EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 10 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 115 ence. On the one hand, their attempts to mediate between these two apparently conflicting ways towards knowledge doubtless reflect the specific intellectual atmosphere of 20th century China. On the other, we can observe that their way of reconciling two apparently incompatible cognitive approaches has its prede- cessors in traditional China, e.g. in discussions among Ming-dynasty Neo- Confucians about the relation of intuitive moral knowledge and the sensual cognition of objects. In my talk, I will first show how Mou Zongsan appeals to a kind Hegelian dialectic in order to explain a dynamic interplay between an intuitive mode of moral knowledge and a discursive mode of empirical cognition. Oddly, Mou has decided to dub the conscious self-negation of the elevated moral mind into a scientific consciousness by the name of 29th hexagram of the Yijing and its judgement, kan xian 坎陷 . Interestingly, this highly obscure symbol in spite of its semantic opacity is invoked to refer to a similar cognitive transformation not only in the work of Mou’s teacher Xiong Shili, but also by the Ming Neo-Confucian scholarWang Ji 王畿 (1498–1583). Although there is no evidence that Mou adopted the term from either of these, the context in which it appears, namely the practice of moral self- cultivation, might be taken as clear indication of just how fundamentally different Mou’s moral “dialectic” self-negation is from Hegel’s respective notion, in spite of repeated references to the German thinker. Zhu Yiwen (Sun Yat-sen University) Writing Calculations Using Chinese Characters in Seventeenth Century: the Case of Tongwen Suanzhi Key words: mathematics, calculations, abacus, Clavius, Li Zhizao AGuide of Mathematics in Combined Learning [Tongwen Suanzhi 同文算指 , 1613] , complied by later Ming scholar Li Zhizao [ 李之藻 1565–1630 CE] and Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci [1552–1610 CE], is usually viewed the first book that introduced European written calculations into China. However, this viewpoint has not been carefully analysed in the context of Chinese and European mathematical backgrounds. Based on the Chinese, this talk is going to discuss this issue from two directions: 1. How Li Zhizao wrote calculations using Chinese Characters in Tongwen Suanzhi? In order to answer this question, I am going to analyse this original Chinese texts. 2. What the role of written calculations is between counting rods [Suanchou 筭筹 ] and abacus [Suanpan 筭盘 ]? In early seventeenth century, the mathematical instrument was under the progress from counting rods to abacus. Thus, the analysis of this question will help us to understand Li Zhizao’s aim to introducing European mathematics. This talk will end with a general discussion of the acceptance of European mathematics in seventeenth century from the perspective of the way in which one calculated. I will quote other scholars’work to compare Li Zhizao’s work and Christoph Clavius’s Epitome Arithmetica Practicae, which is one source of Tongwen Suanzhi. And I will further analyse the roles of mathematical instruments in the communication between two distinct civilizations.