EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Philosophy 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 112 Pan Dawei (Sun Yat-sen University) The Qi Philosophy vs Aristotelian-Thomism: Proof of the Soul to the Chinese Heart by Giulio Aleni Key words: Soul, medicine, qi, Aristotle, Jesuits A main difficulty for the Jesuits to render the Chinese accessible to the acceptance of Christianity is that the concept of the soul be incompatible with the atheistic tendency implied in the underlying principle of Qi (or Ch’i), which refers in Chinese thoughts to the activating, universal flow of energy sustaining the cosmos and living beings. Is it possible to get over the religious, cultural gap and therefore bring the soul into the Chinese heart? In his published work in Chinese, Xing Xue Cu Shu ( 性学觕述 ), Giulio Aleni ( 艾儒略 , 1582–1649), who was an Italy-born Jesuit missionary and who was considered to be, among his fellow Jesuits, a most acknowledgeable expert on Chinese language as well as Chinese thoughts, provided the proof of the soul on the basis of Aristotelian-Thomism, arguing that the existence of the soul is a general truth throughout the world. In particular, he put forward four major arguments against the Qi philosophy, including: 1) the “humorism” argument, which interprets Qi as a specific humor so that the potential for human being out of it was ruled out; 2) the body-mind disharmony argument, which challenges the putative consistency between one’s mental condition and physical condition in the Qi phi- losophy; 3) the ‘human uniqueness’ argument, which suggests that the Qi philosophy fails to distinguish human with other living beings such as plants and animals; 4) the Neo-Confucianism argument, which explains the concept of the soul by the Neo-Confucian episteme. Analysis of the four arguments shall suggest the complex connotations that the concept of the soul has and intriguing extensibility that may emerge in cross-cultural communications. This shall yield some major insights to the disputes on mind- body dualism as a cross-cultural phenomenon. Sage Richard J. (LMU Munich) Fan Zhixu’s 范致虛 Commentary on the Liezi 列子 Key words: Daoism, Liezi, Northern Song, Commentary Despite its prominent position as the third great classic of Daoism the work Liezi 列子 has hardly been paid due attention in academic circles, let alone its numerous commentaries. The reason for this peculiar treatment is quite simple: Since imperial times, the Liezi has been stigmatized as a Wei-Jin 魏晉 era (220–420) wei shu 偽書 (‘forged scripture’) and scholars thus mainly focused either on its dubious authenticity and/or the apparent philosophical inconsistencies. The question of an underlying meaning of the whole text was hardly ever raised. Excluding large portions of the received text has led to a rather biased and unbalanced interpretation of a complex textual work. The aim of my presentation is thus to offer a different approach to the Liezi by providing an introduction to the commentary by Fan Zhixu 范 致虛 († 1137), who was one of the few readers to look beyond the surface of the text. In his view, those who regard the work as heterogeneous and incoherent simply have not gained full understanding of the deeper meaning behind the author’s words. Since Fan’s thinking was deeply rooted in the intellectual world of the Northern Song (960–1127), his work is also a valuable source for the general development of Daoism during this era. As alto- gether three commentaries to the Liezi were published under the aegis of Emperor Huizong 宋徽宗 (r. 1100–1126)—the emperor himself, Jiang Yu 江遹 (fl. 1110), as well as the high ranking official Fan Zhixu worked on the Liezi—, one might even wonder whether the court aimed at an ‘official’ re- interpretation of Daoist classics in its own terms. In comparison with the Laozi 老子 and the Zhuangzi 莊子 , it is precisely the scarcity of earlier studies about this work which made it easier to be imbued with new thoughts. At any rate, opening this discussion by presenting the most complex of these commentaries promises to serve as key stone for any further research into these questions.