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Why were Chinese and Indian ways of thinking excluded from European philosophy in early modern times? This is a study of what happened to the European understanding of China and India between the late 16th century and the first half of the 18th century.
Investigating the description of these two Asian civilizations during a century and a half of histories of philosophy, this book accounts for the change of historiographical paradigms, from Neoplatonic philosophia perennis and Spinozistic atheism to German Eclecticism. Uncovering the reasons for inserting or excluding Chinese and Indian ways of thinking within the field of Philosophy in early modern times, it reveals the origin of the Eurocentric understanding of Philosophy as a Greek-European prerogative.
By highlighting how this narrowing and exclusion of non-Western ways of thought was a result of conviction of superiority and religious prejudice, this book provides a new way of thinking about the place of Asian traditions among World philosophies.
List of contents
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
General Introduction
Preliminary Note to Some Terms
1. India and Chinese Philosophy in the Late-16th Century Europe
2. The Rise of the Myth of an Asiatic Atheism
3. The Exclusion of Asian Philosophical Thought in Europe
Conclusion
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Secondary sources
Index
About the author
Selusi Ambrogio is Assistant Professor of Chinese Philosophy and Chinese Literature at the University of Macerata, Italy. He is the author of Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2020), President of the European Association for Chinese Philosophy, and Editorial Board member of the journal Asian Studies.
Summary
Why were Chinese and Indian ways of thinking excluded from European philosophy in early modern times? This is a study of what happened to the European understanding of China and India between the late 16th century and the first half of the 18th century.
Investigating the description of these two Asian civilizations during a century and a half of histories of philosophy, this book accounts for the change of historiographical paradigms, from Neoplatonic philosophia perennis and Spinozistic atheism to German Eclecticism. Uncovering the reasons for inserting or excluding Chinese and Indian ways of thinking within the field of Philosophy in early modern times, it reveals the origin of the Eurocentric understanding of Philosophy as a Greek-European prerogative.
By highlighting how this narrowing and exclusion of non-Western ways of thought was a result of conviction of superiority and religious prejudice, this book provides a new way of thinking about the place of Asian traditions among World philosophies.
Foreword
An investigation into the reasons for the inclusion and exclusion of Chinese and Indian philosophical thought in 17th-and-18th-century Europe.
Additional text
The rejection by Western philosophers of Indian and Chinese thoughts is often situated in the Nineteenth century. Through this very well documented study, Selusi Ambrogio demonstrates that the rejection took already roots in the Seventeenth century and was fully in place in the Eighteenth century, explaining very methodically the complex reasons for this exclusion. His analysis invites us to rethink what should be a philosophy which truly includes India, China and other traditions in the 20th century.
