EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 10 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 111 and heaven must be unified and his efforts to address the conceptual challenges of that conviction formed the basis of his contribution to Neo-Confucian thought. Machek David (Universität Bern) Self and Role in EarlyWarring States China: Reading Mengzi 孟子 From the Perspective of the Guodian Manuscript Six Virtues (Liu De 六德 ) Key words: self, ethics, roles, Guodian, Mengzi The Guodian manuscript “Six virtues” is unique in offering a surprisingly formal theory that seeks to make one’s duties wholly relative to one’s social roles (wei 位 ). I shall offer a philosophical interpretation of some aspects of this unjustly neglected text, and use it as a productive perspective for reading the Mengzi, an important philosophical text originating roughly from the same time, i.e. the first half of the Warring States period. The most distinctive thesis proposed in the “Six virtues” is that ‘Dao cannot be universalized’ (dao bu ke bian 道不可遍 ), because what is appropriate to do depends in each case on one's role. But this claim is in some tension with another striking idea of the manuscript, namely that obligations to one’s family rela- tives should be always given priority over the obligations to one’s ruler. The question is how exactly is this universal rule compatible with the role-based ethics. The text does not offer an answer to this question, but such an answer can be found in the Mengzi. The most revolutionary aspect of this text is an assertion of the universality of the humanWay, which is directly rooted in our biological nature. And yet, although neglected by the interpreters, there is a significant leaning in the Mengzi toward non-universality and role-based ethics. Hence the text grapples with a similar tension, and resolves it by envisioning the human agency as consisting of two different kinds of roles:besides performing in different specific roles, such as that of a father or a ruler, we all play the role of being a human. Unlike the specific roles, the human role does not have a specific content and obligations, but is responsible for harmonizing requirements corresponding to the specific, first-order roles. I shall also argue that the virtue most directly linked with this higher-order human role is wisdom (zhi 智 ). This interpretation will also contribute to the debates in the scholarship about Mengzi's theory of virtue. Meynard Thierry (Sun Yat-sen University) Aristotelian, Christian and Confucian Knowledge? An Analysis of AristotelianWorks in Seventeenth Century China Key words: scholasticism, Aristotle, Confucianism, Jesuits, theology Until the Seventeenth century, the secular and scholarly knowledge in the West was organized under the broad concept of philosophy according to the Aristotelian episteme. This included natural sciences, logic, metaphysics and ethics. In their training in Europe, the Jesuits adopted this broad concept of philosophy as it is defined in their Ratio Studiorum. In introducing the Western Learning to China, Jesuit missionaries built upon the methods and content of the broad academic training they had received in Europe. In many ways they attempted to transplant on the Chinese soil a system similar to the one they had learnt. Ricci had started introducing Western mathematics into China, especially publishing with Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) Jiheyuanben (1607), a partial translation of the Elements of Geometry of Euclid. Since 1624, the Jesuits started publishing works based on Aristotelian commentaries which had appeared two or three decades earlier in Europe. A careful comparison of their Aristotelian works in Chinese with their European sources in Latin reveal striking differences. Indeed, the Jesuits rarely translated from one single commentary, but composed from different commentaries. They also used other sources taken from works of theology, spirituality, technology, or business law. We shall also show that the Jesuits often attempted in their philo- sophical treatises to strengthen the systematic nature of knowledge and also to extend its scope to domains traditionally reserved to theology. They often attempted to bridge theoretical considerations with practical considerations, either about technical and commercial crafts or about the crafts of the mind. Finally we shall analyze the way of exposition and argumentation of those works, and this will lead us to reflect about the compatibility between the two systems of thought of Aristotelianism and Confucianism.