Visit of PD Dr. Wenchao Li (FU Berlin) at the GSAA
While preparing the program for the second Study Day of section 4 "Beliefs, Convictions and Systems of Thoughts" about "Translatability of philosophical and religious systems", the members of sections 4 agree that it would be interesting to discuss the issue of cultural exchange between Europe and China during the Study Day. A scholar perfectly suitable to give an introduction into this subject was found in PD Dr. Wenchao Li at the FU Berlin. Dr. Li is an acknowledged specialist in the field of European philosophy in the 17th and 18th century and the cultural exchange between Europe and China in that period. As the date of the Study Day was scheduled to be at the same date as the 285th anniversary of Christian Wolff's first oration as a prorector of the University of Halle about the practical philosophy of the Chinese, it seemed convenient to ask Dr. Li to present his interpretation of this event as well.
Due to the cooperation between the Institute of Philosophy in the person of Prof. Kaufmann and the GSAA, it was possible that Dr. Li gave his presentation of the two above-mentioned questions separately at two different occasions:
On Tuesday evening, the 11th of July, Dr. Li spoke about "Christan Wolffs 'Rede über die Praktische Philosophie der Chinesen'" at the Institute of Philosophy. During his lecture, he pointed out that the European interest in China had been much more vivid in the 17th and 18th century than it was nowadays. For example Gottfried W. Leibniz entertained the idea of inviting Chinese missionaries to Europe in order to have them teaching Natural Theology to the Europeans. Christian Wolff, who also took some interest in the Chinese culture, opposed this idea of Leibniz because he didn't believe that the Chinese were in the possession of anything that could be called Natural Theology. Wolff was convinced that the high level of the Chinese culture was reached due to the application of Practical Philosophy, not of Natural Theology. The Chinese agnosticism resulted, according to Wolff, in the purification of reason to an extent that Practical Philosophy emerged. This conviction expressed during his first oration as a prorector was the reason why Wolff had to leave Halle within 48 hours on pain of penalties, that is of being hanged.
Dr. Li's enlightening lecture inspired a lively discussion afterwards, and an even wider range of topics (e.g. how to write Chinese on a computer) was raised up during dinner that Dr. Li, Prof. Kaufmann and a large part of the audience (mainly from the Institute of Philosophy, the MPI and the GSAA) enjoyed later on.
The next day, Wednesday, the 12th of July, the Study Day on "Translatability of philosophical and religious systems" took place at the MPI from 2 to 6 p.m. During the whole afternoon Dr. Li enriched the discussion with questions and examples taken from the perspective of his field of research. In his lecture he dealt with the mainly two aspects, one philosophical and one religious, namely the question whether the concept of "Philosophy" had been existent in the Chinese culture before its encounter with the West or not, and second, how the notion of the Christian God was introduced into the Chinese language especially by the Jesuits, but also by others.
After the lecture many participants of the Study Day took the opportunity of having Dr. Li as a genuine representative of Chinese thought and an acknowledged specialist of European Philosophy present and discussed with him various aspects of the Chinese culture, completely unknown to most of them.
Given the fact that the GSAA - especially the section "Beliefs, Convictions and Systems of Thoughts" - is dealing intensively with Dr. Li's fields of research and the fact that Dr. Li himself is interested in Halle and the archive of the "Francke'schen Stiftungen", this now initiated cooperation will hopefully find its continuation in the future.