Leibniz and China. The Discussion with Barthélemy Des Bosses S.J. an Other Members of the Congregation

• Applicant: Dr. Rita Widmaier
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: from 2016 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 325285841

As our sources show, Leibniz throughout his lifetime was utterly interested in everything relating to China: its early history and applied ethics, its knowledge about all fields of technology relating to craft or science. His correspondence with the Jesuit missionaries at the Court of Peking was for him the highest accomplishment of this specific demand for information. Under the - title Leibniz in correspondence with China- I edited these letters for the first time as a publication of the Leibniz Archives. A second, enlarged edition with a German translation by Malte-Ludolf Babin was published in 2006 in Felix Meiner´s -Philosophical Library-.Leibni`s direct correspondence with the China missionaries lasted just a few years though. In the course of the so called Chinese rites controversy the much debated question whether or not the Chinese rites were reconcilable with the Christian faith, was answered in the negative, in 1710 even publications on that subject were prohibited. If Leibniz was nonetheless well informed about what was going on in China and in Rome, he owed this to the trust the Jesuit fathers placed in him since as early as 1697 he had publicly taken sides with the accomodating China mission of the Society of Jesus.It is no coincidence therefore that one of Leibniz´s most important correspondences on the issue of metaphysics: the letters exchanged with the Jesuit father Des Bosses, proves to be one of the most significant for the Chinese question as well, especially during Leibniz`s last years, after the direct correspondence with the China missionaries had come to an end. As a matter of fact, these letters about China have to be considered as the sequel of Leibniz in correspondence with China, for in the correspondents network of his congregation Des Bosses is assigned the task of distributing all the letters from and to Leibniz all over Europe: for Daniel Papebroch in Antwerp, Giovanni Battista Tolomei in Rome, Joseph René Tournemine in Paris, and Ferdinand Orban in Düsseldorf. What makes this exchange of informations so productive, however, is the number of news coming directly from Rome and China and circulating among the religious and which were thus made available to Leibniz as letters from third parties. It is due to these news which reached him as attachments to the letters of Des Bosses and Orban that Leibniz was kept informed of all occurrences in Rome and China. What he thought about the -Chinese issue-, what alternatives he considered, and what hopes he harbored, is to be gathered from his own letters.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants