Central-European Jesuit Scientists in China, and Their Impact on Chinese Science
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2015.3.2.89-118Keywords:
China-based Jesuits, Central European Educational Network of Jesuits, Hallerstein, LjubljanaAbstract
This article describes nine Central European Jesuits from the Austrian province who embarked for China in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their European educational networks provide useful insights into the abilities of the absburg Monarchy to meet Chinese Imperial demands. The focus is on feedback of their adopted Chinese network back to their own homes. The Europeans and Chinese-based Jesuits exchanged instruments, books, artifacts, and letters. The exception was Johannes Grueber, who personally traveled back to Europe accompanied by Diestel from Carniola, and helped Athanasius Kircher to produce the appealing legend of Jesuit astronomical heroes in Beijing.
The Jesuits acted as intermediate in the exchange of know-how between Europe and China. In modern Chinese eyes they were also somewhat viewed as spies, who helped European military and economic victories in the mid-19th century. Modern China is now as strong as it was in the times of Old Jesuit Society, therefore the Europocentric history of science must be rewritten from the standpoint of today’s winning Chinese economy. What kind of science will Western Civilization import from the future Chinese literati? The Jesuits’ transfer of European Sciences to the Far-Easterners caused the reverse impact from seemingly less developed centers of Far East that was felt in Jesuits’ times, but much more is to follow in the near future. We could expect the fundamental future Chinese achievements in cosmology, especially in Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
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References
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Shi, Yunli. 2000. “Eclipse Observations Made by Jesuit Astronomers in China: a Reconsideration.” JHA 31: 135–47.
Sivin, Nathan. 1965. “On ‘China’s opposition to Western Science during Late Ming and Early Ch’ing’.” ISIS 56: 201–5.
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–––. 1985. “Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China – or Did it?” The Environmentalist 5 (1): 39–50.
Stoeger, Joannes Nepomuk. 1855. Scriptores Provinciae Austriacae Societatis Jesu ab ejus origine ad nostra usque tempora. Viennae: Typis congregationis mechitharisticae.
Tatsuhiko, Kobayashi. 2002. “What Kind of Mathematics and Terminology Was Transmitted into 18th Century Japan From China.” Historia Scientiarum 12 (1): 1–17.
Toynbee, Arnold. 2002. Proučavanje Historije. Beograd: JP službeni list SRJ.
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Wong, George H. C. 1963. “China’s opposition to Western Science During Late Ming and Early Ch’ing.” ISIS 54: 29–49.
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Zalenski, Stanislaw. 1886. Les Jésuites de la Russie-Blanche. Paris: Letouzeu et Ané. I-II.
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Amiot, Jean-Joseph Maria. 1774. “Observations météorologiques faites à Pékin, par le P. Amiot, Décembre 1762. Mis en ordre par M. (Charles) Messier.” Mémoires de mathématiques et de physique, présentés à l’Académie Royale des Sciences. 6: 519–601.
Bacon, Francis. 1968. Novum organum. Bari: Laterza.
Ben-Zaken, Auner. 2004. “The Heavens of the Sky and the Heavens of the Heart: the Ottoman Cultural Context for the Introduction of Post-Copernican Astronomy.” British Journal for the History of Science 132 (March) 37 (1): 1–28.
Bray, Francesca. 1991. “Some Problems Concerning the Transfer of Scientific and Technical Knowledge.” In China and Europe, Images and Influences in Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, edited by Thomas H.C. Lee, 203–19. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.
David, Paul A. 2008. “The Historical Origins of ‘Open Science’: An Essay on Patronage, Reputation and Common Agency Contracting in the Scientific Revolution.” Capitalism and Society 3 (2/5): 1–103.
Diamond, Jared. 2007. Propad civilizacij. Tržič: Učila International.
–––. 2008. Puške, bacili in jeklo. Tržič: Učila International.
Dehergne, Joseph. 1973. Répertoire des Jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800. Rome: Institutum Historicum S.I.
Dežman, Karel. 1881. “Ein Krainer als Hoffastronom in Peking 1739–1774.”
Laibacher Wöchenblatt. Organ der Verfassungs - Partei in Krain. Gedr. bei Leykam in Graz 50–55: 1–20. Laibach: Kleinmayr & Bamber.
Gilbert, William. 1600. De Magnete. Londini: Petrus Short. (Reprint: 1991. New York: Dover) Grant, Edward. 2007. A History of Natural Philosophy from the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: University Press.
Hu, Danian. 2004. China and Albert Einstein: The Reception of the Physicist and His Theory in China. Harvard: University Press.
Inglot, Marek. 1997. La Compagnia di Gesù nell’impero Russo (1772–1820) e la sua parte nella restaurazione generale della Compagnia. Roma: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana.
Inglot, Marek. 2002. “Gabriel Gruber, S. J. (1740–1805): nel bicentenario della sua elezione a generale della Compagnia di Gesù.” Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu 71 (142): 353–68.
Jesuits. 1730–1773. Catalogus personarum & officiorum Provinciae Austriae Societatis Jesu. Wien.
Joseph, George Gheverghese. 2011. The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics (Third Edition). Princeton: University Press.
Južnič, Stanislav. 2004. Zgodovina raziskovanja vakuuma in vakuumskih tehnik. 1. del. Ljubljana: Društvo za vakuumsko tehniko Slovenije.
–––. 2009. “Vacuum and Eletricity for Chinese Emperor.” In A Hallerstein – Liu Songling – A Multicultural Legacy of Jesuit Wisdom and Piety at the Quing Dinasty Court, edited by Mitja Saje, 119–57. Maribor: Association for Culture and Education Kibla.
–––. 2012. “Toynbee Nonsense Book for Slovenians.” Studia Historica Slovenica 12 (1): 21–54.
–––. 2015. “Bibliometrics of Jesuit Mathematicians in China.” Historia Scientiarum 24 (3): 1–26.
Kaminski, Gerd, and Else Unterreider. 1980. Von Österreichern und Chinesen. Wien: Europaverlag.
Kaminski, Gerd. 1996. “Das Chinabild der Österreicher.” In Aodili. Österreich-China. Geschichte einer 300jährigen Beziehung, edited by Gerd Kaminski and Kreissl, Barbara, 32–49. Vienna: ÖCGF.
Koláček, Josef. 1999. Čínské epištoly. Velehrad: Refugium Velehrad-Roma.
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Laimbeckhoven, Godefridus. 2000. Der Bishof von Nanking und seine Briefe aus China mit Faximile seinem Reisenbeschreibung. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica.
Longino, Helene. 2003. “Does the Structure of Scientific Revolution Permit a Feminist Revolution in Science.” In Thomas Kuhn, edited by Thomas Nickles, 261–81. Cambridge: University Press.
Lukács, Ladislaus. 1982. Catalogi presonarum et officiorum Provinciae Austriae S.I. II (1601–1640), Roma: Institutum Historicum S.I.
Martzloff, Jean-Claude. 1993. “Espace et temps dans les textes Chinois d’astronomie et de technique mathématique astronomique aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.” L’Europe en Chine 217–30.
Montegnana, Ferdinand de (anonimous). 1673. Tractatus de Quadratura circuli. Viennae.
Moroškin, Mihail Jakovlevič. 1870. Iezuiti v Rosii: s carstvovanija Ekaterini II-i i do našego vremeni. Čast vtoraja, obnimajuščaja istoriju iezuitov v carstvovanije Aleksandra I-go. Sankt Peterburg: Vtoro Otdelenije Sobstvenoi Ego Imperatorskog Veličanstva Kancelarii.
Mungello, David E. 2009. The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500–1800. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Needham, Joseph, and Wang Ling. 1959. Science and Civilization in China. Vol. 3. Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography, Cartography, Geology, Seismology and Mineralogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Norris, Ray P., and Duane W. Hamacher. 2009. “The Astronomy of Aboriginal Australia.” In The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 260, 2009 D, edited by David Valls-Gabaud and Alexander Boksenberg, 10–17. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Norris, Ray P. 2014. “Aboriginal People – How to Misunderstand their Science.”The Conversation April 20.
Pfister, Louis. 1934. Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine 1552–1773. II. Chang-hai: Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique.
Raju, Chandra Kant. 2007. Cultural Foundations of Mathematics: The Nature of Mathematical Proof and the Transmission of the Calculus from India to Europe in the 16th c. AD. Delhi: Pearson Longman.
Rinaldi, Bianca Maria. 2006. The Chinese Garden in Good Taste: Jesuits and Europes Knowledge of Chinese Flora and Art of the Garden in the 17th and 18th Centuries. München: Meidenbauer.
Shi, Yunli. 2000. “Eclipse Observations Made by Jesuit Astronomers in China: a Reconsideration.” JHA 31: 135–47.
Sivin, Nathan. 1965. “On ‘China’s opposition to Western Science during Late Ming and Early Ch’ing’.” ISIS 56: 201–5.
–––. 1973. “Copernicus in China.” Studia Copernicana 6: 63–122.
–––. 1985. “Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China – or Did it?” The Environmentalist 5 (1): 39–50.
Stoeger, Joannes Nepomuk. 1855. Scriptores Provinciae Austriacae Societatis Jesu ab ejus origine ad nostra usque tempora. Viennae: Typis congregationis mechitharisticae.
Tatsuhiko, Kobayashi. 2002. “What Kind of Mathematics and Terminology Was Transmitted into 18th Century Japan From China.” Historia Scientiarum 12 (1): 1–17.
Toynbee, Arnold. 2002. Proučavanje Historije. Beograd: JP službeni list SRJ.
Ule, Andrej. 2006. Znanost, Družba, Vrednote. Maribor: Aristej.
Valvasor, Janez Vajkard. 1689. Die Ehre deß Hertzogthums Crain. Laybach-Nürnberg: Wolfgang Moritz Endter.
Wong, George H. C. 1963. “China’s opposition to Western Science During Late Ming and Early Ch’ing.” ISIS 54: 29–49.
Yusheng, Wang. 2000. “P. Andreas Pereira and His Contribution to Mathematics and Astronomy in China.” History of Mathematical Sciences 219–6.
Zalenski, Stanislaw. 1886. Les Jésuites de la Russie-Blanche. Paris: Letouzeu et Ané. I-II.
Zurndorfer, Harriet T. 1988. “Vendre la science a la Chine au XVIIIe siècle.”Etudes Chinoises 7: 59–90.
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30.12.2015
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JUŽNIČ, S. J. (2015). Central-European Jesuit Scientists in China, and Their Impact on Chinese Science. Asian Studies, 3(2), 89–118. https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2015.3.2.89-118
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Scientific and Astronomic Achivements of European Jesuits
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