Abstract

This dissertation is an exposition, analysis, and criticism of a series of European philosophers' interpretations of Confucianism and a narrative about how and why these interpretations changed over time. ;I focus on a period that begins in 1707, the year Nicholas Malebranche first began circulating his Entretien d'un Philosophe chretien et d'un Philosophe chinoise sur l'existence et la nature de Dieu, and ends roughly in 1825, when G. W. F. Hegel belatedly added a discussion of Confucianism to his lectures on the history of philosophy, after having lectured on the subject sans Confucianism for twenty years. In between, I investigate a series of other works, including Leibniz's writings on China, most notably his Discours sur la theologie naturelle des Chinois , Christian Wolff's Oratio de Sinarum philosophia practica , and Immanuel Kant's comments on China, particularly those found in his Physische Geographie. ;I argue that the interpretations of Confucianism given by each of these thinkers depends crucially on their answers to certain traditional western philosophical questions and that it is therefore a change in these underlying concerns that engendered the different conclusions regarding the merits and accomplishments of Confucian thought. For each philosopher, I first provide an explication of their writings on Confucianism and then demonstrate how their interpretation was shaped and limited by the concepts central to their own philosophical projects. Once the interpretations of Confucius are seen as reflections of the changing philosophical systems of the Western tradition, it is easier to understand why the interpretations changed as drastically as they did during this era. ;While the central goal of the project is to show how the interpretations were shaped and limited by the philosophical concepts of the interpreters, I also argue that in each case these constructions of Confucius nevertheless offer some important insight into Confucianism. Thus, in addition to showing why these philosophers thought about Confucianism the way they did, I also reveal what these early attempts at understanding Chinese thought have to offer contemporary philosophers