regulated by the laws and structures of rational knowledge. According to Leibniz the starting point for regulated thought is justice. In order for this ethical and political category to function, it has to be linked to fundamental operational criteria, which Leibniz termed the principe de la place d’autruy^[14] (to put yourself in the position of the other, Reiner, 1983, p. 274). That is to say, before commencing any activity a person should mentally adopt the position of those potentially influenced by their actions; this eccentric positioning allows one to perceive the interests, consequences, wishes and needs of others, which might otherwise remain unknown. The principle of assuming the position of the other does not mean that Leibniz’s thought on cross-cultural contact and worldwide intellectual unity was defined by inter- or trans-subjectivity, instead it points more to a distancing from Eurocentric scepticism towards the scientific and cultural abilities of other civilisations. The rejection of this scepticism is a possible form of recognition of the other as an equal, and a rejection of ethnic, racial and religious superiority.

Leibniz’s entire system of scientific and theoretical deliberations had a practical justification. Its purpose was ultimately to provide humanity with as many means as possible to effectively influence natural processes and to create social institutions and structures which would as a whole serve to help people in their pursuit of happiness. This purpose moulds scientific activity, especially in the expansion and enrichment of thought in cross-cultural exchange; for Leibniz science and logic gain meaning through practice, which can once more only be rational in structure because it is governed by logic in the sense of nihil sine ratione. Leibniz included this bilateralism as a methodological requirement in his concept of two-way scientific cooperation between the European and Chinese civilisations.

Undeniably, the Jesuit mission was the most tightly-knit and well-educated group of people in China doing systematic work on human knowledge at the educational, moral and administrative-political level in the Eastern empire. Leibniz came into contact with the mission in 1689 in Rome, where he met Claudio Filippo Grimaldi (called Mi Mingwo), a high ranking member of the mission under the rule of Emperor Kāngxī, with whom he remained in written contact for the remainder of his life. The first three records of the meeting with Grimaldi show us the specific nature of Leibniz’s approach to learning about China (Leibniz, 2006, pp. 2, 6, 10, 16). According to Leibniz the ability to create universal ideas comes naturally to humans, and so one would expect the intellectual basis of a unified worldview in which justice, well-being, knowledge and the comprehension of God are crucial to have emerged in ancient Greek philosophy just as it had in older Chinese philosophy. The requirement for a universal knowledge based on the premise of a universal language of science is perspectivist, as it is aimed at improving the living conditions of humans and promoting their liberty. Human knowledge is limited and discursive, and for Leibniz this means we can approach knowledge, try variations of it, formulate hypotheses and test assumptions. Generally speaking, from the human perspective (rather than from a divine one) universal knowledge is simply the result of development unfettered by any barriers to the freedom of inquiry. The relationship towards knowledge in Chinese culture reflects this perspectivism: Chinese knowledge as a whole represented an as yet unexplored and unmeasured value. All that could be said at that point was that it had just as much import in regard to the concept of universal knowledge as did European science and culture, and in places even more. After their first conversation, mainly covering the language and writing of China and Russia, the kinship of nations within the Siberian and Mongolian space as well as issues of geography, Grimaldi stated that his knowledge of the issues at hand was insufficient and offered to provide Leibniz with further answers to his questions after consulting other Jesuit missionaries in Beijing. Leibniz was clearly delighted with Grimaldi’s offer and made full use of it: he immediately prepared a list of 30 questions covering a broad area of interests, in an attempt to capture every issue of any relevance to Europe. ^[15]

Leibniz’s list provides no clear idea of the kind of knowledge Leibniz and his contemporaries were actually aiming at: despite the varied content of the questions, their general thrust seems to be towards applied science, in particular technologies for the production of consumer goods. Based on his knowledge of the literature of the time, Leibniz was partially justified in thinking that Europe could learn a number of production processes from China that would lead to improvements in the quality of everyday life as well as greater safety and better defence. In subsequent letters he mentioned that he was considering a bilateral relationship, ^[16] the mutual exchange or trade of knowledge and skills: On 2 December 1697 he wrote to A. Verjus

…I am of the opinion that the Chinese mission is the most important trade enterprise of our times […] since it is a trade in knowledge, capable of at one leap bringing in the fruits of their labour of centuries, and on the other hand providing the Chinese with the bounty of ours. In this way both sides can double our real wealth, this is much larger than one might have been led to believe (Leibniz, 2006, p. 127).

Leibniz’s enthusiasm for China’s role in developing human harmony worldwide was reflected in the preface to Novissima Sinica, historiam nostri temporis illustratura ([Latest from China] Leibniz, 1697), which represents the beginning of modern discussions of Chinese culture in European philosophy (Li & Poser, 2000). It differs from previous interpretations by one crucial characteristic: Leibniz accepted the premise that human culture was truly universal, foundational to the central ideal of “one world” common to all humanity and all (developed) cultures, and that its meaning could not be ignored and remained relative at all times, that is, becomes clear only in relation to others. He wrote,

The unique imprint of fate has, I suppose, led to the highest cultures and the highest technological civilizations of humanity to gather in the two furthermost corners of our continent, i.e. in Europe and in China, which has graced that opposite side of the world as something of a Europe in the East. And so perhaps does Providence have as its goal that— while the most civilised (and most distant) nations clasp each other’s hands—this will lead all that lies between them gradually towards the rational life. (Leibniz, 1697, p. 2) ^[17]

When Leibniz talks of “our continent” he is referring to Eurasia, whose cultural poles are connected by Russia:

It is no accident that the Russians, whose vast empire connects China with Europe […] are, by the very efforts of their ruler, as well as the recommendations of the patriarchs who support him, hurrying to rapidly catch up with our innovations (Leibniz, 1697, p. 2).

In the ensuing twenty-three paragraphs, Leibniz summarised his findings on China so far (“In the abilities necessary for everyday life and in the experimental inquiry of Nature we are equals, with each side possessing such skills as could be usefully exchanged with the other”); elevated European metaphysics and theoretical knowledge and described Chinese behavioural social norms as far surpassing Europe “…in the area of practical philosophy, […] in the ethical and political sciences aimed at everyday life and the daily habits of people themselves” and as avoiding causing others distress through vulgar or aggressive actions; noted the effectiveness of their state administration and bureaucracy, which had reached a higher level than elsewhere and was capable of organising and coordinating the behaviour of millions of people, and consequently it “…managed in its vast social efforts perhaps more than all the founders of Christian orders in their tight circles altogether.” However, he was quick to note that to a European not brought up within a single system of rules and principles, the carefully worked out codes of civility and decorum may “…seem to contain somewhat of a self-imposed servility.” ^[18]

He discussed the role of emperor generally, giving high praise to the Chinese emperor of the time, Kāngxī, emphasising the unusual role given to education, culture and knowledge by emperors that stemmed from the premise that as the Sons of Heaven and first among their people they must also strive to be first in upbringing and education. For this reason they welcomed the wisdom acquired through their contact with the Europeans: Leibniz thought Emperor Kāngxī “an unprecedentedly excellent ruler” who saw “even further as an individual than his highest officials and the basis for his excellent wisdom was his ability to join the European with the Chinese”. ^[19] Leibniz then discussed mathematics in detail, the “golden apple” that could be brought to the Chinese and the history of the Jesuit mission. Despite allowing many a simplification and idealisation into the preface to Novissima Sinica, Leibniz still managed to point out that besides Western European culture there was also an Eastern, or East-Asian, culture whose common basis was China and that these two were of the greatest worldwide importance. After Leibniz, this finding could be denied or suppressed, but it continued to be true from that time onwards.

Leibniz’s description of China’s political system, philosophy, literature and culture was surpassed multiple times in the 18th century, as were his solutions to Chinese mathematical formulas. ^[20] His original intentions vis-à-vis the cultural and scientific exchange were not entirely honest: Leibniz wanted to reform classical Chinese philosophical thought, perhaps in accordance with the “Platonic Confucianism” he had adopted (Li, 2017, p. 240), an analogy perhaps to his efforts to “reform” Western Aristotelianism. He only gave up on this attempt as his lack of knowledge of Chinese prevented him from gaining a more complex picture of Chinese thought. Apart from that he wondered whether or not it was correct to divulge to such a powerful nation, who were not Christians and not likely to be any time soon, “all our mathematical and military secrets” (Jannidis, Lauer, & Martínez, 2003, p. 655). This concern regarding China can perhaps be seen as evidence of his consequentialism. After all, his relatively unusual approach to information prevented him from publishing his own manuscripts with his plan for Scientia generalis [Universal science], which he only referred to in private. In all respects Leibniz was, however, a Christian, a supporter of Lutheran Protestantism, who had entered into an unusual coalition with a small group of Jesuit missionaries and it was from that position that he took part in the attempt to prepare China, one of the oldest human civilisations in history, to accept Christianity through the medium of European philosophy and science.

Leibniz never completed his translatio sapientiae between Europe and China, despite several attempts, and his last manuscript on the “natural theology” of the Chinese remained unfinished (Leibniz, 2002). A remarkable comment was found in Novissima Sinica:

The state of affairs here seems to me to be truly such, that with the unbridled increase in moral corruption one could almost consider it necessary for Chinese missionaries to be sent here, in order to teach us the purpose and proper use of natural theology, just as we are sending similar missions to them, to educate them in the name of revealed religion (Leibniz, 1697).

This popular thesis, sometimes understood as a call to abandon the European tradition and replace Christianity, is a misunderstanding of what Leibniz considered to be “natural theology” and the reason he thought it existed in China. Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese (DNT) was intended to explain just that, being a highly detailed interpretation of Chinese thought derived from the cultural repository of the entire Occident, as represented by the polyhistorian Leibniz. None of his discourses clarify the metaphysical basis of his reasoning on the educational unity of civilisations: the assumption that there is a single truth at the foundation of all cultures, and that they can therefore be joined together and unified. At the same time this assumption states that the project of universal unity and harmony must either impose one truth on everyone, or ultimately fail. Anyone living in Europe after the Thirty Years War would have had a better understanding of this framework than was shown by Leibniz. Finally and not merely for this reason, but also because of the many factual errors in Leibniz’s discourse, the DNT cannot be discussed within the context of Chinese philosophy alone. ^[21]

As with many writings over the history of philosophy, the DNT was also a somewhat incidental work in which Leibniz was responding to a plea by Nicolas-Françoise Rémond (1638–1725), whom he had been corresponding with since 1713. The plea concerned Leibniz’s understanding of the conflict surrounding the method of missionary work in China and the discussion of Chinese Confucianism which was taking place throughout the Jesuit mission, but significantly influenced by the Vatican on the one hand and the basic antagonism between the Dominican and Jesuit missions on the other. Leibniz wrote of “natural theology” in order to establish a basis on which the two missionary positions could be compared and that would include his own view of Confucianism. The term “natural theology” is, however, like most of the terms used in Europe (and often even today) in relation to Chinese culture, a Eurocentric notion that is incapable of capturing Chinese forms and classifications of knowledge. No hermeneutic thinker with insufficient linguistic means at his disposal can be expected to produce more than a reformulation of other, foreign thought according to its own laws of reason. Leibniz’s lack of knowledge of the original Chinese texts left him with little choice but to focus on a critical evaluation of the so-called reductionist interpretation of Confucianism as presented by French Jesuits Langobardi and Antoine St. Marie, instead of evaluating whether or not his own understanding of Chinese thought was accurate and relevant. The DNT is therefore not a ground-breaking nor a foundational work of comparative or polylogical philosophy or the philosophy of religion. The value of that part of Leibniz’s work on China lies in the fact that it comes at the end of a long chain of variously motivated research into Chinese philosophy and literature, including centuries of disagreements among Chinese scholars, interpretations of their concepts by non-Chinese scholars, especially Portuguese and French Jesuit missionaries and the controversy within their Christian readings of Chinese philosophy. The DNT simplistically portrays the controversy as a struggle between two approaches and, after a ground-breaking analysis of the textual sources, leans in favour of Confucianism. In this manner Leibniz began preparing the ground for further developments in the interpretation of Chinese philosophy, specifically the shift away from interpretation and towards a living and comprehending cross-cultural dialogue which the two cultures await to this day.

Under these conditions, the DNT could have scarcely avoided being an apologia, and this also explains why Leibniz neglected to thoroughly apply his own philosophy, as that step was rendered largely superfluous. He gave his opinion on the dispute about whether Chinese learning, which relied on so-called Neo-Confucianism, was atheistic as claimed by Langobardi, or whether the tradition established by Ricci’s accommodation method held true: that Chinese writing, characters, teaching, their concept of history and chronology in general were in their own way a “reconfiguration” of biblical truths, just as the Old Testament contains certain fragments of the New Testament. This idea was further developed by the French Jesuit Joachim Bouvet in his “figurative system”, first described in a letter to Leibniz on 15 September 1704. Leibniz held the position that Confucianism was not a religion, leaving China an open field for the spread of Christianity. To simplify, the practical issue was whether certain Chinese words could be used as analogies of the Latin concept of God, which would mean that the Chinese had some knowledge of God in even their earliest philosophy, and whether certain rites, habits and customs, such as ancestor worship or the cult of Confucius, were of a civic or religious nature. At the same time they all, including Leibniz, rejected Neo-Confucianism, and blamed its interpretation of canonical books as a failure of explanation which instead obscured and prevented the Chinese themselves from understanding their true and original meaning.

Leibniz’s sources for his discussion with Langobardi and St. Marie were the French printed editions of their polemics. These were not originally intended for publication, but served as resources for making arguments in debates and included extensive Chinese citations and original Chinese diagrams meant to facilitate a deliberate and balanced decision on the future of the mission. However, first Spanish and later other European publishers scrubbed these sections from the text, added a number of notes and made deletions and modifications. Leibniz was therefore reading a fluid, coherent and distinctly polemical text, which greatly differed from the colourful and pluralistic discussion in the original. ^[22] It is unclear whether this was the reason Leibniz defended Neo-Confucian texts that he considered “old” and therefore appropriate (but it may have just been a simple case of mistaken sources). He rejected the notion that Confucian philosophy was naturalistic and pantheistic and indicated the possibility of synthesising the basic principles of Chinese and Christian philosophy, based on a discussion of three great principles in Confucianism (Li, the original principle of the universe; Ki, the principle of original matter and material creation; and the principle of Shang ti, the Lord of Heaven, which comes close to the Christian concept of God). He thought this would be the methodological basis for a new global cooperation between all cultures, leading to the flourishing of a shared science for the benefit of all humanity.

Epilogue

Leibniz’s notion of a humankind engaged in cosmopolitan cooperation, creating and sharing knowledge cultures and helping improve the lives of everyone attracted no followers during his lifetime, nor after his death. His letters and a number of scholarly works remained sealed in his archive in Hannover, unavailable for further study and after several decades were largely forgotten. The German philosopher Christian Wolff, who made an effort to continue with Leibniz’s project, mentioned the DNT in his Oratio de Sinarum philosophia practica [Discourse on the Practical Philosophy of the Chinese], the inaugural speech he gave as university prorector in Halle in 1721 (Wolff, 1988). In it he claimed that Chinese philosophy did not prescribe any human behaviour or morals that were not in accord with the nature of the human spirit or that went against Nature. Wolff’s speech led to accusations of atheism in religious circles of the time, his expulsion from the university and exile from Prussia. King Friedrich Wilhelm I exclaimed in alarm “I had no idea Wolff was so godless” and gave him 48 hours to emigrate: he was declared godless merely for recommending the study of the scholarship of “those heathen Chinese”. His Oratio is undeniably an important moment in the Enlightenment, although it is difficult to state its relevance to the history of cross-cultural philosophical interpretation.

The Jesuit mission in China was in decline, even under emperor Kāngxī, for a number of reasons. In the Church and above all within the Dominican and Franciscan orders, there was growing resistance to Ricci and Schall’s missionary policy of accommodation, toleration of Confucian rites and veneration of ancestors and the emperor. Newly arriving missionaries acted much more aggressively, openly calling for the baptism of the emperor and the Christianisation of China. These expressions of absolute ignorance of the culture the missionaries had been admitted into as guests played an important role in the subsequent expulsion of Christian missionaries from the country and the prohibition of all forms of Christianity. After the papal brief on the suppression of the Jesuit order arrived in Beijing in 1774, there were also a number of heated public exchanges between delegates and individuals from various Christian orders, which greatly dissuaded the Chinese onlookers from any further contact owing to the lack of respect for proper behavioural protocol. For the educated Chinese classes this meant that Christianity had fallen to the level of the “vulgar Taoist” and “vulgar Buddhist” sects (Franke, 1962, p. 51). There was no longer a place for them in China.

The literature (Franke, 1962, p. 51an.) often mentions that the decision of the Roman Curia on the dispute about the recognition of rites, the behaviour and actions of certain papal delegates at the court (esp. Cardinal de Tournon) and the fight for control over the Christian missions in various cultures was a precursor to the development of Sino-Western relations in the 18th and 19th centuries, then characterised by the interests of imperial power, colonialism and the racist associations of nationalism. Such direct causation is clearly unverifiable, but it is clear that Rome’s stance on the matter (as well as that of certain Protestant denominations and circles, e.g. the Jansenists) may have led to pathways for approaching foreign cultures. This pathway was the tao of European culture, with its hubris and divided thinking, disunity of spirit, selective memory, insatiability and thirst for power. A typical example of this tao was the approach adopted by the so-called Göttingen school of history (esp. Schlözer, Meiners, Gatterer), which influenced Western thought, especially in 1770 to 1840 when an uncertain and weakened China chose the policy of isolationism. To scholars following this school, China remained a backward and barbarian culture, and they were the first to label the Chinese Halbmenschen, undeveloped, uneducated, half-enlightened subhumans. The main representative of this school, A. L. Schlözer, summarised the need for European rule thus, “Europe is equipped with many tools: the compass, gunpowder, paper and print, eye-glasses, clocks and the postage system. Using these inventions we have discovered three new worlds and subordinated them to our will, plundered, cultivated or ravaged them” (Schlözer, 1785, p. 104).

The alternative approach noted and described by Leibniz is, however, still possible. Perhaps it will remain the proverbial message in a bottle, hurled into the sea and waiting for the right person to fish it out, comprehend it and realise its potential. Whether this will take place in the current era of America first is questionable at best.