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H-ASIA Mar 18 2011 Member Publication: Confucianism, Secularism, and Atheism in Bayle and Montesquieu ************************* From: Simon Kow <simon.kow@ukings.ca> "Confucianism, Secularism, and Atheism in Bayle and Montesquieu" Author: Simon Kow The European Legacy 16:1 (2011), pp. 39-52 Link: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a932985246~db=all Abstract: It should be hardly surprising to discover that eighteenth- century European perspectives of other cultures were shaped to a large extent by concerns internal to European political life. Objective or unprejudiced accounts of non-European cultures are rarely found among travellers, missionaries, and philosophers of the time. While the insights of Enlightenment political thinkers on the non-European world may shed little light on the cultures being commented upon, they are useful for assessing the nature of the Enlightenment's engagement with cultural traditions external to Europe. In particular, Enlightenment conceptions of China were extremely varied and reflective of the debates between Enlightenment thinkers, especially on the proper relation between religion and politics. I shall argue that Montesquieu's account of Confucianism in The Spirit of the Laws (first published in 1748) was in part influenced by his critique of Bayle's position on the role of religion in society as expounded in his Various Thoughts on the Comet (published in 1682). While Montesquieu's account and assessment of Chinese thought and culture are "Eurocentric," his evaluation of Confucianism nevertheless arises from a considered philosophical position on religion and politics. -- Simon Kow Associate Professor Adjunct Professor Early Modern Studies Programme Chinese Studies & University of King's College Department of Political Science Halifax NS B3H 2A1 Dalhousie University Canada Halifax NS Canada Tel: (902) 422-1271 ext. 156 Fax: (902) 423-3357 Email: <simon.kow@ukings.ca> ************************************************************************ To post to H-ASIA simply send your message to: <H-ASIA@h-net.msu.edu> For holidays or short absences send post to: <listserv@h-net.msu.edu> with message: SET H-ASIA NOMAIL Upon return, send post with message SET H-ASIA MAIL H-ASIA WEB HOMEPAGE URL: http://h-net.msu.edu/~asia/
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