The Idea of China in Modern Political Thought: Leibniz and Montesquieu

Simon Kow University of King’s College

The Idea of China in Modern Political Thought

Introduction

    Many of the current calls for a comparative or cross-cultural political theory are predicated on the view that Western modernity has largely marginalized the cultural traditions of non-European, non-Western societies.1 There is nevertheless disagreement over what point in time European downgrading of non-Western cultures is most apparent in modern thought. The lack of consensus points to the complexity of modern Western attitudes to the non-European world. Edward Said and Charles Taylor, for example, offer contrasting accounts of the significance of post-Enlightenment thought. Said uses the late 18th century as the starting point for his conception of “Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” The peak of European imperialism and belief in its own cultural superiority is interconnected with Orientalism as a discourse of domination.2 Taylor, however, identifies the late 18th century in Europe as generating the theoretical resources to criticize the exclusion of nonEuropean cultures. The thought of Rousseau, Herder, and Hegel is the basis of the modern ideas of authenticity and recognition, which assert the inherent dignity of individuals and cultures. The politics of recognition which has emerged from the nursery of late- or post-Enlightenment thought is manifested in the contemporary discourse of multiculturalism.3 Taylor’s and Said’s perspectives are not necessarily opposed in all respects, but the differences in their approaches suggest a disagreement on the relation between modern thought and marginalization of non-Western cultures: Said regards postEnlightenment thought as inseparable from colonialism and imperialism, while Taylor finds in it the philosophical tools, as it were, for redressing historical injustices.

    Other scholars are more sweeping their condemnation of Western modernity. Clifford Orwin argues that recognition tends to homogenize rather than distinguish cultures. Multiculturalism and recognition are modern Western concepts; the politics of recognition leads to a “pseudo relativism” in the service of contemporary Western dogmatisms. For Orwin, it is not the “the West” as such which is exclusionary of other cultures, but modernity (the intellectual movement which gave rise to the concepts of recognition and multiculturalism). In contrast, the openness of the pre-modern West to other civilizations is exemplified in ancient Greece, in the writings for example of Herodotus and Thucydides.4 Orwin’s critique of Taylor and championing of an older tradition place the debate over multiculturalism in the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns.

    A similar tack is pursued by Fred Dallmayr, who nonetheless regards Taylor’s discussion as an important contribution to the project of comparative political philosophy. Dallmayr situates the question of comparative political theory in the context of contemporary developments in (particularly continental) philosophy. What the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and aspects of pragmatism and postmodern deconstruction share in general is “a dissatisfaction with modern Western egocentrism (stylized in Descartes’ ego cogito) and its corollary, Eurocentrism.” Contemporary philosophy calls on us to challenge the domination of Western modernity, especially the “universalism” of Enlightenment thought, over other cultural traditions. Dallmayr cites the work of Anthony Parel, Hwa Yol Jung, Charles Taylor, and Bikhu Prekh as pioneering efforts to elucidate the idea of comparative political theory. These authors contend that the history of political thought has been restricted to the study of Western political thinkers, based on the assumption that they are, in Parel’s phrase, “products of universal reason itself.”5 While Taylor shares Dallmayr’s concern that political theorists study the works of other cultures,6 Dallmayr draws more radical implications for overcoming the claims of Western modernity:

    To the extent that Western modernity today is the dominant standard, comparative theorizing in many ways re-opens the old battle between the ancients and moderns, a battle which curiously intersects with the difference between East and West.7

    Dallmayr thus regards comparative political philosophy as a theoretical support for an overall challenge to the imperialism, hegemony, and monologue of modern thought and practices. The inability to comprehend the events of September 11, 2001, for example, is reflected in the “deep-seated professional bias” of Western political theorists in limiting themselves to “familiar theories of the Western ‘canon.’”8

    The purpose of this paper is not to defend the focus on Western political thought to the exclusion of non-Western, non-canonical texts in the history of political thought.

    The study of other cultures is useful and important for many reasons. Nevertheless, the assumption that Western modernity, or Western modernity before the late 18th century, is unequivocally antagonistic to or ignorant of non-European thought and culture neglects the subtle and complex engagement of early modern European philosophers with cultures other than their own. In particular, I shall address the accounts of Chinese thought and culture in works by Leibniz and Montesquieu. Leibniz displayed a deep respect and enthusiasm for Chinese civilization as he saw it, and Montesquieu (despite his general derision of Chinese government and society as despotic) implicitly demonstrated the extent to which China in the late 17th to early 18th centuries was held up as a model for Europe. Their interest in China, I shall argue, is related to their political concerns, especially the problem of absolutism in France. Thus the examples of Leibniz and Montesquieu show the extent to which certain modern thinkers were very much engaged in studying other cultures. It is true, however, that their ideas of China were often inaccurate, faulty, and betrayed a tendency to judge other cultures in light of particular conceptions of European civilization. Nevertheless, their perspectives on China are arguably instructive of the dangers involved in attempts at comparative political theory.

    Leibniz’s Interest in China

    Leibniz’s preoccupation with Chinese thought, culture, and society arose from correspondence with Jesuit missionaries in China. Leibniz was particularly enthusiastic about the “accommodationist” stance taken by certain Jesuit missionaries in the wake of Matteo Ricci. By 1601, Ricci had penetrated the imperial court in China by impressing the Chinese literati with various aspects of European culture, including its technology 5 (e.g., clocks and harpsichords), cartography and mnemonic techniques.9 Ricci’s approach, followed by Leibniz’s correspondents, was to accommodate Chinese culture and Christianity. The Chinese would not accept Christianity, he argued, unless it was adapted to their culture and traditions. The challenge would be adapting Christianity without compromising the fundamental theological doctrines of Christianity as understood by the Jesuits. Such accommodation was largely accomplished by relating Christianity to Confucianism while dismissing the Buddhist and Daoist elements of Chinese culture at the time. The Jesuits were clearly more comfortable with the thisworldly character of classical Confucian ethics, as well as the resemblance between the Confucian hierarchy of scholar-official and the Jesuit order, than the mystical and relatively more egalitarian tendencies of Buddhism and Daoism.10

    Leibniz’s interest in China went far beyond conversion, however. Unsurprisingly, the Jesuits faced opposition from both Europeans and Chinese. Many Europeans criticized the accommodationist stance for diluting Christianity, while the Chinese literati were hesitant to accept a religion centered on a member of the labouring classes who was crucified by his government. Leibniz, however, sought to establish a deeper metaphysical connection between European and Chinese thought as a means of facilitating cultural exchange. These connections were suggested to him by correspondence from 1694 with Joachim Bouvet, S.J. Bouvet argued that the Chinese classics (foundational works of philosophy, poetry, and cosmology) were allegorical texts written by the legendary universal lawgiver and occult philosopher, Hermes Trismegistus. In other words, the sources of Chinese civilization were considered as completely consistent with the ancient wisdom of Egypt, Greece, Gaul, India, and early Christianity. This “Figurist” standpoint was rejected by the Jesuits as heretical.11 Bouvet’s Figurism nevertheless appealed to Leibniz’s conception of a pre-established harmony between European and Chinese cultures.

    Recent scholarship has elucidated the connections between this idea of a preestablished harmony between cultures and the pre-established harmony in Leibniz’s metaphysics.12 The most intriguing aspects of Leibniz’s interest in China concern the linguistic and mathematical commonalities between Europe and China. The Lutheran pastor Andreas Müller announced in 1674 that he had discovered the Clavis Sinica, the key to Chinese which would easily enable anyone to master the Chinese language. The idea of such a key was based on the notion of a universal language given to Adam by God. Chinese was thought to be related or identical to the universal language, given the direct pictorial relation between Chinese ideograms and the things represented by the characters. Leibniz eagerly wrote to Müller about the key, but the latter failed to respond to Leibniz’s queries.13 Leibniz was more successful in establishing a connection between the Book of Changes (Yi Jing) and the binary system of mathematics. In both the Remarks on Chinese Rites and Religion (1708) and the Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese (1716), Leibniz remarked on the discovery he and Bouvet made of the exact correspondence between binary arithmetic and “the characters of Fohi,” the legendary founder of China and author of the Yi Jing. The substitution of 0 and 1 for the broken and unbroken lines, Yin and Yang, of the 64 hexagrams of the Yi Jing yields the numbers 0 to 63 in binary notation. Leibniz regarded this discovery as “justification of the doctrines of the ancient Chinese and their superiority over the moderns,” i.e., later Chinese.14 The ancient Chinese system of mathematics confirmed the Figurist view that Fohi must be Hermes Trismegistus, given the cosmological truth revealed by this discovery: “Fohi, the most ancient prince and philosopher of the Chinese, had understood the origin of things from unity and nothing, i.e., his mysterious figures reveal something of an analogy to Creation, containing the binary arithmetic (and yet hinting at greater things) that I rediscovered after so many thousands of years…”15 Both the Clavis Sinica and the binary system of the Yi Jing show that Leibniz’s interest in China was rooted in the project of ascertaining the fundamental logic underlying all human thought and culture.16 The project was certainly universalist, but Leibniz felt that the universal bases of knowledge could only be discovered through cultural exchange, at least between Europe and China.

    Ethical and Political Dimensions of Leibniz’s Study of China

    The relevance of Leibniz’s interest in China for political theory lies in his high regard for Chinese society, particularly its Confucian foundations. The ethical and political dimensions of Leibniz’s interest are, moreover, not at all unrelated to the bizarre logical and mathematical associations discussed above. For the Platonic “natural theology” which arguably underpins Leibniz’s conception of a rational kingdom of the world governed by God is consistent not only with Judeo-Christianity but also with the cosmology of “Fohius” (Fohi).17 In other words, Leibniz’s efforts to reconcile Christianity with ancient philosophy in the form of “natural religion,” i.e., lacking revelation but consistent with revealed religion, are identical to his attempted reconciliation of Christianity and Chinese thought. Indeed, Leibniz’s On the Civil Cult of Confucius (1700/01) explicitly cites Paul’s remark on the unknown god of the Athenians in the context of interpreting Confucianism as purely civil in content:

    I praise the foresight of Matteo Ricci, a great man, for following the example of the Church Fathers who interpreted Plato and other philosophers in a Christian fashion. Let us suppose he didn’t understand properly—may we not for this reason retain their opinions, like gold, purged of all impurities? If we ever impute to Confucius doctrines that are not his, certainly no pious deception would be more innocent, since danger to those mistaken and offence to those who teach is absent.18

    Leibniz’s metaphysical engagement with China was interwoven with his desire to learn from Confucian ethics and politics. In his central work on Chinese philosophy, the Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese, Leibniz sought to translate the NeoConfucian concepts of li (principle), qi (energy/force), and taiji (the great ultimate) into a metaphysical conception of the universe governed by reason and characterized by the dynamic interaction of spirit and matter. That is to say, Chinese metaphysics so interpreted is consistent with Leibniz’s own rationalist metaphysics, which in turn is the philosophic truth of Christianity. Now, the ethical underpinnings of the Discourse are indicated by Leibniz’s explicit use of the work of 12th century Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi, as translated by the Jesuit Father Longobardi.19 Zhu Xi was a central figure of the Cheng-Zhu school of Confucianism, which Perkins characterizes as “the attempt to integrate a speculative, systematic metaphysics influenced by Buddhism and Daoism into the ethically and socially oriented system of Confucianism.”20 Leibniz failed to acknowledge the Buddhist and Daoist influences on Neo-Confucian thought, but he saw the project of integrating metaphysics and Confucian ethics as motivated by the same spirit which animated his own philosophy. Leibniz was as much interested in Confucian ethics as he was in Neo-Confucian metaphysics, as indicated by his comparison of Europe and China in the Novissima Sinica:

    But who would have believed that there is on earth a people who, though we are in our view so very advanced in every branch of behaviour, still surpass us in comprehending the precepts of civil life? Yet now we find this to be so, as we learn to know them better. And so if we are their equals in the industrial arts, and ahead of them in contemplative sciences, certainly they surpass us (though it is almost shameful to confess this) in practical philosophy, that is, in the precepts of ethics and politics adapted to present life and use of mortals. Indeed, it is difficult to describe how beautifully all the laws of the Chinese, in contrast to those of other peoples, are directed to the achievement of public tranquillity and the establishment of social order, so that men shall be disrupted in their relations as little as possible.21

    China for Leibniz was an ethical and political model for Europe. What, then are the connections between Leibniz’s admiration of Chinese morals and society and his political thought? It is useful to identify Leibniz’s conception of justice, in contrast to that of Hobbes, to discern the basis of Leibniz’s enthusiasm for Confucian ethics. Hobbes, Leibniz argued, failed to connect human and divine justice. Hobbes held that God’s rule is based on his omnipotence, unlike the foundation of human society. Because of everyone’s natural right to all things in the natural condition, a sovereign authority could

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