"China" and the Emergence of Religious Toleration in Enlightenment Philosophers, Part I

"The Early Jesuit Mission and Bayle's Conception of "Reciprocal Toleration

Bibliographic Data

ID4079592
AuthorsXile Hui (0000-0003-3822-8599, Sun Yat-sen University, corresponding author), Mario Wenning (0000-0003-0676-0425, Universidad Loyola Andalucía)
Year2024
Volume19
Issue11
Publication date2024-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy Compass (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1747-9991 • E-ISSN: 1747-9991
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/phc3.70014
OpenAlexW4404685040
LanguageEN
References cited16

This article reconstructs the influence of Jesuit missionary writings focusing on China on the emergence of a distinctive conception of toleration. The article highlights the often neglected contributions of Pierre Bayle. After a brief reconstruction of key elements of the Sino-European encounter, such as the Kangxi Emperor's edict of toleration, the paper describes how Bayle's interpretation of the China Mission contributed to a critique of religious persecution in France and enabled him to develop a defense of a rationalist approach to toleration. The article demonstrates that Bayle's knowledge of China and his methodology of intercultural changes in perspective contributed to the development of an original conception of reciprocal toleration

China · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Reciprocal · Toleration · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Chinese history and philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity