Confucius the Stoic: Matteo Ricci and the Encounter between Western and Chinese Philosophy
- Format:
- Conference Paper
- Year:
- 2019
- Event Date:
- March 17-19
- Panel Title:
- Creating a Jesuit Culture I: Cultural Exchanges between Asia and Europe
- Event Institution:
- Renaissance Society of America
- Conference Location:
- Toronto
- Language:
- Abstract:
In 1593, Matteo Ricci wrote a letter his superior general in Rome that Confucius, “in morals, is another Seneca.” In this paper I will examine the strategies in which the Jesuit introduces ancient philosophy of the West to his hosts through finding equivalences with the ancient philosophy of China; and in turn introduces the Chinese philosophy back home to Rome through finding grounds of commonality. My argument that Ricci is able to negotiate these two complex cultural spheres by making both the ancient philosophies of the West and East the prolegomena of his central mission of evangelization. Thus in his discursive paradigm of Western and Chinese philosophy, Stoicism and Confucianism are propaedeutic, they are the necessary preconditions for the Christian faith; the only thing missing in Stoic ethics is the salvation of Christ, just as the only thing missing in Confucian ethics is the Gospel.
- Conference URL: