Leibniz and the Chinese philosophy

Abstract

The paper discusses Leibniz's approach to Chinese philosophy, which was built on his knowledge of Yijing and neo-Confucian philosophy. His main sources were the works of the Figurists, early eighteen century Jesuits, that held the conviction that there is a common background to all humankind. Leibniz's theory of monads is very close to Chinese correlativistic philosophy. In addition to this, in his analysis of the Yijing trigrams, Leibniz also discovered confirmation for his binary system. The fact that 4500 years ago the Chinese possessed a mathematical system, as well as engaged in a discipline of rationality and logic, brought Leibniz to the thesis that the ancient Chinese practised a sort of natural religion, which was understood by Leibniz's student Christian Wolff as atheism. With Leibniz and Wolff, the brief encounter of European philosophers with Chinese philosophical works came to a close, and the approach it opened up to the non-European philosophical traditions in the history of philosophy was suspended for two centuries. In Europe, philosophy reestablished itself as a »Western« philosophical tradition.