This book is a philosophical-historical examination of the influence of the knowledge of China imparted by the Jesuits on the thinking of the German Enlightenment in the 18th century. It is not primarily concerned with a comprehensive reconstruction of the philosophy of the thinkers discussed, but rather with the political and intellectual contextualisation of a line of thought that recognised the practical philosophy and state organisation of China as different from that of Europe, while equal to it and in some respects superior to it. This challenged the claim of theology that Christian revelation alone provided access to truth. The volume analyses the opposition to this line of thought, especially on the part of Protestant orthodoxy. It argues that in the German Enlightenment of the 18th century, the possibility emerged to conceive philosophy on the basis of reason as a phenomenon not limited to Europe but as a path followed under different conditions in China.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, European intellectuals shifted from admiring China as a utopian place of wonder to despising it as a backwards and despotic state. That transformation had little to do with changes in China itself, and everything to do with Enlightenment conceptions of political identity and Europe's own burgeoning global power. China in the German Enlightenment considers the place of German philosophy, particularly the work of Leibniz, Goethe, Herder, and Hegel, in this development. Beginning with the first English translation of Walter Demel's classic essay "How the Chinese Became Yellow," the collection's essays examine the connections between eighteenth-century philosophy, German Orientalism, and the origins of modern race theory.

Eighteenth-century Europe, commonly referred to as the Age of Enlightenment, witnessed a growing interest in China on the part of many great thinkers, inspired by reports of the Jesuit missionaries. The German philosophers Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and Christian Wolff (1679-1754) were among the admirers of Chinese thought and civilization. Leibniz contribution to the Western understanding of China was mainly metaphysical and religious. His younger contemporary and friend Wolff focused on Chinese ethics, concentrating on the practical morality and political ideals of Confucius. Julia Ching and Willard G. Oxtoby present English translations of important texts related to China by Leibniz and Wolff, accompanied by two introductory essays on the philosophical and historical context. The epilogue sketches the reversal of the European opinion on China in the succeeding centuries, as reflected in the writings of Kant and Hegel.

Although Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is best known as a metaphysician, mathematician, and logician, he arguably used the word "China" in his voluminous writings and correspondence more often than those terms usually associated with him: "entelechies," "monads," "pre-established harmony," and so forth. If so, then his sustained writings on things Chinese -- especially on Chinese philosophy and religion -- should take their place alongside his other major works such as the Theodicy, Discourse on Metaphysics, Monadology, and the New Essays Concerning Human Understanding. His more detailed writings on China (as opposed to brief references to it, which he regularly made in his correspondence) can be roughly divided into two categories. The first is the letters he wrote to European -- usually Jesuit -- missionaries in China, or their peers in Europe. Especially is this true of his correspondence with Joachim Bouvet, one of the first French Jesuits to live in China, and whose letters to Leibniz clearly influenced the philosopher. -- Preface (p. [xi]).

Studies of the reaction of European thinkers of the Enlightenment - Leibniz, Wolff, Hegel, Kant, et al -to Chinese culture and ideas.