Overview

While the resonance of Giambattista Vico’s hermeneutics for postcolonialism has long been recognised, a rupture has been perceived between his intercultural sensibility and the actual content of his philological investigations, which have often been criticised as being Eurocentric and philologically spurious. China is a case in point. In his magnum opus New Science, Vico portrays China as backward and philosophically primitive compared to Europe. In this first study dedicated to China in Vico’s thought, Daniel Canaris shows that scholars have been beguiled by Vico’s value judgements of China without considering the function of these value judgements in his theory of divine providence. This monograph illustrates that Vico's image of China is best appreciated within the contemporary theological controversies surrounding the Jesuit accommodation of Confucianism. Through close examination of Vico’s sources and intellectual context, Canaris argues that by refusing to consider Confucius as a “filosofo”, Vico dismantles the rationalist premises of the theological accommodation proposed by the Jesuits and proposes a new functionalist valorisation of non-Christian religion that anticipates post-colonial critiques of the Enlightenment.

Full Product Details

Author:   Daniel Canaris
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   Voltaire Foundation
Volume:   2020:06
ISBN:  

9781789621068

ISBN 10:   1789621062
Pages:   296
Publication Date:   11 June 2020
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Preface Introduction: resurrecting the Chinese fossil ‘A monstrous Chinese fossil’ China and Confucianism in Vico’s Naples Vico and Jesuit accommodationism Revisiting the rozza e goffa philosophy of Vico’s Confucius Plan of this work Chapter 1: Providence and Rome in the Diritto universale Retheologising Vico Background to grace and providence in Vico’s Diritto universale Providence between fate and chance Chapter 2: The problem of China in early modern historiography Placing China in a Judaeo-Christian metanarrative Development of the Jesuit view of China Chapter 3: The Scythian exception in the Diritto universale The Romans of the East The Scythians in early modern historiography and ethnography Vico’s Scythians and Noachide monotheism Chapter 4: Towards a new theological valorisation of China Normalising the Scythians A hermeneutic of ignorance Demystifying Chinese ideograms Re-evaluating Jesuit accommodationism Chapter 5: Poetic truth and Christian truth Scienza versus coscienza Ontological truths and teologia civile ragionata Conclusion: La discoverta del vero Confucio Bibliography Index

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Author Information

Daniel Canaris is a research fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Sun Yat-Sen University. After receiving his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2017, he has held appointments in Australia, Germany and England. His current work focuses on the founder of the Jesuit China mission, Michele Ruggieri (1543-1607).

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